Studies employing or investigating the metalinguistic judgments of native and nonnative speakers are reviewed. Their results and methodologies are compared to stimulate reliable and informative applications of such judgments in future research. Metalinguistic judgments are found useful in language acquisition studies, given appropriate controls…

An attempt is made to describe second language behavior and language transfer in cybernetic terms. This should make it possible to translate language into machine language and to clarify psycholinguistic explanations of second language performance. (PMJ)

Examines whether the "foreign language effect", that is, a temporary decline of thinking ability during foreign language processing, is larger when similarity between a foreign language and a native language is less. The results of two divided-attention experiments indicate that this effect was larger when the native tongue was less…

Analysis of data derived from an earlier study of Japanese-English interlanguage shows that discourse-pragmatic markedness conditions on the subject position combine with central aspects of a configurational syntax in the generation of sentential forms, creating a module interface distinct from the native or second language. (38 references)…

Examines group differences in second-language development from perspectives provided by literature on orality and literacy. Results show that university English-as-a-Second-Language students from traditional oral cultures tended to focus on interpersonal involvement in their speaking and writing, and use difficult structures more than students…