This paper focuses on the concept of social (in)justice to examine and discuss some of the areas in the production and dissemination of knowledge in which the issue of social justice is significant and should be applied and considered. More specifically, it explores and advocates for some of the ways in which participation in, and contribution to, global scholarship can become a more socially just practice for academics, especially novice scholars and early-career researchers in the field of Applied Linguistics. It also highlights the role and agentive engagement of both established and junior members of academic communities as an important factor in demonopolizing and democratizing academic discourses and practices and making the mobilization of scholarship more diverse, inclusive, multivocal, and transformative.

This paper concerns how speech accent accents or reinforces racism in the context of labour migration to the English-speaking Global North. It specifically outlines three functions of accent in racial capitalist systems that require the labour of migrants and their acceptance of their “linguistic deficiencies.” First, accent functions as a labour control mechanism that pushes racially minoritised migrants into low-paying work. Second, as evidenced by the language training of transnational call centre workers, accent also reinforces colonial relations between migrant workers and customers. Last, by acting as a credential that can be purchased for professional success, accent distracts from the institutional racism that truly hinders migrants’ employment opportunities. The piece concludes with some thoughts on how combatting racism in labour migration requires another type of accenting.

In this essay, I reflect on how translanguaging in the immigrant community emerges as a form of social resistance that results in the creation of counter-spaces and counter-narratives. Likewise, I draw on the concepts of dialogical education of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and the perspective of Critical Race Theory and on how the social and cultural capital of immigrant communities plays an important role in overcoming environments that are averse to their presence. I contend that it is from “not existing” in a social system that the immigrant community is capable of opening spaces to exist and to lead new generations to project new forms of social identity, which are reflected in new linguistic, poetic, artistic expressions and new ways of social organization. In developing this concept, I address the case of the people of the town of Marshall in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the RevArte collaborative of which I am founder and director.

This paper demonstrates that historical trauma, healing, and wellbeing require attention in Indigenous language cultivation and revitalization. While historical trauma affects Indigenous peoples across the spectrum of language knowledge and use, little is written about the ways it can be addressed in the teaching, learning, and development—the cultivation—of Indigenous languages. For Indigenous language educators, how we address historical trauma in our language cultivation may be one of the most critical factors affecting our potential to cultivate the wellness we seek, and new generations of speakers of our languages. Drawing on a Diné (Navajo) lens and voices from other Indigenous communities, this article focuses on historical trauma, healing, and wellbeing as important considerations in Indigenous language cultivation and revitalization, to which applied linguists, Indigenous peoples, and others interested in Indigenous language revitalization and Indigenous wellbeing should pay attention. It argues that many of the most appropriate approaches can and will come from within our own Indigenous ways of knowing and healing, and that sharing more work of this kind can strengthen cultivation and revitalization efforts. It provides recommendations for applied linguistics and allied fields, educational, governmental and other resource holders, and Indigenous communities, programs, language cultivators and revitalizers.

This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the relationship between phonological short-term memory (PSTM), working memory capacity (WMC), and the level of mastery of L2 grammar. Grammatical mastery was operationalized as the ability to produce and comprehend English passive voice with reference to explicit and implicit (or highly automatized) knowledge. Correlational analysis showed that PSTM was related to implicit productive knowledge while WMC was linked to explicit productive knowledge. However, regression analysis showed that those relationships were weak and mediated by overall mastery of target language grammar, operationalized as final grades in a grammar course.

The Language Aptitude Outside the Classroom (LAOC) study investigates the factors that contribute to successful English-learning among newly arrived parent-child immigrants. Two types of factors are considered: cognitive abilities (aptitude measured with the LLAMA tests and working memory) and contextual-affective factors (exposure and anxiety). Participants are pairs of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the US. Each pair consists of a parent and their child aged 7–16. Their English proficiency is measured longitudinally during a one-year period using a listening comprehension test, a verbal fluency test, and an oral narrative (frog story). This contribution focuses on the lexical diversity of the oral narratives (Guiraud Index). Linear mixed models were run on the entire sample and on adults and children separately using time, aptitude, working memory, exposure to English, and anxiety as predictors of lexical diversity of the oral narratives (random effect = dyad, random slope = time). The results show that the development of lexical diversity over a one-year period is predicted by exposure to the language (and, for the children, anxiety). Two subtests of the LLAMA aptitude battery are also significant predictors when the entire sample is considered, but this effect nevertheless disappears for the adults when modeled separately from the children.

This article provides a comprehensive and critical synthesis of the methods utilized in studies investigating the role of language aptitude in second language acquisition (SLA). The synthesis is informed by sixty-five studies generated by a thorough search of the literature, three meta-analyses (Li, 2015, 2016, 2017), and a thematic issue of Studies in Second Language Acquisition (Li & DeKeyser, in press). The synthesis starts by identifying three categories of research investigating the role of aptitude in naturalistic learning, aptitude's associations with instructed learning, and the nature of aptitude pertaining to whether it increases with age and learning experience and how it is connected to other individual difference variables. The synthesis then presents an overview and critique of major measures of aptitude and discusses the construct validity of aptitude measures based on the principles of psychometric assessments. Specifically, the measures are scrutinized along the dimensions of reliability, content validity, divergent/convergent validity, and predictive validity. The content and measurement of implicit aptitude—a newly emerged construct in SLA—are highlighted. The synthesis proceeds to summarize and vet the measures of the outcome variable of aptitude research—L2 proficiency. Throughout the synthesis, methodological features are summarized, issues are identified, and remedies are proposed.

In this final contribution to the issue, we discuss the important concept of generalizability and how it relates to applied linguists’ ability to serve language learners of all shades and grades. We provide insight into how biased sampling in Applied Linguistics currently is and how such bias may skew the knowledge that we, applied linguists, are building about second language learning and instruction. For example, our conclusions are often framed as universally-applying, even though the samples that have given rise to them are highly specific and Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). We end with a call for research and replication in more diverse contexts and with more diverse samples to promote progress in the field of Applied Linguistics as ARAL celebrates its 40th anniversary.

In this article we explore the relationship between learner corpus and second language acquisition research. We begin by considering the origins of learner corpus research, noting its roots in smaller scale studies of learner language. This development of learner corpus studies is considered in the broader context of the development of corpus linguistics. We then consider the aspirations that learner corpus researchers have had to engage with second language acquisition research and explore why, to date, the interaction between the two fields has been minimal. By exploring some of the corpus building practices of learner corpus research, and the theoretical goals of second language acquisition studies, we identify reasons for this lack of interaction and make proposals for how this situation could be fruitfully addressed.

Conversational alignment (i.e., the automatic tendency of interactants to reuse each other's morphosyntactic structures and lexical choices in natural dialogue) is a well-researched phenomenon in native (Pickering & Ferreira, 2008) and to a smaller extent in second language (L2) speakers (Jackson, 2018) as confirmed by many highly controlled lab-based experimental studies investigating face-to-face oral interaction. Only a few studies have explored alignment in more naturally occurring L2 interactions (e.g., Dao, Trofimovich, & Kennedy, 2018), some of them extending the context to written computer-mediated communication (SCMC) (e.g., Michel & Smith, 2018).

The current study aimed to address this gap by taking a closer look at alignment in L2 conversations mediated by two different types of SCMC (videoconference vs. text chat). We explored lexical as well as structural alignment in three target languages (Chinese, French, and German) involving interactional partners of different status (L2 peer, L1 peer, and L1 tutor).

Results revealed that lexical and structural alignment are both present and observable in different SCMC contexts. From a methodological point of view, we discuss how different analyses suit the data generated by the affordances of the different SCMC contexts in the target languages and argue for a more dynamic and pervasive perspective on interaction.

Intervention studies typically target a focused aspect of language learning that is studied over a relatively short time frame for a relatively small number of participants in a controlled setting. While for many research questions, this is effective, it can also limit the ecological validity and relevance of the results for real-life language learning. In educational science, large-scale randomized controlled field trials (RCTs) are seen as the gold standard method for addressing this challenge—yet they require intervention to scale to hundreds of learners in their varied, authentic contexts.

We discuss the use of technology in support of large-scale interventions that are fully integrated in regular classes in secondary school. As an experimentation platform, we developed a web-based workbook to replace a printed workbook widely used in German schools. The web-based FeedBook provides immediate scaffolded feedback to students on form and meaning for various exercise types, covering the full range of constructions in the seventh-grade English curriculum.

Following the conceptual discussion, we report on the first results of an ongoing, yearlong RCT. The results confirm the effectiveness of the scaffolded feedback, and the approach makes students and learning process variables accessible for the analysis of learning in a real-world context.

In this article, we present an analytical approach that focuses on how transnational and translingual learners mobilize their multilingual, multimodal, and multisemiotic repertoires, as well as their learning and work experiences, as resources in language learning. The approach is that of translanguaging, which seeks to push the boundaries not only between different named languages but also between different modalities and across language scripts and writing systems. We base our arguments on a study of self-directed learning of Chinese via online platforms in the context of mobility and aim to demonstrate the transformative capacity of translanguaging. In doing so, we highlight the need for a transdisciplinary approach to language learning that transcends the boundaries between linguistics, psychology, and education, and in particular, the need to go beyond the artificial divides of the different modalities of language learning to strengthen the connections between research on bilingualism and multilingualism and research on language teaching and learning.

This article reviews current research findings on how specific learning difficulties (SLDs) impact on the processes of multilingual language development. The review includes studies of young language learners in instructed classroom settings, as well as of multilingual children in second language (L2) contexts. Starting with a definition of the concepts of disability and SLDs, it next discusses the interaction of cognitive factors with first language (L1) and L2 literacy development and L2 learning. Also outlined are possible ways in which SLDs can be identified in different L2 learning contexts. A detailed analysis of how cognitive factors influence the development of L2 skills of young learners with learning difficulties is given in the last part of the article.