The Universal Networking Language (UNL) is an artificial language that can replicate human language functions in cyberspace in terms of hyper semantic networks. This paper aims to: a) design a reference grammar capable of dealing with the basic linguistic structures in order to act as a test-bed in automating translation between English and Arabic in both directions through UNL; b) evaluate the...

The concept of language learning using technology has allowed both language instructors and learners to explore the effectiveness of the online learning approach. Such computermediated activities provide an online platform for ESL learners to further practise their language skills as their face-to-face contact learning hours are rather limited. Limited contact learning hours have an impact on E...

This study investigates the role structural priming plays in production of passive structures among Iranian EFL learners. In order to answer the research question, which asked whether structural priming effects result in an increase in the production of the target structure (i.e., passive structures), 60 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. After taking the placement test, they were ...

This study investigates the role structural priming plays in production of passive structures among Iranian EFL learners. In order to answer the research question, which asked whether structural priming effects result in an increase in the production of the target structure (i.e., passive structures), 60 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. After taking the placement test, they were ...

This study aimed to investigate the impact of pre-speaking activities on Iranian intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ oral performance. The study followed a quasi-experimental design in which subjects of the study were non-randomly selected. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used to select 100 intermediate EFL learners as the main sample. Then they were divided randomly into...

MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL ✮ VOLUME 58, NO. 2, SPRING 2004 Dhufar, the southern region of the Sultanate of Oman, displays a tremendous diversity in its social structure, rather surprising for an area so small. While the people of the coastal plain and the inland Najd are Arabic-speaking, the mountain highlands of the region are home to various non-Arabic speaking communities. Brief descriptions of the...

We used eye-tracking to investigate if and when children show an incremental bias to assume that the first noun phrase in a sentence is the agent (first-NP-as-agent bias) while processing the meaning of English active and passive transitive sentences. We also investigated whether children can override this bias to successfully distinguish active from passive sentences, after processing the rema...

This paper presents and evaluates several original techniques for the latent classification of biographic attributes such as gender, age and native language, in diverse genres (conversation transcripts, email) and languages (Arabic, English). First, we present a novel partner-sensitive model for extracting biographic attributes in conversations, given the differences in lexical usage and discou...