This article explores the current state of German as a European lingua franca. It presents a brief history of German as a lingua franca from the late Middle Ages through the present. The presentation then addresses the number of speakers of German as a first, second, and foreign language and discusses the presence of the language in internationally influential domains such as international political and economic organizations. The chapter concludes with some notes on language perception, language awareness, language loyalty, language policy, and language promotion.

In 1980, in this journal, Joshua Fishman presented the major theoretical issue in sociolinguistics as being the link between microsociolinguistic and macrosociolinguistic processes. In 1984 that is still the case, although the issue is receiving more explicit attention than it did four years ago.

There are two branches of sociolinguistics which approach this issue in different ways. These two branches are interactionist and variationist sociolinguistics. Interactionist sociolinguistics is principally interested in what language use can tell us about social processes, and therefore a central concern is the social meaning of language use. Variationist sociolinguistics is interested in accounting for linguistic variation and change, at least partly as a product of the social distribution of language varieties. It is, therefore, less concerned with meaning as process, and more concerned with the interaction of linguistic and social systems; in this view the significance of language is mainly symbolic. In this review, I will discuss the contributions of these branches to the problem of the relationship between microsociolinguistics and macrosociolinguistics, as well as the theoretical problems peculiar to each branch.

Instructors and instructional technologists who promote the adoption of educational technology commonly participate in a discourse pattern focused on technology products, software, and services. Considered in terms of Rogers's (2003) diffusion of innovations model, the technologist works as a change agent, and the innovations in question are the adoption of technology products. When pressed, most instructors and technologists acknowledge that the innovations of interest more properly revolve around changes in our instructional designs, yet the vocabulary of common discourse remains product-oriented. This article describes the pernicious influences of this product-oriented pattern of discourse on the organization and provision of educational technology support services, as well as some of the driving forces that make it hard to talk about educational technology in terms of innovations in teaching.

In many ways, the year 1990 represented a watershed in language testing. In that year, the 12th annual Language Testing Research Colloquium took as its theme “A new decade of language testing research: Collaboration and cooperation.” The 1990 Colloquium was also dedicated to the memory of Michael Canale, whose work during the previous decade laid the groundwork for much of that of the 1990s. In 1990, a seminar sponsored by the Regional Language Centre in Singapore, on Language Testing and Programme Evaluation, focused on many of the problems in the field of language testing that militated against the hoped for progress of the 1980s. At both of these meetings, and at others involving language testing that year, discussions were held concerning the formation of an international professional association of language testers. The result was the formation of the International Language Testing Association in 1992. Also in 1990, a language testing computer “bulletin board,” LTEST-L, was established on Listserv, so that the international community of language testing researchers and practitioners could hold electronic “conferences” and share information and data on a world-wide basis. Finally, a number of important books on language testing were published in 1990, including works by Bachman, Davies, Heaton, and Weir, which have already had an influence on language testing research and development in the first half of the decade.

CALL for English as a second language1 is an interdisciplinary area of inquiry which has been influenced primarily by educational technology (Reiser, 1987) but also by fields such as computational linguistics2 and recently by applied linguistics as well. These related fields contribute diverse epistemologies which shape CALL research questions and methods. The diversity in CALL research can also be explained in party be the current variety of approaches to CALL development and use. Through the 1970s and early 1980s, pedagogical objectives in CALL were focused primarily, although not exclusively, on improving specified areas of learner's grammatical knowledge through approaches borrowed from educational technology (Hart 1981, Hope, Taylor and Pusack 1984, Wyatt 1984). Today, in contrast, CALL is used for a variety of pedagogical objectives through many different types of software such as microworlds (Coleman 1985, Papert 1980), grammar checkers (Hull, Ball, Fox, Levin and McCutchen 1987), pronunciation feedback systems (Anderson-Hseih 1994, Pennington 1991), intelligent tutoring systems (Chanier, Pengelly, Twidale and Self 1992), concordancer programs (Johns 1986, Tribble and Jones 1990), word processing (Pennington 1993), and software for computer-mediated communication (Kaye 1992). These diverse approaches to CALL are predicated on different beliefs about teaching and learning (Higgins 1995, Kenning and Kenning 1990, Sanders and Kenner 1983, Stevens 1992). Rather than reviewing these “CALL philosophies,” this article will focus on the evolution of research traditions dedicated to the empirical study of CALL use for ESL. Accordingly, the term CALL research is employed to refer to empirical research on the use of CALL.

Given the proliferation of recent research on formulaic language, including several books, it seemed time to devote an issue of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics to the topic. Empirical research focusing on chunks of language shows no signs of waning, and the topic has even made its way into the popular press, thanks to Ben Zimmer's column in the New York Times two years ago.

The collection, classification, and analysis of errors in the written and spoken performance of second or foreign language learners has had a role in language pedagogy since at least the 1950s. However, in the late 60s, and paticularly in the 70s, the study of errors in non-native language performance, or Errors Analysis (EA), assumed a new role in applied linguistics. A more rigorous methodology for EA developed, and it was applied to new issues and questions within second language acquisition research. Yet, by 1980, EA was largely considered a transitional development in applied linguistics. This review considers the nature, development, and achievements of Error Analysis in the period from 1970 to 1980. We will consider EA from three perspectives, reviewing the use of Error Analysis: (1) to account for linguistic competence; (2) to identify learning processes and strategies, and (3) to provied input to language pedagogy.

What is quality in the context of applied linguistic research? Addressing this question is both an intellectual and ethical imperative for the field. Toward that end, I propose a four-part framework for understanding and evaluating study quality: Quality research is (a) methodologically rigorous, (b) transparent, (c) ethical, and (d) of value to society. The bulk of the paper is devoted to describing each of these four elements, first conceptually and then as observed in the field. I also articulate some of the many connections among the four elements within the framework. In addition, I suggest next steps for further addressing the notion of quality in terms of the framework itself as well as the ways it might be used to advance our field’s research, training, and legitimacy as an academic discipline that is still in some ways coming of age.

From the beginning, public tests and examinations were instruments of policy. The Imperial Chinese examination was created to permit the emperor to replace the patronage system by which powerful lords were choosing their own candidates to be mandarins. The Jesuit schools in 17th-century France introduced a weekly testing system to allow central control of classroom teaching. In 19th-century England, Thomas Macaulay argued for employing the Chinese principle in selecting cadets for the Indian Civil Service; a similar system was later used for the British Civil Service. A primary school examination system was set up in England at the end of the 19th century to serve the same purpose of achieving quality control and accountability in public schools as was proposed for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that is being bitterly disputed in 21st-century United States. Chauncey's primary goal after World War II in developing the Scholastic Achievement Test for admission to elite U.S. universities was to replace the children of the wealthy establishment with highly qualified students who would see their role as contributing to public service.

In a sad final chapter of A House at Pooh Corner, Christopher Robin has to desert his friends of the Hundred Aker Wood in order to go to school. The mysterious world of the classroom is just barely alluded to as a vaguely ominous place where it is not possible to do Nothing, the favorite activity of all healthy inhabitants of the wood.

With the ascendance of new information technologies, the significance of writing has, it seems, slipped from view, in spite of the fact that the conceptual and cognitive implications of the newer technologies is a matter of enthusiastic speculation rather that serious research. On the other hand, it is now reasonably well established that the invention of the first “information” technology, namely writing, has had a profound effect on the ways in which we think about language, the mind, and the world, effects which have taken millenia to unfold. “Effects” is perhaps too strong a term as it is less a matter of how technology affects people than a matter of the ways in which people in different cultures have used and applied the technology and the ways they have altered the technology to suit their purposes. In the West, some of these uses have involved institutional change; thus, to make use of a technology such as writing requires the development of monasteries, schools, and other institutions. Indeed, some of the cognitive effects we usually attribute to schooling are better thought of as consequences or implications of literacy.

Conversation analysis (CA) emerged as a form of microsociology in the 1960s at the same time that audio (and later, video) recording technologies became widely available to consumers. The development of these technologies made it relatively easy for analysts to record, transcribe, and analyze how members collaboratively coconstruct social order in naturally occurring talk-in-interaction. A key feature of the intellectual discourse of CA work has always been that analysts make their data available for public inspection. In this way, readers of this research may judge for themselves whether the original analyses are well-founded. This methodological practice also allows readers to propose alternative interpretations of the data if they disagree with the original writer's analyses. Now, recordings of the talk-in-interaction that is being studied have always been considered to be the primary data in CA. However, in practice, written transcripts have until recently been the most widely available sources of information in conventional, paper-based publishing. With the development and rapid diffusion of computers from the 1980s onward, it is now possible to integrate video and audio recordings with text and graphics in a single electronic environment. In this article, we argue that for CA the advent of the digital publishing era is not an intellectual luxury—it is a necessity. More specifically, digital publishing using Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 technologies enables CA researchers to develop standards of intellectual accountability that are even more rigorous than those that are currently possible in the realm of conventional paper-based publishing. Readers of CA research may now expect to have access to primary as well as secondary data. That is, as electronic journals become the norm in academic publishing, readers will be able to view or listen to the original recordings as well as read the transcripts that are developed from primary sources. This ability to view original recordings is particularly important when behaviors that are difficult to transcribe transparently—such as eye gaze, gesture, and embodied actions—are incorporated into an analysis. We also suggest that readers will be able to engage in electronic data sessions that complement, and possibly transcend, what can be achieved by their older, face-to-face siblings as a means of building electronic communities of scholars. This article illustrates how these trends are likely to play out in practice by developing a conversation analysis of exophoric deictic reference that is based on data that are organized and presented in a native electronic format. A companion Web site at https://segue.atlas.uiuc.edu/index.php?&action=site&site=virtualdata also demonstrates how electronic data sessions might be conducted.

This paper will address the following questions:

1. What is language proficiency?

2. What is the relationship between first and second language proficiency?

3. What major theories have been born or laid to rest in the last year or so?

4. Can any consensus be discerned in the various extant controversies?

Although the review will concentrate on research published or presented at professional meetings on testing in the last year, some of the themes will necessitate reference to earlier work, and much that might be considered relevant by other authors will be omitted. The objective is to set down as much as possible to identify controversial issues for what they are, and to highlight emerging trends as best I can them.

Hungary is a small landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over ten million. The official language, and the mother tongue of the vast majority of the population, is Hungarian. Belonging to the Uralic language family, Hungarian is unrelated to any other European language except Finnish. In order to minimize the effects of their linguistic isolation, Hungarians have always attached great importance to the learning of foreign languages.

The American economy is changing and, according to popular wisdom and policy-level discussions, so is the skill profile of successful workers (see, for example, Naisbitt and Aburdene 1990, Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce [CSAW] 1990, Hudson Institute 1987). A hallmark of most discussions of the skills needed by workers is the emphasis on communication, including abilities to ask questions, clarify concerns, and solve problems cooperatively through discussion with others (Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO] 1991: 21, CSAW 1990: 69).

The discourse analysis typical of language-oriented ethnographic research is distinct form the that which is more linguistically driven. From a linguistic perspective, ethnographic data may seem impressionistic, and the units of analysis (e.g., clarification, shaming, or visiting ritual) too ill-defined for rigorous or detailed investigation. The perspective taken in this review, however, is that ethnographic research has greatly expanded understanding of what can consitute both valid data and appropriate analytical units. Through focus on categories such as speech event or genre, a large number of previously unexamined discourse phenomena have emerged as appropriate and significant domains of inquiry.

The present small-scale study explores whether working memory (WM) and language aptitude (LA) explain any variance in L2 listening comprehension beyond baseline listening ability and explicit strategy-based listening instruction in an instructed EFL setting at the tertiary level. In a pretest/posttest non-randomized group design, the experimental group (N = 19) received explicit strategy-based listening instruction for 12 hours while the control group (N = 17) followed their regular L2 listening course syllabus. L2 listening comprehension was measured with an L2 academic listening comprehension test. WM measures (Foster et al., 2015) included an operation span task (OST), a symmetry span task (SST), and a rotation span task (RST). LA was assessed with LLAMA (Meara, 2005). The findings revealed the effectiveness of strategy-based intervention for L2 listening comprehension. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that baseline listening scores explained about 52% of the variance in the post-listening scores, while listening strategy instruction explained an additional 16% of the variance. On the other hand, WM and LA did not explain any variance in listening comprehension scores, suggesting that the two individual learner differences in the present study are not significant predictors of L2 listening comprehension.

The article identifies four different types of meaning situated in different modules of language. Such a modular view of language architecture suggests that there may be differential difficulties of acquisition for the different modules. It is argued that second language (L2) acquisition of meaning involves acquiring interpretive mismatches at the first and second language (L1-L2) syntax-semantics interfaces. In acquiring meaning, learners face two types of learning situations. One situation where the sentence syntax presents less difficulty but different pieces of functional morphology subsume different primitives of meaning is dubbed simple syntax–complex semantics. Another type of learning situation is exemplified in less frequent, dispreferred, or syntactically complex sentences where the sentential semantics offers no mismatch; these are labeled complex syntax–simple semantics. Studies representative of these learning situations are reviewed. The issues of importance of explicit instruction with respect to interpretive properties and the effect of the native language are addressed. Studies looking at acquisition of language-specific discourse properties and universal pragmatics are also reviewed. These representative studies and numerous other studies on the L2 acquisition of meaning point to no visible barrier to ultimate success in the acquisition of semantics and pragmatics.

This article examines ideologies surrounding Quechua's use as a lingua franca and contrasts these ideologies with the historical and ethnographic record across pre-Colombian, colonial, and postcolonial times. Drawing from classic and recent research on Quechua sociolinguistics and comparatively on current work in the study of World Englishes and English as a lingua franca, we describe ways in which Quechua possibly served as a lingua franca, but also argue that Quechua's role and potential as lingua franca have often been misunderstood. We illustrate how these misunderstandings are intertwined with some of the myths and ideologies surrounding the Quechua language in particular and lingua francas more generally. Specifically, we argue that Quechua as lingua franca has been neither one stable, standardized variety nor a politically neutral communicative tool. Further, we highlight some of the overlooked ways in which local varieties and local speakers of the lingua franca have responded to, and in some cases resisted, the inequities and ideologies associated with the lingua franca.

Academic involvement in language policy and planning in South Africa must be seen within the context of the country's sociolinguistic complexity and the relationship between language and a number of serious problems in the country. South Africa's sociolinguistic complexity (see Appendix) is a function of a number of factors: 1) a multiplicity of languages and cultures; 2) the overlapping demographical and geographical distribution of the country's major languages; and 3) the politicization of these languages and cultures due to both the colonial past and the policy of apartheid, and the differentiated linguistic manifestation of their politicization.