Reviews literature on language transfer and language universals. Defines language universals as those linguistic elements which are common to all languages. Discusses language transfer and language universals as interacting phenomena. Concludes that language universals serve as an overall guiding principle in second language acquisition,…

Examines longitudinal data from two Vietnamese learners of English to investigate syllable structure in their interlanguages. First language transfer emerged as the dominant process influencing syllable structure in interlanguage phonology. Analysis of conversational data at three points over a 10-month period showed first language transfer in…

Deals with several related problems of language contact, approximative systems, and language learning situations. Proposes the recognition of "fixed approximative languages" in relation to learning situations. (Author)

The natural phonology theory, related to European structuralism, makes two fundamental assumptions: (1) phonemes are mental images of the sounds of language, and (2) phonological processes represent subconscious mental substitutions of one sound or class of sounds for another that are the natural response to the relative difficulties of sound…

Assumes unified language behavior including verbal, kinesic, and prosodic forms. Proposes that interlanguage theory should be expanded to include kinesic and prosodic modes of behavior. Suggests that acquisition of second-language kinesic and prosodic forms takes place similarly to acquisition of verbal forms and that acquisition is developmental,…

Presents an analysis of the tense marking of 16 Vietnamese speakers learning English as a second language, which shows there are a number of surface-level constraints that systematically affect the incidence of tense marking, including the distinction between regular and irregular verbs and the shape of the suffix on the regular verb. (SED)

Discusses the theories of contrastive analysis and error analysis in second language learning with regard to the idea that a language closely related to one's own native language is easier to learn that a remotely related one. (EKN)

It is suggested that it is not between two languages that transfers and interference occur, but within the learner. The learner mediates and constructs this relationship according to acquisition operations, processes, strategies, and stages that contrastive analysis, despite its utility, can neither account for nor predict. (MSE)

Describes the phonological analysis of Japanese speakers learning English as a foreign language. Analysis was carried out at a phonemic level and reflects learners' performance in the target language at a specific stage of interlanguage. A non-comprehensive comparison between the English and the Japanese sound systems was made and the so-called…

It is hoped that from learners' faulty use of the foreign language, clues may be found for foreign language teaching. Some "factors" are examined: negative transfer, learning and communication strategies, over-generalization. Also discussed are ways of dealing with various errors. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Reports on research into the validity of the theory of interlanguage, based on evidence of interference of the native language in Dutch students of French. (AM)

Studies the possible influence of Spanish on native speakers of that language during their assessment of marked iconicity in English. Looks at discrimination by Spanish learners of English of information focus as signaled by placement of nuclear tones in sentence initial and medial positions. (Author/VWL)

Despite anecdotal data on lexical interference among the languages of multilingual speakers, little research evidence about the lexical connections among multilinguals' languages exists to date. In the present paper, two experiments with a multilingual speaker who had suffered aphasia are reported. The first experiment provides data about…

In five experiments highly-proficient bilinguals were asked to name two sets of pictures in their L2: a) pictures whose names in the L2 and their corresponding L1 translations have the same grammatical gender value, and b) pictures whose names in the L2 and their corresponding L1 translations have different gender values. In Experiments 1, 2, and…

This article investigates verb placement, especially Verb second (V2), in post-puberty second language (L2) learners of two closely related Germanic V2 languages: Swedish and German. Hakansson, "et al." (2002) have adduced data from first language (L1) Swedish-speaking learners of German in support of the claim that the syntactic property of V2…