Responds to an article on top-down versus bottom-up analyses of interlanguage data in second language acquisition research that argues in favor of using multifactorial frequency data analyses over multiple chi-squares to take into account dependence and interaction of the frequency data. (Author/VWL)

Discusses two complementary traditions in the study of communication and social context and shows how one researcher's theory of context influences the methodologies he or she adopts. Reviews substantive findings of sociolinguistic researchers in four main areas of second-language acquisition and use: interlanguage variation, cross-cultural…

Suggests that interlanguage morphology research contradictions have occurred as a result of a descriptively inadequate variation model. This assertion provides the basis for proposing and applying a multivariate model (acquisition stage, linguistic environment, and communicative redundancy) to an analysis of native Mandarin Chinese speakers'…

Evaluates the hypothesis that interlanguage is an efficient means of communicating referential information. The presentation includes review of evidence of the functional hypothesis in different forms of language; description of two studies of spoken English interlanguage of learners from different backgrounds; and discussion of the consequences…