Investigates second language phonology (English) of two native Hungarian speakers. Finds evidence for phonetic and phonological transfer but argues that there are limitations on what can be transferred. Contrasts error analysis approach with autonomous system analysis and concludes that each provides unique information and should be used together…

Presents study involving university Spanish students testing predictive power of contrastive analysis in terms of accuracy of predicted hierarchy for persistence of phonological errors. Results show problems involving allophone use or nonuse are more persistent than those involving phoneme use or nonuse, and the degree of difficulty of a sound…

Summarizes recent empirical research in second language acquisition. Discusses relationship between age and second language learning, implications of invariant order of acquisition of morphemes obtained in various second language acquisition studies, and role of errors in second language acquisition. (Author/BK)

Article investigates Frenchpersons' tolerance for grammatical errors typical of Americans learning French and attempts to establish priorities for correcting errors in classroom. Study looks at degree to which errors interfered with comprehensibility, irritation caused by errors, whether errors were more tolerated in speaking or writing, and rank…

Discusses various theories of spelling development including their relevance to regularly spelled languages. Concludes that, as in other languages, children are integrating many different types of linguistic knowledge in their attempt to spell words correctly; dialect, orthography, and grammatical knowledge are all important. (SG)

Caution should be taken in viewing previous research indicating that negative evidence, a special type of error correction to eliminate overgeneralizations, could be crucial to second-language learning, because the underlying theories adopted for that research possibly could be flawed. (10 references) (CB)

Argues that the cognitivist hypothesis of interlanguage neither explains nor provides a principled basis for classroom practice. Suggests that it diverts attention from the contexts and practical situations in which errors occur. (Author/VWL)

The purposes of this study are to test whether the processing of subject relative (SR) clauses is easier than that of object relative (OR) clauses in Turkish and to investigate whether the comprehension of SRs can be better explained by the linear distance hypothesis or structural distance hypothesis (SDH). The question is examined in two groups…

In a study on L2 proficiency in writing, conducted among 84 Dutch university students of Italian and 75 students of French, manipulation of task complexity led in the complex task to a significant decrease of errors, while at the same time a trend for a lexically more varied text was observed (Kuiken and Vedder 2005, 2007, in press). Based on this…

Discusses the basis for "error rules" in learning, finding that they are complex, intralingual rather than interlingual, and semantically motivated. The French plural form "des" should be treated not as a partitive but as the plural of "un, une." (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A comprehensive study on error analysis was conducted to categorize problematic areas for French-speaking learners of English. "Faux amis" seemed to have been the cause of about 50 percent of the errors analyzed under lexis. Noun, adjective, and verb errors are illustrated. (SW)

Presents a methodology for dealing with grammatical mistakes made by African students for whom French is a second language and also the medium of instruction. (Text is in French.) (AM)

It is hoped that from learners' faulty use of the foreign language, clues may be found for foreign language teaching. Some "factors" are examined: negative transfer, learning and communication strategies, over-generalization. Also discussed are ways of dealing with various errors. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Considers pragmatic competence and misinterpretations in foreign-language use. Findings indicate that too many language teachers are still clinging to prescriptive views of language use. Practitioners should reevaluate the ways students' use of the language adds to its wealth and scope. (CB)

Written and oral data were evaluated by native speaking judges to ascertain the extent to which they could identify the members of the same native language group on the basis of either phonological or syntactic evidence. Results are presented and other research data are examined to see if they support these findings. (SED)