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Keen observers of Kenyan English usage will agree that idiomatic expressions such as put into consideration, rather than take into consideration, are certainly common in daily usage. The author of this paper set out to establish if that was indeed the case by having a sample of 122 respondents, all fourth-year university students, to choose between put and take. 77% of them chose put, which suggests that the expression put into consideration is indeed quite familiar to Kenyan English speakers. It was tested alongside another 19 idiomatic expressions. 17 out of the 20 were found to be familiar, though to varying degrees. But this familiarity was not reflected in corpus data from the International Corpus of English and the Corpus of Global Webbased English, where they were found to be rare. The same corpus data showed that this familiarity of the 20 expressions to Kenyan English speakers did not mean that they used them more frequently than their Standard International English counterparts. For example, the data showed that the "less familiar" take into consideration had more tokens in the Kenyan English components of the two corpora than the "more familiar" put into consideration. Nevertheless, the paper concludes that so-called Kenyan English idioms can still be claimed to be typical of Kenyan English, since they are practically absent from e. g. British English, its colonial ancestor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study investigates the language use and ideologies of a Chinese-American youth who speaks English, Mandarin, and Fuzhounese, and lives in a predominantly white town. It addresses the scarcity of research on Chinese heritage speakers of varieties in addition to Mandarin, particularly those living outside Chinese communities with extensive heritage language resources. The participant mainly spoke standard English in formal domains, colloquial English informally, and a mixture of English and basic Mandarin at home with his parents, while predominantly using English with his sister. He knew only a few words in Fuzhounese, which was rarely spoken in his daily life. His language ideologies interacted with his identity as a Chinese-American, perceptions of linguistic hegemony, and iconization pertaining to different ethnic communities. He viewed Mandarin as his heritage language with global significance, while Fuzhounese, despite of not mutually comprehensible with Mandarin, was only regarded as a dialect by him, iconized with negative stereotypes about rural Fuzhou and Brooklyn Chinatown. The study enhances our understanding of how multilingual children from immigrant families navigate different languages, and provides implications for offering culturally and linguistically sensitive support for immigrant families speaking less commonly taught languages outside their ethnic communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notwithstanding a body of research examining the way names are associated with the perception and treatment of individuals across social contexts, scant attention has been paid to the study of names in language attitudes research. This study explores American English listeners’ evaluative reactions to standard American and Spanish-accented English when exposed to a name indexing ethnic affiliation (White or Latinx). Participants listened to recordings and rated them along the dimensions of status and solidarity, and perceived accentedness. Additionally, listeners’ expectations about name–accent pairings were measured, and responses about how they reasoned these expectations were also collected and analysed thematically. The results showed that, overall, standard American English was more positively evaluated for status, but not solidarity, than Spanish-accented English. Relatedly, although names were not associated with solidarity or accentedness, there was an effect in which speakers paired with Latinx names were attributed higher status when compared to a control group (audio only). Furthermore, name–accent pairings were a reliable predictor of the valence of listeners’ expectations, which the thematic analysis revealed were underpinned by ideologies of nativeness, raciolinguistic ideologies and ideologies of goodness-of-fit. These findings underscore the importance of exploring other non-verbal cues such as names to better understand listeners’ language attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis multiple-case study is framed within the Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) paradigm, calling for a break from standard English norms in teacher education. Though relevant literature underscores the positive influence of GELT-focused teacher training on teachers’ perceptions, classroom applications remain underexplored. Thus, this study explored the long-term impact of a GELT course on teachers’ instructional practices along with enablers and challenges of Global Englishes practices in diverse settings. The findings show that teachers’ practices became more inclusive linguistically and culturally, offering insights for teachers and teacher educators keen to integrate GELT-informed strategies into their practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Less complex entities (LCEs) make a critical contribution to the public, private and voluntary sectors in England and internationally and account for the great majority of all local public audits. Recently, the role and objectives of financial reporting and external auditing in England have been subject to unprecedented criticism through a number of independent national reports. This paper discusses the auditing arrangements for LCEs in the public sector in England by examining the evidence generated by the local public audit review by Sir Tony Redmond. It discusses implications for the local public audit regime and considers whether the existing and proposed accountability and transparency arrangements are compatible with the new International Standard on Auditing (ISA) for LCEs. It contributes to the limited research on the new ISA for LCEs by investigating the differences and similarities between the new ISA for LCEs and the emerging auditing standards for English LCEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to ascertain the pronunciation inaccuracies of Kurdish English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at the university level when articulating English diphthong phonemes. These students grapple with challenges related to the articulation of diphthong sounds in English due to their limited exposure and practice. The primary objective of this research is to identify, categorize, and quantify the total number of pronunciation errors made by Kurdish EFL students in the context of English diphthongs. A sample of thirty undergraduate Kurdish EFL students, who are native speakers of Northern Kirmanci, participated in this descriptive qualitative study. The students were requested to pronounce 40 English words, encompassing the eight diphthong sounds prescribed by Southern Standard British English Received Pronunciation (RP). Their pronunciations were recorded using smartphones. These students, who were in their senior year of undergraduate studies, were selected for the study. The recordings of the students' pronunciations were meticulously examined to discern common mispronunciations of English diphthong sounds. Subsequently, the data were collected, organized, and ranked in order of prevalence, ultimately revealing a total of 405 errors. The prevalence of diphthong errors is presented as follows: (ʊə) at a rate of 93.3%, (ɪə) 58.8%, (əʊ) 42.2%, (eə) 37.3%, (aʊ) 28.6%, (eɪ) 14.7%, (aI) 8%, and (ɔɪ) 5.8%. Kurdish native speakers frequently encounter difficulties in articulating English diphthongs, primarily due to the absence of these sounds in their native language and a dearth of English pronunciation study and practice throughout their academic journey. These diphthong pronunciation errors manifest in eight distinct patterns, contributing to a spectrum of student proficiency levels. Consequently, to enhance their linguistic competence and accurately pronounce English words containing diphthongs, students should engage in sustained diphthong practice during their academic tenure at the university [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how teachers construct and enact agency in professional learning from an activity theory perspective. Through a qualitative case study of three language teachers' experiences within a professional development (PD) program focusing on China's Standards of English Language Ability (CSE), this research identifies agency construction as a triadic connection-building process among teachers (subjects), the CSE learning target (tool) and teachers' professional development goals (objects). The findings suggest that PD programs can be designed to assist teachers in building these connections by understanding their broader professional needs, guiding them to identify specific learning objectives relevant to their professional practices and supporting their application of the CSE to achieve these objectives. This study contributes to the literature on teacher professional learning by offering a nuanced understanding of teacher agency construction and proposing an agency-oriented approach to PD program design and implementation in facilitating teachers' engagement with new tools like the CSE to support sustainable professional growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the decolonial potential of Chinese bilingual postgraduate students' translanguaging practices in English academic writing. It investigates the ways that students enact translanguaging to delink from monolingual standard English norms and integrate their authentic bilingual voices in the writing process. A case study was conducted to collect the students' written products and record and analyze their approaches and views to language use in academic writing in an English for academic purpose course. The findings reveal that students could employ the integrated multilingual repertoires to enhance learning outcomes, negotiate deficit linguistic views, and voice cultural identities in the writing process. Their translanguaging enactment transcends linguistic boundaries and English-dominated norms, providing empirical support for the decolonization of academic writing in Chinese higher education. The study underscores the importance of student-led negotiation of linguistic and cultural differences, advocating for critical engagement with translanguaging to deconstruct social inequalities perpetuated by hegemonic ideologies and promote bilingual subjectivities in non-Anglophone academic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe present study aimed to test the hypothesis that the total word length on the Memory subtest of the Czech version of the MoCA, which is 12 syllables compared to the English version of 7 syllables, would have a significant effect on Delayed Recall scores compared to the newly created well-balanced version of the test (further MoCA-WLE). In the original Czech version of MoCA, we replaced the 12-syllable word list in the Memory subtest with a 7-syllable list (MoCA-WLE) to make it equivalent to the standard English version in this respect. We analyzed data from 83 participants in the original MoCA group (70.63 ± 7.01 years old, 14.61 ± 3.17 years of education, 30.12% males) and 83 participants in the MoCA-WLE group (70.72 ± 6.95 years old, 14.93 ± 3.48 years of education, 30.12% males). We did not find evidence for a significant word-length effect in the original MoCA versus MoCA-WLE Delayed Recall in either the Mann–Whitney U test (W = 3418.0, p = .932) or multilevel binomial regression (b = 0.10, 95% posterior probability interval [−0.46, 0.68]). The present study shows cross-cultural limits in the adaptation of the test material. The results underline the caveats of such an approach to test adaptation. Fortunately, 12-syllables in the MoCA Memory Czech version versus the original 7-syllable list did not show a detectable word-length effect. We did not find evidence for differential item functioning or cultural item bias. The original MoCA Czech version is psychometrically comparable to the original English version. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The English National Health Service has multiple waiting time standards relating to cancer diagnosis and treatment. Targets can have unintended effects, such as prioritisation based on targets instead of clinical need. In this case, a 'threshold effect' will appear as a spike in hospitals just meeting the target. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of publicly available cancer waiting time data, including a 2-week wait for a specialist appointment, a 31-day decision to first treatment and a 62-day referral to treatment standard that attracted a financial penalty. We examined the performance of hospital trusts against these targets by financial year to look for threshold effects, using Cattaneo et al. manipulation density test. Results: Trust performance against cancer waiting targets declined over time, and this trend accelerated since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Statistical evidence of a threshold effect for the 2-week and 31-day standard was only present in a few years. However, there was strong statistical evidence of a threshold effect for the 62-day standard across all financial years (p < 0.01). Conclusion: The data suggests that the effect of threshold targets alters hospital behaviour at target levels but does not do so equally for all standards. Evidence of threshold effects for the 62-day standard was particularly strong, possibly due to some combination of a smaller volume of eligible patients, a larger penalty, multiple waypoints where hospitals can intervene, baseline performance against the target and where the target is set (i.e. how much headroom is available). RCTs of the use of threshold targets and of different designs for such targets in the future would be extremely informative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main thrust of this study was to explore the English language learning experiences of five Grade 6 Bangsamoro honor pupils at Mapayag Elementary School during the 2022-2023 academic year, employing a phenomenological research design. It uncovered that learners acquire English through various channels including parental assistance, media exposure, and peer interactions at home, while relying on personal efforts, teacher guidance, and peer engagement at school. In the community, learning occurs through interactions with playmates, friends, and relatives. However, learners encounter barriers such as embarrassment, mockery, and limited parental education. The findings underscored the challenges faced by Bangsamoro learners in English language usage due to constrained opportunities and social pressures. The study concluded by recommending initiatives to increase English usage across different contexts, foster interactions with English speakers, expand vocabulary, and emphasize correct language usage to enhance learners' confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the Windrush generation uses phonological and morphosyntactic elements of Jamaican Creole (JamC), London Jamaican (LonJam) and standard British English (SBE) to do identity work in interviews broadcast as part of a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush. The data comprise oral history interviews with four members of the Windrush generation. The recordings were analysed using the method of lectal focussing in interaction. Results show variation across the four speakers, with some speakers using very few LonJam and SBE features, while others’ speech contains almost exclusively standard British variants. The use of JamC features clustered around topics such as home and family reunification, whereas LonJam features were especially present when interviewees talked about their youth. The study broadens the scope of world Englishes studies by including diasporic and elderly speakers and has important implications for the study of language and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World Englishes constitute an ever-developing study field where keeping track of the real-time changes which occur in language usage is a challenging task. This chapter aims at broadening the application field of the research on angloversals, described in literature as particular features divergent from Standard English and shared by English varieties across the world regardless of their geographical proximity or cultural affiliation. The present qualitative study hypothesises the presence of angloversals in Maltese English and considers a blended methodological approach to verify the research hypothesis. The study was performed on selected oral excerpts taken from a random interview to a speaker of the Maltese English continuum. Both the interviewee and the interviewer are native Maltese speakers and communicated in English all throughout the interview with no instances of code mixing between the two languages. Syntactical structures containing the overuse of the progressive aspect, article omission and resumptive pronouns, as well as unmarked phonology traits have been included in the angloversal categories by previous research on the matter. Said features are particularly found in contexts where language contact has had an impact on both the substrate and superstrate languages. This is the case for the Maltese context, where explanations for the plausible presence of the above features are to be sought in the realms of transfer from Maltese to English, language universals and pragmatic principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper approaches variable rhoticity in Scottish Standard English (SSE) from a methodological, data‐oriented perspective. The main focus is on how to integrate within a single sociolinguistic framework data that have been elicited under different conditions (sociolinguistic interviews vs. corpus data) and may therefore be incompatible when we take a relatively simplistic approach to stylistic variation. The article first models variation in such an unbalanced ‘patchwork’ dataset in a holistic, unified analysis and then proceeds to deconstruct the results by taking a closer look at the behaviour of the two main components of the data. While previously reported trends in the development of coda‐/r/ in SSE accents are confirmed, it is also shown that, depending on the precise nature of registers (or genres), productions may be considerably more diverse and may go beyond a simple projection of middle‐class identities. The integration of different styles in a single interpretive framework is challenging and far from straightforward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analysed Education First’s Standard English Test scores coming from 2 mln learners of English in 109 countries world-wide. Proficiency in English as a global lingual franca is an important skill in various areas of international communication. A larger linguistic distance between English as a second language and a learner’s first language has been put forward as increasing the efforts or costs of learning English. Instead of the subjective measures used in the past, we constructed a quantitative linguistic distance measure based on comparing words (lexicon), constructions (morpho-syntax), and sounds (phonology) between English and 59 mother tongues. Mixed regression analyses were carried out on the countries’ proficiency scores with a country’s human capital index, the official status of English in a country, and linguistic distance as predictors. All three predictors turn out to be robust proficiency determinants. Language skills constitute an essential component of human resources in today’s emerging and growing knowledge economy. These skills cannot be taken for granted and additional language training is required when linguistic distances are large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With timeliness and efficiency being critical in the aviation maintenance industry, the need has been growing for smart technological solutions that help in optimizing and streamlining the different underlying tasks (Bergkvist & Sabbagh, 2021). One such task is the technical documentation of the performed maintenance operations (Siyaev & Jo, 2021a). Instead of paper-based documentation, voice tools that transcribe spoken logbook entries allow technicians to document their work right away in a hands-free and time efficient manner. However, an accurate automatic speech recognition (ASR) model requires large training corpora (Siyaev & Jo, 2021a), which are lacking in the domain of aviation maintenance. In addition, ASR models which are trained on huge corpora in standard English, perform poorly in such a technical domain with non-standard terminology (Siyaev & Jo, 2021b). Hence, this study investigates the extent to which fine-tuning an ASR model, pre-trained on standard English corpora, on limited in-domain data improves its recognition performance in the technical domain of aviation maintenance. We present a case study on one such pre-trained ASR model, wav2vec 2.0 (Baevski et al., 2020). Results show that fine-tuning the model on a limited anonymized dataset of maintenance logbook entries significantly reduces its error rates when tested on not only an anonymized in-domain dataset, but also a non-anonymized one. This suggests that any available aviation maintenance logbooks, even if anonymized for privacy, can be used to fine-tune general-purpose ASR models, and enhance their in-domain performance. Lastly, an analysis on the influence of voice characteristics on model performance stresses the need for balanced datasets representative of the population of aviation maintenance technicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of sports activities on English Language Learning Motivation (ELLM), with a particular focus on how interaction and cooperation within these activities impact students in multilingual environments. Data were collected through surveys administered to 150 students who engaged in sports as part of their ELLM program. Leveraging theories of the interaction hypothesis and cooperative learning, the research examines how real-life communication scenarios in sports--such as teamwork, game instructions, and peer interactions--offer authentic opportunities for language use. These experiences are shown to significantly enhance students' motivation to learn English by increasing language usage frequency and boosting confidence. The study also explores the distinct challenges and opportunities presented by multilingual contexts, demonstrating how sports activities can act as a dynamic tool to mitigate language anxiety and facilitate language acquisition. The results reveal moderate to strong positive correlations between teamwork (r = 0.65), game instructions (r = 0.70), and peer interactions (r = 0.75) with ELLM. ANOVA results indicate significant variations in motivation related to participation in teamwork (F (2, 96) = 12.45, p < 0.01), game instructions (F (2, 97) = 9.32, p = 0.0002), and peer interactions (F (2, 97) = 14.67, p < 0.0001). However, post-hoc analysis suggests that while peer interactions positively affect motivation, the effects of teamwork, game instructions, and peer interactions on motivation do not differ statistically. This paper provides practical insights into integrating sports into language education, advocating for a more engaging and effective learning environment through a blend of theoretical analysis and empirical research, including surveys, interviews, and classroom observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to enrolling in an English as a medium of instruction (EMI) institution, students must show an English proficiency level through meeting a benchmark on a standard English proficiency test, which is typically aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Along with overall English proficiency, aural/written vocabulary level mastery could also predict students' success at EMI institutions, as students need adequate English vocabulary knowledge to comprehend lectures and course readings. However, aural/written vocabulary level mastery has yet to be clearly benchmarked to CEFR levels. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the correlations between students' aural/written vocabulary level mastery and their CEFR levels. Forty undergraduate students in a Macau EMI university were recruited to take one English proficiency test and two vocabulary level tests (i.e., Listening Vocabulary Levels Test (LVLT) and the Updated Vocabulary Levels Test (UVLT)). Correlation analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between students' CEFR levels and their mastery of listening and reading vocabulary levels. A positive correlation was found between students' CEFR levels and their mastery of receptive aural vocabulary levels (ρ = 0.409, p = 0.009). Furthermore, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between students' CEFR levels and their mastery of receptive written vocabulary levels (ρ = 0.559, p < 0.001). Although positive correlations were observed, no clear pattern was identified regarding the relationship between students' CEFR levels and their mastery of aural/written vocabulary levels. Regression analyses were further conducted to determine the extent to which the combination of receptive aural and written vocabulary knowledge predicts the CEFR levels. The results indicated that the regression model that included only UVLT scores better predicted the CEFR levels. Given the positive correlations observed between students' CEFR levels and their mastery of vocabulary levels, this study's findings suggest the inclusion of aural/written vocabulary levels as additional indicators for ensuring student academic success in EMI institutions. Implications for EMI universities on student admissions, classroom teaching, and provision of additional English courses were provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveying a representative sample of studies of colloquialisation, a tendency for written norms to move closer to spoken usage, the chapter explores: the relationship between colloquialisation, operationalised in exclusively linguistic terms, and informalisation and democratisation, two processes primarily targeting wider sociocultural change, and complications arising when colloquialisation is extended beyond its original domain of application, standard written English of the ENL type. There are two major findings. Colloquialisation works less well in the study of ESL varieties than ENL ones. In addition, recent real-time analyses of change in spoken English suggest that the supposedly homogeneous baseline style of informal conversational English is more internally variable than is assumed in current work on colloquialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial inequalities persist in education, impacting various aspects, including language teaching. Traditional English language education has often favored standard English, inadvertently marginalizing non-native English speakers and users of diverse English varieties. This perpetuation of linguistic bias reinforces White hegemony within educational systems. This article contends that Global Englishes offers a promising approach to ameliorating racial inequalities in language education. It delves into the core principles of Global Englishes, scrutinizing linguistic, sociolinguistic, and sociocultural diversity and fluidity inherent in English use and its users in our globalized world. Furthermore, it explores how the Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) framework can promote equality, emphasizing best practices for implementing GELT to address racial inequalities. Global Englishes advocates for a more adaptable view of language, liberating non-native speakers from native-speaker norms. Global Englishes places learner agency at the forefront, nurturing linguistic creativity, advocating for curricula that acknowledge multilingualism as the norm, and affirming learners' linguistic repertoires without reference to native norms. It also encourages a critical approach, analyzing the impact of prevailing standard language ideologies and White native-speakerism biases within learners' contexts. The article concludes by offering insights into future directions to address racial inequalities in education, emphasizing the importance of incorporating multiracial perspectives into educational frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread use of English as a lingua franca (henceforth ELF), namely a contact language between speakers from different lingua-cultural backgrounds (Firth, 1996), has affected all aspects of human activity, including those of English language teaching and assessment. Regarding the latter, its reorientation towards an ELF-aware paradigm that meets the numerous non-native speakers' needs for effective intercultural communication is definitely called for as the number of multicultural EFL classes and the instances of ELF interaction outside the English class are steadily increasing. This reorientation could involve a shift from conventional testing based on Standard English norms towards alternative modes of assessment that reflect the features of intercultural communication and focus on the strategies employed by efficient ELF speakers as these are demonstrated in relevant literature and studies. When it comes to the assessment of oracy skills within a multicultural EFL context, which is the focus of this paper, learners' performance could be assessed through systematic observation and the use of ELF-aware speaking tasks and criteria, whose effectiveness was investigated in a relevant small-scale study, conducted within a multicultural Greek EFL context. This study indicated that despite its excessive demands on time, effort and concentration, observation-based assessment has significant potential in stimulating and promoting the development of communicative oracy skills and strategies. The elements of observation that contribute to its effectiveness are analysed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative case study examines factors affecting ELT teachers' culture teaching practices in an English language classroom of a private school in Bangkok, Thailand. The data were collected within five months through classroom observations, pre- and post-interviews and document archives, with the participation of six Thai teachers and one South African teacher teaching at the lower secondary level. The research shows that teachers' pedagogical practices are affected by both internal and external factors, including the influence of Standard English ideology among Thai people on the school's administration and policy. Nonetheless, teachers themselves are the most decisive factor in implementing intercultural education. Their cognition primarily dictates what culture should be taught as well as how to teach culture. Therefore, the study demonstrates the way ELT teachers integrate culture into their classroom, and explains how their teaching and learning experience, especially within teacher education and professional development contexts, profoundly impact their practices in teaching culture and intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English nowadays can no longer be related solely to Standard English and an Anglo-centred standpoint, but it needs to be understood from a wider perspective, one that takes into account World Englishes varieties and its use as a lingua franca (ELF). Indeed, English has developed into one of the most widespread means of communication in contexts where speakers do not always share the same linguistic and cultural background and need to coconstruct mutual understanding. In order for students to effectively and appropriately use English in today globalised world, they need to be prepared to a wide range of English practices and to be able to interact in diverse and complex communicative contexts. The development of students' ELF communicative skills entails the need to adopt and devise materials that provide a more complex conceptualisation of English, including how communication strategies represent important resources to reach mutual understanding in ELF intercultural communication. Adopting an ELF-aware pedagogical perspective, this paper aims at presenting and discussing some guidelines that could help teachers develop their own ELF-aware materials, especially focusing on the use of communication strategies and meaning negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical views on language testing have long pointed out that tests are not neutral and that the use of test results requires a deeper interrogation of who is assessed, in what language and to whose benefit In South Africa, English, especially Standard English, creates a linguistic market where additional language (L2) students' writing and English language proficiency are under constant evaluation. Various systemic tests since 1994 highlight students' low English language proficiency, often resulting in negative discourses about their L2 proficiency and teachers' pedagogy. However, a key factor missing in such a narrative is how writing test design and its corresponding examination discourse impact pedagogy and the required writer identities needed in post-school contexts. This study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to illustrate the relationship between L2 writing discourse in the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination (2017-2019) and the writing requirements stipulated in the national curriculum. The findings reveal that narrow definitions of writing proficiency underpin the test items and that the assessment documents are unlikely to contribute to academic writing and discourse competencies in school or post-school contexts in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to review how international female faculty experience linguistic challenges and bias in their US university careers. Design/methodology/approach: By reviewing related literature, the authors explore the career challenges of international female faculty including hiring, promotion and tenure and leadership opportunities from a linguistic profiling perspective. Findings: International female faculty have relatively few hiring opportunities, specifically when institutions and fields openly accept linguistic profiling and bias and are less likely to hire non-native English-speaking international faculty. In the promotion and tenure process, international female faculty have struggled with standard academic English criteria and poor teaching evaluations from students because of the faculty's different English usage such as word choice, grammar and pragmatics. In terms of leadership opportunities, international female professors have faced linguistic bias that non-native English faculty members are not competent, credible, intelligent or skilled because they speak accented English. Originality/value: This study can help researchers and career development practitioners by adding linguistic profiling specific diversity and inclusion perspectives to existing literature. The findings expand the perspectives and practices related to the career challenges of international female faculty due to linguistic profiling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines linguistic prejudice towards the accents of three regional varieties of Philippine English: Cebuano English, Ilocano English, and Tagalog English. Data were collected using a verbal-guise technique taken by 982 listener-judges, who were selected using a purposive sampling technique. Results showed an overall more favorable attitude towards Tagalog English. Cebuano English and Ilocano English speakers were judged as less socially attractive and less competent compared to their Tagalog English counterparts. In the multilingual Philippines, where languages in the periphery, i.e. languages other than English and Tagalog, face negative stereotypes, the results indicate potential linguistic prejudice towards accents that individuals view as deviating from the standard, i.e. the Tagalog English accent as 'the' standard of Philippine English. The findings are discussed in light of the ongoing observation of the development of Philippine English in the Schneiderian model of postcolonial Englishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies blending as a word-formative strategy used in newly coined vocabulary in English and English borrowings in Bulgarian. It involves merging parts of two or more words to create a new lexical unit and typically occurs when the beginning of the first is combined with the end of the second to form a new word that represents a combination of their meanings. Blending is commonly used to create new words for technological advancements, brand names, and other contemporary concepts. For this study we constructed two databases containing vocabulary which has already been included in the dictionaries of Standard English and some of them in the Dictionary of New Bulgarian Words. Additionally, we try to determine the processes of adaptation the English borrowings are subject to when they are adopted in the target language and their assimilation. The article also explores morphological differences in the construction of English and Bulgarian blends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initial validation of the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS) identified five correlated factors: Government Malfeasance, Malevolent Global Conspiracies, Extraterrestrial Cover‐up, Personal Well‐being and Control of Information. Despite replications of this structure, ensuing research, mostly using translated versions of the GCBS (i.e., Persian and Japanese), has reported factorial alternatives. Concomitantly, researchers postulated that belief in conspiracies was higher in historically troubled societies (e.g., Serbia). To further assess the cultural stability of the five correlated factor solution and test the assumption that GCBS scores are affected by social‐political instability, a Serbian adaptation of the GCBS was assessed alongside the standard English language version. Data were collected from Serbian (n = 259, 44.40% males) and UK samples (n = 402, 52.25% males). Within samples, confirmatory factor analysis replicated the five‐factor solution. Additionally, national and gender invariance was confirmed. National comparisons (Serbia vs. UK) revealed that the Serbian sample scored higher on Government Malfeasance, Malevolent Global Conspiracies, Personal Well‐being and Control of Information, whereas the UK sample scored higher on Extraterrestrial Cover‐up. There were no gender differences on GCBS factors. Findings indicated that while the Serbian GCBS was interpreted similarly to the GCBS, societal factors influenced endorsement of belief facets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research aims at investigating how the Pakistani English Novel writers have deployed grammatical syntactical structures typical of Pakistani English variety in their writings. It's a natural factor when two languages come in contact with each other they are get influenced by each other. Same is the case with Pakistani English variety. The study also aims at how Urduised words contribute to the unique characteristics of Pakistani English variety and in which contexts these words are used. The research is based on the model proposed by Mahboob (2004; 2009). The data is collected from three different novels written by Pakistani English Novel writers Ahmad Ali and Bapsi Sidhwa. The data is analyzed qualitatively. Different grammatical and syntactical structures are collected from the three texts and are analyzed qualitatively. The results reveal that Pakistani English is unique and legitimate at its place and differs from Standard British English not only in its grammatical forms but also at the syntactic constructions too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anglicisation of Scottish writing, a development in which the features of the previously high-status Scots language variety became marginalised and proscribed in favour of prestige Standard English variants, is typically dated by scholars to the sixteenth through eighteenth century. The effect of anglicisation on upper- and middle-class Scottish authors' written language has been attested in numerous studies; however, how the metalinguistic ideologies of the time affected the language of the Scottish lower classes has long remained underinvestigated. This study makes use of the recent publication of a corpus of lower-class Scottish writing from the nineteenth century – the Corpus of Scottish Pauper Petitions – to investigate the effect of prescriptivism on lower-class Scottish writing as documented in nineteenth-century pauper petitions. The materials are placed side-by-side with the writings of upper- and middle-class Scottish people during this period, taken from the Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing. This study, which investigates both overt and covert Scotticisms by drawing respectively on usage guides by contemporaneous prescriptivists and works by modern linguists, takes a 'from below' approach to Scotland's linguistic history and represents a new step in our understanding of the development of historical Scottish writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exercise in reflection on my role as a researcher-teacher, while designing and implementing a qualitative study in a secondary school in Singapore. The first study of its kind locally, I designed and taught a bidialectal programme with Singlish as a resource to facilitate the teaching of Standard English. The 8-week programme was delivered to two classes of Secondary One students (13 year olds) in a mainstream secondary school, between July to August 2019. In this reflection, I first conceptualize gaining access as part of the research project, resulting in a research design that involved myself as a researcher-teacher. The nature of Singlish then posed particular issues when it came to designing teaching materials for students, even as certain aspects of classroom teaching went well. I discuss my dual position as researcher-teacher in the data collection process, before addressing the importance of and how I shifted between analytic familiarity and distance from the data. It is hoped that being transparent about the research process in this fashion will strengthen the field and be useful to fellow researchers embarking on similar studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Andreas Bartels' book, Wissenschaft, explores the unique authority of science compared to other forms of knowledge. It uses real-life examples from various scientific fields to support its argument. While not a textbook on the philosophy of science, the book delves into the historical conceptions of science, the nature of scientific theories, and the demarcation of science from everyday knowledge and metaphysics. It also discusses the implications of science for objectivity, truth, and ethics. Bartels' interdisciplinary approach and use of case studies make the book a valuable resource for understanding the nature and significance of science. The article, written by Niels Linnemann and reported by an anonymous author, briefly mentions Springer Nature's neutral stance on jurisdictional claims and institutional affiliations in their published maps and affiliations. No further information or context is provided in the article. [Extracted from the article]

International intelligibility among World Englishes is indisputably pertinent. Second language contexts, such as Nigeria, often adopt the Received Pronunciation (RP) to achieve intelligibility and serve as the pedagogical and descriptive basis of the language (Carr & Honeybone, 2007). However, studies on spoken Nigerian English (NE) have established that RP is unattainable by Nigerians, English language teachers inclusive (Akinjobi & Aina, 2014; Aina, 2014; Adesanya, 2020a; Agboyinu, 2018; Aiyeola, 2021). Search for an ancillary model of Standard English pronunciation in Nigeria, therefore, becomes a necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines written literacy outcomes among Saudi female university students undertaking an EFL journalistic course over fourteen weeks. It specifically aims to explore their competence in the English hard news genre. It, thus, seeks to address the following question: after completing the course, to what degree did students create texts structurally matching the conventional English news report? The significance of this study lies in its integration of media and education, employment of linguistic analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics, and use of English expert news reports for comparison with students' journalistic texts. It deployed the genre-based pedagogy devised within the Sydney School to design the news writing course. Twenty-five students undertook such a course during the 2022 academic year. This study gathered those students' writing to subject it to linguistic scrutiny, assessing each student over one news report after completing the course. It reports that, after the course, half of the class developed their ability to produce the genre of the standard English language hard news report. Those students created texts that matched the professional news articles in the corpus, thus effectively following the textual features of such a genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates internal and external constraints conditioning variable T-glottaling, the realization of the voiceless alveolar stop /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ], in supraregional Scottish Standard English. Drawing on phonemically annotated speech data from the Scottish component of the International Corpus of English, a total of 12,162 /t/ tokens produced by 138 speakers were extracted from eight formal speaking categories in the corpus and analyzed auditorily. The results showed that about 28% of the analyzed /t/ tokens were produced as glottal stops, with significant inter- and intra-speaker variability. The realization of T-glottaling is subject to both linguistic (phonetic context and word type) and social factors (age, gender, and speech style). Moreover, patterns of various types of T-glottaling differ from each other and constitute distinctive processes of ongoing sound change in Scotland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the concept of definition in ancient philosophy, specifically in the context of the Early Academy. It discusses Speusippus' argument, known as the "Omniscience Puzzle," which questions the idea that knowing the definiendum is sufficient for defining it. The article also examines Aristotle's critique of the puzzle and explores the implications of the puzzle for Speusippus' conception of knowledge and ontology. Additionally, the text discusses the relationship between Speusippus' ontology and epistemology in comparison to Plato's views. [Extracted from the article]

Students from Asian countries form the largest group of mobile international students in Western anglophone countries. Despite research on the mobility experiences of international students to anglophone and non-anglophone countries, there are limited cross-comparative, mixed-method studies exploring the experiences of host language acquisition and usage and how these impact on academic performance and shapes social connectedness. This study contributes further understanding by exploring language acquisition experiences of international university students in Taiwan and Australia, where the language of instruction is not their native language. In the two universities studied, usage levels (general usage, speaking, reading, listening and writing) differed and depended on situational and contextual needs. Those studying in Australia consistently reported higher mean scores of host language usage across three of the five components: listening, reading and writing. Written communication was perceived to be a challenge for both groups during interviews. Overall, students preferred face-to-face classroom learning and highly valued peer support. Information communication and technology use was common in supporting vocabulary and pronunciation. We discuss how the findings of our study inform the types of academic learning support needed, and how these differed, depending on the host language, and student background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robb Dunphy's book, "Hegel and the Problem of Beginning: Scepticism and Presuppositionlessness," examines Hegel's approach to the problem of beginning in his work, particularly in his essay "With What Must the Beginning of the Science Be Made?" Dunphy argues that Hegel's solution to this problem is a response to the Pyrrhonian dilemma of an arbitrary beginning. He explores the modes of Pyrrhonian skepticism and how they relate to Hegel's concept of pure being as a non-arbitrary starting point. Dunphy also critiques Hegel's claim that the Phenomenology of Spirit provides the mediation of pure being and proposes an alternative path to the beginning of Hegel's Logic through a "completed skepticism." While Dunphy's argument is persuasive, there may be room for further exploration of Hegel's alternative approach. Overall, this book sheds light on an important aspect of Hegel's philosophy that is often overlooked and is recommended for students and scholars interested in Hegel and skepticism. [Extracted from the article]

The term "multimodal media literacy" (MLM) describes the ability to interact with, analyze, evaluate, and produce information while operating within a variety of different contextual frameworks. The incorporation of several modes, codes, and languages (such as iconic, verbal, gestural, aural, and kinetic) into a single setting is what is meant by the term "multimodality," which refers to the presence of such elements. The development of skills that go beyond simple reading, writing, and speaking competency is the focus of this area of study. Specifically, this area of study is concerned with the cultivation of capacities. Literacy in multimodal media successfully includes the standard English abilities together with other skills that are uniquely relevant to the qualities and channels utilised in the process. In addition to this, it is required to have a proficient level of technology as well as skill in the manipulation and development of a literacy that is immersed in digital and collaborative spaces. As a result, the multimodal text, often known as "multi text," is produced as a result of the purposeful combination or orchestration of a great number of modes, codes, languages, and technologies. The purpose of this research is to investigate the extent to which MML is used in academic settings where English is spoken and to do so across a variety of subject areas. In addition to this, it intends to investigate the history of the MML industry, locate abilities that are transferable to other contexts, and investigate the unique talents that are linked with MML. In addition, the research will make use of two research projects that were carried out at the Bakeri school in Tabriz, both of which focused on secondary school students, in order to show the application of MML grids and evaluate the level of competency of the students who participated in the study in these abilities. The conclusions that may be drawn from these investigations will shed light on the degree to which pupils have mastered MML abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel strategy based on a hybrid algorithm of Elephant Herding Optimization Big Bang–Big Crunch is provided to address the English character recognition problem with interference from external noise. A model used to recognize handwritten Hindi (Devanagari) characters is called Hindi OCR (optical character recognition). Despite the fact that only a few nature-inspired algorithms are used for OCR, none are used for the characters seen in natural scenes due to the difficulties presented by the various fonts, lighting, orientation, and texture variations. Also, Hindi's curved and complicated architecture makes it challenging to separate and analyze the text or character. Better feature databases are created using the proposed Hybrid EHO–B3C model to facilitate categorization. Two standard datasets of English characters, Char74k and ICDAR03, are used to assess the performance of the novel Hybrid EHO–B3C on natural scene characters. The proposed model is also evaluated on the Devanagari handwritten character dataset, which is a dataset consisting of characters from the Hindi language. Results show 83% results on Char74k and 86.4% on ICDAR, comparable to most available techniques. We have also examined our algorithm for face recognition by examining it on five different datasets, namely MUCT, Faces94, Extended Yale B, Georgia Tech, and Grimace, and attained high recognition results, even though the data sets differ in size, image size, brightness and ethnicity of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides guidelines for writing an abstract, which is a concise summary of a research paper. The author emphasizes the importance of storytelling in abstract writing and suggests focusing on the organization and impact of the writing rather than just the methods used. The article also provides tips for each section of an abstract, including the introduction, methodology, results, and discussion/conclusion. The author emphasizes the need for clarity, coherence, and relevance in abstract writing, as well as the importance of editing and proofreading. Overall, the article highlights the importance of effective abstract writing in conveying research findings to a diverse audience. [Extracted from the article]

Query‐focused multi‐document summarization (Qf‐MDS) is a sub‐task of automatic text summarization that aims to extract a substitute summary from a document cluster of the same topic and based on a user query. Unlike other summarization tasks, Qf‐MDS has specific research challenges including the differences and similarities across related document sets, the high degree of redundancy inherent in the summaries created from multiple related sources, relevance to the given query, topic diversity in the produced summary and the small source‐to‐summary compression ratio. In this work, we propose a semantic diversity feature based query‐focused extractive summarizer (SDbQfSum) built on powerful text semantic representation techniques underpinned with Wikipedia commonsense knowledge in order to address the query‐relevance, centrality, redundancy and diversity challenges. Specifically, a semantically parsed document text is combined with knowledge‐based vectorial representation to extract effective sentence importance and query‐relevance features. The proposed monolingual summarizer is evaluated on a standard English dataset for automatic query‐focused summarization tasks, that is, the DUC2006 dataset. The obtained results show that our summarizer outperforms most state‐of‐the‐art related approaches on one or more ROUGE measures achieving 0.418, 0.092 and 0.152 in ROUGE‐1, ROUGE‐2, and ROUGE‐SU4 respectively. It also attains competitive performance with the slightly outperforming system(s), for example, the difference between our system's result and best system in ROUGE‐1 is just 0.006. We also found through the conducted experiments that our proposed custom cluster merging algorithm significantly reduces information redundancy while maintaining topic diversity across documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether the concepts of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) apply to multilingual university contexts, focusing on the trilingual Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Utilising a combined methodology including semi-structured interviews, focus groups, thematic analysis, and reflective analysis, we explore two distinct aspects: first, we delve into tutors' perceptions of students' strengths and weaknesses in academic writing across the three languages; second, we examine students' conceptions of academic writing and their lived experiences with it. The findings challenge the conventional understanding of EAP, revealing its limitations in multilingual settings. Both students and lecturers express the need for an inclusive model that sets standards while respecting local values. The research advocates for a balanced approach that supports the transition from local to international academic writing standards in English. These insights have implications not only for the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, but also for other multilingual institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Rosina Lippi-Green's (1997,2012) classic quantitative study of linguistic representation in animated Disney films of the 20th century found these films to be discriminatory. Her main and most publicized finding was that characters who spoke varieties of American English tended to be morally good, while characters with a foreign accent were often evil and untrustworthy. Following a methodological discussion of Lippi-Green's approach as it relates to our own, we investigate the degree to which her results also describe 273 characters from Disney's successful "Revival Era," starting with The Princess and the Frog (2009) and ending with Encanto (2021). We find, among other significant developments, that the foreign-accented characters in these more recent films are distinctively good. Also examined are other relationships between characters' language, moral standing, gender, and age. Notably, female and younger characters tend to speak Standard American English, and they tend to be more moral than male and older characters. We end by discussing some possible causes of the main developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global prevalence of English as a lingua franca (ELF) across diverse linguacultural communities within the three circles invites an in-depth analysis of its phonological and lexicogrammatical features, especially among non-native English speakers. This qualitative study investigated these features among 30 Thai students from English and non-English programs, emphasizing natural occurrences in academic settings. Participants were directed to record audio and video during collaborative activities with peers and lecturers inside and outside the classroom. Through Conversation Analysis, findings revealed a significant divergence in the phonological and lexicogrammatical features of ELF participants compared to speakers of standard British English (BrE) and American English (AmE). Specifically, nonstandard lexicogrammatical features concerning verb, noun, article, word choice, tense, and preposition emerged predominantly. Furthermore, common phonological deviations included omission of final consonant sounds, mispronunciation of the schwa sound, confusion in pronouncing the article 'the,' mispronunciation of words ending with '-ine,' and substitution of/v/with/c/. The data suggests widespread use of non-standard English norms, indicating linguistic adaptation beyond traditional boundaries in various environments. Significantly, this study contributes by highlighting how ELF participants reshape language for effective communication, prioritizing intelligibility over nativelike proficiency, with insights extending beyond the Thai context, valuable for educators, linguists, and intercultural communication practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]