Journal of Second Language Studies - Online First

This study investigates whether adult learners of Italian as a second language (L2) acquire Obligatory Control (OC) in non-finite gerundive adjuncts, which is the local relationship between the empty subject PRO in the adjunct and the subject of the main clause. Adjunct OC in Italian is neither frequent in input nor explicitly taught. In a self-paced reading experiment with a sentence similarity-judgment task, 34 participants with various L1s and proficiency levels were tested seven months apart. By the second session, participants were more accurate and faster at identifying the main clause subject as the PRO controller and showed faster reading times at the non-finite form in the target-probe matching condition. We explore whether proficiency, exposure, L1, input distribution, or a combination of factors may explain our results.

Like other questionable research practices (QRPs) discussed in this issue, self-citation can range from fitting and appropriate to self-serving and unethical (Ioannidis, 2015). The present study sought to estimate self-citation patterns using a large, representative sample of applied linguistics research articles (K = 969). Our results indicate a median of 1 self-citation per paper (2% of all references) at the individual author level (median = 3 or 5% at the author-team or article level). However, much higher rates of self-citation were also observed among individual authors and author-teams (max = 23 and 31, respectively). We explore these and other results in the context of QRPs and in light of bibliometric research from other disciplines. We also consider our findings in relation to the incentive structures in academia. Recommendations for future research are provided along with suggestions for preventing and addressing excessive self-citation for different stakeholders (e.g., journals, institutions, learned societies).

This study examines filled pauses and prolongations in Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Hebrew by comparing monolingual and bilingual speakers to identify both universal and language-specific disfluency patterns. Data were collected from monologues produced by monolinguals and two bilingual groups: Russian-Hebrew speakers who acquired both languages in early childhood, and Mandarin Chinese-Russian speakers who learned Russian later as a second language (L2). Analyses focused on the frequency and types of disfluencies. Monolinguals showed similar disfluency rates across languages, suggesting some universal patterns. Early bilinguals mirrored monolingual patterns in both languages, likely due to balanced early exposure. In contrast, Mandarin-Russian bilinguals exhibited higher disfluency rates in L2-Russian, likely due to increased cognitive load during speech planning. Additionally, they produced unique filled pause types not found in monolinguals, reflecting cross-linguistic transfer. These findings highlight how factors such as language proficiency, language exposure onset, and typological differences shape disfluency patterns in bilingual speech.

In quantitative applied linguistics research, the ethical grey zone between responsible conduct of research and blatant misconduct covers numerous researcher practices that may be more or less ethical depending on situational variables (e.g., context, researcher intent). Known as questionable research practices (QRPs), these actions coincide with the day-to-day decision points that occur throughout the research process. Building on Larsson et al.’s (2023) investigation of the prevalence and severity of 58 field-specific QRPs among researchers in the quantitative humanities, the current study presents a thematic analysis of the 2,261 qualitative comments left by 167 of these survey respondents. Five overarching themes were identified in these comments: Roughly half of the responses were justifications of QRP actions, while others highlighted the contextually-dependent nature of QRPs and pointed to potential ambiguity in the wording of these items. These findings offer implications for how we as a field discuss QRPs, as well as researcher training practices.

The current position paper is a brief account of the pitfalls I have found in the research manuscripts I have reviewed over a period of twenty years. As a review panel member of several academic journals, I encountered several problems in the submissions I have been asked to review, both minor ones and those beyond repair. In this paper, I intend to report my observations with a focus on what I may call unsophisticated and simplistic treatment of the findings. To put it briefly, while some submissions are rightly rejected due to sloppy data collection, biased sampling, or erroneous use of statistics, there are papers that succeed in following the strict methodological do’s and don’ts of research but fail to make sense of the bulk of the collected data, leading to fixation at the lower levels of Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy. I will try to address this issue, postulating that inadequate practice of critical thinking and other higher-order thinking skills such as analytical reasoning, evaluation, and inference could be partly responsible for this caveat. The paper ends with suggestions for educating would-be researchers not only by teaching the principles of conducting research but also by encouraging creativity, critical evaluation of information, and a genuine search for knowledge. Such qualities may not readily lend themselves to objective measurement and can hardly be translated into numerical indices by which research impact is estimated but they seem to add to the meaningfulness of research findings in the field.

Given the increasing number of L2 Chinese learners in Europe, it is critical to understand their learning motivation and strategies to support successful Chinese acquisition. This study aims to explore learners’ motivation for learning Chinese and examines how these relate to their learning strategies. With a mixed research design, SPSS 28 was utilized for descriptive analysis, Mplus 8.3 was employed for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and STATA 18.0 was adopted for analysing the relationship between learning motivation and learning strategies by a hierarchical regression model. In addition, MAXQDA2022 was employed for qualitative analysis of L2 Chinese learning motivation. The findings highlight diverse motivation of European L2 Chinese learners and their impact on the use of Chinese learning strategies. The study offers valuable insights on Chinese learning motivation, various learning strategies and provides implications for improving Chinese learning and teaching outcomes. It also contributes to the understanding of how cultural background and institutional contexts in Europe influence L2 Chinese learning, offering guidance for refining strategies to promote Chinese language education in European settings.