Ahead of Publication / Just Accepted

This paper examines how the platformization of social media and the material conditions in which these technologies are used shape how transnational learners invest in unequally valued digital literacy practices. As platforms reconfigure cultural practices and imaginations, L2 learners negotiate online norms and conventions to participate agentively in these spaces, positioning themselves while also positioning others. Based on data from a case study involving 16 immigrant Filipino secondary school students in Canada, this paper highlights how various inequalities of access, participation, and representation circumscribe social media practices. Findings show how the material designs of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat encourage patterns of interaction that become the basis of legitimate participation in these platforms, privileging certain aesthetic norms and class-inflected tastes. Learners are socialized into these conventions in ways that can exclude peers who do not have access to particular resources or whose semiotic productions are not deemed valuable. This asymmetric distribution of resources shapes practices that provide contrasting opportunities for L2 use and expansion of social networks. Tracing these inequalities to platformization, this paper proposes digital repertoires and digital socialization as constructs to draw attention to how learners develop and enact digital literacies that are valued unequally and that shape different opportunities for learning.

Amid the “breathless hype” surrounding generative AI in language education, this paper critically analyzes 48 online platforms claiming to use AI technologies through Critical Discourse Analysis and platformization theory (Poell, Thomas, David Nieborg & José van Dijck. 2019. Platformisation. Internet Policy Review 8(4). 1–13). It reveals how these platforms strategically brand themselves (e.g., .ai domain names) to appear cutting-edge, capitalizing on AI “hype” while masking the actual mechanisms behind vague terms like “AI-powered” or “AI-based,” leading to “definitional obscurity” (Williamson, Ben. 2024. AI in education is a public problem. Code acts in education . https://codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2024/02/22/ai-in-education-is-a-public-problem/ (accessed 20 August 2025)). Through multimodal strategies, they portray AI tutors as superior to human teachers and traditional apps. These narratives emphasize personalization, efficiency, and self-improvement, aligning with neoliberal values of individual responsibility and tech-driven empowerment, and contribute to the commodification of “the platformized ELT ecosystem” (Selvi A. F. Forthcoming. The platformized English language teaching ecosystem: Navigating implications for ELT profession(als). Tesol Quarterly ). This study contributes to emerging scholarship on AI discourses (Ferri, Gabriele & Inte Gloerich. 2023. Risk and harm: Unpacking ideologies in the AI discourse. CUI ’23: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Conversational User Interfaces 28. 1–6), revealing how AI functions not just as a pedagogical tool but as a commercial strategy reshaping ELT in increasingly platformized and neoliberal terms.

The COVID 19 pandemic emergency is over; however, the impacts of pandemic-related discrimination on child development are unclear. This mixed-methods research aimed to understand Chinese Dual Language Learners’ (DLLs’) Chinese-English bilingual vocabulary development in the face of discrimination. Specifically, it examined the interrelationships among COVID-related and Pre-COVID discrimination, person-, home-, community-, and school-level literacy factors, and language and Chinese DLL’s bilingual vocabulary profiles. Data were gathered via a questionnaire survey with 162 parents and semi-structured interviews with 10 parents. Thematic analysis, latent profile analysis, and multinomial logistic regression modeling were conducted. It was found that Chinese DLLs had diverse bilingual vocabulary profiles ranging from Balanced High, to Chinese Dominant, or English Dominant, or Balanced Low. Furthermore, Pre-COVID discrimination was a risk factor for Chinese DLLs to develop Balanced High bilingual vocabulary profile, while a child’s interest in reading Chinese, father’s Chinese proficiency, interactive activities in English, weekend school attendance were resilience factors associated with Balanced High biliteracy profile. The major implications are that Chinese DLLs should not be treated as a homogenous group; and that it really takes collective efforts for Chinese DLLs to develop linguistic resilience against historical discrimination.

This study explores how Filipina English teachers experience and address sexual harassment on a South Korean online English Language Teaching (ELT) platform. The feminization of the ELT industry and the one-on-one nature of online tutoring make online teachers vulnerable to gender-based violence. However, little is known about how online harassment intersects with teachers’ language and professional identities. Drawing on narratives from three Filipina teachers, who are situated within intersecting vulnerabilities – including being women from the Global South and gig economy workers – the study analyzes how the teachers respond to sexual harassment. On the one hand, the teachers express strong negative emotions and promptly report incidents that undermine their professional authority. On the other hand, they often downplay sexual harassment by emotionally detaching or dismissing it as an aberration. This coping strategy entails teachers decoupling their gender identity from their professional roles. Based on the findings, this study calls for industry support and clear harassment policies to address gender-based violence on ELT platforms.

Many language teachers create short, engaging, and accessible English content on social media, accumulating large numbers of followers. Drawing on existing conceptualizations of authenticity and qualities of internet celebrities, this study presents a multimodal analysis of Instagram accounts of two microcelebrity British English language teachers, each with over a million followers. The findings reveal instances where teachers position themselves as the authority for linguistic or non-linguistic knowledge highlighting different forms of cultural capital including ordinary and mundane aspects of their everyday lives. The analysis also reveals exclusive representations of the West (specifically the UK) including vocabulary associated with British culture, idiomatic expressions, and British pronunciation of some words. The study provides novel and critical insights into the emerging forms of language teaching on social media platforms shaped by the neoliberal landscape of education with important implications for English language teaching professionals and teacher education programs.

As a result of platformization, professionalism is situationally configured based on the online audience and the material aspects of social media (e.g., user interface design, algorithms, follower counts, likes, views, and shares). This dynamic configuration of professionalism presents both challenges and opportunities for redefining our understanding of teacher professionalism. Using a sociomaterial theoretical framework, this study explores how professionalism is defined and perceived among English teachers active on Instagram. We collected qualitative data from 14 English language teachers who actively engage in branding on Instagram. The analysis focused on the teachers’ perceptions of and responses to the emerging notion of professionalism shaped by the material conditions of the platform. Our findings indicate that teachers’ traditional perceptions of professionalism – centered primarily on educational credentials and research-based pedagogical knowledge – were challenged by the new configurations of professionalism afforded by Instagram’s material features. Confronted with these shifting definitions, the teachers negotiated and adapted their teacher identities and professional practices within the social media environment. The study highlights the dynamic and contextual nature of professionalism in the age of platformization. It shows how Instagram’s material affordances, such as algorithms and engagement metrics, interact with social constructions of professionalism, leading to a redefinition of what it means to be a professional teacher.

The Japanese government is increasingly supporting the adoption of new technologies for language teaching. An important facet of this strategy entails hiring Filipino instructors to teach English in both physical and platform contexts. This article considers the position of online Filipino teachers by analyzing documents produced by various stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, for-profit education platforms, and news media. The findings demonstrate that Filipino teachers are alternately described as “native” and “non-native” teachers by these various stakeholders in order to serve individual interests. Although much has been said about the native and non-native dichotomy in the language education literature, this article adds to these discussions by demonstrating how the ostensible innovation underlying digital transformation masks the perpetuation of outdated language ideologies. These findings are used to provide suggestions that will closer align Japan’s use of platforms with current understandings of linguistic proficiency and language pedagogy.

This paper examines how translanguaging and transknowledging manifest in the research-paper writing process of pre-university international students as English language learners in a Canadian EAP program. A wealth of research has documented the challenges these students face in learning the conventions of English academic writing. More recent research has explored the potential of translanguaging in writing pedagogy; however, we argue that current research has yet to fully enact the decolonizing agenda underlying translanguaging as a movement, that is, to dissolve monolingual ideologies and hegemonic structures and to allow for transknowledging that represents the diverse ways of knowing circulating within the EAP classroom. Drawing on the concept of assemblage, data from one student composing a source-based research paper is presented to highlight the presence of translanguaging and transknowledging in their work, as well as the threat of transgression that demarcates which languages and knowledge are permitted. We conclude with methodological and pedagogical recommendations to disrupt conventional logic in how translanguaging research and practice can serve to create more globally inclusive educational spaces.

The purpose of this article is to offer a historiographical account and theoretical perspective of transknowledging as central to ‘multilingualisms,’ intimately connected with communality and humanity in plural societies. This discussion continues earlier work that identifies transknowledging as one of three major characteristics of southern multilingualisms: (i) plural, multidimensional multilingualisms purposefully used for specific functions (Heugh 1999. Languages, development and reconstructing education in South Africa. International Journal of Educational Development 19(4-5). 301–313); (ii) expression and exertion of linguistic agency and voice, i.e., ‘linguistic citizenship’ (Stroud 2001. African mother-tongue programmes and the politics of language: Linguistic citizenship versus linguistic human rights. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 22(4). 339–355); and (iii) reciprocal exchange and translation of knowledge, i.e., ‘transknowledging’ (Heugh 2021. Southern multilingualisms, translanguaging and transknowledging in inclusive and sustainable education. In P. Harding-Esch & H. Coleman (eds.), Language and the sustainable development goals , 37–47. British Council). Southern multilingualisms with their triangular balance of characteristics occur alongside or intersect with several further sets of equibalanced triangular associations that have underpinned human societies for millennia. These include epistemologies, cosmologies and ontologies; logos, ethos and pathos; pasts, presents and futures. Missing from many discussions of linguistic plurality has been recognition of the triangular relationality of transknowledging alongside linguistic citizenship and the multidimensionality and plurality of multilingualisms. Recognising the importance of keeping these relationalities and pluralities in balance as central to homo sapiens amans and convivial societies has consequences for how educators and linguists weigh the ethos, pathos and logos of their work.

The study employs an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design to investigate the interplay of interaction, growth language mindset (GLM), second or foreign language (L2) grit, and student engagement among 347 Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduates selected via convenience sampling. Quantitative data were collected through an online survey and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). Results revealed that (1) both teacher-student interaction (TSI) and student-content interaction (SCI) could positively and directly predict student engagement. However, the relationship between student-student interaction (SSI) and student engagement was not significant; (2) GLM served as a mediator between three interaction types and student engagement; (3) both consistency of interest (COI) and perseverance of effort (POE) mediated the relationships between SSI/SCI and student engagement. However, TSI showed no significant direct effects on either COI or POE. Qualitative interviews with 26 undergraduates revealed various factors, including student-related, teacher-related, and environmental factors that influence student engagement. This study enhances understanding of factors influencing engagement among online EFL learners, offering valuable insights for parents, teachers, and administrators.

Higher-degree teacher-researchers confront problems in demonstrating to university-appointed thesis examiners their capabilities for using 英语 (Yīngyǔ, ‘English language’) in critical discussions that contribute to advances in knowledge. A taken-for-granted solution to this challenge uses methods of critical discussion produced in 英语 (Yīngyǔ) to contribute to knowledge in 英语 (Yīngyǔ). Early childhood teacher-researchers recognise that collaborative research is a strategic professional learning activity for addressing complex, ambiguous problems, and requires openness to novel experiences and the open-minded pursuit of original contributions to knowledge. This study questions the exclusivity of 英语 (Yīngyǔ)- only Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) to explore the potential of integrating translanguaging and transknowledging into critical discussions through research methods that contribute to knowledge. This study analyses the logic of teacher-research practices for contributing to knowledge through critical discussions of the exclusionary use of 英语 (Yīngyǔ). Evidence of three interrelated fields of power governing the teacher-researcher’s systemic disposition for critical discussion is subjected to relational analysis. Working with postmonolingual thinking tools, higher-degree teacher-researchers can exercise epistemic resistance in their critical discussions of the tensions between state-induced multilingualism and state-driven monolingualism to contribute to transknowledging.

The study examines the classroom practices of four STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teachers in an EMI higher education programme in China, investigating how they utilise diverse language resources to recalibrate epistemic frameworks in a knowledge (co)construction process. Drawing on class observations and interviews, the study moves beyond the flexibility of language use in EMI lessons to explore the intricate relationships between languages, semiotics, and knowledge systems in EMI teaching. The findings reveal that EMI teachers employed varied translanguaging strategies to facilitate knowledge co-construction, leveraging teachers’ and students’ existing knowledge as valuable learning resources. The epistemic diversity of bilingual teachers and students was recognised as an asset, breeding opportunities for knowledge development with a glocal grounding in EMI. Nonetheless, the study also highlights the need for greater support in raising teachers’ critical awareness of the ideologies underlying EMI and enhancing recognition of the transknowledging value of translanguaging pedagogy.

It is well known that a major impediment to the successful mastery of a target foreign language (FL) is a lack of exposure outside the classroom. The present one-year longitudinal study set out to examine (1) the amounts and kinds of exposure to English outside class experienced by young learners in an EFL context, (2) the relationships between their exposure and socioeconomic status (both parents’ education levels and household incomes), and (3) the association between exposure and vocabulary gains. Ninety Grade-5 EFL children in Hong Kong completed a pre- and post-vocabulary test with a gap of 1 year. Individual interviews were conducted with each child’s parent(s)/guardian(s) (and the children themselves) to collate data about their backgrounds and the child’s exposure to English. The findings revealed that all participants received out-of-class English input through doing homework, and more than two-thirds of them attended tutorial classes and engaged with general informal exposure to English (GIE) such as watching videos and reading books. (Marginally) positive correlations were found between GIE, household income, and parents’ levels of education. GIE was also found to be related to total vocabulary gains over the one-year period, especially at the 2,000-word level.

While written corrective feedback (WCF) is intended to help learners build new knowledge, student engagement with WCF is not always satisfactory, partly due to a lack of sufficient feedback literacy. Despite recent advances in understanding students’ feedback literacy and engagement with WCF, two groups have received limited attention: learners of languages other than English (LOTEs), such as Japanese, and beginners. To address this gap, this study explores feedback literacy and engagement with WCF of three beginner learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). Data were collected through background questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, student essays, stimulated recall sessions, reflective accounts, classroom observations, and course documents. The findings reveal that feedback literacy is multi-faceted, emergent, and situated. Additionally, the participants drew on L1 writing experiences to address errors and used WCF to reflect on and adjust their writing processes due to their lack of writing experiences in Japanese. The students also displayed varying levels of cognitive, behavioral, and affective engagement with WCF.

In this study we investigate why phrasal downgraders such as mei-guanxi 没关系 (‘does not matter’) and meishi(-meishi) 没事 (没事) (‘no problem(-no problem)’) turn out to be problematic even for advanced L2 learners of Chinese. Although both mei-guanxi and meishi(-meishi) are standardly mentioned in Chinese L2 textbooks, various of their uses are still surprisingly irritating for L2 learners. We look at the heart of such irritations by following a tripartite bottom-up analytic procedure: We first conducted semi-structured interviews with advanced L2 learners of Chinese who reported having been irritated by the phrasal downgraders under investigation. We then examined uses of these expressions in a Chinese corpus, and finally we interpreted our learners’ L2 irritations through the outcomes of our corpus analysis. We examined our data through a minimalist and finite typology of speech acts and a related interactional system. Our interviewees made altogether five observation types, which we were able to systematically explain with the aid of our approach.

Watching flight safety videos is a mandatory component of global air travel. While previous studies have primarily focused on using experimental techniques to assess passengers’ information recall and strategies to increase passengers’ level of attention, little has been done on the transmodal design aspects of these videos which can open up new spaces for branding. This paper first discusses how this genre has transitioned from solely delivering safety information, to increasingly being crafted as a space for airline and destination branding in a globalized context. Using the notion of assemblage and transmodalities , this study presents a comparative analysis of two airlines to investigate how they are similar or different in terms of how they communicate safety information and engage in airline and destination branding. This study aims to raise awareness of flight safety videos as not only an instructional genre but also a space for intercultural communication between airlines and passengers who may or may not have a shared understanding of cultural and safety knowledge. Taken together, the study contributes to a nuanced and evolving understanding of the flight safety video genre.

Research in English Medium Instruction (EMI) has often focused on broad policy levels or disciplinary content rather than teachers’ linguistic behavior in EMI classrooms. In order to explore linguistic behaviors in one Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subject, this study investigated changes in linguistic behavior over a series of three lectures in an EMI robotics course. To monitor speech and articulation rates, five evenly-distributed one-minute excerpts from each of three lectures were analyzed and compared using ELAN software. AntWordProfiler, in combination with various word lists (e.g., the Academic Word List and the Academic Spoken Word List), was used to study vocabulary choice and keyword aspects throughout the entire lectures. Findings showed increases in both speech and articulation rate from the first to the third lecture with an accompanying reduction in total pause time. Vocabulary coverage remained largely consistent, with the most common 2000 words being used around 90 % of the time. Regarding keyword appearances, frequency decreased over time, with noticeably fewer uses evident in the third compared to the first lecture. Based on the findings, implications for EMI teachers, teacher trainers, and students are outlined with respect to teachers’ rate of speech and vocabulary use.

Following the Control-Value Theory of positive psychology, this study investigated how emotional precursors affect enjoyment and boredom in skill-focused English reading classes, and how these emotions impact academic achievement in foreign language learning. 332 EFL university students completed a composite questionnaire, recalling their experiences of enjoyment, boredom, motivation, and control-value appraisals in reading classes. A quantitative analysis revealed that emotional precursors significantly predict both enjoyment (positively) and boredom (negatively), with extrinsic value being a key factor in emotional responses. Additionally, a structural equation modeling analysis was performed to illustrate the relationships between students’ emotional antecedents, emotions, motivation, and their impact on performance. The findings indicate that emotions and motivation are mediators between antecedents and achievement, with emotions playing a more significant role as the principal mediator. These findings partially align with previous research, underscoring the significance of considering skill-specific factors in evaluating student emotions and achievements in similar educational settings. Moreover, the research results have implications for our educational practice: educators need to improve students’ control-value appraisals and manage their emotional reactions by using strategies like personalizing training to suit individual abilities and emphasizing the practical value of English reading, which may facilitate their enjoyment and academic achievement.

Drawing on the interpretative phenomenological approach, this study reports on the nexus between teacher motivation and identity construction. Adopting a theoretical framework that involves the role of self-efficacy, career choice, goals, and motivational sustainers and underminers in teacher motivation and identity construction, we show how historic-sociocultural factors come to profoundly contribute to the teachers’ constructed identities and the motivational fluctuations they experience. In particular, motivation and identity were defined by our teachers as transcending in-class events toward macro-structural forces that shape the overarching configuration of their professionalism. In this sense, investment, commitment, emotional well-being, and socio-economic adequacy were the sites of the clash between contextual particularities and the teachers’ motivation-identity capitals. Based on the findings, we provide implications for how to leverage the potential of the nexus between motivation and identity in teacher education courses to positively contribute to teacher professional development.

In a range of academic scholarship communities, the debate over the efficacy and impact of open access publishing has intensified. This discourse is strong in [language education and applied linguistics], where the divide between research and practical application (the “teaching-research nexus”) has gained increased attention in scholarly discussions. The prominent argument is that teachers do not engage with research due to its inaccessibility. This study builds on the existing literature by examining the potential effects of open access and accessible summaries (developed through the OASIS initiative) on engagement metrics and citation counts for the journal System . It partially replicates the earlier study by Shepperd et al. (2023. OASIS potential impact on journal article engagement . Report downloaded from: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/651439a9c0bea335021ff64b/OASIS-summaries-impact-report-final-16-August-2023.pdf), which included 34 matched article pairs, by expanding the sample to 72 pairs and applying similar design and analysis procedures. Findings show that published research articles with open access plain language summaries have more downloads and citations, indicating increased engagement and scholarly impact. However, questions remain concerning the true mechanisms driving this relationship, and further research is needed to validate and explain these patterns.

This study investigates the collaborative inquiry among Korean-English translingual scholars who utilize translanguaging spaces to foster collective agency toward decolonization. We rethink language beyond a mere communication tool, framing it instead as a dynamic process that shapes identities, ideologies, and interpersonal relationships in academia and society. By examining data from three projects – a reading group focused on Asian Critical perspectives, a writing group exploring transnational experiences, and an inquiry into languaging practices over three years – we uncover the complexities and impact of English language ideology in knowledge production. Our transnational experiences, spanning from South Korea to the United States, highlight the disproportionate epistemic influence of English-speaking countries in academia, revealing inherent linguistic power dynamics. Our roles as Asian faculty intersect with notions of native speakerism, affecting our professional interactions and contributions significantly. This study highlights the transformative potential of translanguaging as a methodology for examining and reclaiming our dynamic scholarly practices across borders. We embrace our “in-betweenness,” stressing the importance of engaging with translanguaging spaces, analyzing metalanguaging, and decolonizing processes to reflect our transnational identities. By celebrating our translinguistic selves, we contribute to a broader understanding of languaging as epistemic resistance in higher education.

Reading comprehension is an essential language skill and cognitive ability usually elicited and examined through tasks. Investigations into the effects of task type on reading comprehension have mostly focused on reading outcome (accuracy) and drawn divergent conclusions because of research instrument restrictions. This study employed eye tracking to explore 43 Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ reading comprehension processes with the multiple choice (MC) and short answer (SA) tasks based on Khalifa and Weir’s model of reading. It was found that: (1) task type influences EFL learners’ reading of the text and question stems, with the MC task eliciting more careful and expeditious reading of the text and the SA task producing more fixations and saccades in the question stems; (2) task type does not influence EFL learners’ eye-movement patterns in task completion; and (3) processing demand (realized through scope and depth) influences EFL learners’ cognitive load and attention allocation, although the effects are not as salient as those of task type. This study examines EFL learners’ reading comprehension processes modulated by task type and makes scholarly contributions through locally expanding Khalifa and Weir’s model.

In this article, we employ creative methodologies that enable an immigrant individual to speak out about their lived realities. Drawing on Kristeva’s notion of creative mimesis, performative writing is used to carve out new spaces for understanding the interplay between languages, cultures, and societies. Engaging with an anonymous letter that garnered widespread attention on Chinese social media [我奋斗了18年才和你坐在一起喝咖啡], this article demonstrates how creative mimesis can cultivate epistemic capabilities – allowing individuals to generate interpretive materials that articulate their lived worlds. By privileging the voice of ‘ordinary people’ [普通人] – those whose perspectives are often overlooked – we position this research as distinct from conventional academic genres, emphasizing the emotional, linguistic, and aesthetic dimensions of displacement. The article draws attention to style – made visible through what convention typically rejects – highlighting the ways immigrants live in difference. Public performance emerges not only as a unique form of knowledge-making but also as a call for readers from diverse backgrounds to participate in the process of meaning-making. In doing so, this collaborative research empowers the immigrant subject on the margins to reclaim agency over their narratives and their understanding of the world. To conclude, we argue that performative texts hold methodological potential for creating a dialogic, relational space – one that enables the very people we aim to serve and inspire.

Gradient acceptability, which characterizes partially acceptable constructions within a given population of speakers, is a phenomenon whose cognitive underpinnings are yet to be fully understood. In this paper we share insights from a study where the causes of gradient acceptability were investigated from a language-external, speaker-oriented perspective. Specifically, we tested whether the mono- and bilingual status and age play a role in the perception of partially acceptable subject-oriented possessive pronouns and post-verbal adverb placement in Polish. To that end, we performed an acceptability judgement task involving four groups of native speakers of Polish (N = 99), differing in bilingual status (monolingual vs. bilingual) and age (young adult vs. middle-aged). The data were analyzed with mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression models. The results showed that only age was a significant predictor of the ratings of ungrammatical sentences with subject-oriented possessive pronouns. Conversely, the ratings of sentences with adverb placement were influenced by bilingual status. While the findings may be partly explained by different sources of partial acceptability in the two tested constructions, they also show that age and bilingual status impact different areas of cognitive processing.

Each genre is characterized by its distinct linguistic features, which are designed to achieve the particular purpose of its discourse. Despite the wealth of research documenting genre effects, showing higher levels of linguistic complexity in non-narrative genres compared to narrative genres, most studies have focused on written language and linguistic features at the lexical and syntactic levels. To address these gaps, the current study investigates the influence of genre on L2 speech at the discourse level. Our analysis focuses on the frequency and specific use of connectives in expository and narrative speech produced by 784 L2-English learners. The findings show that exposition is associated with the use of connectives that possess more cognitively complex coherence relations denoting order, subordination, and opposition. In contrast, narration is associated with the use of connectives that possess less cognitively complex coherence relations indicating conjunction and addition. These results demonstrate the significance of genre-specific features of connectives in L2 speech, highlighting distinct patterns across different genres and suggesting practical applications for language instruction.

The emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping academic writing and publishing practices. As knowledge curators, applied linguistics journal editors need to respond to GenAI developments. Yet, little is known about their perspectives on GenAI in academic writing and publishing. These perspectives could influence their editorial decisions and journal policies – potentially defining how scholars write for publication. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews, this study explored the perceptions of ten applied linguistics journal editors towards GenAI in academic writing for publication. Analysis shows that the development of GenAI is putting additional strain on the editorial process, which is already struggling. It highlights that current publisher and journal policies on GenAI are ambiguous, leading to confusing and questionable research practices. Editors are cautious about the use of GenAI in applied linguistics research and writing, with only the use of these tools to improve writing quality universally acceptable. Transparency is seen as essential. The findings highlight a pressing need for discipline-specific guidance on the acceptable uses of GenAI in academic publishing and the development of methodological models that detail ways GenAI can be integrated into the field’s rich and diverse research traditions.

In this exploratory case study, the details of language management in Company X’s translation service, which is going global, are fully examined and represented. The researchers utilized in-depth interviews to collect the data. Their findings regarding the driving/contributing factors relating to language management, the strategies employed, and the relevant effects are presented. It is concluded that this transnational company’s language management has succeeded by virtue of digital technologies, which have pushed this company’s digitalization and internationalization. The study has verified and developed current language management theory and provides implications for transnational companies to conduct their management of language-related business demands and challenges more effectively in the globalized and digital era.

Second/Foreign language teachers have received tremendous research attention; yet knowledge about early career language teachers (ECLTs) remains relatively limited. A comprehensive review is thus necessitated that synthesises findings pertaining to this particular teacher group. This paper presents the first scoping review of empirical research on ECLTs (2004–2023). It thematically synthesises 175 empirical studies into three areas of ECLT research: teacher cognition; teacher practices; and teacher continuing professional development. The first area investigates ECLTs’ beliefs, self-concept, knowledge, and motivation. The second area explores their instructional and assessment strategies, classroom discourse, and contextual factors influencing their practices. The last area is focused on the impact of training and support systems on ECLTs’ professional growth. Drawing upon the findings, we propose a conceptual framework for understanding ECLTs and guiding future ECLT research and outline practical implications for supporting ECLTs’ career progression.

Research by this author has indicated that instruction of techniques that increase expiratory drive through enhanced activity of the abdominal muscles can benefit Chinese speakers’ English phoneme pronunciation. One of these two techniques, referred to as the measured contraction technique (MCT), involves sustained contraction of the abdominal muscles aimed at maintaining the length of long vowels/diphthongs. The other technique, referred to as the sharp contraction technique (SCT), involves a burst of muscular effort designed to help enhance production of voiced consonants. In that earlier research, the learners were taught the techniques specifically for their production of the long vowel/diphthong sounds /i:/, /u:/ and /eɪ/, and voiced fricative consonants /z/, /ð/, /v/ and /ʒ/, sounds which typically challenge Chinese speakers. The data for that research was gathered through a reading-aloud test (pre-test through to delayed post-test), and in this current study that test data was further analyzed to see whether the benefits from the techniques transferred to other, typically problematic sounds for these learners: those being various other long vowels/diphthongs, and also syllable-final voiced consonants. The study concluded there was some transfer of learning, particularly for the MCT, somewhat supporting the value of the techniques. The results could be largely explained through transfer of learning theory, which was used to frame the study, and implications of the study are discussed for L2 pronunciation instruction.

This paper proposes a critical approach and a model based on the construct of ‘ethics of care‘ to understand researcher vulnerability within contemporary applied linguistics. We emphasise the importance of reflexivity as a practice that foregrounds the humanity of both researchers and participants. In particular, by highlighting the challenges and dilemmas faced by researchers, we advocate for an ethics of care as a guide to address the ethical and practical issues related to researcher vulnerabilities. We discuss how recent shifts in applied linguistics, particularly the reflexive turn, have sharpened the focus on the social and ethical dimensions of research impact, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of generative AI technologies. Our discussion underscores the necessity of acknowledging researchers’ own vulnerabilities and the need for systematic and transparent engagement with these challenges to foster well-being and ethical rigour for all in applied linguistics research.

This study examined the unique contributions of home biliteracy environment in English and Chinese to Chinese-Canadian children’s ( n  = 148) bilingual receptive vocabulary development. The children (42 kindergarteners and 106 first graders) were tested on oral receptive vocabulary in Chinese and English. Their parents ( n  = 148) filled out a questionnaire on home literacy environment (HLE) which included four dimensions in each language: parent-child shared reading, parent direct teaching, print resources, and digital devices usage in Chinese and English. Correlational and hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated that HLE factors were less associated with English receptive vocabulary in grade-1 than in kindergarten but remained a strong contributor to Chinese vocabulary across both grades. English HLE was significantly associated with children’s English vocabulary in kindergarten but not in grade 1. However, Chinese HLE had a significant effect on Chinese vocabulary in both kindergarten and grade 1. The four dimensions of HLE in each language also had differential relationships with bilingual vocabulary development in kindergarten and grade 1 with parents’ direct teaching and the number of books in English and Chinese being consistent positive factors in facilitating bilingual vocabulary development in both grades. These findings highlight the importance of home biliteracy environment, particularly direct parental involvement, in early bilingual vocabulary development.

This study examines the relationship between ideal L2 writing self (IL2WS), writing growth mindset, writing enjoyment, and second language (L2) writing self-efficacy among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. A sample of 374 intermediate EFL students completed a self-report questionnaire assessing their IL2WS, writing growth mindset, writing enjoyment, and L2 writing self-efficacy. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized model, which proposed the direct effects of ideal writing self and writing growth mindset on L2 writing self-efficacy, and a mediating role of writing enjoyment in this relationship. The findings revealed that both IL2WS and writing enjoyment significantly impact L2 writing self-efficacy directly. Furthermore, writing enjoyment was found to mediate the relationship between writing growth mindset and L2 writing self-efficacy. These results highlight the importance of affective factors, specifically enjoyment, in shaping L2 writing self-efficacy beliefs. The implications of these findings for L2 writing instruction and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Due to the central role of creativity in teachers’ professional success, the personal, emotional, and environmental sources of teacher creativity need to be discovered. A brief review of the available literature reveals that most of previous studies have looked into the personal and environmental sources of teacher creativity, leaving a broad range of emotional sources unconsidered. To fill this lacuna and shed light on the role of emotional factors in teacher creativity, our research investigated the role of passion and enjoyment in Chinese English teachers’ creativity. To accomplish this, a random sample of 377 English language teachers was selected from various language institutes and universities in China. Afterward, three validated questionnaires were distributed among participants to assess their passion, enjoyment, and creativity in English classrooms. Then, to analyze the dataset, confirmatory factor analysis and linear regression analysis were run via IBM SPSS Amos. Results indicated that passion and enjoyment can make positive, significant changes in Chinese English teachers’ creativity. The outcomes of the present inquiry may be illuminating for all educational leaders and principals.

A dynamic perspective of second language (L2) development enquires into time-intensive data that are longitudinal, dense, non-linear, and individual. This article reports a collection of quantitative methods that could capture time-intensive data, termed Time-Intensive Methods (TIMs). We reviewed empirical studies published from 2008 to 2023 that have used TIMs to investigate non-linear L2 development. Seventy-eight studies were included to be further analyzed regarding their chronological trends, adopted TIMs, research topics, and theoretical contributions. Three major contributions of TIMs are identified: capturing the non-linear developmental paths, detecting the emergent group patterns, and revealing the dynamic interactions over time. Methodological rigor is discussed against how TIMs address their corresponding theoretical concepts and research questions. The findings provide insights into the current state of TIM application in L2 development research, and encourage researchers to explore a wider range of TIMs that could enhance future studies inspired by the dynamic paradigm.

This study examines how two dimensions of self-directed humour (SDH) (deleterious SDH and benign SDH) can be used by language learners to shape the relationship between foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE). A total of 234 Chinese college students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) completed an online questionnaire. Results indicate a chain mediation model, suggesting that FLCA predicted, but only indirectly, FLE when mediated by learners’ use of deleterious SDH and benign SDH sequentially. Our study established that through judicious deployment of deleterious and benign SDH, EFL learners are capable of transforming their maladaptive emotional states (FLCA) into adaptive ones (FLE). Also, the under-explored positive side of SDH, benign SDH, has demonstrated its crucial supportive role in learners’ enjoyment.

This paper explores the multilingual identity construction and investment of Tanvir, a young adult from Pakistan. He arrived in Italy as an unaccompanied minor in 2018, after a migration journey, and currently lives between Italy and the UK. Research on identities and investment has been mainly conducted in EFL/ESL contexts. Far fewer studies explore them in LOTE contexts or in respect to first generation multilingual teenagers with a migration journey. This article reports on a case study approach to capturing the complexities of the lived experience of a single participant, Tanvir. Data were generated through in-depth, biographical, semi-structured interviews and were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings reveal Tanvir’s awareness of his competence as a multilingual and his ability to negotiate his identities as a transnational entrepreneur. His multilingual investment stems from his sense of agency, which allows him to inhabit transnational spaces by successfully overcoming ideological tensions and other social and structural obstacles to seize opportunities for his own personal fulfilment. The implications reflect on how school institutions can better support the agency and imagination of this under-researched and growing group of learners.

Signs as Linguistic Landscape (henceforth LL) data not only reflect social phenomena but also instigate social action. This paper documents governmental signage in the pandemic and investigates how LL reflects historical and sociocultural conventions, shapes people’s understanding of pandemic life and contributes to regulating public behavior. Expounding the three dimensions of ‘nexus analysis’, i.e. ‘interaction order’, ‘historical body’ and ‘discourses in place’, this paper reveals that LL serves as mediational means to afford the government’s collective action of calling for unity and obedience in a time of national crisis. By highlighting materiality, emplacement, and historical and sociocultural connotations, this paper pinpoints mediated actions and cycles of discourse in the Chinese context at the critical time of Covid. The ‘interaction order’ is analyzed according to social relationships behind sign usage, ‘historical body’ embraces the previous histories of not only people but also their habit of using signs while ‘discourses in place’ form semiotic aggregate with the help of multimodality and materiality.

An increasing number of individuals on Chinese social media seek to make a living by uploading short videos that mix English language teaching with entertainment. Combining elements of traditional teaching with business acumen and a flair for the dramatic, these “platform language teacherpreneurs” (PLTs) compete for viewers and students in a highly competitive and algorithmically unforgiving attention economy. This article examines the self-branding practices of three PLTs on Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), focusing on how the three PLTs construct attractive and salable identities. Drawing on theories of authenticity, language commodification, and self-branding, we show that PLTs’ success in attracting viewers is achieved in part by reflexively highlighting regional identities (e.g., Sichuanese, Shanghainese, and Cantonese). We argue that the use of regional identities for the purpose of self-branding reflects a broader phenomenon concomitant with platformization: elements of linguistic and cultural difference being used to signal authenticity on social media. Limitations and suggestions for further research are included.

This study focuses on the human-caused environmental disaster resulting from the February 2023 Ohio train derailment incident. Drawing on ecolinguistics and critical discourse analysis, we analyze how various stakeholders, including affected residents, Norfolk Southern (the responsible company), and politicians, frame this incident in coverage by CNN and The New York Times . We identify four distinct frames: blaming, controlling, monitoring, and politicizing the incident. While residents emphasize human health impacts and accountability, Norfolk Southern portrays the incident as manageable, and politicians politicize it for partisan gains. These frames underscore and reinforce anthropocentric values by relegating the interests of non-human beings and living entities to a secondary position, reifying a passive nature that is controlled and dominated by humans, and mitigating human accountability for environmental harm. The findings reveal how disaster frames construct and produce hierarchies between humans and nature and among different human groups, hierarchies perpetuated by media influence and political exploitation. By unpacking these frames, the study contributes to understanding how frames of human-caused environmental disasters reflect and reproduce anthropocentric ideologies.

Foreign Language Anxiety refers to the emotional response experienced when learning or using a second language (L2) in a classroom setting. Research on ethnic minority (EM) students in Hong Kong (HK) indicates that they face difficulties in learning Chinese-as-an-Additional-Language (CAL), and the lack of adequate Chinese language education is often seen as a contributing factor to their anxiety, hindering their integration into HK society. However, there is a scarcity of studies exploring how teachers can foster a positive classroom environment to reduce students’ L2 anxiety in L2 classrooms. To fill this gap, this study employs translanguaging as an analytical framework to explore how creating emotionally secure translanguaging spaces can help mitigate EM students’ anxiety in learning CAL. The classroom interaction data will be analysed through Multimodal Conversation Analysis, and this data will be corroborated with findings from video-stimulated recall interviews, analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, to understand teachers’ and students’ perspectives on translanguaging practices in CAL classrooms. The study posits that establishing a secure translanguaging environment in CAL classrooms can potentially ease EM students’ anxiety related to learning CAL. Nevertheless, the teachers’ reliance on certain linguistic resources for scaffolding EM students’ CAL learning could potentially limit the transformative power of the translanguaging space as teachers do not fully tap into the students’ entire linguistic repertoire for scaffolding students’ CAL learning and reducing their anxiety.

English medium instruction (EMI) has received increasing research attention through the globalization and internationalization of higher education. Empirical research has revealed that EMI classes tend to be monologic, which has long been viewed as problematic and potentially detrimental to dialogic and meaningful learning. Meanwhile, the rise of EMI also spurs translanguaging research, which largely encourages the mobilization of different linguistic resources (especially students’ L1) in addition to English in compensation for the potential difficulty in content comprehension. This makes it pertinent to reconsider how translanguaging and monologic lecturing could be integrated and optimized for knowledge construction in EMI classrooms. Through a qualitative case study, this paper reports the perceptions and practices of a history EMI teacher who tried to create a dialogic space for her students through the diversified use of translanguaging in her monologic lecturing. Her class was observed and audio-recorded for analysis, and stimulated recall after the semester revealed her pedagogical beliefs and reasoning. The study importantly points to the unique potential of a third category of EMI teachers who are neither native speakers of English nor share an L1 with their students in mobilizing a wide range of semiotic resources in EMI teaching. The findings demonstrate the power of translanguaging in fostering dialogic spaces within monologic lecturing, which might be necessary and inevitable in EMI courses. Challenges were also outlined with implications drawn to support EMI teachers in facilitating students’ disciplinary content learning.