A high variability phonetic training technique was employed to train 26 Mandarin speakers to better perceive ten English vowels. In eight short training sessions, learners identified 200 English vowel tokens, produced in a post bilabial stop context by 20 native speakers. Learners' ability to identify English vowels significantly improved in the…

Reviews research on the effectiveness of recasts in first and second language acquisition, paying particular attention to how recasts have been defined and how their impact has been assessed in observational and experimental studies. Concludes that recasts appear to be most effective in contexts where it is clear to the learner that the recast is…

Responds to a previous article that suggests the second-language-acquisition acquisition field has failed to realize academic respectability. Offers an overview of some of the more positive advances in the discipline. Concludes by calling for a whole systems approach to the study of second language acquisition. (Author/JL)

The study examines how learner biases toward a particular national type of English affect interlanguage pragmatics. Specifically, this study assesses the degree to which Korean ESL (English as a second language) students' preferences for North American English influence their willingness to use Australian-English routines while studying in…

Investigates whether Spanish- and Turkish-speaking learners of English discover the semantic and syntactic constraints on the causative/inchoative alternation in the absence of overt morphological clues. Results of a picture judgment task show that second language learners do discover these properties and that overall verbs appear to cluster in…

Examines five factors that may impact the use of second language emotion vocabulary. Considers the impact of language proficiency, gender, and extroversion on the use of emotion words in the advanced French interlanguage of 29 native Dutch speakers, and examines influence of sociocultural competence, gender, and type of linguistic material on use…

Raises three questions concerning the present state of second-language acquisition research: (1) What has it achieved for language teaching? (2) How close is a theory of second-language acquisition? (3) What is its status within the chorus of disciplines that deal with language? (Author/JL)

Examines the emergence of the present perfect in the interlanguage of adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). Part of a growing body of research on the acquisition of temporal expression by learners of a variety of second languages, this study explores a tense/aspect form acquired late in first language acquisition. (Author/VWL)

Tested the interlanguage structural conformity hypothesis by examining how frequently young adult, native Spanish speakers in Mexico modified English two- and three-member onsets. Results indicate that three-member onsets were modified significantly more frequently than were two-member onsets and that epenthesis occurred more frequently after…

Examines the emergence of the present perfect in the interlanguage of instructed adult learners of English as a Second Language. Findings indicate that adding a new inflection in the tense/aspect system requires establishing new form-meaning associations as well as revising existing ones. (44 references) (Author/CK)