Task modality (oral vs. writing) has been found to affect the production, nature and resolution of the language-related episodes (LREs) produced by adult learners in collaborative interaction, a finding also attested in very recent and still limited research with young learners, a population that deserves greater attention in the literature.…

This study attempts to explore the issue of intercultural and transnational negotiation in written English communication. I am interested in the reciprocal development of written discourse across cultural boundaries. My analysis focuses on academic writers' sense of self and their individual ability to reach otherness when they share the roles of…

The focus of this article is on the written feedback that supervisors say they often give their second language (L2) doctoral students. Little is known about the focus of this feedback and about what supervisors consider as priorities in the early draft writing of dissertation chapters. Given the potentially different priorities and foci of…

Journal editorials allow readers to select the most deserving contributions in the literature and adopt approaches or procedures endorsed by an authority in the field; they act as gatekeepers to the community of practice and at the same time allow editors to connect directly with their readership. Following a number of studies on the structure and…

English has gradually become the lingua franca of medical publications and conferences across Europe, with scholars from "smaller" languages opting for English because of the greater scientific impact and prestige associated with a wide international audience; at the same time, however, this transition has disrupted well-established textual…

Generalised access to the Internet and globalisation has led to increased demand for translation services and a resurgence in the use of machine translation (MT) systems. MT post-editing or the correction of MT output to an acceptable standard is known to be one of the ways to face the huge demand on multilingual communication. Given that the use…

A convenient and user-friendly method for computer-based second-language instruction (especially exotic-alphabet languages) presents a "pool" of text chunks from which the student uses a mouse to select and drag the chunks to form answers. Several types of feedback, including edit markup, may be selected; revision consists of rearranging, adding,…

Typical markup methods for providing feedback to foreign language learners are not applicable to languages not written in a strictly linear fashion. A modification of Hart's edit markup software is described, along with a second variation based on a simple edit distance algorithm adapted to a general Southeast Asian font system. (10 references)…

An approach to promote student editing of their own compositions, to be used in intermediate English as a second language classes, is discussed. Although editing or monitoring may not improve the communicative accuracy of a written message, it may give the message a more native-like quality. Monitoring works best on morphemes which are acquired…