While child language development theory must explain invariant “success,” foreign language learning theory must explain variation and lack of success. The fundamental difference hypothesis (FDH) outlines such a theory. Epstein et al. ignore the explanatory burden, mischaracterize the FDH, and underestimate the resources of human cognition. The field of second language acquisition is not divided into camps by views on “access” to UG.

Though largely ignored by educators and researchers, boredom, an aversive emotion, is the hurdle for many translation learners to be professional. It is all the more important to unpack the boredom factors of Chinese foreign language major students in translation classes, which will serve in promoting students’ engagement in L2 classes and translator cultivation. By using a sequential mixed approach, this study conducted a thematic analysis and built a structural equation model. Quantitative data were gleaned from 483 foreign major (...) college students in China and qualitative data were selected from students of 7 universities through snowball sampling. Initially, the first-order confirmatory factor analysis verified the adapted questionnaire and the second-order CFA finds each factor’s contribution. Then, the thematic analysis gives support to the empirical findings. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that task-based boredom is the most routinely experienced boredom. Moreover, two major sources of boredom in translation classes are found, including task-based boredom and teacher-related boredom. It is suggested that teachers should improve their classes and use more interesting and engaging materials and tasks with the proper level of difficulty. The finding can help educators to identify the major boredom in the translation class and help potential professional translators to grow. Future studies will also be facilitated by the present study to find approaches to tackle these boredom sources. (shrink)

In today’s schools, reading in an L2 is a very challenging task, and it is impossible to ignore the role of feedback in optimizing reading achievement. The present study was an attempt to investigate the type of both positive and corrective feedback moves utilized by L2 teachers in L2 reading comprehension classes. The study concentrated on six different kinds of corrective feedback, namely, explicit correction, recast, clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition, as well as four positive feedback techniques: acknowledgment, (...) acceptance, rephrasing, and repetition. To this end, 40 participants were selected from a total population of 52 female EFL learners, aged 20-25, from an English language institute in Iran. In order to ensure the homogeneous entry behavior of the participants in terms of proficiency, the Oxford Placement Test , with reasonable measures of validity and reliability, was used to screen the students. All that happened in reading comprehension classes were audio recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed. To ensure about the consistency of the researchers in coding the data, the inter-coder reliability was run using Cronbach’s Alpha. Statistical analysis of the results revealed that repetition was the most frequently provided positive feedback by L2 teachers , followed by rephrasing . Regarding corrective feedback, explicit correction was the most frequent feedback technique and elicitation the second one utilized by L2 teachers . The results of Chi-square test showed that there was a significant difference among the frequencies of the feedback types. Hopefully the findings of this research study would help L2 teachers to have a more profound understanding of what goes on in their classes. (shrink)

As the cores of education, teachers’ emotions have a critical place in academia. However, the power of EFL teachers’ positive emotions and their regulation in online mode of instruction have been ignored by scholars. With the rapid shift of education from face-to-face to remote/electronic delivery, many challenges and emotional problems emerged among teachers and learners worldwide. This entailed the necessity of considering and planning for emotional regulation to generate positive outcomes. To provide a roadmap for this line of research, the (...) present mini-review article presented the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of emotion regulation, its origins and definitions, as well as outcomes for second/foreign language education. The study also presents some implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, and avid scholars of this area of research pinpointing the current yawning gaps. (shrink)

Second/foreign language teaching has been found as one of the most emotional professions worldwide. To generate optimal academic outcomes and run an effective education, teachers and students’ emotions and feelings must be positively cared for. Given the significance of emotions in L2 education, many studies have followed positive psychology and examined various positive constructs. Nevertheless, love, as a PP variable, has been ignored in education due to its cultural/religious sensitivities. Trying to dispel the myths, recently, a new trend called (...) a “loving pedagogy” has started to find itself a place in second language acquisition research and practice. Yet, proposing a model of its application and an agenda for its research has been overlooked by scholars in this domain. Motivated by this lacuna, this research article provided the conceptualization, definitions, research bases, practical models, and implications of a loving pedagogy for SLA practitioners and future researchers. (shrink)

Standard language, which follows rules of dictionary and grammar, undergoes various changes when it is the subject of literature, especially poetry. These changes, called linguistic deviation, are due to the poet’s expression of his feelings and thoughts by forcing the possibilities of language. In this direction, language deviations can be defined as the dispositions where the author goes out of the standard language, as in the examples of changes in the pronunciation (ṣavt), form (ṣarf) or spelling (...) (kitābet) of the words, the derivation of new words that are not used in the language (irticāl) and the deterioration of the syntax (naḥv). According to many literary critics such as Ibn Hishām al-Ansārī (d. 761/1360) and ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Baghdādī (d. 1093/1682), this language used by Arab poets who were not influenced by foreign languages, namely the Cāhilī, Muḥaḍram and Islāmī poets (ḳudemâ), was acceptable and it is considered as ḍarūrātuş-şiʿriyye (poetry necessities). In this context, deviations that do not comply with the standard language are tried to be explained with dialect differences, different variants of the couplet or various interpretations. However, some scholars such as Ibn Fāris (d. 395/1004) and Abū al-Ḥasan al-Jurjānī (d. 392/1001-1002) argue that these usages are laḥn (linguistic mistakes). According to these names, it is not correct to explain the poets’ use, which are contrary to the standard language rules, with excessive interpretations (takalluf). Assuming that linguistic deviations are laḥn, they cannot represent a superiority in terms of literary value, but when considered as a necessity, they represent a superiority within the framework of certain criteria. But any specific criteria have been determined before about which linguistic deviations represent the superiority. Therefore, in our study, the theories put forward about the accuracy of linguistic deviations that exceed the standard language rules will be examined and the necessary criteria for them to represent a superiority will be determined. In this direction, the difference in meaning and form that this deviation adds to the expression becomes important. If the language deviation, which is contrary to the standard sentence structure, does not comply with the language rules in any aspect and does not add any superiority to the poem in terms of meaning and form, it does not seem possible for such uses to represent a more fluent and persuasive language (al-Balāgha). However, the language deviation reveals a new meaning or form that is not found in the standard expression, and if this usage complies with the standard language rules, it represents a more eloquently language. The degree of violation of the purity and perfection of language (faṣāḥa) of a statement is related to the violation of qiyās (analogy?) and grammatical incongruity mentioned in the rhetoric books. The contravention of common language rules of these uses, which are not considered faṣīḥ, varies. As a matter of fact, some of these were seen as minor mistakes that could be ignored, while others were considered as major mistakes. For this purpose, a conceptual framework about linguistic deviations is drawn at the introduction of the article, and the literary theories on the subject are examined in the first chapter. In the second part, it is argued that linguistic deviations represent a superiority depending on certain criteria by giving examples from the poems of the period of Jāhilīyah. (shrink)

The notion that Western ways are superior can be used to justify subsidising advocacy to the poor in Africa who might otherwise reject those ways out of ignorance. This ignores differences in culture that can trip up Western logic in Africa. When generosity is the reason to subsidise Western interventions, outside agents can be paid back in honour in ways not appropriate for Christians to accept. Perceived global inequalities used to convince donors to part with their money are impositions when (...) those inequalities are not realised by recipients. When something inherently good, like the gospel, is routinely subsidised, some African people only value it when it comes with money. This disenfranchises poor evangelists. In order to overcome missionary ignorance, promotion of the prosperity gospel, and corruption associated with excessive foreign subsidies, this article advocates that vulnerable mission, namely, foreign intervention using local languages and resources, be permitted. (shrink)

Second/foreign language education has been approved emotionally tense due to its inherent challenges, adversities, complications, and ambiguities. These factors can affect various language teaching and learning domains. Hence, it is critical for EFL teachers to be buoyant and tolerant of ambiguity so that they can teach efficiently and prevent a sense of hopelessness that can damage everything. Although there are investigations on these variables in L2 contexts, their main focus has been on EFL students and teachers’ perspectives have (...) been largely ignored. Against this shortcoming, this study aimed to review the definitions, conceptualizations, and research findings related to teachers’ academic buoyancy, ambiguity tolerance, and hopelessness. Moreover, practical implications for EFL teachers and teacher trainers are presented to increase their awareness of language teaching challenges and ways to overcome them. Finally, the study provides directions for future research. (shrink)

The Buddha considered names of things and people to be arbitrary designations, with their meaning created by agreement. The early suttas show clearly that inter alia, names, perceptions, feelings, thinking, conceptions and mental proliferations were all conditioned dhammas which, when their nature is misunderstood, led to the creation of a sense of ‘I’, as well as craving, clinging and afflictions. Although names were potentially afflictive and ‘had everything under their power’, this did not mean that they were to be ignored (...) or even neglected; words were to be penetrated and thoroughly understood, as an essential instrument for liberation. One of the problems of transmitting the Buddha’s teachings was the large number of disciples who did not speak an Indo-Aryan language as their first language or spoke a dialect different from that of the Teacher. This also led to altered transmission of the Vinaya and Suttas by disciples who could not hear certain phonological distinctions not present in their own language or dialect. Hundreds of these anomalies are preserved in the different editions of the canon, testifying to these transmission ambiguities. The passages dealing with this problem provide a valuable insight into the phonological issues that the early sa?gha had to deal with to try and preserve the integrity of the s?sana. At the same time the etymological practices of Brahmanism were imported into Buddhism very early, probably from the time of the Buddha himself, to demonstrate the intellectual superiority of the Buddha and his teachings. Despite the Buddha’s teachings on the arbitrary nature of language, the commentarial and grammatical traditions developed a sophisticated theoretical framework to analyse, explicate and reinforce some of the key Buddhist doctrinal terms. Also, an elaborate classification system of different types of names was developed, to show that the language of the Buddha was firmly grounded in saccika??ha, the highest truth, and that some terms were spontaneously arisen, even though such a concept — that words by themselves could arise spontaneously and directly embody ultimate truth — was quite foreign to their Founder. (shrink)

It is impossible to ignore the enduring and sweeping popularity of young adult novels written with a dystopian, or even apocalyptic, outlook. Series such as Th e Hunger Games, Th e Maze Runner, and Divergent present dark and boding worlds of amplifi ed terror and societal collapse, and their vulnerable protagonists must answer constant environmental, social, and political challenges, or risk starvation, injury, and various formsof pain and suff ering. More frequently than not, the tensions of the dystopian YA universe (...) turn to the natural world, one of sustenance and renewal, for resolution. The continued popularity of dystopian fi ction written expressly for young adult readers requires critical examination, as teachers must prepare themselves to deal with the questions raised by these texts. Th e trend toward the dystopian seems like rather a bleak expression of political and social hopelessness, but it does off er certain insights into what young readers want from the world around them. Much of the appeal of the dystopian comes from imagining not just problems, but how to solve them. The ingenuity and resourcefulness displayed in dystopian YA novels is not only appealing, but becomes a bold and ultimately optimistic statement on the need for environmental and social sustainability. The optimal incorporation of dystopian YA into the English as a foreign language curriculum relies on the preparation of instruction as understood by Wolfgang Klafki in a mode and format that feels fresh and encourages student-led engagement, genuine multimodality, and an organic progression from the closed circle of the classroom to the open arena of adult civilization. (shrink)

The Chomskian revolution in linguistics gave rise to a new orthodoxy about mind and language. Michael Devitt throws down a provocative challenge to that orthodoxy. What is linguistics about? What role should linguistic intuitions play in constructing grammars? What is innate about language? Is there a 'language faculty'? These questions are crucial to our developing understanding of ourselves; Michael Devitt offers refreshingly original answers. He argues that linguistics is about linguistic reality and is not part of psychology; (...) that linguistic rules are not represented in the mind; that speakers are largely ignorant of their language; that speakers' intuitions do not reflect information supplied by the language faculty and are not the main evidence for grammars; that the rules of 'Universal Grammar' are largely, if not entirely, innate structure rules of thought; indeed, that there is little or nothing to the language faculty. Devitt's controversial theses will prove highly stimulating to anyone working on language and the mind. (shrink)

Concerning the ubiquity of social media, this research tried to examine the impacts of using Telegram on Iranian EFL learners’ foreign language motivation, foreign language anxiety, and attitude toward learning. To achieve these purposes, 60 Iranian EFL learners at the intermediate level were selected and randomly divided into two groups: experimental and control. After that, both groups were pretested on motivation and anxiety variables. After pretesting, the participants in the experimental class received treatmentviausing the Telegram application, and the (...) control students were trained traditionally without using any social media. After an 18-session instruction, a post-test of motivation and a post-test of anxiety were given to both groups, and also an attitude questionnaire was distributed among the experimental group to inspect their attitudes toward the Telegram application in language learning. The results of using two one-way ANCOVA tests showed significant differences between the post-tests of the control and experimental groups in favor of the experimental group. The findings demonstrated that using the Telegram application increased the motivation of the experimental group and decreased their level of foreign language anxiety. Also, the results of one sample t-test showed that the participants of the experimental group held positive attitudes toward using the Telegram application in English language learning. The implications of this research can encourage both teachers and learners to use social media-based instruments in English teaching and learning. (shrink)

The paper examines the theoretical foundation of intolerance and explores potential topics for a curriculum designed to overcome intolerance. Previous research has shown that a negative self-image and low self-esteem seem to foster intolerance. Likewise, individuals with low levels of self-awareness tend to be more willing to express intolerance while paying less attention to the impression their behaviour and communication has among others. Individuals with a negative self-image and low self-esteem often resist change and tend to look for information that (...) confirms and reinforces their existing viewpoints while ignoring information that contradicts their viewpoints. The research of Kruger and Dunning (1999), though, suggests that instruction in metacognition can overcome these negative characteristics. Especially if metacognitive training is coupled with multicultural education, cultural diversity training, and foreign language instruction as other research has revealed. (shrink)

For students of the poet, Robert Fallon's _Milton in Government_ fills a gap in modern knowledge of his life, the ten years he labored as Secretary for Foreign Languages to the English Republic. For Interregnum historians, the book offers a study of the international affairs of the Republic from a unique perspective, as well as a detailed analysis of the government bureaucracy that conceived and articulated foreign policy during the 1650s. Milton's decade of public service to the English Republic, and (...) the collection of State Papers which are the product of those years, have been either misunderstood or largely ignored by Miltonists, and their influence upon his poetry all but dismissed. Making extensive use of the State Papers Foreign in the Public Record Office, hitherto overlooked by literary scholars, and the Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Fallon offers the first definitive description of the poet's place in government. He finds Milton to be an indefatigable and highly knowledgeable public servant, closely involved in the expression of foreign policy, and responsible for many more documents than have been previously ascribed to him. His State Letters reveal him as a man intimately aware of international events, a consideration which leaves little doubt that his experience in government had a significant influence on his creative imagination. Fallon also provides a reading of Milton's tracts of 1659–1660, tracing the influence of a decade of public service in his political philosophy and questioning historians' conclusions that he was repudiating Cromwell's Protectorate in his appeal to stave off the Restoration. (shrink)

Teachers' emotional states such as optimism and commitment have long been approved influential in second/foreign language education. Although many correlational investigations have been conducted on teacher optimism and commitment, their interaction and kinship with teachers' work engagement have been largely ignored in the literature. Considering this situation, the present mini-review aims to present the theoretical underpinnings, definitions, dimensions, and conceptualizations of these three important variables taken from positive psychology. Moreover, the present review can offer a number of practical implications (...) for EFL teachers, teacher educators, program designers, school principals, and L2 researchers, and raise their awareness of the impact of inner emotions on teachers' academic performance. Finally, research gaps and future directions are provided for eager researchers to run similar and complementary studies in EFL contexts. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

Michael Devitt has argued that Chomsky, along with many other Linguists and philosophers, is ignorant of the true nature of Generative Linguistics. In particular, Devitt argues that Chomsky and others wrongly believe the proper object of linguistic inquiry to be speakers' competences, rather than the languages that speakers are competent with. In return, some commentators on Devitt's work have returned the accusation, arguing that it is Devitt who is ignorant about Linguistics. In this note, I consider whether there might be (...) less to this apparent dispute than meets the eye. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 39.1 (2006) 45-71 [Access article in PDF] Presencing "Communion" in Chaïm Perelman's New Rhetoric Richard Graff Wendy Winn Department of RhetoricUniversity of MinnesotaOver the second half of his long and distinguished career, Chaïm Perelman reiterated the central themes of his theory of rhetoric many times. As the audience for his work expanded, Perelman was repeatedly invited to summarize the principles presented in La nouvelle rhétorique, his (...) magnum opus authored in collaboration with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, which appeared in 1958. On these occasions, he would often attempt to clarify or refine the major concepts presented in that treatise. Nevertheless, even today many aspects of Perelman's work remain enigmatic. In outline, The New Rhetoric itself conveys a sense of structural and theoretical clarity, but for many readers this first impression evaporates when they confront the complexity and detail of the work's exposition. In the preface to their new study of Perelman, Alan Gross and Ray Dearin observe:The New Rhetoric is difficult to read, a task made even more difficult for American audiences because virtually all its examples and illustrations are from a literature in a foreign language.... Moreover, Perelman's later attempts to achieve clarity, in The Realm of Rhetoric, and numerous shorter articles, are equally puzzling. Consequently, some of Perelman's best ideas are virtually buried in a very long work, and therefore largely lost even to the most careful readers. In addition, on such central issues as the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy Perelman remains maddeningly obscure. (2003, ix) While Perelman's status as a pioneering figure in the rejuvenation of rhetorical study in Continental Europe is secure, as is his placement among the canonical twentieth-century theorists by American scholars, such difficulties constitute an impediment to contemporary understanding and future appreciation of his achievement; and the sprawling character of The New Rhetoric certainly has not helped to counteract the less [End Page 45] sympathetic reception his work has received in some corners of rhetorical and argumentation studies.1Gross and Dearin's volume joins several other recent studies that have contributed to the untangling of Perelman's thought and to the profitable application of his ideas.2 Still, some of Perelman's "best ideas" remain buried and sorely in need of excavation. Chief among these are considerations prompted by Perelman's use of the evocative yet mysterious term "communion." Although communion appears repeatedly among the panoply of concepts and argumentative techniques described in The New Rhetoric, explicit discussion of it there is brief and scattered, and the subject receives only glancing mention in Perelman's subsequent publications. In turn, communion has been all but ignored in the scholarship responding to or extending Perelman's work.3 This is even the case in studies where one would expect to see more serious engagement with Perelman's ideas on the subject—notably, in those that consider the status of values in argumentation and the role of rhetoric in the constitution and maintenance of community.4In this essay, we offer a detailed analysis of Perelman's conception of communion and, in the course of endowing the concept with greater "presence," aim to show its rich implications for these areas of inquiry. We argue that the idea of communion is a vital, if understated, component of Perelman's proposed "new rhetoric." Like other aspects of Perelman's theory, however, it is an expansive and somewhat slippery notion. In The New Rhetoric, communion is used in a very general sense as the term denoting a community's agreement on questions of value, but also, more narrowly, as an objective sought in certain forms of discourse and as an effect of specific linguistic-stylistic devices. The exegesis needed to indicate the subtle links between these senses will enable us to describe the manner in which Perelman endeavored to integrate the technical lore inherited from the classical tradition of rhetoric with a broadly social and determinedly pluralisticconception of argumentation.We begin by examining communion in relation to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's ideas... (shrink)

Emotion and cognition have long been considered as two influential factors determining the quality of teaching and learning. They form the foundation of all aspects of teaching as an emotional and thought-provoking profession. With the advent of Positive Psychology and affective pedagogy, now English as a Foreign Language teachers’ inner states and emotions are placed at the center of every educational program all around the world. This consideration has led to a rise in various domains of teaching and teacher (...) education. However, the interactive influence and association between teachers’ emotions and cognitions concerning their pedagogical practices has been mostly left ignored in EFL contexts. To fill this gap, the present study aimed to offer a mini-review of the concepts, definitions, related theories, and empirical evidence in this line of research. It also presented practical implications for different stakeholders together with research gaps and future directions for enthusiastic L2 investigators. (shrink)

Empathy is a necessity in our multicultural world. Modern democratic societies are home to communities with the most diverse religious, political, and moral convictions, and these convictions often directly, even perilously, contradict one another. Educational theorists differ on how empathy can be taught in the face of these contradictions. Does proper pedagogical action entail an attempt to teach students to understand the other, to see their world through the eyes of the other? Or is such an attempt doomed to fail, (...) a vain and presumptuous striving to surpass the epistemologically preordained limits of subjectivity? While theorists who promote mutual understanding traditionally look to some form of dialogue to establish their empathic pedagogies, those who doubt the possibility of mutual understanding formulate critical, often monological pedagogies in which students are encouraged to “talk back” to their others about their idiosyncratic perspectives. Theorists have thus had choose: dialogue or relativism? Using the robust educational philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, Douglas Yacek demonstrates that this is a most unsatisfactory choice, one that ignores the pedagogical complexity needed to teach students genuine empathy. He argues that Nietzsche's educational writings yield a tripartite empathic pedagogy founded on self-knowledge, foreign language learning, and experimentalism. Upon these three pedagogical pillars, Yacek problematizes Megan Laverty's recent attempt to formulate an empathic pedagogy as dialogical philosophical inquiry. Although Nietzsche would endorse much of Laverty's pedagogy, Yacek concludes that Nietzsche's pedagogy requires engagement with perspectives across the democratic curriculum and, indeed, beyond. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Georg Simmel Reappears: “The Aesthetic Significance of the Face”James T. Siegel (bio)Michael Landmann, the editor of Georg Simmel’s collected works, tells this anecdote about him. Simmel had submitted a piece called “Psychological and Ethnological Studies on Music” as his doctoral dissertation. His examining committee refused to accept it. As the American translator of the piece retells Landmann’s anecdote, theyinstead granted the degree for a previously written distinguished study on (...) Kant’s monadology. While Zupitza [the committee’s chair] would have been willing to accept this study on music, if it were first “cleared of the numerous misspellings and stylistic errors,” Helmholtz was more skeptical: “Regardless of my other reservations, Simmel is entirely too confident in his conclusions. And the manner in which he presented the faculty with this piece which is so full of misspellings and stylistic superficialities, which evidently was not proofread, in which sentences which are cited from foreign languages can hardly be deciphered, does not attest to a great deal of reliability. Insofar, however, as he has quite a few illustrious predecessors for what he evidently takes to be the method or lack of method of scientific study, he may let them serve as some kind of personal excuse. I, however, believe that we will be doing him a greater service if we do not encourage him further in this direction.”[Landmann 17]1It seems it is Simmel’s fate to be dismissed yet still to be recognized, if not for the work at hand, for something else. Donald Levine, for instance, notes that in Talcott Parsons’s attempt to recuperate German and French sociology for the English-speaking world, there is no mention of Simmel. He says further that his studies of art “are not well known by art historians and critics” just as his work in the philosophy of history is ignored by historians. Simmel died in 1919, but there are still recurrent “discoveries” of Simmel, as witnessed by the sporadic bursts of translations into English. The Philosophy of Money, for instance, published in 1900, was not translated into English until 1978, the famous essay “The Stranger” in 1950, and so on. Just as Simmel left no students who worked in the way he did and no school of sociology, the revivals of Simmel, which usually are marked by a sense of anticipation (“now we will not only learn something; we will carry it forward”), tend to die away without leaving important (or at least recognizable) effects. [End Page 100]It is difficult to quote Simmel and to carry on his work through the usual modifications of something already in place. There is, instead, the attempt to present him “nonetheless.” Thus Donald Levine, to whom the English-speaking world is much indebted for his translations and presentations of Simmel, says: “[t]he presentation of a coherent account of the whole of Simmel’s social thought is complicated by the fact that coherence is generally not considered to be one of the hallmarks of Simmel’s writing” [11]. Levine writes this sentence in a piece he entitles “The Structure of Simmel’s Social Thought.” There are indeed a number of attempts to say what it is that Simmel was trying to do, as though readers had decided that Simmel is unclear but that “nonetheless” we can discern something of great value—just as his thesis committee in refusing his dissertation decided “nonetheless” that another piece would do. If Simmel did not deserve a degree for a piece on the ethnology and psychology of music, surely he deserved it for a work on Kant’s monadology. It seems to be Simmel’s talent to divert interest from whatever he is saying to something else—and always to something of interest and importance. Hence the fact that his influence is much greater than appears from the relative lack of citations to him and the absence not merely of a school of scholarship but of a style of writing traceable to him. His influence disappears at the moment it is most strongly felt. And just when he seems to be out of sight, forgotten, or used up, he reappears. 2Max Weber gives... (shrink)

In this article, I want to reflect on the patient’s voice and why it is sometimes faint or goes altogether unheard. The patient may be too ill to speak or too incapacitated for her voice to express her autonomous wishes. She may speak a foreign language. She may be deaf and lacking an interpreter qualified to sign medical terminology. Her own views may be outshouted by a patient association that presumes to speak for her. Or she may be the (...) target of prejudice that makes it easy for socially privileged people to discount or ignore or not hear what she says.In this article, I examine a rather different, more subtle kind of voicelessness—one that is pervasive, causes moral... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When Did Literature Stop Being Cultural?Sandy Petrey (bio)Debate over the future of French Studies in the United States has sometimes neglected a vital fact: even though the field of French Studies incorporates everything relevant to the francophone world, no single department of French Studies can be that comprehensive. If we want to teach anything serious, we must focus our collective energy and intellect on some manageable component of the (...) many topics French Studies can legitimately address. To try to cover everything is to condemn ourselves to watered-down, dumbed-down versions of history, political science, art, economics, sociology, and the many other areas pertinent to things French.I believe the makeup of French departments in the United States means that our dominant focus should remain literary. Since we aren’t going to retool ourselves so spectacularly as to master all the disciplinary perspectives relevant to the francophone world, we have to make choices. As far as I can see, the best choice is an orientation toward literary criticism, the area in which most productive scholars in French departments in the United States were trained. We’ve learned how to deal with words, and chances are very good that we will do more things that deserve doing if we address words than if we address immigration statistics, changing styles on Maghreb dance floors, or the status attached to owning a pit bull in French housing projects.This doesn’t mean that immigration statistics, dance styles, and pit bulls are forbidden topics, just that we can best approach them if our primary focus remains literary while we open secondary focuses onto other areas. Those openings can renew our field without compromising our identity, allow us to adopt the interdisciplinary concerns animating cultural studies without repudiating literature’s traditional place in foreign language programs. I categorically reject the idea that the literary studies/cultural studies opposition is absolute, that concentrating on literature imposes the necessity of ignoring dance floors and pit bulls. My answer to the question in my title, “When did literature stop being cultural?,” is that it didn’t, whether we take “cultural” in the dirty-word sense of “high culture” or the buzzword sense of “cultural studies.” Literature’s credentials among the accomplishments of high culture matter to language departments in a great many ways, but more relevant to current professional concerns is that cultural studies can address the monuments of the French literary tradition as well as the monuments of French reaction to the Spice Girls. To impose a choice between literary studies and cultural studies strikes me as horribly misguided, something like imposing a choice between breathing and eating.Yet that choice is being imposed with more and more insistence, its suicidal consequences accepted with less and less concern. At times, those preaching an either/or approach have done so in defense of literature, and I refuse the idea that literature is Emerson’s “jealous mistress” who tolerates nothing else in her domain. To study either high culture or popular culture as if the other were unworthy of concern impoverishes both, which means the literary studies/cultural studies binary is pernicious no matter which side defends it. Although the either/or model has sometimes been asserted in the [End Page 12] name of literature’s integrity, however, its most influential recent articulations have come from partisans of cultural studies. The sides have changed. Instead of the argument that the nature of cultural studies means it must be excluded from literary analysis, we now hear that the nature of literary analysis means that it must be excluded from cultural studies.Let me take as evidence the MLA’s most recent publication on trends in language and literature departments, Profession 1997, and the Russell Berman article it contains, a brief for a new form of “Graduate Education toward a Foreign Cultural Literacy.” Berman’s essay makes a strong and informed argument for interdisciplinarity, the best features of which have in Berman’s representation come together to create cultural studies. Throughout this argument, I find the scary logical and political missteps endemic to recent contentions that cultural studies and literary studies are mutually exclusive. Berman’s essay is doubly... (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of language is a central yet underdeveloped component of his overall philosophical project. His recently published 1953–1954 lectures on _The Problem of Speech_ (2020) shed light on his understanding of language at a critical moment in the development of his thought. In this paper, I develop some central ideas from the course materials and use them to interpret Merleau-Ponty’s views on language and their significance for philosophical method. I begin with a reconstruction of the introduction (...) to the course, in which Merleau-Ponty provides a dialectical path into a philosophy of language that progresses alternatively through naïve, objectivist, and extreme subjectivist perspectives on language before arriving at a mature view that integrates what was true in each of the preceding views. A critical moment in this dialectic is the encounter with foreign languages, illustrated by Western linguists’ difficulties assimilating Chinese syntax to the model of the Indo-European languages. The genuine encounter with foreign languages allows Merleau-Ponty to propose a universality of human linguistic experience despite the genuine, radical differences between human languages. I suggest that we understand language as a concrete or lateral universal and situate this view within Merleau-Ponty’s thought. I then elaborate the consequences of this understanding of language for phenomenological method and practice. Because phenomenology requires a language, and because the phenomenologist’s way of being in the world is pervasively linguistic, language cannot be simply and directly suspended at the outset of phenomenology. However, Merleau-Ponty’s indirect method can bring language into view for the phenomenologist, without assuming a view from nowhere on language and experience. (shrink)

Many have argued that moral judgment is driven by one of two types of processes. Rationalists argue that reasoned processes are the source of moral judgments, whereas sentimentalists argue that emotional processes are. We provide evidence that both positions are mistaken; there are multiple mental processes involved in moral judgment, and it is possible to manipulate which process is engaged when considering moral dilemmas by presenting them in a non-native language. The Foreign-Language Effect is the activation of systematic (...) reasoning processes by thinking in a foreign language. We demonstrate that the FLE extends to moral judgment. This indicates that different types of processes can lead to the formation of differing moral judgments. One implication of the FLE is that it raises the possibility that moral judgments can be made more systematic, and that the type of processing used to form them might be relevant to normative and applied ethics. (shrink)

Both philosophy and linguistics have emphasized the importance of language as a means of dialogue. Despite the fact that Wittgenstein added a new layer of complication to this point of view, the Sapir-Whorf theory, proposed by Edward Sapir and his colleague Benjamin Lee Whorf, helped the impact of language on the mind acquire notoriety. With this idea, language not only continued to be a means of communication but also received recognition in the social science curriculum as a (...) crucial element in the development of personal identities and the process of knowledge assimilation. The effect of language on morality and ethics was the most significant element that philosophers and linguists overlooked in their extensive study. For instance, little is known about how the terms we choose can influence how we understand morality and ethics. The sole subject of this article will be how language influences the moral and ethical decisions we make. To put it another way, how we make choices is greatly influenced by the language or beliefs we use in both public and private life. This means that in order to understand a country’s law or socially accepted norms, it is crucial to closely examine the language that country uses. The options or goals that are publicly acceptable are also closely related to the language, metaphors, and discourses used by a specific society. The contemporary world does not analyze these incidents from a linguistic perspective, but language has contributed to the creation of accepted legal and social standards. (shrink)

In the context of English as a Foreign Language, burnout study dominantly revolves around teachers but learners’ academic burnout is largely underexplored. Academic burnout is a concerning issue worldwide that is particularly predicted by academic motivation. However, we know little about the association between motivation and burnout among EFL learners and whether maladaptive emotion regulation strategies could moderate their association. To fill this research gap, we recruited 841 EFL undergraduates from two universities in China. Descriptive analysis showed that participants (...) reported high levels of language learning burnout. Correlational and bootstrapped moderation analysis found that motivation and maladaptive ERS were significantly correlated with burnout in opposite directions and the correlation between motivation and burnout was significantly influenced by students’ use of two maladaptive ERS. The more frequently students chose to avoid and vent unpleasant feelings, the protective role of motivation on burnout was weaker. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Despite the increasing number of empirical studies that investigated foreign language writing anxiety and its correlates, there is still a lack of quantitative meta-analytic attempt on the effect sizes among these studies. To bridge the gap, this study identified 84 effect sizes from 22 primary studies to meta-analyze the correlations of foreign language writing anxiety and several key high-and low-evidence correlates. For the two high-evidence correlates, moderator analyses were also conducted, which demonstrated that foreign language writing anxiety (...) has a moderate correlation with foreign language writing self-efficacy and foreign language writing performance. The three low-evidence correlates have positively moderate effects of foreign language listening anxiety, foreign language speaking anxiety and foreign language reading anxiety. The significant moderating effects of learners’ age and language proficiency were obtained. With respect to the results, pedagogical implications were discussed as well. (shrink)

Emotional attenuation in a second language is believed to be one of the main causes of the Moral Foreign Language effect (MFLe). However, evidence on the mediating role of emotion in the relationship between language and moral judgements is limited and mainly derives from unrealistic moral dilemmas. We conducted two studies to investigate (1) whether the MFLe is present in both unrealistic (Study 1) and realistic (Study 2) moral dilemmas, and (2) whether this effect can be attributed (...) to reduced emotionality. In Study 1, the MFLe was found in the moral judgements made by Spanish-English bilinguals. However, the same pattern was not observed in Greek Cypriot-English bilinguals’ moral judgements, and this result was attributed to the prominent role of English in Cyprus. In Study 2, the MFLe extended to realistic moral dilemmas when the outcome of the action entailed the violation of a social norm. Study 1 and Study 2 also revealed that these bilinguals experienced a wide range of emotions in their L1 and L2, which did not differ significantly across languages. Mediation analyses further indicated that the MFLe was not mediated by emotional blunting, which made us consider alternative explanations for the MFLe. (shrink)

Foreign language anxiety has been identified as a crucial affective factor in language learning. Similar to the situation in language classes, university students in interpretation classes are required to perform in a foreign language when their language skills are inadequate. Investigations are needed to determine the specific impact of FLA on interpretation learning. This study investigated the effects of the specific interpretation classroom FLA on interpretation learning and dependency distance as an indicator of learners’ cognitive (...) load. The participants were 49 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in English–Chinese interpretation classes at a university in Hong Kong. The results showed a significant negative correlation between ICFLA levels and consecutive interpretation achievement scores. ICFLA was also negatively correlated with DD in consecutive interpretations. Four factors underlying ICFLA were identified. The findings of this study would provide useful insights for researchers and educators to understand the nature and effect of FLA in different settings. (shrink)

In recent years, foreign language learning has been proposed as a possible cognitive intervention for older adults. However, the brain network and cognitive functions underlying FLL has remained largely unconfirmed in older adults. In particular, older and younger adults have markedly different cognitive profile—while older adults tend to exhibit decline in most cognitive domains, their semantic memory usually remains intact. As such, older adults may engage the semantic functions to a larger extent than the other cognitive functions traditionally considered (...) the most important. Using anatomical measurements and a cognitive test battery, the present study examined this hypothesis in twenty cognitively normal older adults, who participated in a two-month Italian learning programme. Results showed that the immediate learning success and long-term retention of Italian vocabularies were most consistently predicted by the anatomical measures of the left pars orbitalis and left caudal middle frontal cortex, which are implicated in semantic and episodic memory functions. Convergent evidence was also found based on the pattern of cognitive associations. Our results are consistent with a prominent role of semantic and episodic memory functions in vocabulary learning in older learners. (shrink)

Trolley dilemmas have been tested cross-culturally, but only recently have researchers begun to assess the effect of responding to such dilemmas in a foreign language. Previous studies have found a Moral Foreign Language Effect in trolley dilemmas, whereby subjects who respond to these dilemmas in a foreign language, tend to offer more utilitarian responses. The present study seeks to test whether the MFLE holds amongst native speakers of Arabic. Additionally, the present study seeks to test whether the (...) use of visual images has any effect on responses. For such purposes, four groups were compared: 1) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English without visual images; 2) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic without visual images; 3) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in English with visual images; 4) participants responding to trolley dilemmas in Arabic with visual images. (shrink)

It is foreign languages that allow one to carry out one’s professional duties at the international level, in particular in the academic field. Besides, they are recognized as a key to the development of human culture, which opens new opportunities for international integration and deepens cultural, intellectual and communicative functions of languages. Considering its historical post-totalitarian specifics and social roles, the development of foreign language education in higher education institutions in Eastern Europe, in particular Ukraine, includes materialist and pragmatic (...) and partly postmodernist trends, which need to be studied and analyzed in the context of a modern, postcolonial society. The research aims to systematize theoretical issues and generalize the experience of developing foreign language education for future humanities teachers in pedagogical universities in Ukraine, as well identify some proper ways to implement authentic and world experience into the modern practice of training future foreign language professionals. The following pedagogical strategies are considered to be certain productive areas in the combination of classical and postmodernist trends in education: the integration of repetitive teaching methods and creative activity; the combination of modular and problem-based learning; the use of non-communicative models and cognitive strategies of foreign language education; the introduction of models of foreign language education, which make it possible to specify social, professional and research activity of the student’s personality; the reinforcement of extra-curricular activities in the context of foreign language education. (shrink)

In this article we present a qualitative analysis of empirical findings from an international project on intergroup attitudes and contact in five Central European countries specifically concerning language use. The project concentrated on the interplay of intergroup contact and perception between the members of national groups in the borderlands between the Czech Republic and Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia. The open statements analysed here about the contact situations and the ensuing evaluation of the Others were collected as part of (...) an online questionnaire (N=1959). After a short theoretical introduction we reveal the intertwined nature of construing language use: first in each specific borderland, then in the triads speaking together either in the native language of one of the groups (Czechs with Austrians and Germans) or with each speaking their own native languages (Czechs with Poles and Slovaks). Finally we highlight several effects we have observed as a result of being able to compare the situation in more than one neighbourhood, for instance, the effect of the different statuses of the languages involved, or the connection between the language used in contact and a feeling of proximity. (shrink)

In a recent article, Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) propose that mental imagery is less vivid when evoked in a foreign than in a native language. The authors argue that reduced mental imagery could even account for moral foreign language effects, whereby moral choices become more utilitarian when made in a foreign language. Here we demonstrate that Hayakawa and Keysar's (2018) key results are better explained by reduced language comprehension in a foreign language than by less (...) vivid imagery. We argue that the paradigm used in Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) does not provide a satisfactory test of reduced imagery and we discuss an alternative paradigm based on recent experimental developments. (shrink)

One of the significant courses in Chinese universities is English. This course is usually taught by a foreign language instructor. There will, however, necessarily be some communication hurdles between “foreign language teachers” and “native students.” This research presents an emotion recognition method for foreign language teachers in order to eliminate communication barriers between teachers and students and improve student learning efficiency. We discovered four factors of emotion recognition through literature analysis: smile, eye contact, gesture, and tone. We (...) believe that differences in foreign language teachers’ performance in these four areas will have an impact on students’ emotion recognition and, as a result, on their learning efficiency. The influence of the foreign language teacher’s eye contact and gestures is larger in the decision whether can improve the students’ classroom learning efficiency, according to 43 of the questionnaire data analysis. The second is the tone and smile. Our research contributes to the body of knowledge on emotion recognition in university foreign language teachers by presenting a practical method for recognizing emotion in foreign language teachers. We recommend that college foreign language teachers pay attention to eye and gesture communication with students in English classrooms based on the findings. By enriching the style of emotional expression in class, college language teachers, particularly foreign language teachers, can improve communication, and connection with students. (shrink)

The present contribution offers an overview of a new area of research in the field of foreign language acquisition, which was triggered by the introduction of Positive Psychology (PP) ( MacIntyre and Gregersen, 2012 ). For many years, a cognitive perspective had dominated research in applied linguistics. Around the turn of the millennium researchers became increasingly interested in the role of emotions in foreign language learning and teaching, beyond established concepts like foreign language anxiety and constructs like (...) motivation and attitudes toward the foreign language. As a result, a more nuanced understanding of the role of positive and negative learner and teacher emotions emerged, underpinned by solid empirical research using a wide range of epistemological and methodological approaches. PP interventions have been carried out in schools and universities to strengthen learners and teachers’ experiences of flow, hope, courage, well-being, optimism, creativity, happiness, grit, resilience, strengths, and laughter with the aim of enhancing learners’ linguistic progress. This paper distinguishes the early period in the field that started with MacIntyre and Gregersen (2012), like a snowdrop after winter, and that was followed by a number of early studies in relatively peripheral journals. We argue that 2016 is the starting point of the current period, characterized by gradual recognition in applied linguistics, growing popularity of PP, and an exponential increase in publications in more mainstream journals. This second period could be compared to a luxuriant English garden in full bloom. (shrink)

Inbound tourism as defined by the WTO is obviously the aspect of a nation’s tourism industry to which foreign languages are directly relevant: this aspect involves foreign tourists visiting the country of reference. This paper uses Leiper’s conceptualisation of the tourism system to examine the role of foreign languages in the operations of Nigerian inbound tourism from TGR and TDR perspectives. Among the most significant revelations of this examination are the facts that: i) tourism destinations in Nigeria are to be (...) advertised on the web and in print in the TGR countries using the languages of those countries; and ii) tour guides in Nigeria are to be trained in foreign languages to facilitate travels, stay and related transactions and activities of foreign tourists in Nigeria. These and other findings can enhance the Nigerian inbound tourism industry. (shrink)

Have you ever felt nervous, inappropriate, insecure or worried when trying to communicate in a foreign language? Have you ever feared to make mistakes, being negatively judged or misunderstood when talking to foreigners? Do you know someone who has experienced those situations? If yes, please, keep on reading. All these negative feelings are common in many and diverse situations when using a foreign language. They are the result of experiencing Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) a situational, dysphoric and (...) debilitating anxiety coined by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope in 1986. Nowadays, multiculturalism and multilingualism are part of our daily lives as well as communication in a foreign language and with foreigners. Hence, FLA is not a problem restricted to foreign language learning scenarios anymore. This innovative session aims to inform and raise awareness of FLA presence and effects in professional and educational contexts, beyond FL classrooms and learning settings. (shrink)

Learning to write in a foreign language is a complex cognitive process. The process-genre approach is a common instructional practice adopted by language teachers to develop learners’ writing abilities. However, the interacting elements of procedural knowledge, linguistic knowledge, and generic knowledge in this approach may exceed the capacity of an individual learner’s working memory, thus actually hindering the acquisition of writing skills. According to the collective working memory effect, it was hypothesized that teaching writing skills of English as (...) a foreign language by adopting a process-genre approach in collaborative conditions could lead to better writing performance, lower cognitive load, and higher instructional efficiency. The reported experiment compared learning writing skills of English as a foreign language in individual and collaborative instructional conditions from a cognitive load perspective, a rarely adopted approach in this field. The results indicated that the collaborative instructional condition was more effective and efficient than the individual instructional condition in improving the quality of written products as well as in optimizing the cognitive (working memory) load experienced by the learners. Measures of cognitive load were used to support the cognitive load theory’s interpretation of the results, which is the unique contribution of this research study to the field. (shrink)

Currently, there is an increasing number of older population groups, especially in developed countries. This demographic trend, however, may cause serious problems, such as an increase in aging diseases, one of which is dementia whose main symptom consists in the decline of cognitive functioning. Although there has been ongoing pharmacological research on this neurological disorder, it has not brought satisfying results as far as its treatment is concerned. Therefore, governments all over the world are trying to develop alternative, non-pharmacological strategies/activities, (...) which could help to prevent this cognitive decline while this aging population is still healthy in order to reduce future economic and social burden. One of the non-pharmacological approaches, which may enhance cognitive abilities and protect against the decline in healthy older population, seems to be the learning of a foreign language. The purpose of this mini-review is to discuss recent findings about the effect of foreign language learning on the enhancement of cognitive functions among healthy older individuals. The findings, divided into three research areas, show that the learning of a foreign language may generate a lot of benefits for older individuals, such as enhancement of cognitive functioning, their self-esteem, increased opportunities of socializing, or reduction of costs. However, as Ware et al. (2017) indicate, any intervention program on foreign language learning should be well thought of and tailored to the needs of older people in order to be effective and avoid accompanying factors, such as older people’s anxiety or low self-confidence. Nevertheless, more empirical studies should be done in this area. (shrink)