The bi/plurilingual person is a unique speaker-hearer who should be studied as such and not always in comparison with the monolingual. As such, unilingual linguistic models and perspectives based on the idea that bilingualism is a duplication of competences in two languages (or more) are unsuitable to describe plural practices in multilingual…

Examines politeness strategies used in intellectual discourse, concentrating on reference forms in various languages and in particular on the phenomena of power and solidarity displayed through the use of pronouns. The article identifies the differences and potential source of interferences in the domain of reference forms. (27 references)…

The research discussed here, primarily that of P.J. Gal'perin and his associates at the University of Moscow, is an experimental demonstration of basic tenets of Vygotsky's theory. According to Gal'perin, grammatical knowledge is formed first by teaching the students material grammatical actions; these actions are ultimately to become mental…

Presents evidence of a study of speakers of English as a Second Language that cross-language transfer effects interact with developmental effects in the construction of second language (L2) syllable structures. Argues that the optimality theory provides a more explicit account than the minimal sonority distance parameter setting model regarding…