The research investigated pragmatic transfer in responses to English tag questions by L1 Thai learners based on Interlanguage Pragmatics, specifically pragmatic transfer (Kasper & Blum-Kulka, 1993). The L1 Thai learners were categorized into two groups according to their English proficiency levels: advanced and intermediate. Oral and written…

This dissertation research examines the acquisition of second language vowels. For second language learners, learning a new languages' sound inventory, particularly its vowels, presents a challenge perceptually and in terms of production. Incorrectly perceiving and producing sounds in a second language results in a foreign accent in many adult…

The Spanish subjunctive mood (SUBJ) is said to be highly vulnerable in heritage language (HL) acquisition. However, there is little controlled research on HL-speaking children acquiring the various Spanish SUBJ contexts, so we do not have a clear picture of when, how, or why heritage speakers (HSs) develop in the SUBJ as they do. This study tests…

This doctoral dissertation explores diverse facets of online research and comprehension among college students with English as a second or foreign language (L2 students). The research involves three distinct investigations within this overarching theme. Firstly, the study delves into the online reading and writing practices employed by Korean L2…

This study investigated the effects of two types of classroom instructions on EFL learners' oral proficiency by implementing teachers' judgment. Two intact classes of EFL university students studied a compulsory subject of their department under two different types of classroom instruction. The first group of students was trained with explicit…

In phonetics research, language alternation--including code switching (speaker-initiated) and cued switching (researcher-prompted)--can be used as a tool to investigate various aspects of speech production and perception in bilingual or multilingual speakers (Bullock & Toribio, 2009a). Studies on the production of voice onset time (VOT) during…

This study attempts to reveal whether there is unintentional reverse transfer L2[right arrow]L1 (English-Spanish) in the oral L1 production of university learners in formal contexts. The languages used by learners influence each other, and this transfer may occur from the first to the second language ("direct transfer"), or from the…

Learner corpus studies using syntactic complexity as a construct for characterizing learner proficiency have found that higher proficiency permits learners to produce more complex syntactic structures. However, the majority of previous studies have focused on writing, almost exclusively with adult second language (L2) learners. Given the…

Languages often use different constructions to convey the same meaning. For example, the meaning of a causative construction in English ("Jen had her computer fixed") is conveyed using an active structure in Korean ("Jen-NOM her computer-ACC fixed"), and yet little is known about how bilinguals represent and process such…

The article analyses the problems arising in teaching English at a technical university, offers and describes a new integrated method of teaching listening, reading and speaking called the Communicative Circle method. The development of the pragmatic, integrated method of Communicative Circle builds upon the linguo-didactic, integrated, and…

The elicited imitation task (EIT), in which language learners listen to a series of spoken sentences and repeat each one verbatim, is a commonly used measure of language proficiency in second language acquisition research. The "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test includes an EIT as a holistic measure of speaking proficiency, referred to as the…

This report describes the development of efficient second language (L2) writing assessment tasks designed specifically for low-proficiency learners of English to be included in the "TOEFL® Essentials"™ test. Based on the can-do descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages for the A1 through B1 levels of…

Newcomers to Canada with low proficiency in English or French often face challenges in the workforce (Kustec, 2012). While language classes provide workplace language training, not all newcomers are able to attend face-to-face classes (Shaffir & Satzewich, 2010), suggesting a need for outside the classroom, occupation-specific language…

Analysis of second language (L2) learners' language development can allow valid and reliable assessment of the learners' L2 linguistic knowledge, which can enable the teachers and researchers to choose appropriate teaching or experimental materials (Bardovi-Harlig & Bofman, 1989; Wolfe-Quintero et al., 1997). However, most language development…

Studies have suggested that language and executive function (EF) are strongly associated. Indeed, the two are difficult to separate, and it is particularly difficult to determine whether one skill is more dependent on the other. Deafness provides a unique opportunity to disentangle these skills because in this case, language difficulties have a…