Jul 2026· Research in Corpus Linguistics· pp. 321· 0 citations· 22 references
Abstract
This study investigates how culturally grounded conceptualizations shape English collocational usage in learner writing. Drawing on a 4.6-million-word corpus of Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) academic texts, collocations were extracted using corpus-driven association measures, including Mutual Information (MI) and t-score, and were manually validated against the British National Corpus (BNC). Of the 2,239 collocation types identified, 316 types (20,173 tokens) were classified through manual coding as cultural-transfer or culturally interpretable transfer-related forms when Thai linguistic patterning was accompanied by culturally salient conceptual motivation. Rather than viewing non-standard collocations as deficiencies, this study interprets this culturally classified subset as evidence of cultural meaning-making and lexical nativization. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed five domains: Kinship Hierarchy, Religious Practice, Food/Domestic Culture, Localized Service Economy, and Institutional/Media Discourse. Together, these domains accounted for 41% of all non-standard collocations, indicating that cultural transfer represents a systematic rather than incidental phenomenon in Thai learner English. The study contributes to applied corpus linguistics and World Englishes by showing how local cultural schemas are encoded in collocational choices. Pedagogically, the findings highlight the need to foster learners’ intercultural lexical awareness and to develop corpus-informed instructional practices that help learners negotiate cultural identity while maintaining communicative clarity.
This study investigates Turkish EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ perceptions, attitudes, and usage patterns regarding ChatGPT and online dictionaries for the acquisition of English collocations. Utilizing a quantitative research design, data were collected via an online questionnaire from 27 university-level participants, including preparatory and master’s students. The findings reveal that while online dictionaries remain the primary and most trusted resource for checking grammatical patterns and seeking reliable definitions (M=3.81), ChatGPT is increasingly perceived as a valuable "language assistant" for production-based tasks. Specifically, participants rated online dictionaries higher for reliability and ease of use. However, ChatGPT was perceived as more effective for improving writing (M=4.11) and speaking (M=4.04) skills due to its ability to provide personalized feedback and generate contextualized examples. Despite the benefits of AI (Artificial Intelligence), learners demonstrated a cautious approach, often using ChatGPT as a "gap-filler" rather than a primary source. The study concludes that the integration of AI tools does not replace traditional resources but rather offers a complementary framework where dictionaries serve verification purposes and AI facilitates linguistic exploration. Pedagogical implications suggest that educators should provide explicit training on leveraging both tools to foster autonomous and context-aware collocation learning.
Berra Artul· Journal of Language, Literat...· 0 citations
Language textbooks do more than facilitate linguistic development; they also mediate learners’ encounters with the cultural communities represented through the target language. This role becomes particularly significant in advanced foreign-language education, where learners are expected to engage critically with complex social, political, and cultural representations. This qualitative study examines how advanced learners of Arabic perceived and negotiated cultural representations in Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum al-'Arabiyya, Part Three, with particular attention to whether the textbook challenged or reinforced pre-existing stereotypes about Arab cultures. The study draws on focus-group data collected from eight advanced American learners of Arabic specializing in diplomacy and politics at a language center in Rabat, Morocco. Participants had extensive experience using the textbook during their advanced Arabic studies. The focus-group discussion was audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymized, and subjected to iterative qualitative content analysis. Findings indicate a complex relationship between textbook representation and learner perception. Participants acknowledged the textbook’s contribution to introducing cultural, historical, and political issues related to the Arab world, yet they also perceived some representations as insufficiently diverse or critically contextualized. Rather than consistently disrupting pre-existing assumptions, certain representations were perceived as potentially confirming simplified understandings of Arab societies. Learners particularly emphasized the need for greater regional diversity, authentic voices, contemporary perspectives, sustained self-reflection, and opportunities for direct intercultural engagement. The findings suggest that cultural representation in advanced language textbooks should move beyond exposure to cultural information toward pedagogical practices that actively encourage learners to interrogate, reassess, and complicate their prior assumptions. The study contributes to discussions of textbook evaluation, intercultural learning, and cultural representation in Arabic-as-a-foreign-language education.
Jaouhara Elmzandi· International Journal of Lan...· 0 citations
Nicknaming is a pervasive linguistic practice that indexes intimacy, identity, and social boundaries, yet it remains relatively underexplored in African sociolinguistic scholarship. This study presents an empirical analysis of 200 nicknames collected from students at a tertiary institution and a senior high school in Cape Coast, Ghana. Drawing on focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, the paper examines the morpho-syntactic processes underlying nickname formation, including clipping, blending, compounding, reduplication, suffixation, and phonological manipulation. To account for meaning and social positioning, an adapted Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework is combined with Appraisal theory to analyse the evaluative, affective, and stance dimensions encoded in the nicknames.
The findings identify three dominant morphological categories, derivative, descriptive, and associative, each associated with distinct semantic and interactional functions. Nicknames are shown to enact identity work through affiliation, teasing, role ascription, boundary marking, and stigmatisation. From an Appraisal perspective, they function as condensed evaluative texts that mobilise Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation to position individuals within peer hierarchies and social networks. Distributional patterns further reveal gendered tendencies in the assignment and interpretation of nicknames, reflecting broader sociocultural ideologies and normative expectations. The study argues that nicknaming practices both reflect and actively construct social relations in Ghanaian educational contexts, contributing to African morpho-syntactic scholarship and sociolinguistic research on language, evaluation, and identity construction.
Jane Yorke Obuajo· International journal of res...· 0 citations
This study aims to (1) identify and describe the characteristics of lexical choices in EFL students’ Indonesian–English translations and (2) investigate the factors influencing students’ lexical choices during the translation process. A qualitative descriptive approach was employed, involving 20 fourth-semester EFL students at Universitas Negeri Gorontalo enrolled in a Translation and Interpreting course. Data were collected through handwritten translations of an argumentative text and semi-structured retrospective interviews with five selected participants. The translation products were analyzed using Baker’s (1992) framework of meaning, comprising propositional, expressive, presupposed, and evoked meaning, while interview data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The findings showed that students generally preserved propositional meaning but experienced greater difficulties with expressive, presupposed, and evoked meanings, particularly in conveying evaluative nuances, producing natural collocations, and maintaining appropriate register. Five interconnected factors influenced students’ lexical choices: limited vocabulary mastery, reliance on dictionaries and machine translation, cognitive factors, limited contextual understanding, and register and source language influence. All five interviewed students reported using Google Translate or DeepL, while four out of five did not consider alternative lexical choices. These findings highlight the need for translation instruction that develops collocational awareness, contextual understanding, register awareness, and critical evaluation of machine translation output.
Siti Rahmatiya Buyu, Novriyanto Napu, Sri Widyarti Ali· Research Review: Jurnal Ilmi...· 0 citations
This systematic review examines the linguistic and sociolinguistic characteristics of Philippine English (PhE) based on studies published from 2019 to 2026. Guided by research questions focusing on the phonological, lexical-semantic, and grammatical-syntactic features of PhE, as well as its sociolinguistic attitudes and functional roles in education, communication, and media, the study reviewed fifteen scholarly articles from credible academic databases and repositories. Findings reveal that PhE has developed into a legitimate and systematic variety of English shaped by local linguistic and cultural influences. Phonological studies identified recurring consonant substitutions, vowel mergers, and lectal variations influenced by regional and proficiency differences. Lexical-semantic features demonstrated linguistic creativity through borrowing, blending, clipping, compounding, and semantic shifts, particularly in digital communication contexts. Grammatical-syntactic analyses also revealed flexible subject–verb agreement, simplified tense marking, and localized sentence structures that reflect communicative adaptation rather than linguistic deficiency. Sociolinguistically, PhE is increasingly recognized as a marker of Filipino identity and communicative accessibility; however, native-speaker norms continue to dominate formal academic settings. The findings affirm that PhE is an evolving, rule-governed, and culturally grounded variety whose acceptance continues to expand across different social domains in the Philippines.
Patrick Carlos D. Famanily, Famanily Rosemaie A. Capili, Joseree Ann L. Ferrer et al.· Journal of Education, Social...· 0 citations
This study investigates the English conversations of second-language learners in Kampung Inggris, Pare, Kediri. It aims to identify learners’ unique English utterances, describe their semantic meanings (literal meanings) and pragmatic interpretations (intended meanings), and examine their structural characteristics. A qualitative research design was employed, using participant observation and semi-structured interviews to collect data.
The findings revealed that learners frequently produced unique English utterances in the form of phrases and sentences during daily interactions. These utterances differed from those commonly used by native speakers and often deviated from Standard English grammar. The identified grammatical features included errors in pronoun agreement, verb grouping, question formation, comparative degree, adjective order, word choice, addition of unnecessary forms of *to be*, and omission of auxiliary verbs. Although many utterances successfully conveyed communicative intentions, some created ambiguity in interaction.
The study concludes that these unique utterances resulted from learners’ tendency to simplify English through word-for-word translation from their first language without fully considering contextual appropriateness in the target language. This tendency was influenced by both interlingual interference and intralingual factors, reflecting the learners’ ongoing interlanguage development in the process of second-language acquisition.
Ubaidillah Ubay· PedagoScript : Journal of Te...· 0 citations