This article aims to present detailed accounts of central approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis. It focuses on the work of three prominent scholars such as Fairclough's critical approach, Wodak's discourse-historical approach and Van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach. This study concludes that a combination of these three approaches can be…

The Centre for Applied Language Studies (CALS), founded in 1997, brings together researchers and postgraduate students from several disciplines in language studies, and is structured in three research clusters: New learning environments; Discourse, society and identity; and Plurilingualism and language policy. There is a certain amount of…

What are the sources of variation in the input, and how much do they matter for language acquisition? This study examines frequency variation in manner-of-articulation classes in child and adult input. The null hypothesis is that segmental frequency distributions of language varieties are unigram (modelable by stationary, ergodic processes), and…

Prosody plays a vital role in communication, but is one of the most widely neglected topics in language documentation. This omission is doubly detrimental since intonation is unrecoverable from transcribed texts, the most prevalent data sources for many indigenous languages. One of the underlying reasons for the dearth of prosodic data is…

The three structural possibilities marking a noun with an English article are "a," "the," and "Ø" (the absence of an article). Although these structural possibilities are simple, they encode a multitude of semantic and pragmatic functions, and it is these complex form-function interactions that this study explores and…

In the last 20 years, technological advancement and increased multidisciplinarity has expanded the range of data regarded as within the scope of languages for specific purposes (LSP) research and the means by which they can be analyzed. As a result, the analytical work of LSP researchers has developed from a narrow focus on specialist terminology…

Two approaches to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) research and teaching which have arisen in recent years are systemic functional linguistics (SFL) approaches in Australia and elsewhere (e.g. Hood, 2006; Lee, 2010; Woodward-Kron, 2009) and Academic Literacies approaches in the UK and elsewhere (e.g. Lillis & Scott, 2008; Thesen &…

This paper deals with data gathering and interpretation in folk linguistics, but, as the parenthetical title suggests, it is not limited to any prejudged notion of what approaches or techniques might be most relevant to the wide variety of concerns encompassed by applied linguistics. In this article, the author conceives of folk linguistics…

This paper surveys the research methods and approaches used in the multidisciplinary field of applied language studies or language education over the last fourty years. Drawing on insights gained in psycho- and sociolinguistics, educational linguistics and linguistic anthropology with regard to language and culture, it is organized around five…

Since the beginning, second language acquisition (SLA) studies have been predominantly cognitive in their theoretical assumptions and programmatic agendas. This is still largely true today. In this paper, we set out our proposals for learning talk analysis (LTA). LTA synthesizes insights from linguistic philosophy, ethnomethodology, conversation…

This study investigates the ways in which emotions and emotionality are managed as topics and resources in second language (L2) research interviews. A continued challenge for researchers is how to define and operationalize emotions and other putative psychological phenomena. One popular research methodology that treats emotions as the object and…

This article explores recent changes in the landscape of second language acquisition (SLA) and foreign language pedagogical (FLP) research. Firth and Wagner's (1997) proposal for the reconceptualization of SLA has been supported by SLA and FLP researchers who share the sentiment concerning the need for increased attention to social and contextual…

Suggests that research on language and social interaction can best proceed by engaging in the puzzle-solving enterprise that characterizes normal research. Systematic explorations are needed of the language phenomena deemed relevant by the respective paradigms. (Author/VWL)

Notes that the empirical research in language psychology can be helpful in reorganizing the domain of literary studies. Presents a survey of the major considerations in regard to such an undertaking and provides a specific demonstration. (FL)

Discusses trends and problems in regarding discourse analysis as a viable paradigm that can govern research, focusing on such issues as the wide diversity and variety of research that can be considered discourse analysis, the predominant focus on English language, research approaches, and undefined variables affecting research outcomes. (seven…