When an anonymous speech sample is associated with a criminal matter, for example in the case of a phoned-in bomb threat or ransom demand, forensic linguistic profiling may be used to infer attributes of the speaker from his or her linguistic characteristics. In this review, we present research and case examples outlining what types of speaker characteristics are discoverable via speaker profiling by expert linguists, for example, gender, age, and region of socialization. We also consider different methods in speaker profiling, including aural-perceptual, acoustic phonetic, and automated, and briefly discuss expert versus nonexpert speaker profiling, as well as the proper role of linguistic profilers versus law enforcement and legal professionals, government agencies, and others with whom forensic linguists work. Finally, we address the problem of voice and dialect disguise, including what types of disguises criminals may effect and what methods can be used to unmask them, including human and automated. We illustrate our points by alluding, throughout the review, to various elements of a case in which we recently served as expert linguistic profilers.

In an earlier review for the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Douglas (1995) wrote, “the year 1990 represented a watershed in language testing” (p. 167). This decade, though by no means over, has taken the field even further in terms of theoretical and practical developments. A few examples should illustrate this point: For test theoreticians and researchers, models of communicative language ability have challenged the traditional skills–and–components models (Bachman 1990, Bachman and Palmer 1996); applications of Messick's (1989) expanded view of validation have balanced arguments previously made solely by measurement experts (Kunnan 1998a); discussions of policy and social considerations (McNamara 1998), fairness (Kunnan 1996; in press), critical language testing (Shohamy 1997a) and ethics and professionalism (Davies 1997a; 1997b) have added new beveled angles for debates; structural equation modeling has successfully asserted its role as useful quantitative methodology (Kunnan 1995; 1998b); and verbal protocol analysis has proved to be a viable qualitative methodology (Green 1997).

Look through the window of any second or foreign language (L2) reading classroom and, invariably, you will see the teacher and students seated with books open in front of them. This superficial similarity masks vast differences in teaching methodology, however. As the 20th century draws to a close, there are, around the world, at least four distinctive approaches to the teaching of L2 reading: grammar-translation, comprehension questions, skills and strategies, and extensive reading. After brief descriptions of these four approaches to teaching reading and their status in the reading classroom, important issues in L2 reading instruction are addressed, leading to more general concerns involving the relationship among theory, research, and teaching practice.

This article addresses the relationship between two major terms, psycho-linguistics and applied linguistics, and in the process, explores key issues in multilingual processing. A straightforward definition of psycholinguistics is provided by Kess (1991:1): ‘The field of study concerned with psychological aspects of language studies.’ In the last decade, the definition has become more restricted, leaving out more social-psychological aspects like the study of attitudes in language use. Here, psycholinguistics will be further restricted to the study of processes of language production and perception (as opposed to acquisition and attrition).

This paper will review the role of data mining in research on second language learning. Following a general introduction to the topic, three areas of data mining research will be summarized—clustering techniques, text-mining, and social network analysis—with examples from both the broader field and studies conducted by the authors. The application of data mining in second language learning research is relatively new, and more theoretical and empirical support is needed in the appropriate collection, use, and interpretation of data for specific research and pedagogical objectives. The three examples that we introduce illustrate how new data sources accessible in online environments can be analyzed to better understand the optimal instructional context for corpus-based vocabulary learning (clustering technique), characteristics and patterns of collaborative written interaction using Google Docs (text mining and visualizations), and issues of access and community in computer-mediated discussion (social network analysis). Implications of these new techniques for L2 research will be discussed.

Technology continues to move forward with smaller and faster hardware, more efficient software, multimedia capabilities, and universal reach through advanced telecommunications. Evidence for the successful use of technology in education is overwhelming (Kulik 1994, Snow and Mandinach 1991) given that there are reasoned use of that technology—uses that reflect an understanding of what is to be taught and tested. With the above in mind, this paper reviews current and developing technology uses that are relevant to language assessment and discusses examples of recent liguistic applications from our own laboratory at Educational Testing Service. Below, we describe the processes of language test development and the functions that they serve from the perspective of a large testing organization. We encourage readers to think of technology broadly, to include not only hardware, software, and telecommunications, but other technologies as well, such as job analysis, Item Response Theory (IRT) scaling, standards-setting, and group assessments. Only in this way can the broad activities of language testing, and the relevance of new technologies, be assessed.

The 1980s were dynamic years for applied linguistic researchers and practitioners involved in the integration of language and content instruction. In addition to the publication of five stimulating texts devoted to the subject (Mohan 1986, Cantoni-Harvey 1987, Crandall 1987, Enright and McCloskey 1988, and Brinton, Snow, and Wesche 1989), there was increasing attention at all school levels to curriculum development, materials development, teacher training, evaluation, and assessment, Second and foreign language educators as well educators in the fields of mathematics, science, and social science have become cognizant of the relationship between language development and the acquisition of content-specific knowledge and skills.

The scope of this review must be restricted in several ways. First the focus is on reading specifically. Although reading is but a component of the language activities called literacy, it must certainly be at the heart of whatever concept of literacy is adopted (Venezky, Wagner and Ciliberti 1990).

Language teaching has traditionally adopted one of two complementary orientations towards its subject matter. It has either taken the view that language is a system and the primary objective of teaching must therefore be to insure that the system is mastered or it has taken the view that language is essentially a set of artifacts (texts and the like). System oriented language teaching (e. g., the grammar-translation method or the structural approach) has typically emphasized the generality of linguistic rules and attempted to describe and teach “the language as a whole,” whereas text-oriented approaches (such as, for instance, situational and communicative language teaching) have attempted to teach an appropriate sub-set of relevant texts which are taken to define “what the learner really needs.” The characteristic fault of system-based approaches. which explains how otherwise sane men were able to produce absurdities like “ The pen of my aunt is in the sporran of the Scotsman” [A good example of the genitive, my boy!] or pattern practices like “Are you English?” (cue: my brother) trained to fall victim to these little nonsenses, but what are the equivalent crimes of text-based language teaching? They are less easy to spot, but they generally take the form of “wasting police time.” If, as text-based teaching impliesm every text is potential grist to the learning mill, there is no reliable way of distinguishing between texts which are important because they stretch the learner's command of the target language and those which merely have been obvious.

Cooperative learning is designed to engage learners actively in the learning process. Through inquiry and interaction with peers in small groups, learners work together towards a common goal. As a major movement within the broad context of the educational mainstream, cooperative learning has specific relevance for literacy and language learning. Communicative approaches to second/foreign language teaching can effectively draw on the principles and characteristics of cooperative learning to make language teaching and learning more effective. This joining of communicative instructional approaches with cooperative learning should be effective whether applied to the second/foreign language classroom or to the sheltered classroom integrating language learning with content-area learning.

There is a slowly growing number of countries like Australia (Lo Bianco 1987) which have a formally developed national language policy, or like the Netherlands (van Els 1992a) which have fully articulated foreign language teaching policies. Other countries, like New Zealand (Waite 1992) and Finland (Takala 1992), are now attempting to develop such policies. In most countries, however, it is commonly the case that the foreign language policy has grown haphazardly and can be found only implicitly in a complex set of uncoordinated policies and practices. This latter description is true of Israel.

Is it the age of second language acquisition (AoA) that primarily determines the manner of cerebral representation of multiple languages in the brain, or is it proficiency? Here, we review recent neuroimaging studies that aimed at investigating AoA effects by comparing early with late (usually with L2 acquisition onset after 6 years of age) bilinguals during a variety of language tasks on a number of languages. Most studies did indeed report AoA effects. Of particular interest is that the region mainly found to functionally differ between early and late bilinguals is the left inferior frontal gyrus, which was modulated during syntactic processing, word generation, and sentence generation. Additionally, differences were observed in gray-matter density of the posterior parietal cortex as well as in right-hemisphere involvement. Interestingly, despite some convergence of findings from a localizational point of view, underlying causes of organizational and functional differences for the effect of AoA on bilingual language processing still remain to be uncovered. Hypotheses currently used for explaining activation differences are described (notably cortical efficiency, executive control, neuroanatomical changes, and right-hemisphere involvement) in relation to AoA and language proficiency.

On a basic level, there are two main areas of study within linguistics: language structure and language use. Language practioners as well as theoreticians must be concerned with both areas; that is, they need a full understanding of the structural resources available in a language as well as analyses of what speakers and writers actually do with those resources. Investigations of a representative text corpus—a principled collection of texts stored on computer—provide important insights into both of these domains and open new avenues of inquiry.

In recent years there have been many claims made for the importance of corpus linguistics to the fields of language description and language teaching. The strong case suggests that without a corpus (or corpora) there is no meaningful work to be done. The weak case is that there are additional descriptive and pedagogic perspectives facilitated by corpus-based work which improve our knowledge of the language and our ability to use it.

In his keynote address to the 1994 conference of the Southern African Association of Applied Linguistics, Adegbija (1994a) identified three problems faced by applied linguists in the African multilingual context. First, apart from the vibrant work in South Africa, there is very little focus on applied linguistic research in Africa, and what there is tends to focus on the ex-colonial languages rather than the indigenous languages. Second, applied linguists in African countries other than South Africa tend to have very limited research facilities. In some cases, teachers struggle to acquire the most basic resources such as typewriters and stationery. Third, political, social, and economic instability in many parts of Africa seriously undermines the work of applied linguists: A program of work begun in one political era can be summarily cut off in another.

Mexico's multilingual and multicultural character predates European contact. In its long history, it has generated many communicative challenges as well as interesting language planning efforts to deal with them (Heath 1972). Most recently, official acknowledgments of Mexico's multicultural and multilingual character are raising a series of complex language planning and policy issues even as they are leading to important constitutional and material gains on the part of indigenous Mexicans.

This paper attempts to survey language-in-education planning in the 1980s drawing on both formal publications and the more “ephemeral” but often more directky influential documents of government education departments and other authorities. Two problems are immediately evident: first, the influential ephemeral documents are hard to obtain. The second problem in surveying language-in-education planning is symptomatic of language policy-making in general; it is necessary to differentiate between, on the one hand, policy which is little more than uncoordinated good or bad ideas, limited in the range of needs that it seeks to answer, or incidental to policy serving other purposee (e.g., immigration policy) and, on the other hand, systematic, formalized language-in-education planning (cf., Rist 1982). This paper also focuses on only that part of language-in-education policy concerned with second or foreign language teaching and learning; other papers in this volume deal with the areas of literacy and bilingual education.

The goal of this paper is to compare and contrast some discourse features of English and Marathi. The paper is divided into four parts. The introductory sections review the main theoretical approaches for discourse analysis in general and discourse in South Asian languages in particular. Some of these insights are later used in this study. The first sections of part 2 point out the role of sociocultural differences in the discourse patterns of English and Marathi. The second section of part 2 focuses on the differences in the morphological and syntactic patterns which are used as discourse strategies in Marathi and English.

With increasing frequency, the distinction between “translation” (written product) and “interpretation” (oral product) is being recognized by those outside the profession. Interpreters especially are heartened when they see “Voice of Interpreter” flash on the screen during a newscast instead of “Voice of Translator.” Many scholars and practitioners (the terms are not mutually exclusive), however, choose the generic “translation” to include both oral and written product, some referring more specifically to “interpretation” as “oral translation” and to “simultaneous interpretation” as “simultaneous translation.”

Tracing applied linguists’ interests in language policy and planning (LPP) as reflected in the pages of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics since its founding in 1980, I focus on the emergence of, and current boom in, ethnographic LPP research. I draw on the ethnographic concept of ideological and implementational LPP spaces as scalar, layered policies and practices influencing each other, mutually reinforcing, wedging, and transforming ideology through implementation and vice versa. Doing so highlights how the perennial policy-practice gap is given nuance through exploration of the intertwining dynamics of top-down/bottom-up language planning activities and processes, monoglossic/heteroglossic language ideologies and practices, potential equality/actual inequality of languages, and critical/transformative research paradigms in LPP.