According to the speech learning model [Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), "Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research" (pp. 233-277). York Press], learners whose first language (L1) is a tonal language (e.g. Cantonese) can be…

Indonesia is one of the most multilingual nations in the world, with approximately 700 spoken local languages. This multilingualism is at risk from the imposition of the national language and the dominance of English as an international language. Adopting a social semiotic approach to linguistic landscape study, this paper explores how languages…

Previous studies have shown that Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers exhibit different patterns of cross-modal congruence for the lexical tones of Mandarin Chinese, depending on which features of the pitch they attend to. But is this pattern of language-specific listening a conscious cultural strategy or an automatic processing effect? If…

Across the globe signage which conveys directives regarding appropriate behavior in public, such as 'Do Not Enter' signs, is made multilingual in ways that other signage is not. This paper examines two examples of multilingualism in directive signs within Seoul, South Korea in order to theorize what gives rise to multilingualism in directive…

The teaching and learning of Chinese remains a fragile undertaking across all stages of Australian schooling. This paper reports on a practitioner inquiry into pedagogic practices and student engagement with disadvantaged primary school students in a Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) classroom in Sydney, Australia. Drawing upon studies of affect…

The article highlights the importance of transliteration in the field of machine translation, correct writing of personal and place names, and information retrieval. It provides an overview of various approaches, models and methods available in the field of transliteration. It shows the types of transliteration methods. The article also highlights…

This paper highlights the complex relations between public and private spaces with regard to young children's bilingual learning, and the importance of developing a pedagogy that allows for the interaction of learning across the two spaces. It uses findings from a qualitative study to illustrate nuanced (mis)alignments between dominant language…

This study examined three novice Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) university teachers' professional commitment change in New Zealand from an integrated theoretical framework of professional commitment. Drawing on data from interviews, classroom observations, and teaching material, the study found that although all the participants had mixed…

Previous research in alphabetic languages has shown that both position (external, internal) and distance (adjacent, nonadjacent) modulate letter position encoding during reading. To examine the generality of this pattern for a comprehensive model of word recognition and reading, we examined these effects during Chinese reading (i.e., an unspaced…

To explore email request patterns in the institutional context of university settings, this study combines speech act research with conversation analysis methods to examine how native speakers of American English and native speakers of Chinese formulate email requests to faculty. 100 authentic email requests sent by Chinese and American students…

Purpose: China's Confucius Institutes (CIs) have been under increasing scrutiny in the West while their development in Africa has been steady and strong. This article aims to examine the establishment, operation and effects of this institute in Africa, and discuss its role in a wider context of education, development and China's foreign policy…

A significant body of literature has demonstrated that infants demonstrate a decline in sensitivity to nonnative sound contrasts by their first birthday, a transition often thought to be adaptive for later word learning. The present study investigated infants' sensitivity to these contrasts in a habituation-based discrimination and word learning…

In language courses, it is important to foster students' systematic thinking and to develop their competence to express, appreciate, criticize and reflect, in particular in such courses as classical Chinese, which aim to develop students' cultural and literature knowledge. Problem posing is a promising strategy to achieve this objective. However,…

In the present article, we report two eye-tracking experiments on how Chinese readers segment incremental words while reading Chinese. Incremental words are multicharacter words containing a subset of characters that constitute another word (referred to as the "embedded word"). For example, in a word containing three characters ABC…

As the language service sector continues to develop, the education for undergraduate translation majors (or BTI: BA Translation and Interpreting) calls for more solid support from well-compiled textbooks. The study investigates the general publication status of interpreting textbooks for BTI students and takes a close look at four representative…