Borrowings in informal American English exhibit various modifications. Phonological changes involve the modification of their pronunciation to conform to the phonological rules of American English. Orthographical changes feature the change in spelling of borrowed expressions, with various stages of respelling or other modifications. Morphological changes include addition or removal of lexical material via standard wordbuilding processes such as lengthening or shortening. Semantic changes involve figuration and accompanying semantic shifting. Grammatical changes involve conversion in the part of speech. Finally, stylistic changes involve modification in the original register of informal borrowings which may shift their stylistic status in American English; while most borrowings exhibit no such change and retain their informal status, there are several exceptions.

The present study quantitatively identifies undergraduate L2 Spanish learners’ beliefs regarding advanced-language use to determine if they influence how they perceive advanced Spanish, how they differentiate between different levels of intercultural competence, and how they rate overall language use of advanced L2 speakers. We found a disparity between L2 beliefs and behaviors, in terms of what they consider the most important, compared to what they are most sensitive to when evaluating the Spanish of advanced L2 speakers. We associate the disparity with constraints imposed institutionally by higher education and called for a reevaluation of societal and professional demands for advanced-language use, as well as academia’s institutionalized conceptualization of it, in order to generate greater synergy between students, language programs in higher education, and society at large. Doing so requires the implementation of assessment metrics measuring multiple dimensions of language use, and will ultimately facilitate the transformation of curricula and outcomes to more effectively meet the demands of the globalized landscape.

This chapter situates the sixteenth-century drive to define ’Englishness’ through literature within a broader European context, charting the widespread efforts to reify ’national character’ through the production of standardised grammars for vernaculars and assertions of their peculiar grace. After surveying early modern thought on the relationship between language, nation and empire, the chapter discusses the particular strategy adopted by English writers (centrally Puttenham and Sidney) to establish the very peripheral barbarousness of the English tongue as a proof of its distinction, before pointing at the close towards the emerging role of empire in underpinning notions of Englishness.

By the fifth century Latin had become the language of education and been brought to new areas via the expansion of Christianity. The grammars by Donatus (fourth century) and Priscian’s (sixth century) were the canonical textbooks.The Carolingian Renaissance (eighth-ninth century) had linguistic consequences: promotion of scholarship, return to original texts, reform of pronunciation. The twelfth century represents a turning point in the study of language: the aim is not just describing Latin and practical training, but reflecting on the relationship between ‘dialectic’ (logic) and grammar (cf. Peter Helias). This opened the way to a general/formal theory of language, ‘speculative grammar.’ It flourished in the thirteenth century, with the idea that language intervenes both in the knowledge of reality and the theory of the ‘modes of signifying.' The Modistae systematized their predecessors’ work and investigated further the relation of grammar and meaning and the universal properties of language. In the fifteenth century the nominalists, for whom the modes of signifying were unnecessary, attacked their theories.The author notes an interest in pragmatics coming from theologians, rather than grammarians and philosophers. The chapter closes on a review of grammars of vernaculars (Catalan, Provençal, Old French).

Since Edgar Allan Poe’s assertion that the short story must be read in a “single sitting,” short story theory has focused on the importance of endings as a hallmark of the form. This crystallized, in the 1980s and 1990s, in the rise of closure studies, a critical field that sought to taxonomize the ways stories end and its effects on the reader. This essay examines a feminist countertradition of short story writing that uses grammar as a tool to disrupt the form’s inbuilt narrative teleology. By interrogating the short story’s narrative temporality, writers such as Gertrude Stein, Lydia Davis, and Lorrie Moore use grammar to situate themselves, in distinctly gendered ways, in and against broader systems of time. Through a close examination of these writers, the essay explores how grammar offers a way of assessing not only the short story’s closures but also its various expansions and radical possibilities.

This chapter introduces the concept of grammar of a particular language. The basic units of grammar in Chinese are introduced in order to underline the distinguishing characteristics of Chinese grammar. By comparing Chinese with English, the chapter demonstrates that Chinese words have no form changes in sentences regardless of quantity or tense; thus, the relationship between words plays an important role in determining their parts of speech.

This chapter introduces some language concepts at the semiotic level. This helps to see language systems as socially constructed and also as responding to communicative need. It is foundational in our exploration of critical thinking; it helps us to question assumptions made about how we frame our communicative world as ‘natural’ or ‘given’. If we can see language as the mechanism of representation and referentiality, then we can consider alternatives and we can see how the use of language is often at the heart of conflicting narratives and perceptions. Indeed, sometimes language is the problem. Being articulate in Academic English enables us to express our ideas, to understand, to analyse and respond to, other people’s usage of language. First, let’s look at the fundamentals of referentiality and language use.

The ability to respond critically to any text is a learnt ability which needs some innate ability before it can be developed. That is, critical thinking is a variegated talent, linked to intelligence and curiosity, which is hard-wired into the human brain but is not always fostered equally. We are all different according to aspects of biology, intelligence and personality. Likewise, we are all different according to our experience of being encouraged to use these natural abilities. Indeed, there is even some evidence that critical thinking is an ability that is only really developed at all after the teenage years. This idea is consistent with other theories of literacy, which state that there must be an inherent ability to decode language before it can be developed, and that any form of literacy is incremental. That means that each layer of literacy builds on previous levels, and that we must be cognitively ready for each stage. Critical literacy is, therefore, a higher level of literacy which builds on foundational forms of literacy. We need to be able to decode language systems at the semiotic, denotational and connotational levels in order to produce sense. Once we produce this meaning through textual reception, we can start to definitively question what we are being told, building on whatever latent critical ability we already have.

In this chapter, we address the aspects of style and presentation that students most commonly encounter in preparing their essays for submission. What may seem like minor details of writing, like ellipses, italics and quotation marks, are actually aspects of clarity. They explain in shorthand form the nature of your material and how you are using it. As with the referencing conventions we looked at in the previous chapter, common style conventions are understood by other academic readers and are part of engaging in an academic conversation. The chapter is organised A–Z by topic so that you can locate the information you need quickly and easily when you encounter a style query in the course of your writing. However, the unique circumstances of your own writing assignments means that you will occasionally have to make judgements about how to present your information.

There is, typically, some resistance when the word grammar is mentioned, especially if it is in the context of a textbook. That is because grammar is often seen as something that must be forced on students. As with most ideas of freedom, compulsion in grammatical education is resisted when people see no value in it. Another reason for resistance to grammar is because formal grammar (beyond a few basics) was dropped from the education system in many English-speaking countries around 30 years ago, and it is thus unfamiliar, or even ‘strange’. Generations of students have been convinced that they do not need to ‘do’ grammar, since they can already speak the language quite fluently. There is even the belief, articulated by people who are most typically monolingual in English, which is that grammar is only for people who need to be taught how to speak English; that is other people.

In this chapter, we examine some basic principles for doing academic research. After defining primary, secondary and tertiary sources, we consider the different roles each source type plays in your research and the value of commonly used sources like journal articles and academic books. A research plan, as outlined in this chapter, plays a crucial role in your essay-writing timeline. It lays out your research strategy, so that you have a clear idea of what material you need and where you will find it. More than this, a research plan progresses your reading from most foundational to most sophisticated so that you can approach your highest value sources – such as journal articles – with more confidence.

If learners are required to better their consecutive learning, their engagement and their motivation, they must be informed about the procedures that lead to certain grades of their individual oral and written performance. First of all, they have to understand that grading does not only depend on their respective teacher, but that he or she has to follow the often-detailed requirements of the school authorities. Furthermore, they have to be informed about the reasons why the grading of written performance is considered as more important by the authorities

[6.1] Statutory interpretation is to be ‘text-based’. ‘The text’ here refers to the words whose meaning or effect is in issue. Rooted in constitutional principles, consideration of the text is the starting point of the interpretative process. The text supplies the basis for ascertaining the ordinary or grammatical meaning and similar meanings. In turn, that supplies a presumptive and weighty meaning. After having been read in context, the text is also the ending point of the interpretative process. It is where meaning is ultimately held to ‘reside’. But, for an interpreter, the text is not limiting in the sense that he or she must choose between its grammatical or semantic possibilities, read in isolation. The paramount object remains to give effect to the intention of Parliament.

Chapter 12: Building Main Idea Comprehension: Syntax and Strategies. Identifying main ideas from a text is the fundamental comprehension process that drives how we understand a text and use that information for whatever goals we have set as readers. Identifying main ideas from a text is the fundamental comprehension process that drives how we understand a text and use that information for whatever goals we have set as readers. Critical to main idea comprehension is word-to-text integration processing. This operates automatically through syntactic processing for skilled readers. Comprehension processes are supported through the functional information provided by syntactic resources. However, when texts are difficult or learners need additional support, strategies provide the bridging mechanism in learning to comprehend texts. Strategies that have shown to be effective in research studies are reviewed. The chapter concludes with implications for instruction.

By using a broad selection of ‘commentary discourse’, this chapter looks at the practice of reading, teaching and composing texts whose purpose is (partly) to explain older texts. Such commentaries, which can take various and sometimes unexpected forms, are of paramount importance for understanding the Byzantine intellectual and cultural framework of literary production, not only as a system of ‘authoritative mimesis’ but also as a system of ‘subversive anti-mimesis’. Thus, the chapter examines paraphrases of the Iliad, grammatical exercises such as the schede of Theodore Prodromos, lives of saints with integrated gnomologia, laudatory orations and novels, poetical treatises of political admonition (e.g. the anonymous Spaneas), scholia on ancient authors (like those produced by John Tzetzes on Aristophanes and Lycophron or by Eustathios on the Homeric poems), but also large-scale commentaries on Byzantine hymnongraphy (e.g. by John Zonaras on John of Damascus), philosophical and theological commentaries (Michael of Ephesos on Aristotle or Niketas of Herakleia on the Psalms). These texts represent different and yet interrelated discourses that highlight the key role of ‘commentary’ as a hermeneutic tool of and testimony to a broad spectrum of sociocultural and literary tensions within the longue durée of the Komnenian era.