This study investigates learners' knowledge of word classes (i.e. noun, verb, adjective) in their second language (L2). Although some L2 studies have examined the problem of word class indirectly through a focus on vocabulary and the teaching of derivational morphology (Morin, 2003, 2006; Schmitt & Zimmerman, 2002), little is known about learners'…

Second language (L2) learners notoriously have trouble using articles in their target languages (e.g., "a", "an", "the" in English). However, researchers disagree about the patterns and causes of these errors. Past studies have found that L2 English learners: (1) Predominantly omit articles (White 2003, Robertson 2000), (2) Overuse "the" (Huebner…

Lexical-semantic access and retrieval was examined in 15 adults diagnosed with schizophrenia and matched controls. This study extends the literature through the inclusion of multiple examinations of lexical-semantic production within the same patient group and through correlating performance on these tasks with various positive and negative…

A "text"-translation task and a recognition task investigated the hypothesis that "semantic memory" principally mediates translation from a bilingual's native first language (L1) to her second language (L2), whereas "lexical memory" mediates translation from L2 to L1. This has been held for word translation by the revised hierarchical model (RHM)…

Although Communicative Language Teaching is accepted by many English teachers in China as one of the most effective approach in English language teaching, there are still a number of misunderstandings about it. By comparing Johnstone; Sato and Kleinsasser and Thompson as well as Spada, this article focuses on four of the main misunderstandings,…

Nonaphasic speakers are known to take longer to name pictures when they are blocked by semantic category and repeated multiple times. We replicated this ''semantic blocking effect'' in older controls and showed that in aphasia, the effect is manifested in increased error rates when naming semantically homogeneous, compared to mixed blocks. We…

A systemic model for a semantico-grammatical approach to language teaching is presented along with an illustration of its usefulness in finding underdeveloped parts of the semantico-grammatical system and a description of a successful preliminary trial in treating them. (18 references) (VWL)

Examines the lexical errors made by students learning French as a foreign language, and proposes a new method for teaching vocabulary based on a lexical disambiguation model. (15 references) (JL)

Children were asked to judge/correct sentences in which verb pairs, as predicates, could be associated with propositions or "arguments" which were obligatory for one verb and optional for the other. Results indicated gradual progression with age from initial ignorance to adultlike representation of obligatory and optional arguments for each verb.…

Argues that the lexical production system takes a compositional approach to processing morphologically complex forms in cases of productive word formation even if the semantics of the word cannot be derived formally from the meaning of its constituents. Evidence is presented from a case of acquired naming impairment in a patient whose ability to…

The count/mass disinction is often considered to be a semantic one because it distinguishes those nouns that refer to countable things from those that refer to non-countable things. However, exceptions indicate that semantic properties alone are not sufficient to determine noun sub-categorization. Therefore, such sub-categorization must be defined…

The Colorado Process Analysis of the Written Language of Hearing-Impaired Children assesses the semantic characteristics of expressive written language narratives prepared by beginning writers. The validity of the instrument was examined with 284 children (ages 7-21), indicating that the model does identify characteristics that are critical to the…

Word substitution errors from a corpus of 2,400 French slips of the tongue were grouped into several categories: contaminational, semantic, formal, and mixed cases; substitutions of syntagmatic codependents also occurred. Semantic and formal substitutions involved a resemblance between target and error. All substitutions exhibited a strong degree…

Purpose: The effect of semantic naming treatment on crosslinguistic generalization was investigated in 3 participants with English-Spanish bilingual aphasia. Method: A single-subject experimental designed was used. Participants received semantic treatment to improve naming of English or Spanish items, while generalization was tested to untrained…

Selected spontaneous errors of word choice made between the ages of two and five by two children whose language development had been followed longitudinally were analyzed for clues to semantic developmnet. (JMB)