This meta‐analytic study provides a systematic statistical synthesis of the effects of output tasks on second or foreign incidental vocabulary learning. A total of 12 studies were included in this meta‐analysis. Five mediator variables were examined: design quality, types of output task, time on task, genres of text, and text–target word ratios. Results show that language learners who completed an output task outperformed those who only read a text. Results also support the involvement load hypothesis: Language learners who performed a task with a higher degree of involvement load, gained more vocabulary. Studies with high and medium levels of design quality were more likely to detect statistically significant differences among groups with different output tasks, compared to studies with a low level of design quality. Furthermore, results indicate that time on task had positive effects on vocabulary learning. Learners who read a combination of expository and narrative text gained more vocabulary than those who only read either an expository or narrative text. Learners who read a text with text–target word ratios of less than or equal to 2% did not learn significantly more vocabulary than those who read a text with a ratio of 2% to 5%.

This study sought to shed light on the relationship between support (from teachers and peers) and foreign-language learners' anxiety. A total of 158 adult Taiwanese English-language learners completed three questionnaires: a background questionnaire, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, and the Classroom Life Measure. The results showed that teacher academic support was the most pervasive variable correlated with language-learning anxiety, compared to other types of support (i.e., teacher personal support, student academic support, and student personal support). Language learners felt less anxious when they perceived that they obtained more academic support from their teachers.

The present study provides insight into the use of dictionaries and contextual guessing by advanced English-language learners. This report identifies dictionary use and contextual guessing strategies used by these learners most often and least often. Participants were 100 international graduate students at a large southwestern U.S. university who completed a vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire. The results indicated that these learners consulted a dictionary most often to find out the pronunciation of a new word and least often to learn the frequency of use and appropriate usage of an unknown word. Participants most often based their guesses of a word's meaning from the paragraph's main ideas and background information. Using the meaning of individual parts of an unfamiliar compound word (such as note-book) and the part of speech of a new word were the least-used guessing strategies.

The traditional view of translator as the "servant" of the author has dominated the translation theory for years, but with the "cultural turn", the translators' role has been redefined and their subjectivity in literary translation has caught much attention. This article attempts to take the English version of The Border Town translated by Gladys Yang as an example to show how the translator demonstrates her literary aesthetics and understandings of art into the translation by adopting different translation strategies.