Discusses some aspects of the Japanese language that look inexplicable at first but that turn out to be explainable by pragmatic principles shared with English. Focus is placed on how the Japanese choose a particular word to use in a sentence involving indirect quotations, when the words would be synonyms in other languages. (20 references) (GLR)

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of lexical choice errors made by native Arabic-speaking learners of English in written compositions indicated that first-language interference is a major variable in lexical choice. Results lend support to the development of problematic word lists to help learners adopt practical strategies for improving…

Explores the relationship between the strategies second language learners use to interpret unfamiliar words in a target language. English-speaking learners of Japanese completed a beliefs questionnaire and multiple choice Kanji compounds test. Examined how learner beliefs are related to the ability to combine information from word parts and…

According to "noun-cue" models, arbitrary linguistic categories, like those associated with case and gender systems, are difficult to learn unless members of the target category (i.e., nouns) are marked with phonological or semantic cues that reliably co-occur with grammatical morphemes (e.g., determiners) that exemplify the categories. "Syntactic…

This article deals with the place of learner corpora, i.e. corpora containing authentic language data produced by learners of a foreign/second language, in English for academic purposes (EAP) pedagogy and sets out to demonstrate that they have a valuable contribution to make to the field. Following an initial brief introduction to corpus-based…

Foreign Workers' German (FWG) refers to the acquired German language skills of workers from various countries who were recruited to West Germany between 1955 and 1973 to fill menial, undesirable jobs. Contact between these workers and native German speakers was limited because of the nature of the foreigners' work, the tendency toward residential…

Phonetic symbolism implies that there are intrinsic relationships between sounds employed in words and the meanings of the words. Research in phonetic symbolism and how it operates has implications for foreign language learning. Such research seeks to determine whether one's capacity for correctly guessing the meanings of words in another language…

This is the first volume in a report series on a Finnish-English contrastive project begun in 1974. The primary purpose of this bibliography is to provide up-to-date material on contrastive topics for Finnish students and teachers. It does not aim at being a complete list of materials in the field of contrastive studies, nor in the field of…

Attempts to establish a practical approach to teaching the various meanings of the German verb "handeln". Exercises that aid advanced students in understanding the verb's meaning include a complete list of all possible meanings of the verb, as well as sample sentences using the verb in a wide range of contexts. (LMO)

This issue deals with verb-object complementation, a complex and controversial but important topic, in particular in connection with the teaching and learning of a second language. The articles are a response to a long debate about the harmonization of grammatical terminology used in schools and the simplification of grammar for students. The…

Reviews current approaches to second-language syllabus design in the United Kingdom and proposes a model for planning a five-year course of study within the national curriculum framework that will take account of both the meanings a learner may wish to express and the grammatical knowledge needed, i.e., a model reconciling the semantic and…

Shows that intermediate learners of German whose first language is English experience more semantic difficulties when reading an English text and more syntactic difficulties when reading a German version of the same text. A stronger emphasis on syntactic features, such as word category, agreement relationships, tensing, and word placement in the…

This paper presents and comments on an experiment on teaching grammar that was started at Gettysburg College (PA). Using a proficiency-based approach, this course uses films as texts that provide a cultural, visual, and linguistic context in which the class functions. (six references) (JL)

Investigated the interrelationship between meaning construction and testing tasks in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) tests written in both Hebrew and English taken by 28 Israeli 10th graders. Results found that the testing task functioned as an additional information source that was used by the students to develop mental models of English…

The acquisition of German in three adult Poles over a three-year period is examined based on an acquisition profile of each person that specified the sequences in acquisition. The findings suggest that cognitive factors must be considered to explain the varying degree of success in the acquisition process. (40 references) (Author/LB)