Abstract The relationship between L2 linguistic skills and the ability to use language for social purposes is still under-explored. While previous research suggests that higher proficiency coincides with better pragmatic and interactional performance, incongruities are also apparent with some low-proficiency learners being able to communicate effectively, and some high-proficiency learners showing pronounced weaknesses in interactional performance. In this study, 150 ESL learners completed a standardized speaking proficiency test, the TOEFL iBT Speaking section, followed by a test of interactional competence consisting of role plays and monologues. Quantitatively, we found a fairly strong correlation between measures of speaking proficiency and interactional ability, but our qualitative analysis showed a more nuanced picture with some interactionally relevant features apparently impacted by speaking proficiency, whereas others were largely independent of it. We discuss implications for the conceptualization of second language ability, language teaching, and language testing.
{"title":"The Relationship Between L2 Interactional Competence and Proficiency","authors":"Carsten Roever, Naoki Ikeda","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad053","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The relationship between L2 linguistic skills and the ability to use language for social purposes is still under-explored. While previous research suggests that higher proficiency coincides with better pragmatic and interactional performance, incongruities are also apparent with some low-proficiency learners being able to communicate effectively, and some high-proficiency learners showing pronounced weaknesses in interactional performance. In this study, 150 ESL learners completed a standardized speaking proficiency test, the TOEFL iBT Speaking section, followed by a test of interactional competence consisting of role plays and monologues. Quantitatively, we found a fairly strong correlation between measures of speaking proficiency and interactional ability, but our qualitative analysis showed a more nuanced picture with some interactionally relevant features apparently impacted by speaking proficiency, whereas others were largely independent of it. We discuss implications for the conceptualization of second language ability, language teaching, and language testing.","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136235377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Amidst ongoing global debate about reproductive rights, questions have emerged about the role of language in reinforcing stigma around termination. Amongst some ‘pro-choice’ groups, the use of pro-life is discouraged, and anti-abortion is recommended. In UK official documents, termination of pregnancy is generally used, and abortion is avoided. Lack of empirical research focused on lexis means it is difficult to draw conclusions about the role language plays in this polarized debate, however. This paper, therefore, explores whether the stigma associated with abortion may reflect negative semantic prosody. Synthesizing quantitative corpus linguistic methods and qualitative discourse analysis, it presents findings that indicate that abortion has unfavourable semantic prosody in a corpus of contemporary internet English. These findings are considered in relation to discursive salience, offering a theoretical framework and operationalization of this theory. Through this lens, the paper considers whether the discursive salience of extreme anti-abortion discourses may strengthen the negative semantic prosody of abortion. It, therefore, combines a contribution to theory around semantic prosody with a caution to those using abortion whilst unaware of its possibly unfavourable semantic prosody.
{"title":"Polarized Discourses of Abortion in English: A Corpus-based Study of Semantic Prosody and Discursive Salience","authors":"Bethan Malory","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad042","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Amidst ongoing global debate about reproductive rights, questions have emerged about the role of language in reinforcing stigma around termination. Amongst some ‘pro-choice’ groups, the use of pro-life is discouraged, and anti-abortion is recommended. In UK official documents, termination of pregnancy is generally used, and abortion is avoided. Lack of empirical research focused on lexis means it is difficult to draw conclusions about the role language plays in this polarized debate, however. This paper, therefore, explores whether the stigma associated with abortion may reflect negative semantic prosody. Synthesizing quantitative corpus linguistic methods and qualitative discourse analysis, it presents findings that indicate that abortion has unfavourable semantic prosody in a corpus of contemporary internet English. These findings are considered in relation to discursive salience, offering a theoretical framework and operationalization of this theory. Through this lens, the paper considers whether the discursive salience of extreme anti-abortion discourses may strengthen the negative semantic prosody of abortion. It, therefore, combines a contribution to theory around semantic prosody with a caution to those using abortion whilst unaware of its possibly unfavourable semantic prosody.","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43114796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This cross-sectional study addresses for the first time the non/linear association between individual learner differences of social, proficiency-related, and socioaffective nature (length of residence [LoR], varietal proficiency, exposure, and socioaffect) and differential outcomes in L2 sociolinguistic repertoires against the backdrop of the Austro-Bavarian naturalistic context. Forty adult migrant L2 German learners participated in a virtual reality experiment involving interactions with dialect-speaking and standard German-speaking interlocutors. The goal was to explore differences in participants’ interpersonal varietal behavior, that is, their addressee-relational variable use of standard German, Austro-Bavarian dialect, and mixture varieties. The results of Bayesian multinomial modeling indicated that LoR, dialect exposure, and proficiency, as well as reduced anxiety when speaking dialect, predicted differences in interpersonal varietal behavior. That said, a visual-quantitative analysis revealed critical thresholds concerning when, within these predictors, changes in sociolinguistic behavior manifested, indicating a rapid change in sociolinguistic development at the inter-individual level and ultimately facilitating initial insights as to how advanced one needs to be in order to engage in sociolinguistic variation in the Austro-Bavarian naturalistic context.
{"title":"Capturing Thresholds and Continuities: Individual Differences as Predictors of L2 Sociolinguistic Repertoires in Adult Migrant Learners in Austria","authors":"Mason A. Wirtz, S. Pfenninger","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad055","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This cross-sectional study addresses for the first time the non/linear association between individual learner differences of social, proficiency-related, and socioaffective nature (length of residence [LoR], varietal proficiency, exposure, and socioaffect) and differential outcomes in L2 sociolinguistic repertoires against the backdrop of the Austro-Bavarian naturalistic context. Forty adult migrant L2 German learners participated in a virtual reality experiment involving interactions with dialect-speaking and standard German-speaking interlocutors. The goal was to explore differences in participants’ interpersonal varietal behavior, that is, their addressee-relational variable use of standard German, Austro-Bavarian dialect, and mixture varieties. The results of Bayesian multinomial modeling indicated that LoR, dialect exposure, and proficiency, as well as reduced anxiety when speaking dialect, predicted differences in interpersonal varietal behavior. That said, a visual-quantitative analysis revealed critical thresholds concerning when, within these predictors, changes in sociolinguistic behavior manifested, indicating a rapid change in sociolinguistic development at the inter-individual level and ultimately facilitating initial insights as to how advanced one needs to be in order to engage in sociolinguistic variation in the Austro-Bavarian naturalistic context.","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44148276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Interactional Competence (IC) involves speakers’ ability to make social actions recognizable to one another while taking into account individual identities and social role relationships (Hall and Pekarek Doehler 2011). Existing IC research, however, has foregrounded the sequential features of interaction while paying less attention to the categorial resources speakers draw on. This study uses Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) to explicate the categorial resources speakers employ in interaction. The dataset comes from 22 participants with a mixture of first-language and second-language Chinese speakers. They were audio-recorded while undertaking a roleplay task in Chinese—assuming the role of an employee and complaining to their manager about unfair practices at work. After analysing the transcribed data using the MCA procedure (Stokoe 2012), we present analyses that address three foundational questions about how speakers use categorial resources to (i) make their social actions recognizable, (ii) respond to interlocutors’ social actions, and (iii) orient to the moral order of interaction. We argue MCA can provide important insight into the categorial nature of interaction in IC research.
{"title":"On the Promise of Using Membership Categorization Analysis to Investigate Interactional Competence","authors":"David Wei Dai, Mitchell Davey","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad049","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Interactional Competence (IC) involves speakers’ ability to make social actions recognizable to one another while taking into account individual identities and social role relationships (Hall and Pekarek Doehler 2011). Existing IC research, however, has foregrounded the sequential features of interaction while paying less attention to the categorial resources speakers draw on. This study uses Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) to explicate the categorial resources speakers employ in interaction. The dataset comes from 22 participants with a mixture of first-language and second-language Chinese speakers. They were audio-recorded while undertaking a roleplay task in Chinese—assuming the role of an employee and complaining to their manager about unfair practices at work. After analysing the transcribed data using the MCA procedure (Stokoe 2012), we present analyses that address three foundational questions about how speakers use categorial resources to (i) make their social actions recognizable, (ii) respond to interlocutors’ social actions, and (iii) orient to the moral order of interaction. We argue MCA can provide important insight into the categorial nature of interaction in IC research.","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44217702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper I investigate the unique ‘production format’ (Goffman 1981) of professional speechwriting; while the behind-the-scenes nature of this high-end language work (Thurlow 2020a) demands a marked erasure of authorship (see Mapes 2023, in press), this can simultaneously be used as a resource for claiming professional virtue and ingroup status. To demonstrate the largely reflexive (e.g. Giddens 1991) and affective (e.g. Weatherell 2013) underpinnings of this sort of discursive negotiation, I draw on my ethnographic fieldwork in the US American speechwriting community, including a 3-day professional speechwriting course; ‘language biography’ interviews (cf. Preston 2004); and a video-recorded virtual meeting. Following important scholarship in professional/workplace discourse, these data not only document the interesting ways in which speechwriters exercise their agency (e.g. White 2018), but also complicated entanglements with the ‘semiotic ideologies’ (Keane 2018) of contemporary life. Ultimately, certain kinds of words and work have value in the (linguistic) marketplace—and according to speechwriters, theirs certainly do.
{"title":"Virtuous Outlaws: Affective Claims to Value in Professional Speechwriters’ Discourse","authors":"Gwynne Mapes","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad048","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this paper I investigate the unique ‘production format’ (Goffman 1981) of professional speechwriting; while the behind-the-scenes nature of this high-end language work (Thurlow 2020a) demands a marked erasure of authorship (see Mapes 2023, in press), this can simultaneously be used as a resource for claiming professional virtue and ingroup status. To demonstrate the largely reflexive (e.g. Giddens 1991) and affective (e.g. Weatherell 2013) underpinnings of this sort of discursive negotiation, I draw on my ethnographic fieldwork in the US American speechwriting community, including a 3-day professional speechwriting course; ‘language biography’ interviews (cf. Preston 2004); and a video-recorded virtual meeting. Following important scholarship in professional/workplace discourse, these data not only document the interesting ways in which speechwriters exercise their agency (e.g. White 2018), but also complicated entanglements with the ‘semiotic ideologies’ (Keane 2018) of contemporary life. Ultimately, certain kinds of words and work have value in the (linguistic) marketplace—and according to speechwriters, theirs certainly do.","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42285606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Neil Millar, Bryan Mathis, Bojan Batalo, B. Budgell
We report on changes in the expression of epistemic stance in competitive funding applications—that is, applicants’ confidence and certainty towards knowledge and beliefs. We analysed abstracts describing all projects funded by the US National Institutes of Health during the period 1985–2020 for 140 stance features. Trends that we identify indicate that applicants adopt a stance less cautious and less tentative, and increasingly confident, optimistic, and promissory. This is evidenced, for example, by a consistent decline in weak possibility/probability, as expressed by modal verbs (e.g. may, might, should), by epistemic status verbs (indicate, seem) and adverbs (e.g. possible, probable, perhaps); and an increase among features that convey certainty, importance, and empiricism—for example, status verbs (e.g. demonstrate, establish, reveal), and adverbs that emphasize frequency/degree (usually, widely, almost). We argue that (i) these shifts are best understood in relation to increasing salesmanship and structural and cultural shifts within the research ecosystem, and (ii) trends in this dataset are better analysed at the level of individual features, rather than at the level of metadiscoursal categories.
{"title":"Trends in the Expression of Epistemic Stance in NIH Research Funding Applications: 1985–2020","authors":"Neil Millar, Bryan Mathis, Bojan Batalo, B. Budgell","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad050","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We report on changes in the expression of epistemic stance in competitive funding applications—that is, applicants’ confidence and certainty towards knowledge and beliefs. We analysed abstracts describing all projects funded by the US National Institutes of Health during the period 1985–2020 for 140 stance features. Trends that we identify indicate that applicants adopt a stance less cautious and less tentative, and increasingly confident, optimistic, and promissory. This is evidenced, for example, by a consistent decline in weak possibility/probability, as expressed by modal verbs (e.g. may, might, should), by epistemic status verbs (indicate, seem) and adverbs (e.g. possible, probable, perhaps); and an increase among features that convey certainty, importance, and empiricism—for example, status verbs (e.g. demonstrate, establish, reveal), and adverbs that emphasize frequency/degree (usually, widely, almost). We argue that (i) these shifts are best understood in relation to increasing salesmanship and structural and cultural shifts within the research ecosystem, and (ii) trends in this dataset are better analysed at the level of individual features, rather than at the level of metadiscoursal categories.","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44857941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multimodal Participation and Engagement: Social Interaction in the Classroom","authors":"Minttu Vänttinen","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad036","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42867595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Bednarek, Carly Bray, D. P. Vanichkina, Gavin Brookes, C. Bonfiglioli, Tara Coltman-Patel, Kelvin Lee, Paul Baker
{"title":"Weight Stigma: Towards a Language-Informed Analytical Framework","authors":"M. Bednarek, Carly Bray, D. P. Vanichkina, Gavin Brookes, C. Bonfiglioli, Tara Coltman-Patel, Kelvin Lee, Paul Baker","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad033","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42759286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes On Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad056","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136106832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Belonging-in-Interaction: Expressing and Performing Translocal Belongings Through Language and Arts Practice","authors":"James Simpson, Jessica Bradley","doi":"10.1093/applin/amad041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad041","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48234,"journal":{"name":"Applied Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135753951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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