This plenary speech provides an overview of applications of corpus research in several core areas of applied linguistics, including second language acquisition and language assessment. It does this by showcasing a number of recent studies carried out by or with involvement of the author. These studies all focus on phraseological aspects of…

Describes attempts to formalize and characterize a theory of communicative competence, focusing on the advantages of a preference model (which identifies and grades learning variables in order of importance) and of models developed on the premise of parallel distributed processing (which suggest that such rule-based processing are in fact gross…

This study reports on the development, administration, and analysis of a test of collocational knowledge for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners of a wide range of proficiency levels. Through native speaker item validation and pilot testing, three subtests were developed and administered to 98 ESL learners of low-intermediate to advanced…

One of the ways in which language testing interfaces with applied linguistics is in the definition and validation of the constructs that underlie language tests. When language testers and score users interpret scores on a test, they do so by implicit and explicit reference to the construct on which the test is based. Equally, when applied to new…

Papers on applied linguistics and language pedagogy include: "A Genre Analysis Study of 80 Medical Abstracts" (Kenneth Anderson, Joan Maclean); "Oral Classroom Testing in an Adult French Community Class" (Sheena Davies, Aileen Irvine, Jacqueline Larrieu); "Whose Relevance? Interpretation of Hybrid Texts by a Multiple…