This study was designed to explore a model of communicative competence (Abbeduto & Nuccio, 1989) and identify whether its components could (a) predict pragmatic language difficulties for children with emotional or behavioral disorders (E/BD) and (b) describe the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic language ability as well as the social skills of…

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the possible presence of dissociations in the speech and language skills of young children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) using a correlation-based statistical procedure [Bates, E., Appelbaum, M., Salcedo, J., Saygin, A. P., & Pizzamiglio, L. (2003). Quantifying dissociations in…

This study applied generalizability theory to investigate the contributions of persons, items, sections, and language backgrounds to the score dependability of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). I replicated and extended Brown's (1999) study of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), using data from two…

The present study is a continuation of the work presented in the 2001 article by Greidanus and Nienhuis. In the current study, we also examine the quality of word knowledge among advanced learners of French as a second language (L2) by means of a word associates test. We studied the development of word knowledge among six groups of…

Egyptian English majors in the faculty of Education, South Valley University tend to mistranslate the plural inanimate Arabic pronoun with the singular inanimate English pronoun. A diagnostic test was designed to analyze this error. Results showed that a large number of students (first year and fourth year students) make this error, that the error…

This study investigated the transfer of reading attitudes from L1 to L2, drawing on the linguistic threshold hypothesis. Participants were Japanese university-level EFL students. Their L1 and L2 reading attitudes were estimated using a Likert scale, and their L2 proficiency was measured using a test. The study found that the students' L1 and L2…

This study investigated the relationships between graduate students' placement test scores for English as a second language (ESL) and three measures of academic performance (grade point average [GPA], faculty evaluations, and student self-assessments). Qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques (archival, questionnaires, and…

Purpose: The authors' purpose was to explore the nature of the link between hearing loss (HL) and language impairment in adolescents with mild-to-moderate hearing loss (MMHL). Does language performance (generally or in certain areas) normalize at adolescence? Method: The language skills of 19 French-speaking adolescents (ages 11-15) with moderate…

This is a research brief of a longer report, also published as "Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language Summary Report, 2009-2010". Twenty-nine percent of students enrolled in Austin Independent School District were English language learners in 2009-2010. The majority of them (62%) continued to make progress in English…

Although the primary use of the speaking section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language™ Internet-based test (TOEFL® iBT Speaking test) is to inform admissions decisions at English medium universities, it may also be useful as an initial screening measure for international teaching assistants (ITAs). This study provides criterion-related…

The programs WordSmith and VocabProfile were used to research lexical differences between essays written in English by Spanish undergraduates and a set of essays independently judged as being of TWE grade 6 standard. The results indicated that writing by this group of students was generally characterised by low lexical variation, a preponderance…

The Swedish school system comprises: (1) Pre-primary school (Forskola), typical age 1-5; (2) Preschool class in the compulsory school (Grundskola) typical age 6 (participation voluntary); (3) Compulsory school, typical age 7-16, grades 1-9, and (4) Upper secondary school, 17 programmes (4 mainly academic, 13 vocational), typical age 16-19, grades…

This study investigated the effects of second language (L2) proficiency and task-induced cognitive workload on participants' speech production and retention of information in an environment designed to simulate the demands faced by pilots receiving instructions from air-traffic controllers. Three groups of 20 participants (one…

This research paper describes the benefits of using an activity-based rhetorical perspective to develop English for specific purposes (ESP) test specifications. This approach expands the potential of ESP test specifications to analyze and describe target language use (TLU) situations, TLU tasks, and ESP test tasks. Multiple activity systems are…

Iranian Journal of Language Studies (IJLS) is devoted to all areas of language and linguistics. Its aim is to present work of current interest in all areas of language study. No particular linguistic theories or scientific trends are favored: scientific quality and scholarly standing are the only criteria applied in the selection of papers…