Lexical proficiency in a second language (L2) has long been effectively assessed through the measurement of various lexical indices, or textual characteristics that act as observable indicators of such conceptual categories as lexical richness, diversity, sophistication, and fluency. While many studies have established links between these lexical…

This qualitative case study investigates the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) of US Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets and their goals in learning critical languages. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and data were examined through inductive, thematic analysis. Findings indicate that goals appeared in…

Examines why only a limited number of adults who enroll in Welsh courses in Wales obtain fluency or become integrated in a Welsh-speaking community. Argues that many of the barriers these learners face come from outside the classroom and that the implementation of more innovative approaches could decrease the dropout rate. (Author/VWL)

Surveys developments in language revitalization and language death. Focusing on indigenous languages, discusses the role and nature of appropriate linguistic documentation, possibilities for bilingual education, and methods of promoting oral fluency and intergenerational transmission in affected languages. (Author/VWL)

American education fails to prepare students for the world in which we live by not stressing fluency in foreign languages. Asiatic languages are becoming increasingly important. (Author/AF)

Examined whether second language (L2) utterance durations increase as age of learning increases. Fluently produced English sentences spoken by 240 native speakers of both Italian and Korean were examined. Results give preliminary support for the proposal that the more established the first language during exposure to the second language, the more…

The nativelike linguistic competence of an adult second-language learner of Egyptian Arabic who was first exposed to the target language after the close of the critical period is examined to determine what factors differentiate her from less successful naturalistic adult acquirers. The role of internalized grammar is discussed. (Contains 43…

Discusses a study of concord phenomena in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Findings indicate the presence of disfluencies, including apparent corrections, in about 15% of the relevant tokens in the corpus of recorded speech data. It is concluded that speech is not overly laden with errors, and there is nothing in the data to mislead the language…

Results of a survey of 200 parents attending baby and child clinics in North Wales show that parents know less about language development than about other areas of child development. Results suggest that both monolingual and bilingual parents and their children would benefit from improved information on how to facilitate language development. (43…

Speech material gathered from Dutch-English bilinguals in Australia questioned in 1971 and 1987 was analyzed, showing no evidence of attrition in Dutch. It is concluded that first-language attrition does not necessarily occur in an immigrant setting and that immigrants who maintain their language in the first years of their stay will likely remain…

Examines the success of phonemic tone-marking for Dschang, a Grassfields Bantu language that uses tone to distinguish lexical items and some grammatical constructions. Participants from a variety of different age groups and educational backgrounds, and having different levels of exposure to the orthography, were tested on location in the Western…

Examined the view that the variation in bilingual short-term memory capacity is determined by differential rates of subvocal rehearsal between the languages. Auditory memory span and articulation time were measured for three bilingual groups who spoke Finnish at home and Swedish at school, and either Finnish of Swedish in both the home and the…

Guidelines for Hebrew language proficiency are presented in two companion volumes which are identical except that one gives examples of various linguistic forms in Hebrew and the other provides them in Roman script. These guidelines are based on the generic guidelines published in 1986 by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.…

Papers included in this compilation are "Late Hebrew Immersion at Mt. Scopus College Melbourne: Towards Complete Hebrew Fluency for Jewish Day School Students" (S. C. Lorch, T. F. McNamara, E. Eisikovits); "Languages in Schools: Policy and Practice" (Roger A. Peddie); "Models and Sociolinguistic Factors in Some Victorian…