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This study aimed to explore the linguistic factors that influence the development and diversification of World Englishes along with implications for language teaching, learning, and policy, and to examine the trends in research related to WEs. Using a systematic review process with MAXQDA 20.2.1, the findings indicate that research on World Englishes has focused on a variety of linguistic elements, with a particular emphasis on syntax, phonology, and discourse and pragmatics. The study also highlights the importance of understanding the cultural and linguistic contexts in which English is being used, as these contexts can have a significant impact on the linguistic features and pragmatic norms of different varieties of English. Regarding the challenges that learners face when learning WEs, the findings suggest that learners may struggle with the different semantic features and pragmatic norms of different WEs varieties. In terms of trends in research related to WEs, the findings show a growing interest in the study of WEs from various linguistic and cultural perspectives, including sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and language education. However, there is a need for a more interdisciplinary approach to research on WEs, incorporating diverse perspectives and methodologies.

Comparing language tests and test preparation materials holds important implications for the latter's validity and reliability. However, not enough studies compare such materials across a wide range of indices. Therefore, this study investigated the text complexity of IELTS academic reading tests (IRT) and IELTS reading practice tests (IRPrT). Fine-grained quantitative analyses were undertaken to delineate measures of lexical, syntactic, and discourse complexity across a corpus of 108 IRT and 108 IRPrT published by Pearson, Macmillan, and Cengage Learning. The results suggest little difference between IRT and IRPrT at the lexical level; however, there were significant differences in some measures of syntactic and discourse level complexity. The findings bear implications for stakeholders including learners as test takers, instructors, material developers, and language testing researchers. We interpret this to mean that while IRPrT materials are lexically conducive to the practice for IRT and can provide a similar experience, the IRPrT do show some differences in the amount of subordination and idea repetition at the discourse level. Therefore, instructors and learners may seek to supplement practice with these structures when preparing for IRT, and the designers of such practice materials should consider aligning these factors in the future.

Idioms are highly conventionalized expressions that allow users to express beyond literal meanings. Despite the language difference, counterparts of idioms may overlap cross-culturally due to similar origin, social habits, and experiences. It is therefore interesting to probe whether L2 learners may benefit from deliberate instructions built on shared counterparts existing in both L1 and L2, known as cross-language overlaps. Although the phenomenon of cross-language overlap has been reported by lexical and collocation processing research (e.g., Carrol & Conklin, 2017; Hubers et al., 2020), it is yet uncertain whether its impact is influential for L2 idiom learning with the absence of semantic or syntactical similarity. To address this gap, the current study attempted to investigate whether raising English as a foreign language learners' awareness of cross-language overlap may facilitate L2 idiom teaching and how such overlap-enhancement instruction may change over different congruence conditions (congruence-available and incongruence conditions) and time. The study collected L2 idiom learning data from forty-five Chinese English learners, following a pretest-posttest design. While the experimental group (n=26) learned twenty-eight target L2 idioms with an enhancement instruction emphasizing the overlaps, the control group (n=28) learned these idioms with a conventional instruction method. Findings of this study revealed that participants were able to benefit from cross-language overlaps from both conditions, and the enhancement instruction on the semantic overlaps would result in significant learning improvement. It is therefore pedagogically advisable for language teachers to marry up L1-L2 idiom phrases containing similar counterparts and deliberately focus on the semantic congruency.

This study applies the Apriori algorithm to analyse patterns, syntactic structures, and thematic clusters in Chinese studies data from various genres. This study aims to identify recurring linguistic elements in order to shed light on the dynamic nature of the Chinese language across different contexts and time periods. The Apriori algorithm is used to identify frequent item sets and establish associations between linguistic constructs in large datasets (over 20 years). This study examines the complexity of the Chinese language by analysing co-occurrence patterns, syntactic tendencies, and thematic categorizations. This study examines the evolution of language, regional word choices, and cultural nuances. Thematic clusters and sensory associations establish the relationship between language and culture. The study of Chinese language patterns and cultural implications utilises data to advance computational linguistics and theory. Computational models prioritize cultural and historical context analysis for more comprehensive language processing. Theoretical implications help researchers understand language evolution and culture, while practical implications improve language technology tools. The conclusion provides support for research in computational linguistics, cultural studies, and linguistic theory-based holistic language analysis and application.

Lexical bundles (LBs) are frequent groups of words that appear repeatedly in different academic texts. A plethora of research has explored their distribution and usage in general, particularly in academic texts. However, to our knowledge, the extent of research investigating LBs in the discussion sections of Medical Research Articles (MRAs) is scant. The present study examined the diversity and density of four-word LBs in the discussions of 1400 MRAs. Four-word bundles totaling 413, including general and subject-bound LBs, were extracted using the freeware "concordance software program" AntConc and categorized based on their syntactic structures and discourse functions. The findings revealed that discussions structurally rely heavily on phrasal LBs (i.e., prepositional phrases and noun phrases) in general and subject-bound LBs compared to clausal bundles, which include VP-based and Clause-based LBs. Regarding functional categories, the general referential bundles with their subcategories were found to have the most considerable proportion in the medical RA genre. Given the importance of LBs in disciplinary writing and academic discourse, the findings could be instrumental in crafting suitable pedagogical materials and activities on general and subject-specific LBs for academic writing in English for Medical Purposes.

This study aimed to analyze common syntactic errors found in the argumentative essays of third-year English major students at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Van Lang University, Vietnam. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to obtain data in this study. The quantitative approach involved counting and calculating the frequency, percentage, and ranking of syntactic errors, while the qualitative method was adopted to explain these errors. The instrument for collecting data was argumentative essays written by 37 third-year English majors enrolling in Writing-5 at Van Lang University. Microsoft Word was used to collect and analyze syntactic errors and sentence structures, while Microsoft Excel was employed to calculate the frequency and rank of these errors and structures. The results found that the five most frequent errors in their essays were at the noun phrase and sentence levels. These errors included run-on sentences, preposition errors, article errors, sentence fragments, and pronoun errors. Through error analysis, it was indicated that the majority of errors made by students were due to the negative transfer from their first language and the literal translation. Based on the findings, language teachers and syllabus designers could use these results as guidance to design appropriate teaching methods and materials.

This longitudinal case study from a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) perspective touches upon an under-researched issue: L1 development over the lifespan. Levinson (1978) predicts three stages in adulthood: early, mid and late, with a decline in late adulthood. We examine Diane Larsen-Freeman's publications over a period of 50 years (from age 27 to 77) and trace seven complexity measures--three lexical (density, sophistication and diversity) and four syntactic (mean length of sentence, finite verb ratio, dependent clause per T-unit and complex nominals per clause)--to investigate whether early, middle, and late stages in adulthood occur as predicted. After employing common CDST methods to find out if there are significant peaks or interactions among the variables over time, we used a Hidden Markov time-series analysis to locate moments of self-organization, suggesting a new stage of development. The HMM shows a clear phase shift between middle and late adulthood when the writer was 63. Her vocabulary became more diversified, but her sentences were shorter, but not less complex. Therefore, we argue that this shift should not be seen as a decline in complexity but a shift in style as more precise words may lessen the need for more words.

The study described in this article evaluates the effectiveness of methods of improving phonetic, grammatical, and syntactic skills in children with general speech underdevelopment in a bilingual environment. The method is based on a theoretical study of severe speech disorders, a structural analysis of linguistic samples, and a comparative study of the results of research by various scientists in an interdisciplinary discourse. An experimental study was carried out concerning the assessment of the effectiveness of speech therapy exercises for forming linguistic skills (phonetic-phonemic, morphological, word-formation, lexical, and syntactic) at different language levels in preschoolers with a general speech disorder in the context of bilingualism (Kazakh was considered the main language, and Russian was considered an additional language). The materials presented in this paper can be used to develop linguistic skills for various speech defects.

Prediction-based accounts of language acquisition have the potential to explain several different effects in child language acquisition and adult language processing. However, evidence regarding the developmental predictions of such accounts is mixed. Here, we consider several predictions of these accounts in two large-scale developmental studies of syntactic priming of the English dative alternation. Study 1 was a cross-sectional study (N = 140) of children aged 3-9 years, in which we found strong evidence of abstract priming and the lexical boost, but little evidence that either effect was moderated by age. We found weak evidence for a prime surprisal effect; however, exploratory analyses revealed a protracted developmental trajectory for verb-structure biases, providing an explanation as for why prime surprisal effects are more elusive in developmental populations. In a longitudinal study (N = 102) of children in tightly controlled age bands at 42, 48, and 54 months, we found priming effects emerged on trials with verb overlap early but did not observe clear evidence of priming on trials without verb overlap until 54 months. There was no evidence of a prime surprisal effect at any time point and none of the effects were moderated by age. The results relating to the emergence of the abstract priming and lexical boost effects are consistent with prediction-based models, while the absence of age-related effects appears to reflect the structure-specific challenges the dative presents to English-acquiring children. Overall, our complex pattern of findings demonstrates the value of developmental data sets in testing psycholinguistic theory.

This study emerged as a result of insufficient knowledge and descriptions of the behavioural profiles of the near-synonym English verbs, "increase" and "rise," by non-corpus-based traditional reference sources used by students. We explored the behavioural characteristics of this group of near-synonym verbs using the British National Corpus (BNC) of 100 million words as our corpus. Using the "Sketch Engine" Tool, we examined their frequency, subject and object noun collocations, adverb collocations, and syntactic behavioural profiles. The results demonstrate that both words collocate with subject and object nouns. However, on their top ten subject collocation lists, "increase" only collocates with abstract nouns related to finance and economy, whereas "rise" collocates with three different kinds of abstract nouns related to finance/economy, the human entity, and the natural environment, and one concrete noun related to natural environment. In addition, they only have two collocates in common on their top subject noun collocates list. In terms of object noun collocations, "increase" only collocates with abstract nouns connected to finance/economy and the natural environment, but "rise" collocates with abstract and concrete nouns on their top list. They also only have three adverb collocations in common on the top list. "Rise" has 17 distinct syntactic patterns, whereas "increase" has 15 different syntactic patterns. In teaching near-synonyms, we propose using corpus-based reference resources.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the variations in vocabulary and syntax in Instagram posts relating to food among younger and older men and women in the United Kingdom. The study sought to determine if differences in these linguistic features would affect the expression of users on the platform, which was the dependent variable under assessment. To achieve this aim, Instagram posts about food, posted by a sample comprising 37 young adult men and 43 young adult women aged between 18-24 years and by 47 older men and women aged 59 years or older, were collected and analyzed for their vocabulary and syntactic features. Vocabulary was measured in terms of the number of words used in the posts and their mean values, given that the number of posts varied by gender and age group. Syntactic characteristics were measured by counting the presence or absence of a subject and verb, the quality of adjectives used, and any reference to time or location concerning food quality. The results were presented using tables and charts, and examples were provided for each observation presented in the results section. The findings of the study support the view that gender and age influence social media posts concerning vocabulary and syntax. The study discovered that younger men and women tend to use a more extensive range of words and adjectives of varying quality, while older people tend to use fewer words and unique quality adjectives. Memory loss, which affects older people, could explain the observed tendency of using fewer words. This research highlights a few areas for future research, such as exploring the relationship between the use of slang words and age or gender and examining the effects of age and gender on social media use in different cultures. Additionally, the study acknowledges limitations such as the small sample size and the limitations of using Instagram as a representation of social media behavior as well as confining the study to a single country affecting its generalizability. In conclusion, this study provides evidence that age and gender are significant factors influencing the linguistic features of Instagram posts on food. This research is a valuable addition to the current literature on social media communication and provides useful insights for marketers and social media users.

This research employed an auto ethnographic study. It is a method used to describe the journey of the researcher in teaching English Syntax for two years in academic years 2016 to 2017. The problem in this research is how the lecturer implemented the communicative approach in teaching English Syntax in a Higher Education Context. The Method used in this research is qualitative method. The subject of this research was the students and the lecturer of English department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Makassar State University. The instrument of the research was interview and auto ethnography reflection (lecturer personal reflection). Technique of the data collection used individual in-depth interview. The result of the data analysis indicated that the implementation of the communicative approach in teaching English Syntax run well because the students felt satisfy to join the class, from the class start until the end. The implementation was divided into three steps. The first is preparation; the lecturer has already prepared the teaching material well, the learning objective, and teaching method and strategy. The second is implementation the communicative approach in teaching English Syntax, and the third is evaluation. The all of the steps are run well in teaching English Syntax. It can be concluded that teaching English Syntax through communicative approach was very good and successful, and get a good impact for the students in improving their language knowledge and skills.

The goal of this study is to examine which word order is dominant in colloquial Buginese-Indonesian, 1) to find out which word-order pattern is more acceptable between SVO and VSO, 2) to find out which word-order pattern is more acceptable between VO and OV, and 3) to find out what internal linguistic characteristics and social factors motivate such acceptability. The data were collected through an online survey via Monkey Survey that employed Acceptability Judgment Task (AJT) to determine which word order is more acceptable in Buginese Indonesian (SVO or VSO and VO or OV). A total of 50 Buginese-Indonesian bilinguals rated the acceptability of 48 target items (and 48 fillers) for patterns such as SVO/VSO and VO/OV in a 1-5 Likert Scale (1=completely unnatural; 5=compeletely natural). Target items were controlled for linguistic factors and social factors. ANOVA analysis was used to analyze the data. The results indicate that both SVO and VSO are equally acceptable though VSO was slightly more favorable than SVO. When the subject is omitted, VO was farther favorable than OV. L1, age, and residence had a significant effect on the acceptability of VSO while grammatical person, education level, and residence contributed greatly to the acceptability of VO. The results also reveal that the acceptability of different word orders in Buginese-Indonesian is both linguistically and socially constrained. Thus, the results are situated within a discussion of Backus' (2014) notion of entrenchment and conventionalization.

Learning geography in Indonesia philosophically aims to develop spatial literacy. Students must improve spatial literacy to form reasoning skills and apply spatial concepts in real life. Applying Gersmehl's spatial learning can improve students' spatial literacy through syntax arranged based on spatial aspects. The use of google earth helps students to complete case studies of disaster mitigation materials without the need to go directly to the field. This quasi-experimental research refers to the posttestonly control group design by comparing the posttest of spatial literacy in the experimental and control classes. This study involved students of class XI IPS SMAN 1 Blitar City. The instrument is a five-point description test based on indicators of spatial literacy in disaster mitigation materials standardized with validity and reliability tests. The research data were analyzed using normality, homogeneity, and hypothesis tests. The data tested were in the form of posttest scores for spatial literacy in the experimental and control classes. The results of Gersmehl's spatial learning influence spatial literacy. The use of LKPD bridges the implementation of spatial learning syntax with Google Earth as a geospatial medium. The implementation of syntax in spatial learning is interrelated with spatial literacy indicators, thereby increasing students' spatial literacy based on experience and spatial recognition.

This study examined written/formal register based on happilyever-after women's fiction conventional blurbs. In particular, the 80 blurbs were equally divided into two types: the classic and mass-marketed. Biber et al. (2021) was used as the framework to extract features to respond to the two research questions: What were the top written/formal features among the classic and mass-marketed happily-ever-after women's novel blurbs? And, which blurb type displayed more resemblance to written/formal register? The functional framework comprised three main groups of features: The passives, adjectivals and adverbials. Results revealed that the first two showed a strong tendency towards written/formal register while the last seemed to show the opposite but was taken here to be in-between features, corresponding to fiction language. The top written/formal features based on the two types of blurbs were the passives (both the full and reduced forms) (26%), full relative clauses (23%), full adverbial clauses (20%) and attributives (13%). The blurb type that seemed inclined towards written/formal nature more was the classic, as substantiated by five salient features: the passives, attributives, -en adjectivals, -ing adverbials and -en adverbials. It is believed that discourse analysts and ESL/EFL teachers can pay more attention to these useful syntactic features, particularly the full and reduced forms, as ways to compress information in formal writing.

Son and daughter metaphorical expressions are common in general as well as technical languages. This study explores the similarities and differences between English and Arabic ibn (son) and bint (daughter) expressions, and the difficulties that student-translators have with them. A corpus of English and Arabic general ibn (son) and bint (daughter) expressions (daughters of Eve, daughter of invention, son of Adam, son of a biscuit, son of a gun) and another corpus of specialized expressions (son of Minos, daughter board, daughter activity) were collected, analyzed and compared. It was found that ibn (son) and bint (daughter) expressions fall into 4 categories: (i) those that are identical in form and meaning in both languages (daughters of Eve, son of Adam); (ii) those that are similar in meaning but differ in wording (step-daughter); (iii) those that exist in English, but have no equivalents in Arabic (daughter of Sappho); and (iv) those that exist in Arabic but have no equivalents in English (daughter of Yemen, i.e., coffee). Specialized expressions used in medicine, computers, business and others are exact translations in both languages (daughter company, daughter cyst, daughter isotope). Student-translators could translate fewer than 13% of the Arabic test items and 12% of the English test items correctly and left 75% blank. Son and daughter expressions similar in both languages were easy to translate (like mother like daughter), whereas opaque ones [Arabic characters omitted], culture-specific ones [Arabic characters omitted] and those requiring a specialized background knowledge were difficult (daughter board). Extraneous translation, paraphrase, Literal translation, use of synonyms, transliteration of Arabic words, partial translation, and giving the same translation for different expressions were the most common strategies. Translation difficulties are due to semantic and syntactic problems that the students have. Results and recommendations are given in detail.

This research investigates disciplinary variations using syntactic features in Pakistani academic writing (AW). The corpus of this research is developed from 160 dissertations across four disciplinary divisions and analyzed through AntConc. Results reveal heterogeneous and homogenous use of the said features. Heterogeneity is seen in relation to the frequency of different types of clausal, intermediate, and phrasal features. Regarding the homogeneity, results reveal that the highest and lowest used features were similar across the four disciplinary divisions. That is, clausal coordinating conjunctions and WH complement clauses (highest and lowest used clausal features), nouns and prepositional phrases (highest and lowest used phrasal features), and adverbs and noun+to-clauses (highest and lowest used intermediate features) are observed to remain the same across the four disciplinary divisions. These results conclude that Pakistani AW does not reflect disciplinary variation. The practice is contrary to the expert convention. Therefore, Pakistani academic writers are suggested to appropriately use the syntactic features as per the expert conventions in their disciplines.

In recent years, online mass media has made a significant contribution to explaining events and how these events are interpreted and understood by the public. One of them is the incident regarding the case of public officials with a lifestyle of hedonism (those familiar with corrupt behavior). The purpose of this study is to examine the image of officials built by the Tirto.id mass media in an editorial on "hedonic officials." The analysis in this study uses qualitative methods. Data analysis was carried out descriptively. This type of research is content analysis with the data source in the form of news text produced and published by the mass media Tirto.id on March 15, 2023. The discourse is entitled "Hedonic Officials: The Seed of Corruption That Butchers the Prosperity of the People." Data collection techniques were carried out by reading discourses and noting excerpts of sentences related to research problems. The research procedure was carried out using three stages (methods) suggested by Norman Fairclough: description, interpretation, and explanation. The validity of the data was carried out by testing referential validity and intra-rater reliability (observing and reading data carefully and persistently). The results of the analysis show that the Tirto.id mass media gives a negative image to several public officials, especially the Directorate General of Taxes (DGT). This negative image can be seen from the use of words that have a negative connotation and contain controversy. Public officials are described as figures who have a hedonistic attitude that is often close to corrupt behavior, entities that are rotten, dirty, disgusting, dilapidated, damaging, and/or butcher people's prosperity.

Including causal links in concept maps enables learners to meaningfully relate concepts to a larger context or problem in terms of how and where concepts apply within the chains of causal events that lead to a given goal or outcome. Given that higher quality maps are produced when students link and sequence events to flow temporally and sequentially in a consistent direction towards a target outcome in a map, it is highly plausible that students can improve learning transfer (the ability to apply concepts to diagnose and solve problems) by including and making more salient the sequences of causal links nestled in the semantic links in concept maps. To lay the groundwork to empirically test this proposition in future research, this study: 1) analyzes 16 concept maps presented in the Proceedings of the 8th Int. Conference on Concept Mapping to codify the diverse and sometimes incongruent syntaxes used to convey causal relationships; 2) examines how the causal link syntaxes combined with semantic links work jointly (or against each other) to create temporal flow; and 3) explore how causal and semantic links can be integrated to increase the saliency and quality of the causal networks connecting concepts to outcomes. A better understanding of how causal links are expressed, integrated, and made more salient in concept maps can reveal ways to help students create concept maps that are more accurate, meaningful, and effective in improving the ability to apply concepts to solve complex problems.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the variable production of English Object-Experiencer (OE) psych predicates among 80 L1 Thai EFL first-year university students. Psych verbs are notable for posing difficulty for learners due to a unique property that violates Grimshaw's (1990) Thematic Hierarchy. The participants were given a cloze test and a translation test with six psych verbs and corresponding predicates, and six individuals were chosen to perform the spontaneous oral translation. Based on the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH), the findings validated two of the study's research questions. First, variable production was detected in L1 Thai students' usage of OE psych predicates in three grammatical constructions examined. Second, the MSIH attributed variable production of L2 functional morphology to mapping problems: L1 Thai students were confused about how to link thematic roles to subject and object positions since the OE psych predicates breached the Thematic Hierarchy. Furthermore, the MSIH reveals that phono-syntactic factors play a role in variable production, indicating that during live translation, participants struggled with the -ed sound while forming correct copular verbs required in sentences with OE psych predicates.

This paper examined whether a younger starting age of formal instruction on a foreign language is beneficial in expanding circle countries. An experimental study was designed to examine to what extent the five varieties of English language teachers are intelligible to Japanese- (JSLs) and Korean-speaking language learners (KSLs), who have different starting ages of formal English education. First, 132 JSLs and 214 KSLs participated in a listening test where the accents of audio stimuli were varied. The results showed significant differences in the listening test scores between the two groups of learners and among the five varieties of English. It was found that KSLs who started learning English language at an early onset demonstrated proficient listening performance. These findings provide support for the premise that "younger is better" in development and persistence of L2 sound identification. At the same time, both JSLs and KSLs demonstrated sensitivity to input varieties of English. This highlights the importance of exposing students in the classroom to various English accents that may encounter in real-world situations.

The current study concerns the new wave of pro-democracy activism in Thailand as an international political phenomenon in online news discourse. The investigation employs a critical discourse analysis approach to examine discourse strategies adopted to construct the representation of Thai pro-democracy activists and decode the underlying ideology hidden in the news articles reporting this controversial movement. Thirty English-language news articles reporting on the same incidents and published between October 2020 and March 2022 were downloaded from the Bangkok Post and Reuters websites and analyzed using the Ideological Square framework (van Dijk, 2000, 2006, 2011, 2013). Scrutiny was given to the use of lexicon, granularity, local coherence, superstructures, and syntactic structures as discourse features. The findings indicate that discourse strategies are ideologically used on the Bangkok Post website to construct a negative other-presentation of Thai prodemocracy activists. Such strategies are deliberately adopted on the Reuters website to fabricate a positive self-presentation of the activists. The study contributes to knowledge of how language is used to generate narratives and shape audience perceptions by shedding light on the ideological implications hidden in the discourse strategies employed by news sources.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a distinct variety of English that exhibits unique phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. However, the focus of this study was on the grammatical aspects of AAVE. The objectives were to identify and analyze the predominant grammatical features of AAVE employed by Justin Bieber in his songs from 2009 to 2021 and to examine and describe the specific syntactic features of AAVE found in Justin Bieber songs. The data was collected and compared over a span of several years. The grammatical features were analyzed based on the theories proposed by Wolfram (2004) and Rickford (1999). The results indicated that the three most frequently observed features were Negation Forms, which occurred 79 times over a period of 9 years, Specialized Auxiliaries, which appeared 44 times over 9 years, and Copula Absence, which was present 34 times over 7 years. Additionally, the study identified several other AAVE features over a 10-year span, including Copula Absence, Invariant "be," Remote "been," Specialized Auxiliaries, Subject-Verb Agreement, Nominals, Negation Forms, and Question Formation. Upon comparison, it was observed that the number of AAVE features decreased in the last five years compared to the first five years. Consequently, this research provides valuable insights into the grammatical features of AAVE and highlights the variations in the syntactic characteristics of AAVE that have an impact on popular music.

Although the literature on computer-assisted language learning has demonstrated that digital tools such as online translators and bilingual dictionaries offer affordances to second language (or foreign language) writers of English to solve linguistic (lexical and syntactic) issues, the extent to which digital technology supports multilingual students in producing academic texts has been underexplored. In this study, we investigate what digital technology enables and does not enable students to do in communicating their intended meaning in English by examining the writing experience of a multilingual student in an online higher education environment. The data was derived through screen sharing and online stimulated recall interviews and analysed using the concept of digital translanguaging, which focuses on meaning-making using one's entire meaning-making repertoire. The findings suggest that digital translanguaging offers many opportunities to expand the knowledge of vocabulary through self-learning. However, it also becomes evident that the success of working through lexical and syntactic issues is impacted by several factors, such as prior knowledge of the second language (L2), effective online search strategies, and awareness of digital reference resources for different purposes (e.g., online translators for literal and/or context-appropriate translations and language forums to seek advice about specific language issues from proficient speakers). We conclude by providing insights into instructional and strategic support to effectively assist multilingual students to offer greater opportunities to achieve their communication goals.

This article reports on a comparative analysis of two sets of essays, student-discursive essays (SDEs) and ChatGPT-generated discursive essays (ChatGPT-GDEs) on the same essay topic using Coh-Metrix. It focused on three Coh-Metrix indices, lexical density, syntactic complexity, and referential cohesion as the basis for the comparative analysis. The authors also conducted a t test on the Coh-Metrix results, especially the mean scores, in relation to these three linguistic indices. Using convenience sampling, the study selected seven SDEs from the essays that were submitted as part of an assignment for an English Studies module in the second semester of 2020 at the University of South Africa. ChatGPT was prompted with the same essay topic that had been used for the SDEs. Overall, at raw mean score levels, the SDEs outperformed ChatGPT-GDEs in lexical density and referential cohesion, while ChatGPT-GDEs did so in syntactic complexity. Nonetheless, at a t test level, there was no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the two essay sets in relation to the three Coh-Metrix linguistic indices investigated in this study.

This study explores syntactic and lexical complexity in argumentative essays written by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Humans (HS). First year Tswana second language (L2) learners of English in a South African University wrote the HS argumentative essays. The AI essays have been generated by ChatGPT-3.5 on the same topics. Using a multidimensional perspective to genre analysis, this study examines differences in the essays using linguistic measures of syntactic and lexical complexity. Even though not all researchers agree on the nature of linguistic differences, the extant literature links features such as syntactic and lexical complexity to writing style and quality. However, little is known about this variation in content generated by ChatGPT when compared to writing by university students studying English as a second language (L2). Findings from this study show differences in the use of complexity features between AI-generated-generated content (AIGC) and human-generated content (HGC). AIGC was found to be using more sophisticated and varied vocabulary. HGC was found to use more function words and less diverse vocabulary. The use of content words was comparable with HGC using a lot more content words than AIGC.

Translators employ an array of tools to streamline the translation process, ensuring precision and coherence. The necessity of these tools is particularly pronounced when tackling authentic materials, such as texts from the United Nations (UN). Among these tools, corpora stand out as a pivotal resource. In light of this, this study undertook a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative exploration into the impact of UN parallel corpora on novice translators. The research sought to address two fundamental questions: Does the utilization of parallel corpora significantly enhance translation performance? Furthermore, what specific areas of improvement, if any, are facilitated by the incorporation of parallel corpora? To address these questions, a cohort of 30 students undertook two translation tasks of equal complexity. The initial task was conducted without the support of UN corpora, while the subsequent task integrated the use of these corpora. Employing a t-test, the study scrutinized the statistical significance of divergence among the participants. The outcomes illuminate that the integration of corpora within translation pedagogy, particularly for UN texts, plays an indispensable role. This integration furnishes students with authentic source materials, facilitating comprehension of intricate terminologies inherent in these documents. Furthermore, corpora enable students to discern underlying linguistic patterns, encompassing syntax, collocations, and discourse structures. This linguistic insight equips translators to faithfully convey intended meanings and registers in their translations. Notably, the T-test outcomes establish a substantial positive influence of corpora utilization on the achievement of students.

This study investigated the argumentation of 27 junior high school students in building their creative reasoning and the relationship between students' argumentation and their mathematical literacy skills. The data collected using mathematical literacy test and assessment rubric and were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The study found that students tended to use simple statements than complex statements in explaining their mathematical arguments. Furthermore, the study also showed that students, in constructing their arguments, used syntax to support their problem-solving reasoning structure though it does not necessarily strengthen their correct final answer. Students with developed mathematical literacy skills tended to be creative in building their arguments, where they used not only statements but also pictures to strengthen their constructed problem-solving arguments.

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) are widely used in educational assessments and professional certification exams. Managing large repositories of MCQs, however, poses several challenges due to the high volume of questions and the need to maintain their quality and relevance over time. One of these challenges is the presence of questions that duplicate concepts but are formulated differently. Such questions can indeed elude syntactic controls but provide no added value to the repository. In this paper, we focus on this specific challenge and propose a workflow for the discovery and management of potential duplicate questions in large MCQ repositories. Overall, the workflow comprises three main steps: MCQ preprocessing, similarity computation, and finally a graph-based exploration and analysis of the obtained similarity values. For the preprocessing phase, we consider three main strategies: (i) removing the list of candidate answers from each question, (ii) augmenting each question with the correct answer, or (iii) augmenting each question with all candidate answers. Then, we use deep learning-based natural language processing (NLP) techniques, based on the Transformers architecture, to compute similarities between MCQs based on semantics. Finally, we propose a new approach to graph exploration based on graph communities to analyze the similarities and relationships between MCQs in the graph. We illustrate the approach with a case study of the Competenze Digitali program, a large-scale assessment project by the Italian government.

Non-finite clauses are one of the elements considered as an index of syntactic complexity, which is a distinguishing feature of academic register. In this sense, the current study aims to reveal the frequency and syntactic functions of non-finite clauses in the academic writings of non-native and native English students. In order to reach this aim, a specialized corpus with two sub-corpora consisting of the MA and PhD theses of natives and non-natives was compiled. The native and non-native corpora were similar in terms of size and the topics of the texts. The data were analyzed using the Antconc concordancing tool, and the log-likelihood tool was used to calculate the significance of the findings. The result of the study showed that non-natives significantly underused the non-finite clauses in their academic texts compared to their native counterparts. Although there is a statistically significant difference in terms of the overall frequency of non-finite clauses, the distribution of the forms of the non-finite clauses was found to be balanced in NS and NNS texts. That is, both NSs and NNSs used bare infinitives less frequently and to infinitival most frequently in academic papers. In terms of the syntactic functions of the non-finite clauses, adjectival (adnominal) was used more frequently and nominals were used less frequently in both corpora. The findings of this study were compared with the previous findings, and educational implications were presented.

A robust finding in psycholinguistics is that prior language experience influences subsequent language processing. This phenomenon is known as syntactic priming. Most of the empirical support for L2 syntactic priming comes from lab-based experiments. However, this evidence might not reflect how priming occurs in typical language activities in the L2 classroom. As such, we conducted a classroom-based priming study. Using a between-subject design, 52 L2 Arabic speakers read and listened to eight story-reading sessions over two weeks that either included a high proportion of the fronted temporal phrase (TP) structure (experimental group) or included no fronted TPs (controls). The effect of L2 proficiency was also investigated. Results revealed that the experimental group did not significantly increase their use of fronted TPs in the immediate posttest or the one-week delayed posttest relative to the baseline. A null effect of Arabic L2 proficiency was also observed. We discuss our findings in light of related priming theories and previous findings. This study highlights the need for more research on syntactic priming via common language tasks in the L2 classroom.

Contribution: A problem-solving approach (PSA) model derived from major computational thinking (CT) concepts. This model can be utilized to formulate solutions for different algorithmic problems and translate them into effective active learning methods. Background: Different teaching approaches for programming are widely available; however, being able to formulate an algorithmic solution computationally and then transform it into code is essential for students. Research Questions: What are the effective teaching approaches for fostering the development of problem-solving and programming skills?, How do CT concepts contribute to the formulation of a PSA model for programming problems and its translation into an effective teaching method?, How can an effective teaching method that utilizes the PSA model be identified and distinguished from other approaches? Methodology: A preliminary study pointed out the difficulties experienced when teaching programming, inspiring the formulation of a PSA model that used CT concepts. An experimental study on problem-based and game-based programming workshops that utilized the PSA model through sorting algorithms was performed on experimental groups consisting of 30 students each. A syntax-based programming workshop consisting of 30 students was used as the control group. All the participants were recruited through a pretest that incorporated basic programming questions. The participants had to answer a posttest after the workshop. Findings: The results showed that the participants exhibited no significant difference between the pretest and posttest for the syntax-based learning (SBL). However, there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest of both the problem-based learning (PBL) and the game-based learning (GBL) workshops. There was no significant difference for the pretest scores of all three workshops. The analysis of the posttest further confirmed that the experimental groups (PBL and GBL) exhibited significant difference in the scores compared to the control group. However, the posttest results did not differ significantly between the experimental groups (PBL and GBL).

This study investigates the evolution of reading comprehension abilities in Indonesian learners of the Chinese Heritage Language (CHL), by comparing their scores on the Chinese Proficiency Test, a test specifically designed for CHL learners. A total of 275 candidates, divided into early adolescent (M[subscript age] = 13.56), late adolescent (M[subscript age] = 15.78), and adult (M[subscript age] = 22.83) groups, were evaluated on four dimensions of reading comprehension: orthographic knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic awareness, and discourse comprehension. A detailed cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of these four dimensions was conducted across the three groups. The results indicate that horizontally, the order of the four dimensions is orthographic knowledge > vocabulary knowledge > syntactic awareness > discourse comprehension, with significant differences observed in all dimensions. During adolescence, orthographic knowledge is significantly higher than vocabulary knowledge, while in adulthood, vocabulary knowledge is significantly higher than syntactic awareness, and syntactic awareness is significantly higher than discourse comprehension. Longitudinally, reading comprehension abilities appear to stall across adolescence in three dimensions (vocabulary knowledge, syntactic awareness, and discourse comprehension), with a decline in one dimension (orthographic knowledge) occurring in late adolescence. However, the adult group shows improvement in all four dimensions compared to the late adolescence group. Considering both longitudinal and cross-sectional results, the developmental order of reading skills in Indonesian CHL learners is orthographic knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic awareness, and discourse comprehension. The main developmental peak for orthographic knowledge to vocabulary knowledge occurs in adolescence, while the major developmental peak for vocabulary knowledge to syntactic awareness and for syntactic awareness to discourse comprehension occurs in adulthood. The results suggest that reading comprehension improves significantly upon reaching adulthood in Indonesian. By understanding the trajectory of reading comprehension abilities in Indonesian CHL learners, this study can provide effective suggestions for Indonesian CHL learners and educators, and may also serve as a reference for other heritage languages.

Despite the elevated importance of Data Science in Statistics, there exists limited research investigating how students learn the computing concepts and skills necessary for carrying out data science tasks. Computer Science educators have investigated how students debug their own code and how students reason through foreign code. While these studies illuminate different aspects of students' programming behavior or conceptual understanding, a method has yet to be employed that can shed light on students' learning processes. This type of inquiry necessitates qualitative methods, which allow for a holistic description of the skills a student uses throughout the computing code they produce, the organization of these descriptions into themes, and a comparison of the emergent themes across students or across time. In this article we share how to conceptualize and carry out the qualitative coding process with students' computing code. Drawing on the Block Model to frame our analysis, we explore two types of research questions which could be posed about students' learning. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Reading numbers aloud, a central aspect of numerical literacy, is a challenging skill to acquire, but the origins of this difficulty remain poorly understood. To investigate this matter, we examined the performance of 127 third- and fourth-grade children who read aloud, in Hebrew, numbers with 2-5 digits. We found several key observations. First, we observed a substantial variation among the 3rd graders--7% and 59% errors in the top and bottom deciles, respectively. Second, the task difficulty stemmed from syntactic processing: Most errors were distortions of the number's syntax, as opposed to digit substitutions or transpositions, and the main factor affecting a specific number's difficulty was not its magnitude, as is commonly assumed, but rather its syntactic structure. Third, number reading performance was not predicted by a school-like task that assessed syntactic-conceptual knowledge of the decimal system structure, but rather by knowledge of specific syntactic-verbal rules, suggesting that the syntactic-verbal knowledge is separate from the syntactic-conceptual knowledge. Last, there was a double dissociation between 4-digit numbers and 5-digit numbers, which in Hebrew have completely different syntactic structures: Half of the children showed a significant advantage in one number length compared to the other, with equal numbers of children preferring either length. This indicates that the different syntactic-verbal rules are learned relatively independently of each other, with little or no generalization from one rule to another. In light of these findings, we propose that schools should specifically teach number reading, with focus on specific syntactic-verbal rules.

Cocreating meaning in collaboration is challenging. Success is often determined by people's abilities to coordinate their language to converge upon shared mental representations. Here we explore one set of low-level linguistic behaviors, linguistic alignment, that both emerges from, and facilitates, outcomes of high-level convergence. Linguistic alignment captures the ways people reuse, that is, "align to," the lexical, syntactic, and semantic forms of others' utterances. Our focus is on the temporal change of multi-level linguistic alignment, as well as how alignment is related to communicative outcomes within a unique collaborative problem-solving paradigm. The primary task, situated within a virtual educational video game, requires creative thinking between three people where the paths for possible solutions are highly variable. We find that over time interactions are marked by decreasing lexical and syntactic alignment, with a trade-off of increasing semantic alignment. However, greater semantic alignment does not translate into better team performance. Overall, these findings provide greater clarity on the role of linguistic coordination within complex and dynamic collaborative problem-solving tasks.

While previous investigations on online machine translation (MT) in language learning have analyzed how second language (L2) learners use and post-edit MT output, no study as of yet has investigated how the learners process MT errors and what factors affect this process using response and reading times. The present study thus investigates L2 processing of MT errors that are caused by syntactic, morphological, and semantic differences between the source and target language and also examines how L2 proficiency and visual display affect this process. Forty-seven Korean learners of English participated in an acceptability judgment task in which they read a Korean sentence and then its translated counterpart in English and had to judge the accuracy of the translated sentence on a four-point scale. The response latencies for the accuracy judgment as well as the total reading times of source and target sentences were measured. The results revealed that: (a) learners generally find it harder to reject mistranslations than to accept correct translations, (b) high and low proficiency learners focus on different aspects of language when processing translated output, and (c) constant visual access to the source text does not facilitate but rather interferes with processing MT errors.

With the change in socio-political and educational contexts in global academia, the trend of writing academic papers has arisen among Nepali students and educators in higher education. However, many of them are still unfamiliar with the basic standard to be incorporated in an academic paper. In this context, this study examined the post-graduate students' errors in writing research proposals. A textual analysis method was employed, where quantitative phase of analysis was followed by qualitative, and the data were collected from 24 purposively selected research proposals and from the interview with 10 students. The quantitative data were gathered from content analysis of the research proposals and qualitative data were collected from the unstructured interview. The collected proposals were studied, erroneous expressions were listed and categorized in to four parameters like grammatical errors, lexical semantic errors, mechanic errors and syntactic errors. The information from the interview was recorded, noted and analyzed. The results exhibited that (1) article and preposition usages were more persistent grammatical errors; (2) run-ons and fragmentation were more reiterated syntactic errors; and (3) uses of single lexical items were more common lexical-semantic errors and punctuation was the more regular mechanical errors. These findings reveal that students have insufficient knowledge and skills for academic writing. Therefore, they need academic writing courses, training, or workshops from the early level of their schooling. The findings of this study are useful for curriculum designers, policymakers, instructors, and students because it provides significant information on the building blocks experienced by English language learners in writing research paper.

Purpose: The purpose of this scoping review was to examine research studies relating to autistic students in learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) to outline potential research agendas and to inform EAL educators of current related issues. Methodology: PRISMA-ScR protocol outlined by Tricco et al. (2018) was followed when selecting the relevant studies published before July 2020 from six prominent databases: Education database, ERIC; Linguistics database, PsycINFO; SAGE, and Scopus. In addition, a hand search of Google Scholars was conducted. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to screen the identified data. Findings: From the evidence provided in the eighteen studies identified, the researcher found that current autism research in EAL focused more on teaching strategies and much less on autistic individuals' EAL learning processes. The 118 autistic participants in the identified studies displayed highly diverse characteristics, which may explain why the case study was the dominant research approach. They were reported by the identified studies to have strong microlinguistic skills (phonology, morphology, syntax-related) but were weak in macro-linguistic skills (e.g., reading comprehension). The researcher noted that some learning behaviours of autistic students have been reported in addition to some teaching strategies perceived effective for teaching autistic EAL learners such as utilisation of technology and a visual approach. Significance: While there is an increasing number of autistic individuals learning EAL, research on autistic students learning EAL and on teaching autistic students EAL has been limited to date. This present study is the first scoping review to investigate existing relevant studies. Despite calling for further investigation into the teaching and learning of autistic students in EAL that involve the perspectives of parents of non-autistic peers, and of the autistic students themselves, interactive patterns of teaching and learning of autistic individuals in EAL classrooms remains an area for further research in the future.

The present study investigated the speaking module of TOEFL iBT with an emphasis on the dichotomy of independent and integrated tasks. The potential differences between the two speaking conditions were intended to be explored based on the oral performance elicited from a group of Iranian test takers. To collect the required data, a simulated version of TOEFL iBT characterized with all test rubrics as practiced by ETS was applied. A total number of 224 oral samples were transcribed and then quantified in terms of complexity and fluency by some internet-based programs including "Coh-Metrix 3" and "Syllable Counter." Moreover, the accuracy of each oral performance was manually computed for comparison purposes. The results revealed that the two speaking contexts were significantly different in terms of linguistic accuracy as well as two complexity measures representing latent semantic analysis and the mean number of modifiers per noun phrase. However, the two speech-eliciting contexts did not trigger any significant difference in the participants' oral language performance in terms of fluency and two other complexity measures, namely lexical diversity and left-embeddedness. The findings may have some implications for all TOEFL iBT stakeholders concerning the speaking subtest.

This research aims to address the syntactic problems that Saudi students confront when translating. The significance of the study is to detect syntactic issues among Saudi Arabian undergraduate students. The question is addressed in the study: what are the syntactic problems that Saudi students confront when translating? The researcher used a descriptive analytical method. The sample of twenty undergraduate students, selected from the boys' section, were males and in the second level, enrolled in the second semester of 2018, at the College of Arts and Sciences, majoring in English in Beljurshi, Al Baha University, and this study used a validated test of written Arabic text as a tool to collect information about the research problem. The data was examined, and the students' syntactic problems were detected and categorized as omission and addition in the study. The study finding reveals that omission received a score of 103 out of a total of 50.7, while additions received a score of 99 out of a total of 49 percent. There are 202 syntactic problems in total. Discussion indicates that grammar norms are not being followed by the students, a lack of familiarity with the two languages' rules, interference between the two languages is the most common cause of errors, and students failed to notice there are some distinctions between English and Arabic. The study recommends pursuing research in additional areas connected to syntactic issues.

The study deals with emphatic constructions in English and Arabic scientific texts. To the researcher's best knowledge, this topic received little attention from linguistic researchers, exceptionally in functional grammar analysis. The importance of this study arises from the fact that some syntactic forms are effective linguistic choices for conveying the meaning of emphasis to the readers. The study aims to identify and analyze different types of linguistic constructions in English and Arabic scientific texts and show the similarities and differences between the two types of scientific texts under investigation. The study intends to analyze the structure of complex clauses by adopting Halliday and Matthiessen's (2004) modal of 'Systemic Functional Grammar' of syntax and Prince's (1978) modal of 'Given-New' information of discourse analysis. These models analyze-samples of English 'Spaceport' magazine and pieces of Arabic 'Sadeem Bulletin' magazine. Moreover, the study depends on a qualitative approach to answer the research questions and confirm its hypothesis. The results show that both languages use some syntactic forms, but Arabic is rich in its constructions. This difference is due to the nature and flexibility of both languages. The findings will be helpful for researchers concerned with syntax and scientific issues because it provides a rigorous analysis of complex clauses into simple parts and shows the focus of information in its suitable.

We conducted a pilot study using intentional teaching strategies with specially designed materials to improve accuracy and production of targeted English morphosyntax structures with six deaf and hard-of-hearing students (kindergarten to first grade). A multiple baseline single-case research design (SCRD) consisting of 20-minute sessions four times per week for the duration of a school year was implemented to determine the effect of the supplemental syntax curriculum. The data were inconsistent and highly variable. Visual analyses were problematic; therefore, hierarchical linear model (HLM) regression analyses were conducted with the time series SCRD data as an additional analysis. HLM regression analyses were used to interpret data that might otherwise be overlooked in SCRDs to provide specific values for the rate students were learning during the intervention phase of the study. This pilot study demonstrates that the syntax intervention produces promising results when data that are too messy for visual analysis are analyzed with HLM.