L2 learners' problems with English articles have been linked to learners' L1 and their access to universal semantic features (e.g., definiteness and specificity). Studies suggest that L2 adults rely on their L1 knowledge, while child L2 learners rely more on their access to semantic universals. The present study investigates whether child L2…

Certain ill-formed phonological structures are systematically under-represented across languages and misidentified by human listeners. It is currently unclear whether this results from grammatical phonological knowledge that actively recodes ill-formed structures, or from difficulty with their phonetic encoding. To examine this question, we gauge…

It has been known for several decades that young children have difficulties with universal sentences. In this article, I present an analysis of the main errors that have been reported in the literature. My proposal is based on an old idea, namely, that children's errors are caused by a noncanonical mapping from syntactic form to semantic…

The "state of the art" in the three fields of contrastive analysis, error analysis and interlanguage is critically examined from the point of view of evolving an explanatory theory of a second language learner's performance. Each field is discussed with respect to its outreach, theoretical assumptions, methodology, claims and empirical…

To what extent does Universal Grammar (UG) constrain second language (L2) acquisition? This is not only an empirical question, but one which is currently investigable. In this context, L2 acquisition is emerging as an important new domain of psycholinguistic research. Three logical possibilities have been articulated regarding the role of UG in L2…

Integrates the phonological research concerns of two language-learning populations: (1) adults acquiring a second language, and (2) children learning to correct functional speech sound errors. The basic theoretical and pedagogical aims overlapped for the two populations, and the results of research on either population had strong potential for…

Discusses the results of an error analysis of 100 English compositions written by university students in Iran. It is suggested that mistakes are not primarily due to interference from the native language, but to developmental errors, similar to errors made in first language acquisition. (Author/AMH)

This paper discusses the meaning of the term "lexical simplification" in the context of second language acquisition. It is suggested that simplification be viewed as a universal feature of language use which may be manifested in a number of linguistic contexts, including the creation of a learner's interlanguage. It is further suggested…

This study attempts to assess the developmental psycholinguistics hypothesis that language acquisition strategies are universal. Four types of statements were focused upon: (1) true affirmative statements (e.g., "You are a child"), (2) false affirmative statements ("You are a baby"), (3) false negative statements ("You aren't a child"), and (4)…

Examines the loss in popularity of contrastive linguistics as a method for explaining second language learning systems, and calls for a turn to pragmatics in language teaching. (AM)

Errors in second language learning are viewed as evidence of the learner's hypotheses and strategies about the new data. Error observation and analysis are important to the formulation of theories about language learning and the preparation of teaching materials. Learning a second language proceeds by a series of approximative reorganizations…