International Journal of Applied Linguistics最新文献

Focusing on the roles of family language policy (FLP) actors in family language decision-making, we conducted a systematic review of research on family language policy published since 2013. A total of 65 empirical studies from international journals were identified and analyzed to examine the key decision-makers in shaping FLP and how they navigate language policy decisions in response to macro-level societal and governmental influences as well as micro-level family dynamics. Findings indicate that FLP decision-makers' either conform to the dominant language used in mainstream education and society or actively negotiate family language practices based on contextual factors. Contributing to the understanding of FLP decision-maker's roles and language practices, this review underscores the necessity of macro-level support from society and governments to facilitate the development and implementation of effective family language policies. Furthermore, the review highlights the need for further research on FLP, particularly through examining diverse family types, to enhance understanding of the dynamics between families and the broader social and national context.

Driven by the complex dynamic systems theory (CDST), this study explores how global patterns emerge from local dynamics in second-language (L2) written language development. Forty-one high-school Chinese learners of English were tracked over one academic year. An integrative design and a person-centered approach were adopted to combine the individual-level and group-level analyses. Four Syntactic Complexity (SC) features, i.e., overall length of production, sentential coordination, clausal subordination, and phrasal complexity, were employed. First, individual growth curve models (IGCM) revealed a J-shaped or exponential development pattern: a gradual-to-rapid trend of acceleration over time, indicating the iterative process in which each stage of growth was built upon the previous one. Then, a time-series cluster analysis identified two distinct profiles of learners with different growth rates, each exhibiting phase shift and interaction among the SC features. The paper ends with a discussion of how J-shaped developmental patterns at the global level emerge from the dynamic mechanism at the local level in L2 SC development within the CDST framework.

While there is increasing research on task-based language teaching (TBLT), we still do not fully understand the emotional side of performing tasks in a second language (L2), especially how implicit and explicit external factors influence learners’ emotional responses. While task-based research has increasingly highlighted cognitive factors, the emotional dimension—especially task anxiety and task enjoyment—has received limited attention. The present study seeks to fill this gap by exploring the effects of task repetition and task rehearsal on task anxiety and enjoyment in L2 writing. A total of 180 ESL learners participated, performing an argumentative writing task under two conditions: one group completed the task with no prior awareness of its repetition (task repetition), while the other was made aware of the impending task repeat (task rehearsal). Following each task, participants completed questionnaires measuring task enjoyment and anxiety. The results revealed that task repetition significantly increased task enjoyment and reduced task anxiety across the board. However, the anxiety-reducing effect of task repetition was less pronounced for learners with higher proficiency. Additionally, task-readiness factors, such as awareness of repetition, played a pivotal role in shaping learners’ emotional responses, particularly task enjoyment and anxiety. These findings underscore the importance of considering emotional responses in TBLT, offering valuable implications for researchers and L2 writing instructors seeking to optimize task design for better emotional outcomes.

This article aims to expand upon existing research on evidentiality in asynchronous online communication when the language of Covid-19 has been circulating in China's public discourse since late 2019. Drawing upon the methodology informed by digital conversation analysis, we conducted in-depth research to identify and characterize Chinese Internet users’ evidential strategy use in social debates on Zhihu, the most popular community question-answering site in China. We examined how participants cite sources of evidence and demonstrate their commitment to the reliability of evidence in two types of comments regarding the efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for treating Covid-19: adjacent exchanges and retro-sequences. The analysis reveals explicit, strategic language use in TCM comments that references external sources to support arguments and draws upon prior comments to challenge existing viewpoints or initiate re-formulations. A patterned use of evidential strategies can be observed in both the first and second positions within the TCM comment threads. The first position is predominantly characterized by a clear manifestation of the participant's commitment to the information source in the original post. In contrast, the second position sees frequently used interrogative expressions, particularly rhetorical questions, to challenge the validity of the evidence presented in the first position. We concluded that evidential strategy use in Zhihu comments provides important functional motivations for participants’ production and management of evidence-based meaning for goal-oriented digital communication.

This paper delves into the intricate co-selection patterns between four distinct verb tense categories required by the Curriculum and three kinds of inter-semiotic relationships in Chinese primary school textbooks for English as a foreign language (EFL). Informed by the corpus-based co-selection analysis and the multimodal analysis in textbooks, it proposes a corpus-assisted approach to evaluating the construction of verb tenses via multiple modes. An exhaustive analysis of a series of textbooks shows that the most frequent verb “be” tends to signify the temporal shifts in a parallel inter-semiotic relationship. However, the configuration biplot derived from the cross-tabulation between verb tenses and inter-semiotic relationships, complemented by correspondence analysis in R, unveils a more nuanced pattern of co-selecting the multiple modes. This pattern displays that a preferential pairing of each inter-semiotic relationship with two specific verb tense types, exemplified through illustrative cases of co-selection. The findings underscore the importance for textbook compilers to critically consider the interplay of multiple modes when representing grammatical tenses. The proposed approach and insights offer valuable guidance for content analysis and the design of multimodal texts in EFL textbooks, thereby enhancing their pedagogical effectiveness.

This study investigates the emotional experiences of novice English teachers in China and examines how these experiences shape the development of their emerging professional identities during the early stages of their careers. Using a narrative inquiry approach and a hierarchical emotion framework, the study explores the range of emotions novice teachers experience, the contexts in which they arise, and their impact on teacher identity construction. The findings reveal that positive emotions, such as love and joy, often stem from past positive learning experiences and positive student responses. These emotions reinforce novice teachers’ imagined identities as caring educators. Conversely, negative emotions like sadness, fear, and anger, arising from challenges such as unruly students and societal expectations, hinder identity development. However, these emotions also serve as catalysts for growth when novice teachers engage in reflective practices. The study highlights the importance of reflection in helping novice teachers navigate emotional challenges and negotiate their professional identities, offering valuable insights for teacher education programs aimed at supporting teachers’ emotional and identity development.

An increasing number of studies have integrated creativity into second language (L2) speech/writing and task-based language teaching frameworks, investigating its associations with L2 task performance and, in some cases, the moderating influence of task characteristics. Against this backdrop, the present study examines the role of creativity in L2 performance of story continuation writing tasks (SCWTs) that differ in topic familiarity while controlling for L2 proficiency. Seventy-six Chinese high school students learning French participated in the study by completing a French placement test, a series of creative thinking assessments and personality scales, and an SCWT on either a familiar (n = 37) or unfamiliar (n = 39) topic. Correlational and regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for L2 proficiency, learners’ creative capabilities significantly predicted their performance on unfamiliar L2 SCWTs. Creativity played a more pronounced role in content-related dimensions of task performance compared to linguistic aspects. Furthermore, only the cognitive dimensions of creativity, i.e., divergent and convergent thinking, showed significant correlations with L2 SCWT performance, while socio-personality dimensions of creativity did not exhibit significant effects. These findings enhance a more refined comprehension of creativity as an individual difference variable, highlighting how it interacts with task-related components in shaping L2 performance outcomes.