This survey investigates to what degree the Chinese learners know about the discrepancies between Chinese and English thought patterns and their possible effects on English writing. Eighty-one students from North China Electric Power University participate in the survey. Qualitative and quantities approaches, involving the adoption of both…

Culture-loaded words and expressions are loaded with specific national cultural information and indicate deep national culture. They are the direct and indirect reflection of national culture in the structure of words and expressions. The improper use of culture-loaded words often leads to misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication. However,…

This paper examines whether and to what extent data-driven learning (DDL) activities can improve the lexico-grammatical use of abstract nouns in L2 writing. A topic-based corpus was compiled to develop concordance learning activities, and 40 Chinese students majoring in English were randomly assigned to a control group or an experimental group. At…

What are the chances of a dyad of Spanish-speaking strangers using informal address in casual, initial interactions in Buenos Aires, Argentina, today? To discover the pattern(s) of contemporary address, the Principal Investigator (PI) conducted a sociolinguistic experiment focusing on strangers' initial interactions to minimize the influence of…

The father's role in children's L1 maintenance and L2 learning is a relatively unexplored area. This study considers the L1 and L2 proficiency of 30 Korean-English late bilinguals who immigrated to New Zealand during their adolescence and how their L1 and L2 proficiency is influenced by the language use of family members. Data were collected…

This study examined linguistic patterns in the Jewish ultra-Orthodox community in Israel, a group that has rarely been studied from a sociolinguistic perspective. Participants were 92 girls, 10-12 years old, who attend a school where Yiddish is the language of instruction and Hebrew, Israel's official language, is studied only in religious…

A study investigated 42 native English-speakers' (NSs) perceptions of the pragmatic appropriateness of refusal statements. The NSs rated the appropriateness of 24 written statements in 4 different refusal scenarios, which were collected from both native speakers and non-native speakers. Four weeks later, as a reliability check, the subjects rated…

A study investigated patterns of usage of "can" and "may" (e.g., "May/Can I go to the bathroom?") among native speakers and non-native speakers of English. A questionnaire was administered to 25 native English-speakers, most aged 19-26 and the remainder over age 45, and 56 non-native speakers taking advanced…

This study examines the lexical and phonological features in the speech of 27 native informants of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama which show distinctive regional or social distribution. The questionnaire used in the study is based on the short work sheets of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada, and the methodology is similar to that…

The report, written in French, presents the results of a study on the ethno-linguistic identity of students aged 16 years or older attending French language secondary schools in Ontario. Goals of the questionnaire study included the following: (1) gathering demographics on students about to graduate from high school, regarding their gender,…

Reports on a research project conducted in Mauritius that aimed to investigate patterns of language use, language choice, and language attitudes of Mauritian adolescents in full-time education. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire and interviews from a sample of the secondary school population. (Author/VWL)

Examines the impact of language policy in Ukraine on language utilization patterns of school children in Kyiv. Using quantitative data from student responses to a questionnaire focusing on subject background, native and home language, including reported usage of interactive and interpretive language, examines the extent to which language shift or…

A study in interlanguage pragmatics investigated the effect of three types of rejoinder (positive, negative, absent) on non-native informants' choices of strategies to perform complaints, requests, and apologies. Results show strategy choice differentially affected by rejoinder type, suggesting that findings from studies using different production…

Patterns of language maintenance among immigrants have been researched widely, and lie at the core of daily life for immigrant families. The present study reports on a questionnaire developed to assess various aspects of language maintenance, focusing on parent-child communication. Parents and children of 307 immigrant families living in Sydney,…

A study compared the abilities of non-native speakers of English who have been in the United States for varying amounts of time with the ability of native speakers to perceive and produce primary stress at the phrase level. Subjects, all having at least 1 year of college education, were 10 native speakers of North American English, 6 native…