This study evaluated English and Spanish language proficiency, and balance among these proficiencies, in relation to reading achievement in a sample of 161 middle school current and former English learners known to be struggling readers. Students were administered English and Spanish language assessments and also reported on their language usage; English reading outcomes (word reading, reading fluency, reading comprehension) were also assessed. Findings support the role of English proficiency in all three reading outcomes in this population. However, Spanish language skills, or indices that reflected the relative balance of these proficiencies, were not uniquely predictive. The present study adds nuance to the current literature and offers considerations for future work.

This paper examines a previously unnoticed ‘split’ construction in Greek, where a possessor that originates in a PP occurs together with the P separated from the possessum. I show a correlation between the availability of this split and the interpretation of a PP. This finding poses a challenge to PF-based accounts of splitting, particularly those that assume distributed deletion (e.g., Fanselow and Ćavar 2002; Fanselow and Féry 2006, Bondarenko and Davis 2023, Murphy and Wilson 2025 i.a.). Such accounts require additional mechanisms beyond those independently required by a syntactic account and fail to predict the distribution of split constructions. Instead, I propose a purely syntactic analysis that accounts for splits in Greek based on a correlation between the interpretation of a PP and its merge height (e.g., Cinque 1999, Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou 2007, Schweikert 2005). These findings together with additional theoretical considerations will be shown to provide strong support for the elimination of distributed deletion as a mechanism in natural language.

Avoidable research waste – that is, research that is unnecessary, poorly designed, or insufficiently communicated – limits the value of scholarship. Building on our earlier work, where we drew lessons from healthcare research to describe five sources of avoidable waste in applied linguistics research, this article focuses on the fifth source: quality of research reporting. Inadequate reporting limits understanding, constrains evidence-informed practice, undermines efforts to replicate or scrutinize empirical claims, and impedes research synthesis. Drawing on precedents from healthcare, particularly the development and widespread adoption of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials reporting guideline and the work of the Enhancing the Quality and Transparency Of Health Research Network, we illustrate how coordinated, consensus-driven reporting guidelines can improve the transparency, completeness, and usability of published research. A survey of instructions to authors across leading applied linguistics journals reveals fragmented and uneven guidance. While promising examples exist, field-wide reporting standards remain absent. We argue that applied linguistics is well positioned to develop design-specific, applied linguistics-focused reporting guidelines through a collaborative, international process involving methodologists, editors, research synthesists, and practitioners. Such an initiative would represent a critical step toward reducing research waste and enhancing the usability of applied linguistics research.

Research has shown that when ‘xxx English’ is used in reference to an English variety, the attribute ‘xxx’ is more likely to be an adjective than a noun. This is true of traditional ENL and ESL varieties, whose speakers can legitimately claim that ‘English is our language’. EFL varieties tend to follow the same trend, with ‘China English’ being a glaring exception to date. Corpus analysis shows that the pre-head attribute of a noun phrase may be filled by a noun (e.g., Belgium, Canada) or an adjective derived from it (e.g., Belgian, Canadian). A pre-head nominal attribute expresses the meaning ‘a type of’ (e.g., ‘communication skill’, ‘generation gap’), while a pre-head adjective signals either a quality (e.g., ‘smart city’ – with quality of being smart) or membership of a class (e.g., ‘smart card’, distinct from other cards). A pre-head nominal attribute and its adjectival counterpart signaling ‘class membership’ thus share a classificatory function. This helps explain stylistic variation such as free alternation between ‘Scottish flag’ and ‘Scotland flag’ in the same text; nor is there anything unusual using names of countries in sports reporting (e.g., ‘Brazil national football team’). But such a stylistic shift is semantically nuanced and not always licensed (consider, e.g., ‘Ukrainian security’ and ‘Ukraine war’, where the pre-head attributes ‘Ukrainian’ and ‘Ukraine’ are not interchangeable). The adjectival form of a toponym is usually longer in speech and writing than the toponym itself. Apparently, phonology matters when naming an English variety, witness the rarity of ‘Guamanian English’ and ‘Peruvian English’.

Vocabulary development is essential to early language acquisition, supporting cognitive, social, and academic growth. While much research focuses on general vocabulary, studies on multiple-meaning words – polysemous (related meanings) or homonymous (unrelated meanings) – are limited. This study focused on the expressive lexicon, examining (1) the progression of multiple-meaning word acquisition across ages 3, 4, and 5; (2) differences in acquisition between polysemous and homonymous words; and (3) the impact of a gamified intervention program on multiple-meaning word knowledge. Results showed age-related gains in multiple-meaning word knowledge, from ages 3 to 5. Polysemous words showed a trend of improvement from age 3, whereas homonymous word gains emerged only from age 4. The intervention program enhanced retrieval across all ages, with greater benefits for ages 4 and 5. These findings deepen understanding of expressive multiple-meaning vocabulary development in preschoolers and highlight age-related and semantic-category differences.