A study of English speakers' acquisition of relative clauses in Chinese, Japanese, Persian, German, and Portugese is reported. Various structures were tested to separate interlanguage features attributable to first language interference from those universal to second language acquisition. Application of an accessibility hierarchy theory and…

A cross-section method was used to study the developmental changes in elementary decoding and encoding processes of 163 Swedish-German bilingual students, whose length of residence in Sweden varied. It was demonstrated that decoding in two languages, expressed in terms of reaction time, develops faster than encoding. (SW)

Suggests that the difficulties encountered by Westerners in learning Chinese are the result of native language interference, and interference caused by different customs and ways of thinking. A contrastive analysis of the different cultural aspects of Chinese and Western ways of thinking is presented. (VWL)

An analysis of Brazilian learners' errors in English word stress revealed a difficulty hierarchy of stress pattern rules and six stress prediction strategies: (1) cognate stress patterns; (2) predominant stress patterns of English; (3) initial vowels and consonants; (4) verbs with a tense vowel in the final syllable; (5) tertiary stress; and (6)…

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…

A test administered to 73 adults learning English as a second language revealed a highly consistent order of relative difficulty in the use of eight functors across different language backgrounds. This study also confirmed earlier results indicating that children and adults use common strategies and process linguistic data similarly. (Author/KM)

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist immigrants in erasure of their foreign accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

A study examined the patterns of error in the preterite and imperfect tenses in the written Spanish of native English-speaking college students. Errors found in the midterm examination were analyzed to determine whether they were due to incorrect tense, incorrect form of the tense, or both. It was predicted that many students would choose…

This collection of six essays and one bibliography on second language learning includes: (1) "Transfer in Relation to Some Other Variables in L2-Learning" (Hakan Ringbom); (2) "Word Frequencies in Finnish and Finland-Swedish Learner Language" (Hakan Ringbom); (3) "The Influence of Swedish on the English of Finnish…

In designing a curriculum to assist children in learning English as a second language (ESL), a thorough understanding of the differences between the first and second languages is essential. With such an understanding, problems and concepts that may cause language interference and learning difficulties can be identified and an appropriate…

The origins of error analysis as a pedagogical tool can be traced to the beginnings of the notion of interference and the use of contrastive analysis (CA) to predict learners' errors. With the focus narrowing to actual errors committed by students, it was found that all learners of English as a second language seemed to make errors in the same…

Secondary students of French interviewed a researcher posing as a French speaker. Error patterns and structures used were analyzed. Many errors were apparently due to interference; many others were apparently the result of reduction processes. Results suggested that errors might be corrected in terms of comprehensibility to a native speaker.…

The Spanish syntax of 36 English-Spanish bilingual students at the University of Texas at El Paso was examined to determine the variety and extent of English influence on Spanish syntax and to correlate the relative extent of this influence with selected extra-linguistic factors. The most significant finding was that the group of students having…

This bibliography cites books, articles, and theses dealing with error analysis and remedial work in English language teaching. Entries include publications from a wide range of countries, and most have been published since 1965. (CLK)

This survey offers a brief description of the contribution of American scholars to contrastive research on Hungarian and English. The studies are divided into contrastive and experimental work. A study by John Lotz (1943) demonstrated the non-congruence of the number category in Hungarian noun declension with English. Later Lotz studies (1966 and…