• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.55-74
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• 2009

Although a considerable amount of research on discourse signaling cues has been conducted in reading, little attention has been paid to such cues in the area of listening. Moreover, despite the solid evidence showing that cues have beneficial effects for reading comprehension, L2 listening research has produced mixed findings about the role of cues. Such discrepancies among these findings might be due in part to inadequate research methodologies as well as the idiosyncratic features of their experimental designs. However, no study, to date, has thoroughly examined the research designs of listening comprehension studies on cues. Consequently, this study critically evaluates the present state of research designs and reporting practices of studies investigating the role of cues in listening comprehension. The present study aims to provide insights into areas that require empirical attention and systematic investigation. It also seeks to encourage improved and refined research practices for future studies. This paper is organized as follows: It will first critically review the empirical findings regarding cues in the area of L1 listening comprehension. Second, it will present a critical evaluation of L2 listening studies on cues. Finally, it will address the major research design issues of currently available listening studies and provide suggestions for improvement in future research.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.36
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• pp.5-35
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• 2014

This study attempts to give a review of social media users' choice of a particular name for the sake of signaling identity cues and interaction with the others. The social media names could be classified into different categories such as traditional/cultural anthroponyms, nicknames and fictitious IDs etc. Out of these categories, it is the phenomenon of choice and construction of fictitious social media IDs by Pakistani social media users which has been reviewed and scrutinized in this particular article. This study examined fictitious IDs of Pakistani social media users from Critical Discourse Analysis and System Functional Linguistics perspectives and demonstrates how nationalistic, ethnic and religious identities are negotiated, constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed by the social media users through a particular ID choice.