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)

An error analysis of the oral production of Korean adults learning English was performed on informant speech samples, using Corder's Algorithm for providing data for description of idiosyncratic dialects as a guide for determing error. The procedures of error analysis and morpheme acquisition studies were combined to address the following…

The distinction in meanings of the English word "educated" and Spanish "educado" is used to illustrate a theory of semantic memory for the bilingual that proposes two lexical stores, one for each language, in close cooperation with and connected by one semantic memory. The postulated relation between the lexicons and the semantic memory is…

Discusses interlanguage development in terms of three questions: (1) What requirements do learners impose on their own interlanguage output? (2) What linguistic knowledge concerning the fulfillment of their requirements do learners have stored in their memories? and (3) What linguistic forms do learners actually use in their interlanguage output,…

Discusses the influence a first language can have on the acquisition of a second language. Includes some tentative proposals on the interaction of prior first-language knowledge and the creative construction process. (EKN)

A comparison of two well-known test formats for evaluating and characterizing foreign language learners' interlanguages revealed that open-ended production test questions were more difficult than closed-item recognition test questions. (CB)

Reports on two studies that sought to identify the rhetorical preferences of native speakers when reading inter-English and to compare these with their rhetorical preferences when reading authentic English. (66 references) (JL)

Ellis's target article suggests that language processing is based on frequency and probabilistic knowledge and that language learning is implicit. These findings are consistent with those of SLA researchers working within a variationist framework (e.g., Tarone, 1985; Bayley & Preston, 1996). This paper provides a brief overview of this research…

We discuss the results of an experiment that investigates English-French learners' interpretation of quantifiers with detachable restrictions. Such quantifiers are ungrammatical in English. We investigate aspects of interpretation that rely on a highly idiosyncratic interface between grammar and general principles of conversational cooperation in…

This brochure discusses, in lay terms, the degree to which language shapes thought. The first section describes briefly the questions that linguists have addressed in studying this issue, including how things such as location or time may be conceptualized differently in different language groups, offering examples from other languages in addition…

Gives a short grammar of the Lisp computer language. Presents an introductory English parser (Simparse) as an example of how to write a parser in Lisp. Lists references for further explanation. Intended as preparation for teachers who may use computer-assisted language instruction in the future. (LMO)

Describes the "Competition Model" (Bates and MacWhinney, 1982) dealing with second-language sentence processing by bilinguals and research that has further developed theories dealing with the model. (CB)

Describes a study in which English relative clauses were elicited from two groups of Italian learners: formal learners and informal learners. The results agreed with the order of acquisition predicted by the Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan and Comrie, 1977, 1979). (Author/SED)

In interlanguage, the transitional state reaching from one's native language to a given target language, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, sociocultural, or psycholinguistic errors may be generated and systematized by the process of fossilization. Depending on the amount of time needed for remediation, fossilized features may be…

The concept of second language (L2) learning strategies fits well into the theoretical framework of interlanguage. In interlanguage, learning is not defined exclusively with reference to the target language norm, and the use of native language transfer strategies, among other things, is seen as a natural step in the progression toward the target…