Idiomatic expressions are not just neutral equivalents of their literal counterparts, but exert some sort of evaluative force. This study employed the appraisal system (AS) to explore the functions of idiomatic expressions and their variations in English as a lingua franca context, and to compare different academic domains in terms of use of evaluative language in the form of idiomatic expressions. To this end, the corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings and the Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English were searched for idiom tokens through whole-phrase and keyword search. The idioms and their variations were classified based on the AS. The findings indicated that social and behavioral scientific texts included higher proportions of evaluative idiomatic expressions whereas medical and natural scientific texts generated lower percentages of appraisal idioms. There was a stronger tendency in both corpora toward using idioms as appreciation as compared to judgment and affect. Given the employed methodology, the AS could not be applied to some idioms for their compositionality nature. © John Wiley and Sons Inc. All rights reserved.

This book offers a comprehensive investigation into advanced students' knowledge of vocabulary in their L1 and L2. This cross-sectional study examines the qualitative and quantitative aspects of students' vocabulary knowledge in subfields such as suffixation, idioms and proverbs, multi-word verbs, polysemous words and inferencing skills. © 2022 Multilingual Matters.

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. © 2022 - Published by Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz. All Rights Reserved.

This study aims to investigate to what extent Swedish upper secondary school learners of L2 English understand the meanings of polysemous words and whether puns can be used to teach such words. A test and two questionnaires were constructed to retrieve data from both students and teachers. The results of the study show that Swedish upper secondary school learners of L2 English generally have an acceptable knowledge of polysemous words, but that the students’ comprehension depends on the program they attend. Based on these results, it was also concluded that puns can be used to teach students about the meanings of polysemous words. The results of the questionnaires display that students in general have a positive attitude towards using puns in the classroom, and that they find them entertaining and humorous. In addition, the students also saw this approach as beneficial to their motivation and retention. Lastly, the teachers expressed that using humor can strengthen the learning process, and if the students find the teaching situation enjoyable, they learn faster, and their retention is thus increased. © 2022 IJLS; Printed in the USA by Lulu Press Inc.

The current study explores the language of non-commercial advertising, both quantitatively and qualitatively, within the framework of pragmatics. The main incentive is (1) to investigate how creators of such advertising aim to seek attention, inform and persuade, and (2) to examine whether non-commercial and commercial advertising differ linguistically. Orbiting around key notions of Relevance Theory and Tanaka’s pragmatic approach to advertising, the study pays attention to how collected advertisements use internal and external contexts in their explicit and implicit language, and whether their language complies with the hierarchy present in commercial advertising in which information is subordinated to persuasion. The findings show that language functions in non-commercial advertising are frequently incorporated into complex arrangements in which they sometimes overlap and/or collaborate. Such arrangements appear to cause the audience to be inventive and to use extra processing efforts in solving explicit and implicit problems of the stimulus. Moreover, it is suggested that non-commercial and commercial advertising do not differ from one another in a linguistic sense. There are, indeed, times when non-commercial advertisers leave out clear persuasion and instead aim their main focus at improving the audience’s knowledge. In a purely linguistic sense, however, it is shown that persuasive language is always embedded, which indicates that the genre is not necessarily less persuasive than its commercial counterpart. Copyright © IJLS 2007 

In the current study, 17 pre-service teachers at (upper) secondary school level studying English as a second language within the Swedish educational system were asked to give two mini-lessons each. Both focused on the teaching of grammar, a subarea towards which many teacher trainees have especially negative feelings. The aims were to explore the extent of the learners’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and to investigate if, with the help of micro-teaching, teacher feedback/feedforward and reflective writing, their pedagogical content knowledge could be strengthened further, thus giving these pre-service teachers the boost they need to address grammatical issues in their future L2 classrooms. The findings show that the pre-service teachers’ PCK was low in connection with their first mini-lesson, but that with the scaffolding devices implemented it was enhanced, the subject knowledge component proving more easily consolidated than the pedagogical content component. As many as 15 of the 17 teacher trainees displayed positive scores on both components in their second mini-lesson, the learners who did the poorest in their first mini-lesson improving the most. Great individual differences were, however, also detected among the other learners.

In the present investigation, 30 students in grade 4 (aged 10-11) within the Swedish school system were, with intervals of two weeks, asked to compose three narrative texts in L2 English. With the aim of enhancing their narrative writing skills, the learners received explicit teaching of NP (noun phrase) elaboration (both pre- and post-modification) prior to the first two texts, whereas no such instruction was offered before the third story. Two control groups, one writing in Swedish (L1) and one writing in English (L2), neither being offered treatment before doing so, were also incorporated.

Despite some initial problems, the results show that the treatment the learners received enhanced their narrative writing skills in a number of ways. Text 3, in contrast to Text 1, does not only display an increase in text length, but also a growth in the number of post-modifying prepositional phrases and relative clauses (the latter primarily having general discourse functions but also narrative discourse functions), as well as an increase in NP and VP coordination, all being signs of more advanced narrative writing.

The primary aim of this paper is to examine students´ relational engagement in a short story, as well as their use of mental state expressions in responding to it in three different writing assignments, one of which involved photo elicitation. A secondary aim is to examine and compare the relational engagement between students reading the story in Swedish (i.e., their L1) and English (i.e., their L2), respectively. The theoretical framework draws on research in relational engagement/transactional theory, the Appraisal system, Dual Code Theory (DCT), and the Linguistic Threshold Hypothesis. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. A total of 33 students participated in the study, half of whom read the story in Swedish, and half in English. The results show that the students used a wide range of mental state expressions, but also that these expressions changed in accordance with task formulation. The results also show that the photo-elicitation assignment yielded the strongest relational engagement. Furthermore, students reading the story in Swedish generally demonstrated a stronger relational engagement than students reading the story in English. © 2020 IJLS; Printed in the USA by Lulu Press Inc.

In the present study, with the aim of analyzing the relationship among teacher feedback, feedforward, and grade, the corrections and comments made by four experienced assessors on 187 compositions were under scrutiny. These essays were written by 56 Swedish university students studying English as a second language at three different educational levels. The results reveal that while there were clear links between mid-essay corrections/comments and grades given, the links between mid-essay corrections/comments and end comments were not only comparatively few, but less clear. Moreover, although valued highly in the research literature because of their ability to promote writing skills in an enhanced manner, there were more summative end comments than formative ones. The conclusion was, therefore, drawn that it is quite taxing for assessors, even for experienced ones, to produce connections that involve an alignment among a) mid-essay corrections/comments, b) end comments and c) grade that will, at the same time, promote students’ writing skills in accordance with what is suggested by the research literature. The assessors were, however, irrespective of grade given, attuned to the educational level at hand, focusing more on analytic aspects at the two lower levels, while taking a more holistic approach at the highest educational level. This may indicate that offering corrections/comments does not only entail a developmental journey for students, but for teachers too.