The quality of communication between patients and clinicians can have a major impact on health outcomes, and limited English proficiency can interfere with effective communication. More than ten million U.S. residents speak English poorly or not at all, constituting a language chasm in the health care system. This paper reviews the evidence on the link between linguistic competence and health c...

This study investigated the aspectual marking of an event of a fictional story in Japanese and English-language narratives. Considerable differences were found in verbalization between them. The differences are attributed to the linguistic options provided by each language. Japaneseand English-speaking children develop their linguistic proficiency by making use of the expressive options offered...

Previous studies have demonstrated that the second language (L2) learners’ linguistic backgrounds and L2 proficiency have an effect on their perception of L2 sounds. This paper attempts to investigate the assimilation patterns of Mandarin and Tibetan tones, and the influences of first language (L1) backgrounds and Mandarin proficiency on the perception of Mandarin tones. A total of 46 Tibetan p...

Bilingual studies have shown that brain activities for first (L1) and second (L2) languages are influenced by L2 proficiency. Does proficiency with a second musical system (M2) influence bimusical brains in a manner similar to that of bilingual brains? Our magnetoencephalography study assessed the influence of M2 proficiency on the spatial, strength, and temporal properties of brain activity in...

PURPOSE To assess the influence of second language (L2) proficiency on production characteristics of rhythmic sequences in the L1 (Bengali) and L2 (English), with emphasis on linguistic transfer. One goal was to examine, using kinematic evidence, how L2 proficiency influences the production of iambic and trochaic words, focusing on temporal and spatial aspects of prosody. A second goal was to a...

Finding more effective ways of teaching second language idioms has been a long standing concern of many teaching practitioners and researchers. This study was an endeavorto explore the effects of three linguistic mnemonic devices (etymological elaboration, keyword method, and translation) on EFL learners’ recognition and recall of English idioms. To achieve the purpose of the study, ninety male...

To assess the link between accent and intelligibility, previous research has heavily relied on human responses, demonstrating that human assessment is influenced by such subjective factors as linguistic proficiency (Pihko, 1997), familiarity (Smith, 1992), age (Burda, 2000), reactions to speakers’ kinetic cues (Bara, 1992; Rubin, 1992), and dialectal differences (Smith & Bisazza, 1982). In part...

English language teaching market (ELT) inundated with course book packages containing astudent’s book, a teacher’s guide, workbooks, CD’s, videos, and test materials. A host ofresearchers have focused on course book evaluation and analysis and considered the selectionand evaluation of materials as an essential procedure in order to enhance out comes for thelearners who use them. This study thru...

In this article, Maria Martiniello reports the findings of a study of the linguistic complexity of math word problems that were found to exhibit differential item functioning for English-language learners (ELLs) and non-ELLs taking the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) fourth-grade math test. It builds on prior research showing that greater linguistic complexity increases the...