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摘要：This paper aims to reveal the rhetorical structure and the linguistic features of persuasive language in online advertisements of electronic products. Nowadays, the bulk of e-commerce is carried out in English, and it is often the case that non-native speakers are required to write different text types for various professional purposes, including promotional texts. This need has prompted the present study and the results have been used to build software to help native speakers of Spanish when writing promotional texts in English. The analysis reveals that these texts typically have two main rhetorical moves: one for identifying the product and another one for describing it. The latter move is further divided into two steps: one including objective features (size, weight, etc.) and the other focusing on persuading the potential customer. This is mainly achieved with the use of a relatively informal style (imperatives, contractions, clipping, subject/auxiliary omissions, etc.) and lexico-grammatical elements conveying positive evaluation (multiple modification, multal quantifying expressions, etc.). The findings show that online advertisements of electronic products may be regarded as a specific subgenre with particular macro- and microlinguistic characteristics, which have been identified in this paper for technical writing assistance. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Studies undertaken since the introduction of Web 2.0 have focussed mainly on open educational resources (OERs) such as email, blogging and virtual learning environments. No consistent efforts have been undertaken to study the use of social networking sites as a tool for learning in the second language classroom. This study examined the use of social networking sites as a means of establishing an asynchronous online environment for use in language learning in a classroom setting. The findings described are based on the use of a social networking site called Ning in a classroom during a summer school project, which was conducted at a further education college in the UK. The project focussed in particular on informal language practice when using social networking sites. The paper then examines the effect the use of the social networking tool had on group cohesion and learner-to-learner interaction, and how these, in turn, enhanced informal language learning due to an increase in learner collaboration. The study found that the use of Ning enhanced group cohesion and that learners started working in different groups once Ning was introduced. Finally, it highlights the potential technical and administrative barriers that can impede an institution in implementing its educational strategy in regards to OERs -- in this case, social networking sites in the classroom. The further education college in which this study took place had no policies in place in regards to the use of OERs in the classroom, thus the paper concludes with recommendations in regards to training and policies so that researchers and practitioners can learn from the project. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study investigated how synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and face-to-face (F2F) oral interaction influence the way in which learners collaborate in language learning and how they solve their communicative problems. The findings suggest that output modality may affect how learners produce language, attend to linguistic forms, and solve communicative problems. In particular, the use of collaborative processes to construct utterances was more prevalent in F2F interaction than in SCMC. Moreover, learners engaged in activities and produced language differently depending on output modalities, which differed in terms of the physical, social, and interactional contexts that they created and the way in which they influenced learners' communication strategies. The findings indicate that SCMC should be used selectively according to the pedagogical purpose. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper examines a sample of online discussion data from the course forum for the large-scale beginners' Chinese course offered by the UK Open University. This forum is open to all registered students, their participation is completely voluntary and they (rather than tutors) initiate communications. The aim of this study is (i) to seek to establish the nature, patterns of use and functions of forums amongst distance language learners of beginners' Chinese; (ii) to provide a greater understanding of the role and the significance of learner participation in online forums, and how forums contribute towards Chinese language learning and (iii) to offer a fresh perspective on the understanding of distant Chinese language learning experience, involving a relatively under-reported group of learners. Quantitative data collected from questionnaires and qualitative data from interviews were analysed together with the routine forum data. The analysis indicates that most students had a very positive experience of the forum. The sense of belonging to a group with the same shared goal of learning Chinese helped them deal with the challenges of learning Chinese. They perceived the online discussion forum as a virtual meeting place where they could find support and help, and where they could share their learning experiences, resources, difficulties and frustrations as well as sense of achievement. The analysis also shows that the forum played a very important role in creating course cohesion, supporting the learning of Chinese and making the learning process enjoyable and fun. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Usage-based theories of language learning suggest that native speakers of a language are acutely aware of formulaic language due in large part to frequency effects. Corpora and data-driven learning can offer useful insights into frequent patterns of naturally occurring language to second/foreign language learners who, unlike native speakers, are not privy to a lifetime of input and fine-tuning. Recently, the use of the web in combination with the Google search engine as an accessible corpus and concordancer has received much attention. This article describes an experiment which tests the hypothesis that native speakers of English perceive learner-generated phrases to be more natural after learners have searched the phrases on Google and modified them in light of the frequency of search results. The findings indicate that native speakers perceive phrases that generated more results in Google searches to be more natural.

摘要：Within the integration of technology into language education, special attention needs to be paid to languages for specific purposes (LSP), drawing on developments in computer-assisted language learning and applied linguistics, on the one hand, and on the pervasive use of technology in academic and professional communication, on the other. From a definition of LSP centered on learner need, specificity of activities and materials, and teacher and learner profiles, this article examines how technology has transformed LSP teaching and learning. Through technology, LSP teachers and researchers can access discipline-specific materials and situations and compile corpora of specialized texts. Computer-mediated communication provides learning tools and a gateway to the discourse community. Technology also provides opportunities for collaborating, creating virtual environments and online courses, and fostering learner autonomy. These applications are examined within the current LSP scenario, paying attention to conditions and challenges for implementation, as well as to the roles of teachers and learners. This article also points to areas that merit further analysis from an LSP perspective, such as the use of different technologies and modes for effective learning, the analysis of specialized texts, and the integration into LSP of emerging technologies that have made their way into social uses. Adapted from the source document

摘要：E-mail communication in business and professional contexts has been analysed with a focus on textual and communicative complexity, stylistic conventions, and the relation between e-mails and professional culture. The purpose of the present study is to compare the professional literacy in two professions by studying the use of intertextuality in the e-mail messages two professionals read or wrote in a number of discourse flows. Intertextuality is examined in terms of types and directionality of use. The findings show that while the use of intertextuality is prevalent across all of the e-mails, the types of intertextuality, and their relative frequencies of use, and the directionality of intertextuality are influenced by profession-specific communicative contexts and goals. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Informed by sociocultural theory and guided especially by "collective scaffolding", this study investigated the nature of computer-mediated interaction of three groups of English as a Foreign Language students when they performed collaborative writing tasks using wikis. Nine college students from a Chinese university participated in the wiki-mediated collaborative writing project. Analyses of data from the wiki "Discussion", "Page", and "History" modules on each group tab revealed that the three small groups displayed three distinct patterns of online interaction: collectively contributing/mutually supportive, authoritative/responsive, and dominant/withdrawn. These patterns were substantiated by the roles group members assumed and members' task approaches in terms of equality and mutuality. Also, findings from semi-structured interviews suggested that the different patterns of interaction influenced the students' perceived learning experiences. The collectively contributing/mutually supportive group reported the most learning opportunities. This study not only fills a gap in current collaborative writing literature but also makes a theoretical contribution to research on computer-mediated interaction in collaborative learning. Pedagogical implications on how to conduct computer-mediated collaborative writing are also addressed. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper presents a case study of an individual student's increasing approximation of academic discourse during a third-semester Spanish class that included chat-based instruction. During both chat-based activities and oral discussions in class, the student's language use became increasingly characterized by longer turns and the use of subordination to express opinions. At the same time, her engagement in online play decreased over the course of the semester. This case suggests that, depending on the overall instructional context in which text-based chat is integrated, this medium, which is generally assumed to be social and informal, may actually be flexible enough to also support the development of academic discourse. Furthermore, the detailed description of language use and development across online and off-line environments invites consideration of the relationship between chatting and speaking. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study explored the developed and acquired critical competence of a group of American learners of French as a second language (L2), intermediate level, within a virtual learning environment (VLE). In this VLE, students had to resolve complex problems in a collaborative way. The study focused on the concept of negotiation and co-construction of meaning as a paradigmatic phenomenon of emerging critical competence for learners of a foreign language. It first aimed to evaluate the nature of discourse schemas produced by these learners when chatting in the VLE in order to find out what these schemas indicated about the quality of the critical competence of these learners. Furthermore, this study wanted to explore the learners' perception of the impact of their immersion within the VLE on the development of their critical competence in French in order to better inform the way VLEs should be used in foreign language courses. This study was based on a mixed methods research protocol that favoured the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative data in order to increase the results' validity and credibility. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study explores adolescents' accounts of self-harm with a view to elucidate the implications for health care practitioners seeking to administer care to teenagers in English. Drawing on a corpus of 1.6 million words from messages posted on a UK-hosted adolescent health Web site, analysis began by identifying a range of keywords relating to self-harm. The subsequent contextual examination of these keywords afforded a close description of the contributors' experiences of self-harm and the factors that resulted in their self-injurious behaviours. A recurring theme was that of the habitual nature of self-harm, with the act being represented as a form of addiction over which they had little control. Self-harmers construct the phenomenon as particularly powerful, and the act is formulated as the only effective means of relief from emotional turmoil. If we are to increase parents and health professionals' ability to respond to self-injury in the medium of English, close linguistic attention to individuals' accounts of self-harm is valuable. Online health resources are also valuable means of eliciting concerns from distressed adolescents who are often reluctant to seek support from professionals face-to-face. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The introduction of virtual learning environments has made new tools available that have the potential to support learner communication and interaction, thus aiding second language acquisition both from a psycholinguistic and a sociocultural point of view. This article focuses on the use of videoconferencing in the context of a larger exploratory study to find out how interaction was influenced by the affordances of the environment. Taking a mainly qualitative approach, the authors analysed the written and spoken interaction in recorded videoconferencing sessions, alongside examining some quantitative data to reveal participation patterns. Exploring language learning interaction in a synchronous online medium allows us to show how this is a process mediated by interaction with experts and peers as well as by the artefacts used (e.g., technology) and how learners use and combine multiple modes to make meaning. Our findings illustrate how an online videoconferencing environment with its multiple modalities can be used in language teaching, how teachers and learners adapt to the multimodal online environment and how new patterns of communication emerge in the process. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article discusses the informal learning of English by non-native speakers with particular reference to the role of virtual communities. The concept of informal learning is presented and related to current areas of interest in the literature such as incidental learning, and dynamic systems theory. Our research investigates how non-specialist language learners use the Internet in their spare time to read and listen to English, and also communicate in English, notably in online communities through social networking websites. The study looks particularly at the dynamics of these phenomena by studying a small number of non-native users of English over a period of two months. The results of this research will be used to question the relevance of the learner autonomy paradigm, which has been a cornerstone of language learning policy in Europe for the past thirty years. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study investigates the effects of an optional and required (jigsaw) task on learners' quantity and quality of use of language under synchronous and asynchronous conditions. The question raised is: Does performing either of these task types under synchronous conditions cause a compounding effect that either positively or negatively impacts language production? Eighty-six beginning learners of German participated in this study. The results show that the optional task yielded significantly more learner output, both in terms of target language and c-unit counts. The impact of the condition appears to be mixed, favoring the synchronous mode. Regarding quality, students produced fewer errors when performing the required than the optional task. The results of this study have implications for task design and implementation in online learning environments. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study concerns the development of autonomy in adult learners working on an online learning platform as part of a professional master's degree programme in "French as a Foreign Language". Our goal was to identify the influence of reflective and collaborative dimensions on the construction of autonomy for online learners in this programme. The material used was 27 self-analysis papers in response to an assignment which asked students to review their distance learning experience (reflective dimension) and to highlight the role of others, if any, in their learning (collaborative dimension). In addition to these two major points, the analysis by category of the body of results shows principally that in qualitative terms, the factors of autonomisation for online learning are interconnected and include: the difficulties related to distance learning and the strategies that learners develop to face those difficulties, the importance of interpersonal relationships in social and emotional terms in overcoming those difficulties, the specific modes of sociability developed for distance learning and the related development of a new type of autonomy that is both individual and collective. The discussion examines the creation, over the course of time, of a new "distance learning culture" that is nonetheless never easy to create and share. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study adopts a case study approach to investigate the impacts of synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) learning environments on learners' perception of social presence. The participants were twelve French as a foreign language (FFL) beginners in a Taiwanese university. Divided into three groups, they conducted some tasks in three different learning environments (video/audio, audio and face-to-face) during an academic semester. Before each oral task, all the participants had to conduct the same task in synchronous text chat. The participants' interview transcriptions, learning journals and the instructor's observation journal provided information about the impacts of each environment on their perception of social presence. The results of the study suggested that the differences in the environments are reflected in the learners' perception of social presence. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper reports on the task-based interaction of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in the 3D multiuser virtual environment (MUVE) Second Life. The discussion first explores research on the precursors of MUVEs, text-based 2D virtual worlds known as MOOs. This is followed by an examination of studies on the use of MUVEs in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). The discussion then focuses on an investigation of the Second Life-based text chat of learners located at a university in Japan. Data analysis reveals that the environment, and tasks, elicited types of collaborative interaction hypothesized as beneficial in the sociocultural account of language development. Collaborative interaction identified in the data involved peer-scaffolding focusing on lexis, and correction. The data further showed that the participants actively maintained a supportive atmosphere through the provision of utterances designed to signal interest, and the extensive use of positive politeness. These factors facilitated social cohesion, intersubjectivity, and the consistent production of coherent target language output focused on the tasks. Participant feedback was broadly positive, and indicates that specific features of Second Life such as individual avatars, coupled to the computer-based nature of the interaction, appeared to enhance discourse management, engagement, and participation. The findings suggest that Second Life provides an arena for learner centered social interaction that offers valuable opportunities for target language practice, and the development of autonomy. Areas of potential for future research are identified. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article describes the contradictions reported by student-teachers in Barcelona who engaged in telecollaboration with transatlantic peers via Second Life, during their initial training in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. The data analysis draws upon Grounded Theory and is theoretically informed by Activity Theory and the notion of contradictions. The study discusses technology-based, intra- and inter-institutional contradictions, their impact on the development of the telecollaborative activity, and outcomes in bolstering student-teachers' conceptual understanding of Network-Based Language Instruction. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Despite the spread of reliable desktop audio and videoconferencing facilities, some CMC-based projects still rely on asynchronous written environments, if only because of the temporal constraints of synchronicity (Guichon, 2009; Develotte, Guichon & Vincent, 2010). Yet speaking is usually the skill students most need to improve when learning a second language (L2). This paper therefore sets out to measure the impact of distant written exchanges between Native Speakers (NS) and Non Native Speakers (NNS) on the development of NNS L2 oral output, focusing specifically on the effect of phonological nativisation. The context of this study is a teacher training programme for future primary school teachers in France. During their L2 course aiming to help them improve their mastery of English, they were given the opportunity to take part in a CMC-based project with PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) students from King's College, London. Action research was thus carried out to examine the potential of this project in the development of the participants' L2 oral output. The L2 course being task-oriented, the trainee teachers' L2 oral output was evaluated by means of pre- and post-tests based on tasks. The results show that stability prevails over progress, which is in keeping with the fact that interlanguage development is a long process (Chapelle, 2003: 119). The results also confirm the importance of phonological nativisation when learners have access only to written authentic input. Adapted from the source document

摘要：In this paper I argue that online intercultural interaction and exchange remains a relatively peripheral 'add-on' activity in most foreign language classrooms. In its current state, it is yet to be considered an integral part of curricular activity and it does not yet form a significant part of high stakes assessment procedures. Against this background, it is becoming increasingly difficult for educators to justify to learners the value of their online work. I present here an overview of what online intercultural exchange involves and discuss what have been its contributions to foreign language education. I then present findings from a survey of telecollaborative practices and discuss why this activity has yet to become a 'normalised' part of foreign language learning. Adapted from the source document