Most empirical research in L2 vowel perception focuses on the development of groups of learners. However, recent studies indicate that individual learners' developmental paths in L2 vowel perception may not be uniform (e.g., Escudero, 2001; Escudero and Boersma, 2004; Morrison, 2009). The aim of the present study is to add to this line of research…

Simultaneous speech and turn-taking patterns vary considerably across cultures. Research on varieties of Spanish has confirmed that frequent, lengthy overlaps within and between turns are common. In this paper it is suggested that when speakers engage in simultaneous talk, they observe Grice's Cooperative Principle by adjusting their utterances so…

French political leaders have voiced objections to prospective Turkish membership of the European Union (EU), citing material reasons as well as cultural objections involving the uncertain role of a predominantly Islamic society within a European political and economic bloc. Given the importance of the French language as a component of France's…

This paper considers the problems, the properties, and the prospects of using "English as a lingua franca" as a construct and as a reality. It will therefore focus on what is meant by the term "lingua franca", what is represented as a "lingua franca", and what the debates are about English as a lingua franca. The…

Not too long ago, Wolff-Michael Roth suggested that this space might be made into a kind of open house. The author of this article wants to use Roth's suggestion to take up his own intriguing editorial on the ontology of difference. The author wants to show that the ontology of difference is nonidentical with the ontology of difference: It can be…

One account of how pronunciation variants of spoken words (center-> "senner" or "sennah") are recognized is that sublexical processes use information about variation in the same phonological environments to recover the intended segments [Gaskell, G., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (1998). Mechanisms of phonological inference in speech perception.…

Teaching mixed methods and action research to graduate students has great advantages but also poses interesting challenges. The purpose of this article is to make transparent the process by which a mixed methods research instructor helped inform a student-researcher of the limitations in a pilot study that was compromised by methodology, including…

In this volume a range of authors from different international contexts argue that the notion of communicative competence in English, hitherto largely referenced to metropolitan native-speaker norms, has to be expanded to take account of diverse contexts of use for a variety of purposes. It also discusses the popular belief that language and…

This study took place at the University of Wyoming, located in the rural mountain West. The University of Wyoming, with approximately 13,000 students, is the only four-year university in the state. The teacher education population of the College of Education is about 600, and demographically, this population is about 90% White, predominately…

This paper explores the purported negative influence of foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) on child second language acquisition (SLA) by studying Hong Kong Cantonese children's listening ability in second language (L2) English. 31 kindergarten third graders aged 4;6 to 6, and 29 first year secondary students aged 11-14 who have had a Filipino…

This study investigated the psychometrics of the "Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Screening Test" (DELV-S) test using confirmatory factor analysis, item response theory, and differential item functioning (DIF). Responses from 1,764 students in kindergarten through second grade were used in the study, with results indicating…

For many American youths, school is not only an academic endeavor, but a social one. This study identifies the ways in which speakers use lexical choices in the creation of their linguistic identity and style. This dissertation centers on a group of students at Henry Fleming Middle School, located on the eastern end of Long Island. The students,…

Begun as an investigation of the linguistic and paleographic evidence on the Old Saxon Leipzig "Heliand" fragment, the dissertation encompasses three analyses spanning over a millennium of that manuscript's existence. First, a direct analysis clarifies errors in the published transcription (4.2). The corrections result from digital…

Imitations are sophisticated performances displaying regular patterns. The study of imitation allows linguists to understand speakers' perceptions of sociolinguistic variation. In this dissertation, I analyze imitations of non-native accents in order to answer two questions: what can imitation reveal about perception, and how are "folk linguistic…

In the fall of 2008, the authors began team teaching in a bilingual American Sign Language (ASL)/English classroom. They faced the same challenge teachers everywhere face: a new year with new goals and a classroom of students with diverse learning needs. This article discusses how the authors address students' language needs in a bilingual ASL and…