Applied Linguistics Journals Research Articles

Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal: A consolidated scientific community locally and globally

Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal: A consolidated scientific community locally and globally

Investigating Researcher Identity in Qualitative Research Articles in Applied Linguistics Journals Through the Lens of CDA

Recently, constructing professional identity has received an increasing attention. By adopting and adapting analytical tools of critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study explored the ways through which identities of the qualitative researchers had been projected in 4 applied linguistics articles. This study intended to find out whether the authors of qualitative research articles in applied linguistics tended to prioritize particular linguistic elements in representing their identities. Detailed descriptive analyses based on 4 CDA and discourse analysis taxonomies revealed that the qualitative researchers had a particular pattern to show human and nonhuman social actors in their writings. Human social actors (teachers and learners) were preferred to nonhuman social actors (textbooks), and teachers were the focus of attention more frequently than learners. Also, human social actors were considered as individuals, rather than groups in the majority of cases. In addition, mental processes were found to be employed more than material processes in order to contribute to the subjective interpretation and greater visibility for the researchers. Although the linguistic devices which help human social actors to be seen more vividly like inclusion and activation were used more than other devices, elements like transition, self-mentions, hedges, and code glosses were also employed. Findings may be considered useful for teachers and educators and may help them become more self-conscious about identity issues embedded in research articles.

Thirty-five years of ISLA on form-focused instruction: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis offers a snapshot of thirty-five years (1980–2015) of research on instructed second language acquisition (ISLA). Fifty-four empirical studies involving a total of 5,051 second language learners – sampled from six applied linguistics journals, Applied Linguistics, Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, The Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and TESOL Quarterly – were aggregated for the effects of second language (L2) instruction, yielding an overall large effect size, g = 1.06, 95 % CI = 0.84−1.29. Data were further analysed to identify factors that can modulate the efficacy of instruction. While a minor difference was detected between explicit and implicit instruction, statistically significant effects were found for modes of outcome measures, learners’ onset L2 proficiency, research settings, and intensity of instruction.

Levels of Statistical Use in Applied Linguistics Research Articles: From 1986 to 2015

The main objective of this study is to assess the levels of statistical use (basic, intermediate, and advanced) in Applied Linguistics research articles over the past three decades (from 1986 to 2015). The corpus included 4079 quantitative and mixed-methods studies published in ten prominent journals of Applied Linguistics. The articles were analysed and the statistical techniques used were aggregated by two current writers and four PhD students in TEFL. Results showed that descriptive statistics (40.04%) were by far the most commonly used technique followed by one-way ANOVA (14.91%), t-test (10.15%), and Pearson correlation (8.76%). Regarding the sophistication level of statistical use, about 78.77% (n = 4686) of the techniques were classified as basic, 14.49% (n = 862) as intermediate, and 6.74% (n = 401) as advanced. Clearly, most of the techniques were either basic or intermediate, with a significant higher percentage for the former. So, a person with basic knowledge of statistics could understand 69.03% of the papers published during 1986 to 2015. It is discussed that researchers should be updated on recent statistical knowledge if they wish to statistically comprehend research articles published in Applied Linguistics journals.

Contemporary conversations on authorship in Applied Linguistics: a literature review

Authorship attribution has been a concern across disciplines, from Information Science (MIRANDA et al , 2007; VANZ; STUMPF, 2010) to Medicine (GRIEGER, 2005; MONTEIRO, 2004; PETROIANU, 2002). With this in mind, we aim at providing an overview on Conversations (GEE, 1999) about authorship in the field of Applied Linguistics from 2012 to 2015. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (FAIRCLOUGH, 1992, 2003), we review nine articles published in well-known Applied Linguistics journals. The results indicated that there are four different perspectives from which authorship is addressed: dialogicity, responsibility, ideological positioning and intellectual property. Quoting and paraphrasing were the most cited practices in association with the concept of dialogicity as a form of exercising authorship in the academic context.

WRITING INTRODUCTION SECTIONS OF RESEARCH ARTICLES IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS: CROSS-LINGUISTIC STUDY OF NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE WRITERS

Genre studies allow researchers to observe the repeated communicative functions and their linguistic components in different genres (Brett, 1994). Writing the introduction section is a tough and burdensome task for both native and non-native speakers (Swales & Feak, 1994). Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the generic organization of English research article introductions written by native English and Iranian non-native speakers of English. A total of 160 published articles were selected from established journals in Applied Linguistics. Following Swales’ (2004) Create A Research Space (CARS) model, the researchers analyzed the articles for their specific generic patterns. Findings displayed that native English writers used significantly more strategies than Iranian non-native speakers of English, yielding richer texts. The findings of the present study contribute to the current knowledge of cross-cultural studies in academic writing to non-native English speakers in general and to non-native English novice writers in particular. Built on Swales’ (2004) CARS model, the study describes how introduction sections are developed in English by native and non-native speakers, offering insights into ESP/EAP writing pedagogy.

Discourse features of methodology sections of research articles in high-impact and non-high-impact applied linguistics journals

Discourse features of methodology sections of research articles in high-impact and non-high-impact applied linguistics journals

The Prevalence of Pedagogy-Related Research in Applied Linguistics: Extending the Debate

In this article, we respond to the special issue ‘Definitions for Applied Linguistics’, where the past and future of applied linguistics are discussed, and the place of pedagogy in the field’s scope is debated. In the issue, Hellermann (2015) uses data from 1980 to 1984 and 2009 to 2013 to show a shift in the field towards an emerging range of language-related problems, coupled with the declining prominence of pedagogy-related research in the journal. In this article, we extend Hellerman’s work to investigate whether this trend is reflective of other published work in applied linguistics. In our investigation, 336 research papers published in 2015 were analysed from 10 self-identified applied linguistics journals. Data revealed language-pedagogy-related studies constituted 32 per cent of all empirical research, although this representation was unevenly distributed across the journals. Findings suggest a number of practice-oriented journals now take the lion’s share of pedagogical research, allowing other key applied linguistics journals to focus on a diverse range of non-pedagogy-related language problems. Nevertheless, in general, pedagogy remains a key topic in the field.

Diseño, implementación y evaluación de prácticas pedagógicas en un programa de Licenciatura con énfasis en inglés

The Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, CALJ, is a peer-review journal published in Bogotá, Colombia by Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas for a global audience of professionals in education interested in research and teaching issues in the field of Applied Linguistics for the Teaching of English.

A diachronic study on the information provided by the research titles of applied linguistics journals

This study aims to investigate different types and trends of information provided by research titles published in the applied linguistics journals from 1975 to 2015. To this end, 428 research titles published in 63 issues of three applied linguistics journals, namely, Modern Language Journal, Language Learning, and Foreign Language Annals were extracted. The research titles were analyzed for the information they contained in terms of such categories as Method/Design, Result, Dataset, and Conclusion. The results revealed that from 1975 to 2015, the research titles of the three applied linguistics journals tended to provide the most information on Method/Design of the studies. In addition, the research titles containing information on Topic, Result, and Dataset showed fluctuating rates in different time intervals. However, the research titles containing information about Conclusion had a falling rate in the three journals. The study concludes with some discussion on the results obtained.

Contributions of Saudi Institutions in Applied Linguistics’ Journals Indexed in SSCI: Perspectives from Academics and Journals’ Editors

There is a new tendency for institutions to augment their publications in journals indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Non-native English researchers may find it hard to get their submissions published in applied linguistics journals that are solely indexed in SSCI, which are known for their high rate of rejection. This could minimize the opportunity for researchers to get their manuscripts accepted for publication. This paper aims to collect data for academics’ perceptions of Saudi institutions to see their attitudes towards submitting and publishing in these journals. The article also aims to check the perceptions of journals’ editors on the submissions affiliated to Saudi universities to check the rate of rejection and the main reasons that lie behind the rejection. Thirty seven academics responded to an online survey designed to gauge their perceptions about submitting and publishing in applied linguistics journals indexed in SSCI. Academics perceive that publishing in such journals is difficult due to the high rate of rejection, long time of turnaround review, and a stringent peer review. Editors—those who responded to another survey—reported that a combination of outdated issues being investigated, poor research design and the lack of generalizability of research findings are the main reasons for rejecting submissions from Saudi academic institutions. On the bases of the study findings, limitations and tips for future studies are highlighted.

Noun Phrase Complexity in EFL Academic Writing: A Corpus-based Study of Postgraduate Academic Writing

Noun phrase (NP) centered structures are distinctive syntactic devices in academic discourse. The commonly employed subordination-based complexity measures cannot adequately capture the development of syntactic complexity of noun phrases expected of advanced student academic writing (Biber, Gray, & Poonpon, 2011). Following the call for more research in this area (e.g. Lu, 2011, p. 57), the current study compared noun phrase complexity in two corpora: one is a corpus of MA dissertations written by Chinese EFL students and the other comprises published research articles in applied linguistics journals. The study examined overall noun phrase complexity using an automatic syntactic complexity analyzer and specifically identified features of one aspect of NP complexity: NP postmodification. The quantitative results were further contextualized in a textual analysis of excerpts from the two corpora for demonstrating the significance of NP complexity to the establishment of discourse coherence. Results of the analyses showed significant underdevelopment of NP postmodification complexity in student writing relative to published texts, meanwhile explicating the circumstances under which the difference is meaningful. Implications of the findings for the teaching of EFL academic writing were also discussed.

The use of metadiscourse for knowledge construction in Chinese and English research articles

The purpose of this study is to compare the usage of metadiscourse in English and in Chinese research articles (RAs) published in applied linguistics journals and to investigate how metadiscourse may contribute to knowledge construction in RAs. A small corpus in each language was built consisting of 20 journal articles in English and another 20 in Chinese. In order to highlight metadiscourse features, an established model of metadiscourse was adopted to annotate both Chinese and English articles. It was found that there are generally more metadiscourse features in the English sub-corpus than in the Chinese sub-corpus. While both English sub-corpus and Chinese sub-corpus were found to use statistically significantly more interactive metadiscourse resources (organising discourse) than interactional metadiscourse resources (indicating writers' attitude and stance to themselves, text and audience), the English sub-corpus employed statistically significantly more interactional metadiscourse features than the Chinese sub-corpus. Implications of this study are discussed for both English and Chinese academic writing, including the teaching of English writing as a second language (L2).

Research Article Abstracts in Applied Linguistics and Economics: Functional Analysis of the Grammatical Subject

The aims of this paper are to analyse and compare the discourse functions of grammatical subjects used in research article abstracts in the disciplines of Applied Linguistics and Economics. The data for this study consisted of 60 research article abstracts published in 2010 and 2011 in the journals of Applied Linguistics and Oxford Economic Papers. The corpus was analysed using the classification of discourse functions of grammatical subjects established by Gosden. The analysis revealed disciplinary differences concerning the discourse functions enacted by the application of the grammatical subject. These findings add to the claim that academic writing (research article abstract writing in this study) is shaped by the writer's disciplinary background with particular reference to the use of the grammatical subject as a theme in text development.

Clause Combining in Research Articles in Spanish and English: A Systemic-Functional Analysis

In this paper we report an analysis of clause connections in two corpora: introductions and conclusions from research articles taken from applied linguistics journals in Spanish and in English. For the analysis, we use the systemic-functional classification of logico-semantic clause nexuses into paratactic and hypotactic expansion (elaboration, extension, and enhancement) and projection (idea and locution). We quantify the frequency with which each nexus type appears in each corpus in order to see if there are significant similarities and differences. The results show that the first two most frequent relations are the same in both corpora but the third is different. We claim that the frequency with which each nexus type appears has functional motivations that are useful for the writers of research articles. The results might have important implications for the writing of research articles in both L1 (first language) and L2 (second language).

Research tendencies in the teaching of English as a foreign language

An analysis of the thematic tendencies in the 41 research articles published in the issues of the Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal during the last three years, 2013-2015, indicates that authors have focused their attention primarily on five topics. These themes can be grouped as a) Trends and Approaches to teaching English as a foreign language, with the highest number of articles, followed by b) language learners´ processes and outcomes, c) teacher education for both preservice and inservice teachers, d) critical literacy and literacy involving social development, and d) uses of Spanish as expression of popular culture and English as a sociolinguistic phenomenon in San Andres. The variety of research reflected in these five thematic groups certainly contributes to addressing the two target disciplines our journal is interested in: Applied Linguistics and English Language Education in the context of Colombia and Latin America.

Phraseology used to comment on results in the Discussion section of applied linguistics quantitative research articles

This paper presents word clusters used to comment on results in the Discussion section of quantitative research articles in the field of applied linguistics. The corpus linguistic approach was adopted to identify clusters in 124 Discussion texts from leading applied linguistics journals. The identified clusters were then comprehensively analysed in context for their discourse functions. Next, the present study mapped the clusters onto an analytical framework termed the ‘four-Step model’, based on Yang and Allison's (2003) genre-based description of the Commenting on results Move. The study provided a detailed corpus linguistic account of how the clusters were used in specific Steps described in the model. A detailed description of the linguistic features, the internal structure (Move/Step cycles and embedding) and communicative functions of specific Steps in the Commenting on results Move were also presented based on the concordance analysis of the clusters. The findings further suggest that the use of specific clusters strongly manifests, and is conditioned by, the research article genre. The study has pedagogical implications for academic writing courses for students, especially for those from non-English language backgrounds.

Nominalization in the Research Article Discussion Sections of Local and International Journals of Applied Linguistics

This study aimed at investigating the tendency of research article (RA) authors for the application of nominalization in RA discussion sections from the perspective of two discourse communities. To this end, 150 RA discussion sections were selected from local and international Applied Linguistics journals.

Key Lexical Chunks in Applied Linguistics Article Abstracts

In any discourse domain, certain chunks are particularly frequent and deserve attention by the novice to be initiated and by the expert to maintain a sense of community. To make a relevant contribution to the awareness about applied linguistics texts and discourse, this study attempted to develop lists of lexical chunks frequently used in the abstracts of applied linguistics journals. The abstracts from all the issues of 30 applied linguistics journals which were published before August 1, 2013 were collected. These abstracts which generated a corpus of 2,750,000 words were submitted to the program AntConc for chunk extraction. The long list of chunks in the output was shortlisted based on frequency and inclusiveness of shorter chunks. These were classified into textual and content n-grams. The article also presents the frequent chunks which serve as starting points in bringing up different aspects of research reports. The practical value of the results is briefly discussed at the end of the article.

Polyphonies and research horizons for the Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal

Welcome to our Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal new issue. The present journal edition proposes a hermeneutical exercise on domains of applied linguistics inviting readers to be “implied” revisiting and renewing research horizons at national and international levels around three research interests: Education and professional development of language teachers, Literacy processes and new literacies in two languages and Discourse studies in educational contexts. These academic paths are also the foci of our graduate programme in Applied Linguistics to TEFL at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, and they constitute our own research agenda.