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摘要：This article begins by defining World Englishes (WEs) and the related paradigm of inner-, outer-, and expanding-circle English(es). The discussion then turns to the central concerns of the WEs and language testing (LT) communities with regard to how English tests can best be constructed to include various WEs by discussing (a) what language testers need to understand about WEs (i.e., that the English native speaker norm is no longer sacred and that three different perspectives on English diversity may prove useful in LT) and (b) what language testers need to convey to WEs advocates (i.e., that LT is already contributing to the understanding of linguistic variation, that LT is not ignoring WEs issues, and that LT is much more than the standardized international tests). The article ends with seven recommendations that should make the intersection of WEs and LT more productive. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Institutional and corporate writing have been widely investigated over the last two decades by applied linguists, educationalists and ESP scholars, with special attention given to business correspondence, annual reports, press releases and, more recently, email messages and other digital media. Some kinds of documents, however, still await scrutiny. This exploratory study turns to the customer-complaint form, a well-established but relatively unresearched genre that frames the reporting of critical incidents to service providers. Its structure and wording are described contrastively across a sample of texts produced by British and Italian organisations. The results highlight several differences between the two samples in terms of structure, wording of requests/instructions, and conventional indirectness. While many of these are language-driven, others may be interpreted as an expression of national perceptions of the duties and expectations of the parties involved. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

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：Intercultural studies have shown the existence of rhetorical variation in the prevalent discourse practices of multilingual scholars and those of English-speaking scholars. In this paper, we examine comparatively the typical rhetorical practices used in the Introduction section of 80 research articles written in English and 80 in Spanish in four disciplines in the fields of Health Sciences and Humanities/Social Sciences. We particularly examine how writers present their research studies in Move 3 (Swales, 2004), with a special focus on those steps that add promotional value to one's research. The results revealed that, within the same field, the English texts present a higher degree of rhetorical promotion than the Spanish texts in each of the disciplines analysed. However, when comparing the two broad fields, the Spanish texts in Health Sciences present a higher degree of promotion than the English (and Spanish) texts in Humanities/Social Sciences. This indicates that, in shaping the promotional features of the (sub)genre in question, when professional and national cultural variables interact simultaneously, cultural factors tend to override the influence of disciplinary context. However, when broad fields of knowledge are compared, it is the disciplinary conventions in specific professional subcultures that seem to prevail over national cultural factors. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：In lecture introductions, student engagement is important for receptivity of the lecture. The study examined the use of personal pronouns (we, I, you) in lecture introductions in the arts and science disciplines. The 37,373-word corpus was compiled from 47 lecture introductions delivered in English in a Malaysian university. You is the most frequently used personal pronoun, followed by I and we which both have similar frequencies. All three pronouns are used for activating prior knowledge and giving instructions or announcements, the two main activities of the lecture introductions. In addition to these discourse functions, you-audience is used when lecturers share personal experiences and direct students' attention but you-generalised occurs in explanations of subject matter. Inclusive-we is used for stating aims and objectives of the lecture and occurs more frequently than exclusive-we which sometimes surfaces in science lecturers' explanations of the subject matter when reviewing content covered in previous lectures. The results suggest a disciplinary difference in the use of personal pronouns for student engagement in lecture introductions because the science lecturers used you-audience, we for I, we for one and I more than arts lecturers but you-generalised is more frequent in arts lecture introductions. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Most previous studies of epistemic modality in legal settings discuss epistemic modality as performing an interpersonal engagement or a positioning function. Via a probability test, the present corpus-driven study examined the way in which epistemic modality is employed in civil judgments to construct legal facts and to indicate legal probability. The study compared how different types of epistemic modality are used in judicial practice in different jurisdictions, namely Hong Kong, which is a common law jurisdiction, and Scotland, which is a mixed jurisdiction. Specifically, we examined the variation in the orientation of epistemic modality, that is, whether implicit or explicit and whether subjective or objective, and the variation in the value of epistemic modality, that is, high, median, or low. The findings suggest that both subjective epistemic modality and objective epistemic modality are employed in adjudication where the judges decide the degree of probability, and the value distribution of epistemic modality indicates that the same standard, that is, the balance of probability, is adopted in Hong Kong and Scotland. We propose an integrated framework of principle of proof and discuss the continuum of probability in law. Based on the conclusions, we propose pedagogical implications for English for Legal Purposes. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Corpus-based approaches to researching metaphor use in business English have become increasingly prevalent, but metaphor use in the genre of mission statements has received little attention. Using a self-built corpus with the help of the corpus tool Wmatrix, we compared metaphor use as a discursive and cognitive strategy in the mission statements of Chinese and US companies from a cognitive sociolinguistic perspective, focusing on three conventional conceptual metaphors in business discourse: BRANDS ARE PEOPLE, BUSINESS IS COOPERATION, and BUSINESS IS COMPETITION. The use of the source domains of these conceptual metaphors was found to differ significantly in the mission statements of Chinese and US companies, thus revealing differences in the underlying corporate identities and ideologies. Chinese corporations, which tend to describe themselves as energetic leaders and strong competitors, are more competition-oriented, whereas US corporations, which tend to project themselves as ethical and responsible community members, are more cooperation-oriented. The findings of this comparative study can shed light on how Chinese companies build their brand images and thus lead to a better understanding of changing national image of China. [Copyright The American University; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Two separate studies examined older siblings' influence on the language exposure and language development of US-born toddlers who were being raised in bilingual homes. The participants in Study 1 were 60 children between 16 and 30 months who had heard English and another language at home from birth; 26 had older siblings, and 34 did not. The participants in Study 2 were 27 children, assessed at 22 and 30 months, who had heard English and Spanish from birth; 14 had school-aged older siblings, and 13 did not. Both studies found that older siblings used English more in talking to the toddlers than did other household members and that toddlers with older siblings were more advanced in English language development. Study 2 also found that the presence of a school-aged older sibling increased mothers' use of English with their toddlers and that toddlers without a school-aged older sibling were more advanced in Spanish than the toddlers with a school-aged older sibling. These findings contribute to a picture of the complex processes that shape language use in bilingual homes and cause variability in young children's bilingual development. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study examined metalinguistic awareness in children who were becoming bilingual in an immersion education program. The purpose was to determine at what point in emerging bilingualism the previously reported metalinguistic advantages appear and what types of metalinguistic tasks reveal these developmental differences. Participants were 124 children in second and fifth grades who were enrolled in either a French immersion or a regular English program. All children were from monolingual English-speaking homes and attended local public schools in middle socioeconomic neighborhoods. Measures included morphological awareness, syntactic awareness, and verbal fluency, with all testing in English. These tasks differed in their need for executive control, a cognitive ability that is enhanced in bilingual children. Overall, the metalinguistic advantages reported in earlier research emerged gradually, with advantages for tasks requiring more executive control (grammaticality judgment) appearing later and some tasks improving but not exceeding performance of monolinguals (verbal fluency) even by fifth grade. These findings demonstrate the gradual emergence of changes in metalinguistic concepts associated with bilingualism over a period of about 5 years. Performance on English-language proficiency tasks was maintained by French immersion children throughout in spite of schooling being conducted in French. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study examined whether late-learning English-German second language (L2) learners and late-learning German-English L2 learners use prosodic cues to disambiguate temporarily ambiguous first language and L2 sentences during speech production. Experiments 1a and 1b showed that English-German L2 learners and German-English L2 learners used a pitch rise and pitch accent to disambiguate PP-attachment sentences in German. However, the same participants, as well as monolingual English speakers, only used pitch accent to disambiguate similar English sentences. Taken together, these results indicate the L2 learners used prosody to disambiguate sentences in both of their languages and did not fully transfer cues to disambiguation from their first language to their L2. The results have implications for the acquisition of L2 prosody and the interaction between prosody and meaning in L2 production. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This paper explores whether English-Mandarin bilingual children have mastered discourse skills and whether they show sensitivity to the discourse principle of information status of referents in their speech and gestures. We compare the speech and gestures produced by bilingual children to those produced by English- and Mandarin-speaking monolingual children. Six English-speaking and six Mandarin-speaking monolingual children, and nine English-Mandarin bilingual children (who were more dominant in English) were videotaped while interacting with their caregivers. Monolingual Mandarin- and English-speaking children produced null arguments and pronouns respectively to indicate given third-person referents, and nouns to indicate new third-person referents. They also gestured new third-person referents more often than given third-person referents. Thus, monolinguals' speech and gestures followed the discourse principle. English-Mandarin bilingual children's speech and gestures also followed the discourse principle but only when they were speaking in English. They produced nouns more often to indicate given third-person referents than to indicate new third-person referents in Mandarin, indicating the violation of the discourse principle. It is interesting that they gestured new third-person referents more often than given third-person referents in Mandarin. Thus, our findings suggest that gesture precedes language development at discourse level in the less-dominant language in bilinguals. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Bilinguals often face the challenge of negotiating a range of insider/outsider subject positions when interacting in transnational and intercultural settings. This article takes up the concept of symbolic competence, the awareness of socially situated symbolic resources and the ability to use them to shape interactional contexts, to examine how the author, a Swedish-English bilingual, manages this negotiation. Drawing on principles of the ethnography of communication in concert with the complementary discourse analytic perspective of nexus analysis, ethnographic vignettes are analyzed to explore strategic language choices the author made during specific speech situations in Sweden. It is shown that the concealment of linguistic abilities, or covert bilingualism, served as a resource to support the symbolic competence needed to facilitate the presentation of self during social encounters while mitigating the ambiguity of being simultaneously insider and outsider. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article is part of a study that examined the narratives of 19 Indian women about the impact of Hindi or English medium education on their lives. In the current article, an interview segment containing a hypothetical narrative recounted by one of these participants, Aditi, is analysed. The analysis uses conversation analysis (CA) tools to reveal the presence of conflicting Discourses regarding the value attached to English speakers by the two interactants. One of these leads to significant trouble in the talk that is attended to by Aditi through recounting a hypothetical narrative to justify her perspective. The study shows how the two planes of the narrative-the narrated world and the interactional narrating plane-are used by Aditi to critique hegemonic Discourses about English speakers. A CA-based sequential analysis reveals the embedding of the narrative in its local interactional setting while also displaying that the act of narration can be a site for the enactment of resistance to societal Discourses. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Numerous scholars (e.g. Crystal 2003; Widdowson 2003) have argued that English belongs to nonnative speakers because English is widely used as an international language and because there are more nonnative speakers than native speakers. Many nonnative teachers in the Expanding Circle accept this argument, believing that having the ownership of English empowers them. This forum piece, however, argues that the issue of English ownership is not as relevant for them as it is for those living in the Outer Circle because there may not exist a local variety of English in their respective country. Moreover, claiming the ownership of English can bring about detrimental effects in their classroom, especially when only 'good English' is accepted as 'a powerful symbolic resource' (Park 2010: 193), as is the case in Korea. This article also argues that the real source of nonnative teachers' empowerment stems from their identity as the ideal teachers of English to English as a Foreign Language learners. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study investigates whether native Hmong speakers' first language (L1) lexical tone experience facilitates or interferes with their perception of Mandarin tones and whether training is effective for perceptual learning of second (L2) tones. In Experiment 1, 3 groups of beginning level learners of Mandarin with different L1 prosodic background (Hmong, Japanese, and English) took a perception test on Mandarin tones. Both the English and Japanese groups outperformed the Hmong group in perceptual accuracy of Mandarin tones. In Experiment 2, 18 learners with different L1 background received either perception training only or perception with production training on Mandarin tones for 6 hours within 3-4 weeks. Both training paradigms were effective for perceptual learning of Mandarin tone contrasts as the two training groups' perceptual accuracy improved significantly at posttest compared with a control group. Although Hmong speakers initially had more difficulties in perception of Mandarin tones than the other 2 groups, they are by no means disadvantaged by their L1 prosodic background as they gain L2 experience after intensive training.

摘要：We examined negative transfer from English and Spanish to Portuguese pronunciation. Participants were native English speakers, some of whom spoke Spanish. Participants completed a computer-based Portuguese pronunciation tutorial and then pronounced trained letter-to-sound correspondences in unfamiliar Portuguese words; some shared orthographic form with their translation in Spanish or Spanish and English. Spanish-speaking participants were more accurate and made more Spanish-like than English-like errors. Contrary to predictions, non-Spanish speakers made more Spanish-like than English-like errors on cognates. Participants with higher working memory were more accurate and made more Spanish-sounding errors on cognates. The results suggest that the first language is inhibited during second-language production and that higher working memory is associated with an improved ability to inhibit the first language.

摘要：Although wh-words generally stay in situ in Chinese wh-questions, they can be topicalized. However, the wh-topicalization is determined at the syntax-discourse interface and has to be governed by discourse conditions; only discourse-linked (D-linked) wh-words can be topicalized, but non-D-linked ones cannot. This article reports on an empirical study that investigated English speakers' second language (L2) acquisition of Chinese wh-topicalization. The results of an acceptability judgment test indicate that advanced English speakers are sensitive to the discourse condition that governs the syntactic derivation of wh-topicalization in Chinese, as they were found to be able to make the distinction in their L2 Chinese by allowing D-linked, but not non-D-linked, wh-elements to topicalize. However, these results also indicate that wh-determiner phrases (DPs) and wh-noun phrases (NPs) differ in their sensitivity to presupposition background information in L2 Chinese wh-topicalization, and it is argued that the availability of the deictic feature in the wh-element involved is a variable affecting the D-linking properties of wh-elements in the development of L2 Chinese wh-topicalization, and this seems more likely to be a representational deficit than a processing problem. Adapted from the source document

摘要：A growing number of studies have examined qualitative research interviews in terms of how researchers' own identities and agendas are implicated in the construction of interviewees' responses. Adopting the constructionist conception of research interviews, the current study introduces a comparative analysis of 2 interviews with a multilingual speaker of Korean, English, and Japanese conducted by 2 researchers who come from distinctive cultural, linguistic, and professional backgrounds. Informed by ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and membership categorization analysis, the current analysis reveals how the interviewee came to co-construct a different set of accounts with each interviewer in comparable segments where the same topics were discussed. The focal segments examined in this study can be seen as an illustration of how this Korean student interacting in her everyday life with others may co-construct her ever-shifting identities vis-a-vis membership categories such as American, Korean, or Korean-American. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study tested three hypotheses about the direct and indirect contributions of derivational morphological awareness to English reading comprehension in sixth-grade students from differing language backgrounds (n= 952). Students included Spanish-speaking, Filipino-speaking, and Vietnamese-speaking language minority learners as well as native English speakers. Multiple-group structural equation modeling indicated that morphological awareness made a significant direct contribution to reading comprehension, controlling for reading vocabulary and word reading fluency. Morphological awareness also made a significant indirect contribution to reading comprehension via reading vocabulary, but not via word reading fluency. Effects were similar across the four language groups. Findings suggest that morphological awareness may play multiple important roles in English reading comprehension for students from a variety of home language backgrounds. 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