Category: Asked & Answered
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What has linguistics ever done for us, really?
Linguistics has evolved over time, shaping societal concerns. This post traces some of these changes, and attempts to answer what the value of linguistic inquiry has been across the ages.
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Tissue rejection in language education
Tissue rejection is a metaphor that helps explain why innovations in language education sometimes fail. Originally used by Holliday in the 1990s, it describes the way new methods are resisted when they do not align with the ecology of classrooms. This post revisits the metaphor to explore its relevance for AI, psychology, and teacher development…
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Dependent and independent variables, using SPSS, and minding one’s manners
This post will teach you three things: how to tell dependent and independent variables apart; how to calculate correlations; and how not to piss me off.
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How many components must a complex system have?
Dispelling the notion that a Complex System must have many components.
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Where can I find calls for papers for TESOL?
So, you have written or are planning to write a paper on language education, TESOL or applied linguistics – but do you know where to publish it? The easiest way forward usually is to submit your work to one of the many journals in the field. Another option is to consider an edited volume or…
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Can a child left in the wild develop a new language on her own?
Rich linguistic input is necessary for first language acquisition. But what happens when it’s not there?
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What’s a spamference?
As the pressure to present and publish becomes more and more intense, many scientific conferences have appeared, some of which are less legitimate than others. This means that it is becoming more important for academics, especially more junior and more inexperienced ones, to be alert to predatory conferences or, ‘spamferences’. In this blog post, you…
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How to interpret Ordinal Data: Median and Interquartile Range for Likert Scales
Let’s assume that you have prepared a questionnaire, where respondents had to select among responses ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. For convenience, you have probably followed the established practice of replacing these responses with numbers: “1” for “strongly disagree”, “2” for “agree” and so on. How do you go about analysing these data?
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Is it ever OK to cite your own work?
When writing a new article, it can sometimes seem pretentious to cite your previous work. This post explains when it is appropriate to do so, and what are some things you should watch out for.