Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics
Volume:13 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2022

Research on early-year motivation is needed in the wake of the ever-increasing trend to acquire English at ever-earlier ages. The current study addresses whether early exposure to a foreign language (FL) has a sustainable bearing on one’s motivational disposition for learning that given language in a formal context as he or she advances in his or her course of education. In order to measure the variety and amount of exposure to FL in the formative years of 321 Tunisian primary school children and examine its effect on their motivational depository, a 2-scale self-report questionnaire was conceived ad hoc. Incumbent findings suggested that such exposure weighed significantly on the informants’ motivational orientations. Evidence for such correlation may present an inroad for interested academics and practitioners to explore the possibilities of establishing FLE in a mainstream curricular effort, particularly through a child-friendly pedagogy such that of the awakening-to-languages (ATL) approach.

This study aimed to explore various types of positioning used by master's students in supervisor-supervisee dyads. Conducting a mixed-methods conversion design with a multiple case study as its qualitative phase, we collected data by asking three TEFL master’s students to share with us all their supervisors’ feedback, messages, and supervisory interactions. To track patterns of positioning, in-depth interviews and metalinguistic commentaries were utilized. Analysis of the data using the Appraisal model indicated that two of the supervisors positioned themselves as authoritative and inarguable within the dyad, which caused their supervisees to reposition themselves from novice researchers to passive students. The supervisees, in turn, positioned these professors as unapproachable and irresponsible. On the other hand, while the third professor offered enough space to his supervisee to position herself as an independent scholar, she retained her passive position throughout the process, thereby suggesting that positioning was influenced by both academic discursive practices and non-academic factors.  Overall, despite being a sin qua non of scholarly identity formation, fruitful supervisory relationships could not be fostered among the present participants. Hence, it is suggested that institutional policy makers and educational departments specify clear-cut road maps defining roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in supervisory interactions.

Although the last decade has seen a growing interest in language teacher identity, the investigation of ESP teachers’ professional identity has remained practically unexplored. The present study examined the role of action research in ESP teachers’ professional identity development. We collected interactionally oriented narratives produced by 3 ESP teachers and used the 3A-LTIF framework (i.e., affiliation, attachment, and autonomy) of language teacher identity (Werbińska 2016) to analyze the narratives. Findings showed that action research has a constructive role in ESP teachers’ professional identity development. The ESP teachers affiliated themselves more as ESP teacher-researchers, developed their attachment to do more action research, and seemed to be more self-reliant on conducting their future research projects. Also, the findings revealed that ESP teachers’ action research programs need to consider the specificity of the ESP context. Thus, it can be concluded that action research may potentially serve as a venue to change the ESP teachers’ selves and, consequently, develop their professional identities.

The present study investigated the conventional vs. nonconventional use of idioms in general and academic English as a lingua franca (ELF) corpora taking into account the speech event type, academic domain, and discipline. ELFA and VOICE corpora were searched for idiom tokens based on Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary. Results showed that idioms were more frequent in VOICE than in ELFA, indicating a higher proportion of formulaic language in informal and interactive discourse as compared to more formal and transactional discourses. Tokens in conventional form and meaning were the most frequent in both corpora. Entirely novel idioms were small in number in both corpora. However, both corpora generated a large number of idioms with formal variations. Idiom use in the academic corpus was register sensitive. ELF speakers in both corpora used communication strategies to prevent unilateral idiomaticity. Overuse of high-frequency idioms by some speakers could be associated with idiomatic teddy bears. Results can help understand the nature of idiomaticity in ELF in general and academic settings. Findings on the academic corpus can also inform curriculum development and assessment in English for Academic Purposes.

Understanding the nature of language teachers’ gendered identity is of significance due to its influential role in the development of their professional identity.  However, the number of studies conducted on this area has been rare. The current case study investigated language teacher gendered identity formation to address this gap, focusing on 3 dimensions of gender-based constraints, gender-based discrimination, and gender-based attitudes toward the teaching profession. To analyze the data, content analysis was conducted on the narratives of a male and a female EFL teacher based on 3 levels of coding: (a) open coding, (b) axial coding, and (c) selective coding (Riazi, 2016). Results indicated that the participants experienced a completely opposite professional status based on their gender and the impact of the dominant gender-based ideologies and patriarchal structure in their society. Whereas the female teacher suffered from the existing constraints and discrimination resulting from her gender, the male teacher was more concerned about his economic status as men are breadwinners based on their social norms. This study has pedagogical implications for teachers to be aware of the dynamic nature of their identity and for policymakers, teacher educators, and institutional administrators who need to be cognizant of the impact of sociocultural norms on the formation of language teachers’ gendered identity.

Keywords accompanying abstracts are the metadata and topic representative features of research articles. They can enhance the retrieval, citation, and sorting of the studies in academia. Whereas keywords have been of interest to researchers in various fields of study, few, if any, studies have addressed them in a corpus-driven analysis. The present diachronic case study, then, aimed at analyzing 245 corpus-based studies to investigate their form, relevance, source, and frequency. Selected studies were published in International Journal of Corpus Linguistics from 1996 to 2016. Descriptive analysis of the data revealed that domain-specific keywords were the most frequent ones supporting the journal’s more specific taste. High percentage of keywords with one representation across the two decades alerted the chaos in selecting appropriate keywords. Lack of criteria in selecting the most relevant keywords and asymmetrical forms were among the salient results. Findings may be useful to the researchers, authors of research articles, as well as editors and publishers.

This study aims to address the critical status of the woman singer (the muse) in Stevens’ poem “The Idea of Order at Key West.” In many critical commentaries on this work, the muse is seen as vacillating between two extreme states, that is, as being either resistant to interpretation or as nonexistent whatsoever. The conclusion drawn by these diverse commentaries is that Stevens makes a systematic attempt to suppress the feminine voice by inscribing the determining and determinable male poet at the center of the poem. This research, however, is an attempt to refute this interpretation by drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s philosophical theories concerning the “end of the poem,” and by focusing specifically on formal aspects of the poem. In light of Agamben’s theories, it will be argued that the muse should be seen not only as the sole site of a meaning-making event by referring to its own pure moment of existence without presupposing any transcendental signifier that precedes it, but also as the only reference point that allows fresh possibilities of meaning to emerge. As such, we will show that the muse’s voice is not expropriated by a misogynistic male poet, but on the contrary, it is precisely her indeterminate deictic presence as the pronoun she that makes her, the poem, the poet, and the readers as the ultimate creative sources of meaning who do not yield to any masculine logic of exclusion.

The study elaborates on MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) model of willingness to communicate (WTC) in an L2 by examining the impact of cultural context on shaping the interrelationship among variables affecting Omani students L2 WTC. In developing this mixed-design research, students (n = 204) first answered a questionnaire measuring their perceptions of the effect of various variables on their L2 WTC. Student volunteers (n = 13) were, then, invited to follow-up interviews to collect the qualitative data. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilized to examine a hypothesized model that integrated communication and affective constructs. SEM analysis of the model showed a good fit of the data. Self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) was the most potent variable influencing L2 WTC. However, communication anxiety positively correlated with L2 WTC, whereas motivation was indirect to L2 WTC through SPCC. Accordingly, this study adds meaningful sociocultural insights to previous work on L2 WTC.

This study explored grammatical and rhetorical complexity of a class of undergraduate EFL students’ argumentative texts and its possible impacts on textual features and making arguments over a genre teaching and learning approach. A method of genre teaching and learning was adopted from the Sydney school genre. There are major stages in this method such as deconstruction, joint construction, and independent construction. The focus of this study was on independent construction in which the students produced their independent texts. The use of nominalization as a source of grammatical complexity was the focus of analysis before and after the application of this approach. The quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated improvements both in frequency and complex phrasal construction of nominals after the application of pedagogy in comparison with the students’ prior texts. Findings have implications for teaching and learning of academic writing in EFL contexts.