Directives in Covid-19 government guidance: an international comparison.

The importance of language to changing public behaviours is acknowledged in crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. A key means of achieving these changes is through the use of directive speech acts, yet this area is currently under-researched. This study investigates the use of directives in the 2020 COVID-19 briefings of four leaders of English-speaking nations, Jacinda Adern, Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison, and Nicola Sturgeon.

Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers.

Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers.