The current study investigates how foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and attitude/motivation (AM) of 360 learners of English, German, French and Spanish in a Kuwaiti university was shaped over the course of one semester by three teacher behaviours: frequency of using the foreign language (FL) in class,…

Ethnic stereotype is a culture-determined portrayal of a society, culture or a nation. A comprehensive worldview of an ethnic group tends to form stereotypes, and its analysis makes it possible to identify an ethnic group's cultural identity and characteristics. This study examined ethnic stereotypes in humorous discourse as portrayed in jokes of…

The world is witnessing an unprecedented growth of the English language worldwide. Now more than at any time in linguistic history people are powerlessly assisting the expansion of one global language, English, dominating other languages even in countries, such as Congo-Brazzaville, where its presence was not long ago barely observed. There has…

This article draws on interactional pragmatics and a cross-cultural approach (UK, France, Spain) to investigate the negotiation of individual and group identities in two different speech events, parliamentary debates and editorial meetings. The cross-cultural examination of the use of linguistic resources for signalling "social role,…

This article explores variation in the use of the pronouns "nous" and "on" for first-person plural reference in a substantial corpus of French-language Internet chat discourse. The results indicate that "on" is nearly categorically preferred to "nous," which is in line with previous research on informal spoken French. A qualitative analysis of…

Explores social changes which may account for changes in the type and prevalence of humor in French society. (AM)

Four activities for language learning are presented, including: class completion of incomplete dialogues excerpted from major literary works; games for learning vocabulary and civilization using words beginning with the same letter; a lesson using cartoons to elicit description and dialogues; and a unit on appropriate and inappropriate…

The linguistic complexity of humor is illustrated with examples of word play translated from French to English and English to French. Examples from the writings of James Joyce and Marcel Proust are highlighted. (CB)