This Special Issue, entitled Formal and Methodological Approaches to Applied Linguistics, brings together recently published papers on various aspects of applied linguistics presented at the AESLA37 ...(Spanish Society of Applied Linguistics) conference in Valladolid held on 27–29 March 2019 ...
The study focuses on the interaction between length of exposure and instruction in the L2 English acquisition process of L1 Spanish school children. Two target structures involving noun ...premodification are targeted: noun–noun (NN) compounds and adjective–noun (AN) strings. Four groups of participants have been studied for 3 years: a group that has been exposed to a specifically designed teaching program targeting NN compounds and a group that has received the regular English instruction program which does not address this structure as part of the curriculum. Two age subgroups appear in each case. The longitudinal judgment data elicited show that performance improves in the cooperation between length of exposure and the exposure to the NN instruction program. Furthermore, it is this last issue that actually takes the lead in that the NN instruction program directly impacts on not only NN compounds but also AN strings. This points to instruction being determinant in the L2 learning process; that is, a consciously and carefully directed instruction is proven to be more effective than length of exposure itself. This study on longitudinal experimental data contributes to shed light on the factors involved in instructed L2 acquisition.
This study considers the oral and written production of L1 Danish L2 English learners and focuses on the analysis of sentential subjects and the issue of transfer. To deal with (the lack of) transfer ...in typologically close languages, it analyzes the English subjects produced by 20 primary school students divided in two groups depending on the time of exposure. The results show that the subjects produced are both grammatically correct and pragmatically adequate. Therefore, the analysis of transfer should look into language typology as a primary source for transfer, rather than into amount of exposure when typologically close languages are considered.
The goal of this Special Issue is to bring together state-of-the art articles on applied linguistics which reflect investigation carried out by researchers from different parts of the world. By ...bringing together papers from different perspectives, we hope to be able to gain a better understanding of the field. Hence, this Special Issue intends to address the study of language in its different dimensions and within the framework of multiple methodologies and formal accounts as used by researchers in the field. This Special Issue is dedicated to research in any area related to applied linguistics, including language acquisition and language learning; language teaching and curriculum design; language for specific purposes; psychology of language, child language and psycholinguistics; sociolinguistics; pragmatics; discourse analysis; corpus linguistics, computational linguistics and language engineering; lexicology and lexicography; and translation and interpretation.
An online survey was distributed to consumers in nine countries in order to investigate their perceptions related to causers of food safety risks, types of food associated with food-borne illnesses ...and the role of actors in the food supply chain. A total of 2723 respondents have participated in the survey. Results indicated that food hygiene has been recognized as the most important issue associated with food safety risks. Consumers considered meat and meat products as well as egg and egg-based products, as types of food that pose the highest risks to consumer's health. Food processors and food inspection services play the most significant role in food supply chains. Results further revealed that country of origin has the highest influence on consumer perception, opposed to gender with the least influence. Overall, results obtained in this study confirmed the role of food hygiene as the predominant factor in ensuring food safety in the mind of consumers and that animal-originated food has been perceived as the type of food holding higher health risk opposed to food of plant origin. At the same time, these results challenge the trust in food processors and food inspection services.
Understanding consumers’ behavior and their handling of high-risk foods at home is essential for reducing the number of foodborne illnesses. This study shows the results of a cross-national analysis ...of consumers’ perception from nine countries, and the identification of customers’ clusters and its characteristics in order to understand customers’ behavior, and to build safe chilled ready-to-eat (RTE) foods prevention strategies. The cluster analysis resulted in two clusters: (1) “Precautious consumers” characterized by the orientation towards pre-packed RTE foods, with consumers mainly coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. Their attitudes and self-reported practices may be categorized as less risky in terms of food-borne illnesses connected with the consumption of RTE foods; (2) “Unconcerned consumers” preferred cutting and slicing RTE foods freshly at the point of purchase, usually sold at the delicatessen department in a supermarket or at open markets. Those consumers mostly came from Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia and their attitudes and self-reported practices were riskier. These results allow a better understating of what characterizes consumers of RTE foods in different countries.