The Grammar and Lexis of Conversational Informal English in Advanced Textbooks defends the view that the acquisition of conversational English depends highly on the kind of materials available to L2 learners. The need to acquire a proficient competence in English is growing exponentially in an incessantly demanding society, but it is the oral skill, and more specifically the ability to communicate in everyday situations, that learners are calling for. The current learning process, nonetheless, is not particularly effective, as is shown in the data collected by the Eurobarometer and published in June 2012, which shows that only 38% of the Europeans surveyed were able to maintain a conversation in English, although 67% believed it to be the most useful language to learn for personal development. The present study supports the idea expressed in The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which states that a language is learnt “reactively, following the instructions and carrying out the activities prescribed for them by teachers and by textbooks” (2001: 141). Consequently, these materials should reflect the everyday use of informal discourse and allow learners to analyse, understand and interpret the different underlying messages conveyed by means of lexico-syntactic, as well as paralinguistic, elements. The book is divided into seven chapters in which various different linguistic aspects of conversation are dealt with. In the opening chapters, spoken language is presented and approached as a multidimensional entity, particularly as the sum of lexico-syntactic and socio-linguistic elements. The following chapters provide a description of the main characteristics of conversational English based on corpus-informed grammars and publications. The final chapter analyses twenty ESL textbooks in order to determine how corpus data has influenced the materials designed for the acquisition of conversational discourse.

Pop Culture in Language Education provides comprehensive insight on how studies of pop culture can inform language teaching and learning. The volume offers a state-of-the-art overview of empirically informed, cutting-edge research that tackles both theoretical concerns and practical implications. The book focuses on how a diverse array of pop culture artifacts such as pop and rap music, movies and TV series, comics and cartoons, fan fiction, and video games can be exploited for the development of language skills. It establishes the study of pop culture and its language as a serious subfield within language education and applied linguistics and explores how studies of pop culture, its language, and its non-linguistic affordances can inform language education at various levels of proficiency and with various learner populations. Presenting a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research approaches including case studies on how pop culture has been used successfully in language education in and beyond the classroom, this book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and students in the field of language education, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics, as well as for language teachers and materials developers.

Pragmatics of Fiction provides systematic orientation in the emerging field of studying pragmatics with/in fictional data. It provides an authoritative and accessible overview of this versatile new field in its methodological and theoretical richness. Giving center stage to fictional language allows scholars to review key concepts in sociolinguistics such as genre, style, voice, stance, dialogue, participation structure or features of orality and literariness. The contributors explore language as one of the creative tools to craft story worlds and characters by drawing on concepts such as regional, social and ethnic language variation, as well as multilingualism. Themes such as emotion, taboo language or impoliteness in fiction receive attention just as the challenges of translation and dubbing, the creation of past and future languages, the impact of fictional language on language change or the fuzzy boundaries of narratives. Each contribution, written by a leading specialist, gives a succinct, representative and up-to-date overview of research questions, theories, methods and recent developments in the field.

This accessible textbook offers balanced and uniformly excellent coverage of modern linguistics.

Covering the major approaches to the use of corpus data, this work gathers together influential readings from leading names in the discipline, including Biber, Widdowson, Sinclair, Carter and McCarthy.

PLEASE NOTE - this is a replica of the print book and you will need paper and a pencil to complete the exercises. This absolutely essential language guide and workbook will expand your English vocabulary in no time. Spilling over with thousands of entries for useful words and phrases, this is the perfect study aid for any adult learning English as a foreign language. With 3,000 words across hundreds of pages, English Vocabulary Builder brings you everything you need to know and much, much more. From activities, family, holidays, science, and work to animals, feelings, health, sports, and weather, just about every subject in the English language is covered in eye-catching, illustrative detail. All the vocabulary is shown with both UK and US spellings, and every word can be heard with its own audio recording in the accompanying app available for download. Additional interactive exercises ensure language learning is an easy, entertaining, and educational experience. This book is part of DK's best-selling English for Everyone series, which is suitable for all levels of English language learners and provides the perfect reading companion for study, exams, work, or travel. With audio material available on the accompanying website and Android/iOS apps, there has never been a better time to learn English.

Whether we grow up with one, two, or several languages during our early years of life, many of us will learn a second, foreign, or heritage language in later years. The field of Second language acquisition (SLA, for short) investigates the human capacity to learn additional languages in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, after the first language --in the case of monolinguals-- or languages --in the case of bilinguals-- have already been acquired. Understanding Second Language Acquisition offers a wide-encompassing survey of this burgeoning field, its accumulated findings and proposed theories, its developed research paradigms, and its pending questions for the future. The book zooms in and out of universal, individual, and social forces, in each case evaluating the research findings that have been generated across diverse naturalistic and formal contexts for second language acquisition. It assumes no background in SLA and provides helpful chapter-by-chapter summaries and suggestions for further reading. Ideal as a textbook for students of applied linguistics, foreign language education, TESOL, and education, it is also recommended for students of linguistics, developmental psycholinguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. Supporting resources for tutors are available free at www.routledge.com/ortega.

Five Implications for Research -- Conclusion -- References -- Index