About
About Issues in Applied Linguistics
Issues in Applied Linguistics (IAL) is a peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly journal established in 1989 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dedicated to advancing scholarship in applied linguistics, IAL provides an interdisciplinary forum for research, theoretical inquiry, critical perspectives, pedagogical innovation, and scholarly dialogue.
IAL welcomes contributions that explore language in educational, social, cultural, cognitive, and institutional contexts. The journal embraces diverse theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and forms of scholarly expression, with particular interest in innovative research and emerging directions that contribute meaningfully to the field.
A distinguishing feature of IAL is its commitment to supporting emerging scholars. We particularly encourage submissions from graduate students, recent graduates, and early-career researchers, alongside contributions from established scholars, independent researchers, and practitioners. Our editorial philosophy combines rigorous scholarly standards with constructive engagement, and we are committed to working with authors to develop promising manuscripts into high-quality scholarly publications.
IAL publishes a wide range of contributions, including original research, reviews, theoretical and conceptual scholarship, critical perspectives, scholarly interviews, conference proceedings, and pedagogical contributions. This breadth reflects the journal's longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary exchange and its recognition that valuable scholarship can take many forms.
Published through the University of California's eScholarship platform, IAL makes its content openly accessible to readers worldwide, supporting the dissemination and exchange of applied linguistics scholarship across institutions, disciplines, and professional communities.
We invite scholars at all stages of their careers to contribute to IAL and join an ongoing conversation about language, learning, communication, and society.
For information about the journal's scholarly interests and publication categories, please visit our Focus and Scope page.
For manuscript preparation and submission instructions, please consult our Submission Guidelines.
Volume 15, Issue 1, 2006
Articles
- “Spelling it Out”: The Design, Delivery, and Placement of Delayed Echolalic Utterances by a Child with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Quantitative research into the phenomenon of echolalia in the talk of children with autistic spectrum disorders has been extensive but has tended to focus on the child in isolation, or has only considered other parties’ immediately prior turns. Drawing on conversation analytic (CA) work, we examine one boy’s production of three cases of possibly echolalic utterances. Our analysis focuses on wider interactional events, in particular, nonvocal events. Firstly, we examine what it is about these cases which make them echolalic: They apparently constitute announcements of how words are spelled which, in the activity, appear to be irrelevant. Nevertheless, we show how they are connected to locally prior talk. The utterances are demarcated prosodically from prior talk by slower delivery at increasing volume. Secondly, we show how each production of these utterances is tied to a specific interactional event: namely other parties taking control of a mobile robot which the child has been handling.
- “Un Niño Puede Agarrar un Perro”: Children’s Use and Uptake of Directives in the Context of Play and Performance
This paper examines the ways in which Mexican American children use directives in the context of play. There is a range of directives that young children employ as they do pretend play, teach their younger siblings new play skills, and spontaneously invent play. Much of the research discussing the use of directives among young children has not explored the range of directives they may use in mixed-age play but rather has argued that children learn to employ more complex forms as they become older. I argue that age is not the only factor leading children to use directives in complex forms. In mixed-age play, older children may simplify their directives and younger children may utter directives in complex ways to fit the play. Data are drawn from 50 hours of video-recording naturally occurring verbal and nonverbal actions among caregivers and young children in three Mexican American families living in South Central Los Angeles.
- The Effects of Recasting on the Production of Pragmalinguistic Conventions of Request by Chinese Learners of English
This study examined the applicability of recasting to the acquisition of pragmatics. Specifically, this study investigated the effects of implicit feedback on Chinese learners of English in learning eight pragmalinguistic conventions of request. Both the pragmatic recast and control groups performed role-plays; the former received recasts on their request Head Acts (core requesting utterances), whereas the latter did not. Discourse completion tests showed that the pragmatic recast group performed better than the control group on measures of both pragmatic appropriateness and grammatical accuracy, with effect sizes of Cohen's (1998) d = 0.83 for pragmatic appropriateness and Cohen's d = 0.87 for pragmatic appropriateness and grammatical accuracy. The study highlighted the ways recasts can be implemented at the pragmatic level and demonstrated that pragmalinguistic recasting is a sound pedagogical option.