Learning a new language is a challenge facing most young immigrants and refugees arriving in a new resettlement country. Yet, learning the resettlement country language is critical for the young immigrants and refugees' life chances, in terms of future education, social integration, and participation in the labour market. While literature…

The present study examined the effect of a pedagogical intervention about humorous verbal irony in Spanish with a mixed group of 40 second language (L2) and heritage speakers of Spanish. Unlike previous studies that have considered only irony comprehension, this project incorporated both comprehension and production of irony into instruction and…

Based on interaction recorded in EFL classrooms, this study uses Conversation Analysis to document the post-first deployment of an absurd candidate formulation (ACF) to pursue recipient response at points of interactional delay. ACFs are a form of correction-invitation device in which the question initiator proffers a candidate response that is…

This dissertation examines how L2 Japanese speaker international students experience their subjectivity (Harre & Gillett, 1994), that is, how their language use and actions convey their thoughts and feelings, their sense of self, and how they relate to the world around them, in casual conversations with L1 Japanese speaker peers. In order to…

When it comes to teaching vocabulary in foreign language classes words are often taught in isolation, without regard to the context in which they appear. The paper draws attention to the importance of teaching words in context so that the meaning of a word often results from the meaning of a larger construction it is part of. After presenting the…

In this article we investigate data from digital interactions between native speaker (NS) and non-native speaker (NNS) dyads of English during synchronous computer mediated communication. As opposed to most studies into the NS-NNS interface, we reversed the expert-learner participant roles: during the task performance, the NS was the (cultural)…

Over the past decade, second language (L2) humor has attracted scholarly attention as both a means and a goal of L2 development. Much of this research, however, has focused on oral communication, whereas virtually no studies address humor as an aspect of reading comprehension. This exploratory study combines these two areas of inquiry, examining…

The focus of this research is on an international distance discussion class carried out in Chinese between university students in Japan, China and Taiwan using videoconferencing. Smiling was used as an interactional index in an analysis of the archival footage of the recordings of the discussion between native speakers (NS) of Chinese and…

This article examines the discursive construction of social presence and identity in a bilingual collaboration between tertiary distance learners of German in New Zealand and Academic English students in Germany. Drawing on positioning theory, this small-scale study investigated the collaborative practices of a group of students, whose synchronous…

Diversity is valued and promoted in contemporary public discourse, but on the other hand, there is a strong tendency to homogenize differences in society. The tension between diversity and homogeneity is palpable on U.S. college campuses as the number of international students has been ever-increasing. A more nuanced approach is needed to grapple…

With the Internet, foreign language learners can interact more easily with native speakers from other countries than in previous generations. For learners to develop the ability to function in foreign environments, it is vital to understand their experiences in postsecondary online foreign language classes. If educators and educational theorists…

Drawing on Lave and Wenger's (1991) and Wenger's (1998) "communities of practice" (CoP) framework, this study explores the shared repertoire of humor practices in the creation of community within the context of a culturally diverse and multilevel adult Arabic language classroom consisting of two native speakers, five heritage language learners…

This article presents a case study of phonological types of internal evaluation in the personal oral narrative of one non-native speaker of English. The purpose was twofold: (1) to study whether laughter and exhaled breath can serve the functions of expressive phonology; i.e., phonological features which provide commentary and point of view for…

In this study, Turkish EFL students' conceptualization of an effective English language teacher is studied. A survey formerly developed by Yu-Hsin (1999) was adapted and administered to 100 foreign language learners studying at two state universities' English language preparatory schools. Also, participants' written responses were collected to…

In the past few years researchers have begun to show an interest in humour and language play as it relates to second language learning (SLL). Tarone (2000) has suggested that L2 language play may be facilitative of SLL, in particular by developing sociolinguistic competence, as learners experiment with L2 voices; and by destabilizing the…