The well-known sampling limitation of most longitudinal corpus data can be even more consequential in the study of morphosyntactic variation in child language. An analysis of caregiver input suggests that variable use in overlapping contexts may be hard to find by solely relying on corpus data collected under the sampling procedures that are…

The first stage of combinatorial speech is better described as variable than uniform. Talk of variants obscures two different aspects of language (knowledge and use) and two different aspects of language development -- acquisition of the grammar (competence) and deployment of the grammar in speaking and listening (performance). Null subjects and…

This invited paper highlights the reflections of expert panelists who were spontaneously called upon, graciously accepted, and quickly organized to respond thoughtfully and compellingly to Dr. Arlette Willis' powerful and timely Oscar Causey address at the 2022 Literacy Research Association (LRA) annual conference. In her address, Dr. Willis…

Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor and Director of the Migration Studies Project, Departments of Applied Linguistics and English, Pennsylvania State University, USA. Having a BA with a major in English from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, Professor…

Language-in-education research can contribute to transformative progress toward educational equity and excellence. Although this assertion is likely uncontroversial within the field of language in education, agreeing on which types of research lead to which transformative progress is much less straightforward. The thought-provoking commentaries on…

While learning and teaching English as an additional language are lifelong learning processes for both learners and teachers, these two sectors are largely dominated by West-centric linguistic and cultural imperialism, epistemic hegemony, racism, and neoliberalism, which are tied to colonialism and imperialism. In light of this issue, I argue that…

In this article, we take up and expand upon a number of issues of linguistic theory raised in Ursula Ritzau's recent article "Learner language and polylanguaging: how language students' ideologies relate to their written language use" published in the "Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism". The present critique is…

Sowden's article raises a number of questions concerning English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and criticizes it as a simplified and culturally neutral means of communication. In this response, I address the issues concerning the conceptualization and use of ELF as well as the implications for ELT. I provide up-to-date evidence of ELF research and show…

Monolingual speakers of a national language continue to be the ideal figures on which national identities and senses of community are built. Yet this longstanding equation between nation and language is being contested by other ideologies. Alternatives are emerging from such disparate social locations as the European Union, now advocating for…

Not too long ago, Wolff-Michael Roth suggested that this space might be made into a kind of open house. The author of this article wants to use Roth's suggestion to take up his own intriguing editorial on the ontology of difference. The author wants to show that the ontology of difference is nonidentical with the ontology of difference: It can be…

Drawing on Pennycook's frameworks for understanding the global role of English, we discuss the paradoxes of English language usage in what Canagarajah terms "periphery communities" internationally. This analysis is complemented by Canagarajah's work on a "politics of location", which provides powerful insights into a periphery…

Owing to analyses of large spoken corpora the linguistic knowledge of conversation has grown in recent years exponentially. Up until now little of this knowledge has trickled down to the EFL classroom. One of the reasons, this paper argues, is the failure in the relevant literature to spell out clearly how teaching conversational grammar affects…

Many anglicisms can be found in the Spanish of the Castilla region of Spain. English terms for sports, types of beverages, and miscellaneous items are discussed in terms of how they are used in Spanish. (NCR)

The possibility should be considered that English grammar has been misanalyzed for centuries because of grammarians' accepting fundamentally flawed assumptions about grammar and, even more so, about the history of English--and that this has resulted in a huge disconnect between English grammars and the genius of English that really exists. The…

Two of the most stigmatized languages in the United States today are African American dialect and Appalachian English dialect. The attitudes many hold about Appalachia have come from the literature written about the place, the people, the cultural life of the mountain region, in general, and the spoken dialect. Arnow's "The Dollmaker,"…