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Research paper thumbnail of The neurobiology of smartphone addiction in emerging adults evaluated using brain morphometry and resting-state functional MRI

Neuroscience Research Notes, 2021

The characteristics of smartphone addiction (SPA) can be evaluated by neuroimaging studies. Infor... more The characteristics of smartphone addiction (SPA) can be evaluated by neuroimaging studies. Information on the brain structural alterations, and effects on psychosocial wellbeing, however, have not been concurrently evaluated. The aim of this study was to identify abnormalities in gray matter volume using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and neuronal functional alterations using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) in emerging adults with SPA. We correlated the neuroimaging parameters with indices for psychosocial wellbeing such as depression, anxiety, stress, and impulsivity. Forty participants (20 SPA and 20 age-matched healthy controls) were assessed using VBM and rs-fMRI. The smartphone addiction scale – Malay version (SAS-M) questionnaire scores were used to categorize the SPA and healthy control groups. DASS-21 and BIS-11 questionnaires were used to assess for psychosocial wellbeing and impulsivity, respectively. VBM identified the SPA group to have reduced gray matter volume...

Research paper thumbnail of Explaining the Diversity in Malay-English Code-Switching Patterns: The Contribution of Typological Similarity and Bilingual Optimization Strategies

Languages

Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatic... more Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatical features from two languages in one sentence. Malaysia is a particularly interesting context for the study of code-switching because Malay-English code-switching is widely practiced across formal and informal situations, and the available literature reveals that there is a great diversity in switch patterns in this language pair. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Malay-English code-switching is the high frequency of switches of function words (pronouns, modal verbs, demonstratives, etc.), which is very unusual in most code-switching corpora. Here, we analyse the structural properties of Malay-English code-switching, which have received less attention than functional analyses in the academic literature on code-switching in this language pair. We first summarize the literature on the different types of code-switching that are found in a range of sources, and then analyze the ...

Research paper thumbnail of Theme choice in oral case presentations: Differences between medical novices and experts

English for Specific Purposes, Jul 1, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of Identification of Nigerian English idioms: A methodological perspective

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Dec 20, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of A Framework for an Online Forum for a Writing Course

International Conference on Telecommunications, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Encouraging participation in public discourse through online writing in ESL instruction

3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature®, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Discourse Particles in Malaysian English

Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of A Review of Syntactic Complexity Studies in Context of EFL/ESL Writing

International journal of academic research in business & social sciences, Oct 7, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Question design in veterinary consultations: Question forms and client responses in accomplishing problem presentation in a Malaysian context

Discourse and Interaction, Jul 7, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Metaphor and the Representations of Health and Illness among the Semai Indigenous Community in Malaysia

GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, Nov 29, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Measuring Grammatical Development in Bilingual Mandarin-English Speaking Children with a Sentence Repetition Task

Journal of Education and Learning, Aug 13, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of E-Moderating Practices of ESL Teachers in an Online Writing Forum

Research paper thumbnail of Perception of English lexical stress: some insights for English pronunciation lessons for Iraqi ESL learners

Research paper thumbnail of Learning Culture of Iranian and Chinese-Malaysian Undergraduate Students

Research paper thumbnail of Predicting EFL expository writing quality with measures of lexical richness

Assessing Writing, Jul 1, 2023

This paper investigates the relationship between lexical richness and EFL expository writing qual... more This paper investigates the relationship between lexical richness and EFL expository writing quality and examines the predictability of lexical richness indices to EFL expository writing quality. Two hundred and seventy expository writing samples were drawn from Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners Version 2.0. The lexical richness of the writing samples was analyzed with Lexical Complexity Analyzer, and the values of the 26 indices were calculated being the independent variables to predict the EFL expository writing quality. Besides, the writing samples were rated by three experienced raters and the average scores from the three raters were used as the dependent variable. The results of correlation analysis show that all four measures of lexical richness, i.e., lexical density, sophistication, variation, and fluency, are significantly correlated with the EFL expository writing quality, but the strength of the correlation is either low or medium. The results of regression analysis show that two indices of lexical richness, i.e., Number of Words and Noun Variation, can explain 38.5% (r = 0.620, p = 0.000) of the variance in the average score of EFL expository writing. A 10-fold cross-validation was performed and the results indicate that the model validly fits the data and can be generalized with unseen data.

Research paper thumbnail of Production Errors and Interlanguage Development Patterns of L1 Malay ESL Learners in the Acquisition of the English Passive

Issues in Language Studies, Jun 27, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Cross-Language Perception of Non-Native Stops and Fricatives Among Malay and Hausa Native Speakers

Journal of Language and Communication (JLC), May 13, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals

Research paper thumbnail of Construction of the Malay Cross-linguistic Lexical Task: a preliminary report

Research paper thumbnail of Performance in Nonword Repetition Tasks among Mandarin- English Bilingual Children in Malaysia

Pertanika, 2020

The nonword repetition (NWR) task has been used to measure children's expressive language skills,... more The nonword repetition (NWR) task has been used to measure children's expressive language skills, and it has been argued to have potential as an early language delay/ impairment detection tool as the NWR task can be conducted rather easily and quickly to obtain a quantitative as well as a qualitative measure of children's attention to lexical and phonological information. This paper reports the performance of two NWR tasks among thirty bilingual Mandarin-English preschoolers between the age of four through six. The study indicated that performance in the NWR tasks showed a developmental trend with older children performing better than younger children. Word length also had a significant effect on performance, possibly an effect from better short-term memory capacity as the child grew older. The children also performed better in the Mandarin NWR task compared to the English NWR task. These findings suggest potential clinical applications for diagnosis of children with language impairment or at risk of language development delay. However, further studies should improve on the tasks to verify its efficacy and to obtain norms for performance with a larger sample of children at various age groups.

Research paper thumbnail of The neurobiology of smartphone addiction in emerging adults evaluated using brain morphometry and resting-state functional MRI

Neuroscience Research Notes, 2021

The characteristics of smartphone addiction (SPA) can be evaluated by neuroimaging studies. Infor... more The characteristics of smartphone addiction (SPA) can be evaluated by neuroimaging studies. Information on the brain structural alterations, and effects on psychosocial wellbeing, however, have not been concurrently evaluated. The aim of this study was to identify abnormalities in gray matter volume using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and neuronal functional alterations using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) in emerging adults with SPA. We correlated the neuroimaging parameters with indices for psychosocial wellbeing such as depression, anxiety, stress, and impulsivity. Forty participants (20 SPA and 20 age-matched healthy controls) were assessed using VBM and rs-fMRI. The smartphone addiction scale – Malay version (SAS-M) questionnaire scores were used to categorize the SPA and healthy control groups. DASS-21 and BIS-11 questionnaires were used to assess for psychosocial wellbeing and impulsivity, respectively. VBM identified the SPA group to have reduced gray matter volume...

Research paper thumbnail of Explaining the Diversity in Malay-English Code-Switching Patterns: The Contribution of Typological Similarity and Bilingual Optimization Strategies

Languages

Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatic... more Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatical features from two languages in one sentence. Malaysia is a particularly interesting context for the study of code-switching because Malay-English code-switching is widely practiced across formal and informal situations, and the available literature reveals that there is a great diversity in switch patterns in this language pair. One of the most remarkable characteristics of Malay-English code-switching is the high frequency of switches of function words (pronouns, modal verbs, demonstratives, etc.), which is very unusual in most code-switching corpora. Here, we analyse the structural properties of Malay-English code-switching, which have received less attention than functional analyses in the academic literature on code-switching in this language pair. We first summarize the literature on the different types of code-switching that are found in a range of sources, and then analyze the ...

Research paper thumbnail of Theme choice in oral case presentations: Differences between medical novices and experts

English for Specific Purposes, Jul 1, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of Identification of Nigerian English idioms: A methodological perspective

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Dec 20, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of A Framework for an Online Forum for a Writing Course

International Conference on Telecommunications, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Encouraging participation in public discourse through online writing in ESL instruction

3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature®, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Discourse Particles in Malaysian English

Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of A Review of Syntactic Complexity Studies in Context of EFL/ESL Writing

International journal of academic research in business & social sciences, Oct 7, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Question design in veterinary consultations: Question forms and client responses in accomplishing problem presentation in a Malaysian context

Discourse and Interaction, Jul 7, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Metaphor and the Representations of Health and Illness among the Semai Indigenous Community in Malaysia

GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, Nov 29, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Measuring Grammatical Development in Bilingual Mandarin-English Speaking Children with a Sentence Repetition Task

Journal of Education and Learning, Aug 13, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of E-Moderating Practices of ESL Teachers in an Online Writing Forum

Research paper thumbnail of Perception of English lexical stress: some insights for English pronunciation lessons for Iraqi ESL learners

Research paper thumbnail of Learning Culture of Iranian and Chinese-Malaysian Undergraduate Students

Research paper thumbnail of Predicting EFL expository writing quality with measures of lexical richness

Assessing Writing, Jul 1, 2023

This paper investigates the relationship between lexical richness and EFL expository writing qual... more This paper investigates the relationship between lexical richness and EFL expository writing quality and examines the predictability of lexical richness indices to EFL expository writing quality. Two hundred and seventy expository writing samples were drawn from Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners Version 2.0. The lexical richness of the writing samples was analyzed with Lexical Complexity Analyzer, and the values of the 26 indices were calculated being the independent variables to predict the EFL expository writing quality. Besides, the writing samples were rated by three experienced raters and the average scores from the three raters were used as the dependent variable. The results of correlation analysis show that all four measures of lexical richness, i.e., lexical density, sophistication, variation, and fluency, are significantly correlated with the EFL expository writing quality, but the strength of the correlation is either low or medium. The results of regression analysis show that two indices of lexical richness, i.e., Number of Words and Noun Variation, can explain 38.5% (r = 0.620, p = 0.000) of the variance in the average score of EFL expository writing. A 10-fold cross-validation was performed and the results indicate that the model validly fits the data and can be generalized with unseen data.

Research paper thumbnail of Production Errors and Interlanguage Development Patterns of L1 Malay ESL Learners in the Acquisition of the English Passive

Issues in Language Studies, Jun 27, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Cross-Language Perception of Non-Native Stops and Fricatives Among Malay and Hausa Native Speakers

Journal of Language and Communication (JLC), May 13, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Representation of English front vowels by Malay-English bilinguals

Research paper thumbnail of Construction of the Malay Cross-linguistic Lexical Task: a preliminary report

Research paper thumbnail of Performance in Nonword Repetition Tasks among Mandarin- English Bilingual Children in Malaysia

Pertanika, 2020

The nonword repetition (NWR) task has been used to measure children's expressive language skills,... more The nonword repetition (NWR) task has been used to measure children's expressive language skills, and it has been argued to have potential as an early language delay/ impairment detection tool as the NWR task can be conducted rather easily and quickly to obtain a quantitative as well as a qualitative measure of children's attention to lexical and phonological information. This paper reports the performance of two NWR tasks among thirty bilingual Mandarin-English preschoolers between the age of four through six. The study indicated that performance in the NWR tasks showed a developmental trend with older children performing better than younger children. Word length also had a significant effect on performance, possibly an effect from better short-term memory capacity as the child grew older. The children also performed better in the Mandarin NWR task compared to the English NWR task. These findings suggest potential clinical applications for diagnosis of children with language impairment or at risk of language development delay. However, further studies should improve on the tasks to verify its efficacy and to obtain norms for performance with a larger sample of children at various age groups.

Research paper thumbnail of READING PREFERENCE AND REACTIONS TOWARDS DIFFERENT TYPES OF POST-READING ACTIVITIES AMONG TAMIL PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, 2020

The primary purpose of this study is to find out the reading preference of students in an extensi... more The primary purpose of this study is to find out the reading preference of students in an extensive reading (ER) programme conducted in a Malaysian Tamil primary school. The study also reports the children's responses to the different types of post-reading activities in the reading sessions. The participants were 66 multilingual Tamil school students between 10-11 years old. They were involved in reading storybooks extensively in an after-school reading programme which examined the effects of ER and different post-reading activities on vocabulary learning. The qualitative data reported in this paper were analysed from observations, video-recordings of interactions between student/teacher, reading reports, records from the library checkout cards, teacher feedback forms and vocabulary record sheets. Using thematic analysis techniques, the data from these various sources were categorised, and analysed. The findings of the study revealed that the students preferred to read 3 major genres of storybooks during the reading sessions; (a) adventure; (b) mystery; and (c) informational books. The results also show the reactions of the students towards the different types of word learning activities. Four patterns of responses were identified: (a) positive and negative feelings; (b) active participation; (c) preference for collaboration; and (d) motivation for reading.

Research paper thumbnail of AN ACOUSTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH VOWELS PRODUCED BY NIGERIAN AND MALAYSIAN ESL SPEAKERS

JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, 2020

The ever-increasing spread of English as a major international language has facilitated the emerg... more The ever-increasing spread of English as a major international language has facilitated the emergence of distinct English varieties. These new varieties of English are now being adopted for international and intercultural communication. However, one of the consequences of having different varieties is the possible lack of mutual intelligibility among them. This study aimed to compare and contrast the English vowels produced by Nigerian and Malaysian ESL speakers to explore the distribution of the vowels produced in the vowel space and its effect on the intelligibility of the vowels in speech perception. The study is motivated by the lack of current research comparing similarities and differences of these nonnative English varieties, specifically Nigerian and Malaysian accented English. The participants in this study were 20 Nigerian ESL speakers and 20 Malaysian ESL speakers. The participants were asked to produce ten sentences containing the target vowels and these vowels were analyzed acoustically by extracting the F1 and F2 formant frequency values using PRAAT. The vowel charts were plotted for each language to show the similarities and differences between these two accented varieties of English. The results revealed that both groups of speakers categorized the ten English vowels under investigation differently in their vowel space.