Research on the morpho-syntax of non-native varieties of English has reported a widespread presence of mass noun pluralization such as baggages, equipments and softwares. In this paper we conducted a corpus linguistic study in order to provide empirically substantiated answers to this claim. We examined the purported prevalence of noun countability in World Englishes in a 1.9 billion-token mega...

The purpose of the current study was to analyze the relationship between automated essay scoring (AES) and human scoring in order to determine the validity and usefulness of AES for large-scale placement tests. Specifically, a correlational research design was used to examine the correlations between AES performance and human raters’ performance. Spearman rank correlation coefficient tests were...

This article details an investigation into onscreen marking (OSM) in Hong Kong — where paper-based marking (PBM) is being phased out, to be completely superseded by OSM. It is a specific follow-up to a larger study (Coniam, 2009a) involving 30 raters who had previously rated English language essay scripts on screen in the 2007 Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE). In that stud...

The early course of language development among children from bilingual homes varies in ways that are not well described and as a result of influences that are not well understood. Here, we describe trajectories of relative change in expressive vocabulary from 22 to 48 months and vocabulary achievement at 48 months in two groups of children from bilingual homes (children with one and children wi...

one of the challenges of academic writing is the creation of a structurally and communicatively well-organized and coherent text. metadiscourse enables authors of journal articles to achieve this goal by raising the writers‘ awareness about discourse features which can contribute to a better academic content production. also, l1 background has always been a hot topic in applied linguistics and ...

This study investigates whether adult L2 learners’ experience with lexical tones and pitch accent in their first language facilitates the acquisition of L2 lexical tones. Three groups of beginning learners of Mandarin with different L1 prosodic experience: native Hmong (a tone language), native Japanese (a pitch and accent language), and native English (a non-tone, non-pitch accent language) sp...

This study examined how well phonetic similarity predicted ultimate attainment in the production of Danish /i, y, u/ and /d, t/ by highly experienced native speakers of English and of Spanish. Experiment 1 compared the VOT of /d, t/ and the F2 of /i, y, u/ as produced by native speakers of the three languages. Experiment 2 examined the perceptual assimilation of Danish [i, y, u] to native /i, u...

The development of English language learners (ELLs) was explored from kindergarten through eighth grade within a nationally representative sample of first-time kindergartners (N = 19,890). Growth curve analyses indicated that, compared to native English speakers, ELLs were rated by teachers more favorably on approaches to learning, self control, and externalizing behaviors in kindergarten and g...

To trace how age and language experience shape the discrimination of native and non-native phonetic contrasts, we compared 4-year-olds learning either English or French or both and simultaneous bilingual adults on their ability to discriminate the English /d-th/ contrast. Findings show that the ability to discriminate the native English contrast improved with age. However, in the absence of exp...

This study examined the extent to which visual speech assisted native Australian English speakers to perceive Japanese-accented English compared with Australian English spoken sentences presented in speech-shaped noise (SNR:-4dB). Twenty-one native Australian English listeners performed a speech perception in noise task with Japaneseaccented and Australian English sentences in two conditions: a...