Students commonly find specialist scientific language problematic. This study investigated developments in chemical language usage by six "non-traditional" students over the course of 1 to 4 years. The students participated in semi-structured interviews and were asked to explain specific chemical scenarios. Interviews were transcribed…

This study investigates the use of high-frequency cognitive verbs - think and believe - in Turkish L2 learners' interlanguage, both in terms of their verb senses and complementation patterns. In line with this purpose, a Sentence Production Task consisting of context-independent items and a Sentence Completion Task consisting of context-dependent…

This study investigated the influence of phonological word representations from both first language (L1) and second language (L2) on third language (L3) lexical learning in L1-dominant Spanish-English bilinguals. More specifically, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine whether L1 Spanish and L2 English phonology modulates…

In EFL teaching, it has been theorized that intelligibility can be achieved by relative closeness of oral performance to the standard of EFL proficiency. The current study sought to investigate the position of interlanguage performance of EFL college students in terms of intelligibility of the language product (Speaking). Ten students' Mid…

In the related literature, it has been discussed that issues related to foreign language lexicon have been ignored; therefore, a solid theory of foreign language lexicon has not been constructed yet. In the framework of Turkish as a foreign language, the literature lacks both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. To this end, this longitudinal…

In this study, we examined the intercorrelations among speech perception, metalinguistic (i.e., phonological and morphological) awareness, word reading, and vocabulary in a 1st language (L1) and a 2nd language (L2). Results from 3 age groups of Chinese-English bilingual children showed that speech perception was more predictive of reading and…

This interlanguage pragmatics study of linguistic expressions of affect focuses on how Japanese learners of English may express themselves in an affect-laden speech act of indirect complaint. The English as a Second Language (ESL) learners' data are compared with the baseline data of native speakers of Japanese (JJ) and American English (AA). The…

This study of L-2 Russian interlanguage production examined the salience of phonetic, lexical and syntactical features for L-1 listener intelligibility, based on L-2 recitation of written scripts (Part I) and also unrehearsed speech (Part II). Part III of the study investigated strategies used by native-speaking teachers of Russian as a Second…

Defines criteria to identify children's language overextensions and investigates how young children in the early stages of language acquisition rename objects analogically during a standardized play situation. Results indicate that analogic extensions are well within the capabilities of children from one year, eight months to two years, four…

Voice onset time (VOT) was measured in the production of /t/ in the initial position of 60 English words spoken by native English (NE) speakers and native Spanish (NS) speakers who began learning English before the age of 21 years. Subjects rated words for familiarity, age of acquisition, imageability, and relatedness to words in the Spanish…

Two studies investigated developmental changes, and inter-linguistic and inter-individual variations, in the expansion and composition of young French children's early lexicons. Results indicated that lexical productivity strongly increased with age, whereas lexical diversity showed little developmental progression. Inter-individual variability in…

An investigation of the language transfer in second language (L2) lexico-semantic development looked at the relationship of the level of L2 proficiency and interlingual patterns of lexico-semantic correspondence. The linguistic categories used were verbs and adjectives. Relative degrees of difficulty for L2 learners were determined for four…

Lexical semantics and contrastive lexical semantics can serve as a background discipline to describe and, to some extent, to explain errors in interlanguage. Two developments in lexical semantics that are relevant in this area are the description of sense-relationships and componential analysis. Contrastive lexical semantics involves mapping the…

A case study investigating the effect of grammar instruction on formal accuracy in spontaneous and monitored second language performance indicated that formal instruction appeared to have very little effect on spontaneous production but was very beneficial for controlled performance. (CB)

Records an interview with Pit Corder, retired chair of Applied Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, in which he reflects on the implications for language teaching and learning of recent research into second language acquisition and language transfer, as well as on the status of applied linguistics in the mid-1980's. (Author/SED)