The development of production and comprehension by one two-year-old girl of three Japanese constructions (passives, causatives, and "te moraw"), which have similar surface configurations "NP ga NP ni V ("rare"/ "sase"/ "te moraw") TENSE," is investigated through elicited imitations and responses to the investigator's questions about the content of…

The purpose of this paper is to classify the types of errors Arabs make with definiteness in English and to count the rate of occurrence of each. To accomplish this, 16 three-hour American history final examinations written by Arabic speakers at the University of Texas at Austin were examined. This discussion is limited to the four categories (out…

Details errors commonly made by learners of Korean because of inadequate linguistic description or grammar explanations; suggests that one way of minimizing learner errors is to provide explicit linguistic descriptions (i.e., grammatical rules, explanations, and usage); also attention must be paid to presentation of word order and vocabulary…

Noting that there are students with limited writing ability who belong neither in regular English composition classes nor in classes for speakers of other languages (ESOL), this paper reports on a study conducted at the University of Texas, EL Paso to produce a profile of 30 limited English writers. Following an introduction to the family…

The Halliday and Hasan (1976) method of categorizing semantic units was used to analyze the cohesive strategies used by secondary students learning English as a second language. The method involves classifying and charting the network of semantic relationships, the types of cohesive devices, and the number of breaks in the flow of a text or…

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…

Follows up on a study by Dagut and Laufer (1985), who found that Hebrew learners of English avoid phrasal verbs. Three tests (multiple choice, memorization, and translation) were administered to Dutch learners of English to determine whether Dutch learners would tend not to avoid English phrasal verbs because they do not exist in Dutch. (Author/OD)

In an attempt to answer some of the questions concerning the roles of syntactic vs. semantic cues and the similarities and/or differences between the first (L1) and second (L2) language reading strategies, a pilot study was conducted with 47 English-speaking students enrolled in French as a second language classes at a bilingual, English-French…

The theoretical linguistic distinction between assertion and presupposition was empirically tested with two groups of subjects, young children acquiring English as their first language and adults acquiring English as a second language. (Author)

Presents an analysis of errors in a 400-page corpus of German essays by American college students in second-year language courses showing that syntax is the most problematic area, followed by morphology. This study indicates that 80% of student errors are not of semantic origin and are potentially recognizable by a syntactic parser. (six…

Focuses on determining which semantic classes were being easily learned and which were causing difficulty for pupils in Brunei Darussalam's bilingual-education system. Also sought to determine, through analysis of pupil translation errors, which factors made a particular word or class of words difficult to learn. (Author/VWL)

A study of the effects of learning Swedish as a third language on the previously-learned English of native Finnish-speaking students examined 10,000 English-language school-leaving examinations of Finnish students for possible examples of Swedish influence in vocabulary, grammar, and word order. The examinations were those graded by a native…

This paper discusses the factors that either facilitate or inhibit vocabulary learning and suggests practical classroom techniques for beginning and more advanced students. Vocabulary acquisition is related to the learning situation and to the form, meaning, and grammatical role of the new item in the target language. The focus of the teaching…

Most second language acquisition research has been concerned with grammar or phonology and has failed to discuss lexical acquisition. The main reason for this neglect has been the lack of vocabulary study by linguists. However, recent concern with semantic theory has brought new impetus to work on lexical acquisition. Useful research on lexical…

A French-English guide to French diagnostic reading tests for French immersion classes, grades one through three, is presented. The "tests diagnostiques de lecture" are designed to indicate strengths and weaknesses in silent reading performance in French for early French immersion pupils in Canada and to integrate this information into…