International Journal of Applied Linguistics最新文献

graduation, a subsystem of appraisal in the stratum of interpersonal discourse in systemic functional linguistics (SFL), functions to modulate meaning by degree. It emerges as a powerful linguistic tool for attorneys to establish rapport with their audience, especially with the jury during closing arguments. This research draws upon five criminal cases related to police violence in law enforcement in the United States, employing an integrated qualitative and quantitative analysis approach to explore how both attorneys utilize multimodal graduation through the integration of verbal, vocal, and visual conduct to affiliate with the jury. The findings reveal that attorneys utilize graduation, co-instantiating with attitude and coupling with other semiotic resources such as voice and gesture, to amplify negative attitudes toward the opposing party and positive attitudes toward their own stance. This strategic use of multimodal graduation influences the enactment of the social relations with the jury who hold the authority to determine guilt in a case. The significance of this study lies in its potential to advance the understanding of legal advocacy strategies in institutional discourse, particularly in cases involving police violence.

Mindset plays a crucial role in the learning process and outcomes. However, its impact on language learning remains underexplored. This study, grounded in the mindset theory, investigates the mindset profiles of language learners and their effects on language learning, with a focus on emotions (enjoyment), motivation (ideal self), personality traits (i.e., grit), and achievement. Data were collected via a composite questionnaire from 660 Chinese high school English as foreign language learners. Latent profile analysis identified three language mindset profiles: growth, mixed, and fixed. The majority of students were categorized under the mixed mindset profile. Students in the growth mindset profile showed the highest levels of enjoyment and ideal self, followed by those in the mixed and fixed mindset profiles. Additionally, those in the growth mindset profile demonstrated higher grit (perseverance of effort and consistency of interest) and achievement (self-perceived and actual) compared to the mixed and fixed profiles, with no significant differences between the latter two groups. These findings highlight the importance of fostering a growth mindset in language learners and provide pedagogical implications for enhancing language learning and outcomes.

Today, the majority of students learn English to use as a global lingua franca. New needs require revised curricula. Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) responds to this need for innovation to reflect the current use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). However, innovation is a complex matter, particularly when it involves divergence from ‘standard’, ‘native’ English norms. This article explores the role of parents in the implementation of GELT, an under-researched group in the growing body of research. Interviews (n = 21) conducted before and after a GELT course on a postgraduate Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) programme in the United Kingdom, plus six post-course focus groups (n = 27) explored pre- and in-service TESOL practitioners’ attitudes toward GELT. Our study explores this data to examine to what extent these teachers considered parental influence had on curriculum innovation. Findings reveal perceptions that parents still have strong attachments to ‘standard’ English and native-speakerism, hindering potential GELT implementation and particularly on altering teacher hiring practices. A growing number of studies focus on GELT awareness-raising amongst students and teachers. Our study highlights the need for more research on parental attitudes with regard to GELT, as well as how to raise their awareness of modern linguistic realities and how to ultimately involve them in the GELT innovation process.

This study examined recast efficacy in L2 learning from the perspective of alignment. As the hallmark of interaction, alignment facilitates L2 learning when models of linguistic structures proceed and prime subsequent output. This input-before-output sequence runs counter to the output-before-input array associated with the way of delivering recasts which may induce weaker alignment effects and hence limited recast efficacy. To verify this reasoning, 72 Chinese learners of English were randomly assigned to three interaction modes: output-first recast group, input-first alignment group, and meaning-oriented control. A pretest–posttest-delayed posttest design was employed to detect improvement in post-interaction production of -ed, followed by an interview that looked into alignment with -ed during interaction. Results showed that recast and control groups achieved less post-interaction gains than the alignment group in oral and written production; furthermore, during interaction they demonstrated more content orientation whereas the alignment group showed more aligned language use. These findings suggest that providing input models before output can combine with recast delivery to increase the alignment effect on language learning.

This study adopted a cognitive-processing approach to explore the role of planning modes in L2 writing production and the allocation of attentional resources by L2 learners during planning and writing. A total of 120 L2 learners in an ESL writing course at a university in the United States were assigned to one of four conditions: (1) written planning (10 min note-taking + 40 min writing), (2) visual planning (10 min using visual tools + 40 min writing), (3) collaborative planning (10 min discussing with peers + 40 min writing), or (4) no planning (40 min writing without pre-task planning). After completing the writing task, participants took part in a stimulated recall interview. The findings showed that different planning modes had significant effects on the syntactic and lexical complexity and accuracy of L2 writing compared to no planning. However, planning modes did not affect L2 writing fluency. The stimulated recalls revealed that attentional resources primarily focused on content and organization during pre-task planning, regardless of the planning mode used. Attention was also directed toward lexical and grammatical encodings during pre-task planning and writing. Additionally, regardless of the planning mode, attentional resources were predominantly dedicated to monitoring during the writing stage. This mixed-methods study provided deeper insights into the cognitive processes involved in planning and writing.

Using a person-centered approach, the present study aimed to investigate the potential profiles of motivational regulation strategies for writing (MRSW) and examine the predictive effect of L2 writing anxiety on the membership of MRSW profiles. Data were collected from a sample of 604 secondary school students with two questionnaires. The Second Language Writing Strategies for Motivational Regulation Questionnaire (L2WSMRQ) was employed to identify the possible MRSW profiles, and the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) was administered to reveal the association between these profiles and L2 writing anxiety among this population. Three distinct profiles (i.e., low, medium, and high MRSW profile) were identified via latent profile analysis. Multinomial logistic regression revealed that cognitive anxiety and avoidance behavior served as effective predictors of the membership of MRSW profiles. These findings may shed light on the heterogeneous configuration patterns of strategy use in EFL writing and provide practical implications for practitioners and researchers aiming to offer personalized instructions tailored to different profiles and anxiety levels.

Due to the immense impact of teachers’ professional identity on their teaching effectiveness, multitudes of studies have now examined this multifaceted construct and its determinants. However, due to excessive focus on the personal determinants of teacher identity, whether or not this construct can be affected by contextual factors has remained elusive. To narrow this lacuna and unravel the contextual determinants of teacher professional identity, the current study strived to divulge the role of two contextual factors, namely, school climate and administrator leadership behavior, in shaping the professional identity of Chinese English as foreign language teachers. To this end, with the aid of the convenient sampling technique, 375 English as foreign language teachers were invited to partake in the present research. The needed data were gleaned via three online self-scoring questionnaires and were analyzed via SPSS (v. 26) and AMOS (v. 29). Results obtained from correlation tests indicated a strong, linear relationship between school climate and teacher professional identity, as well as a moderate, linear association between leadership behavior and teacher professional identity. Furthermore, the findings of regression analyses identified that school climate and administrator leadership behavior are two important determinants of professional identity among Chinese English as foreign language teachers. In fact, as the regression outcomes revealed, these two contextual variables serve a key role in constructing or reconstructing the professional identity of Chinese English as foreign language teachers. The findings of this inquiry can deepen our comprehension of the influence of contextual factors on the formation of teachers’ professional identity.

The research on academic vocabulary lists has been a topic of interest for decades, as a good command of academic words may in part define a learner's academic performance. With China's increasing international impact over the past decades, more learners have chosen to learn Chinese as their foreign language. In response, a few word lists of general Chinese have been developed, while no vocabulary list of academic Chinese is available. In this study, we developed the Academic Vocabulary List in Chinese (AVLC) based on our home-made large-scale dataset of academic Chinese. The words to be included in our list were carefully selected with strict criteria regarding frequency, range, dispersion, and discipline measures. Our AVLC list contains 594 words, which explain 12.28% of the corpus data. In addition, their coverage in academic texts is much higher than that in non-academic texts, such as news and literary works, which shows that the AVLC includes words that are particularly used in academic texts. The AVLC is, to our knowledge, the first vocabulary list of academic Chinese. Pedagogical implications and directions for future research are also discussed in the study.