This study attempts to explain a systematic phenomenon that has been described in interlanguage grammars crosslinguistically: Null-Prep, which consists of omitting the obligatory preposition in certain movement constructions. We propose that Null-Prep is not related to lack of knowledge of "wh"-movement, as previously assumed, but to…

Knowledge of the target specialized language should be of use to English for specific purposes teachers who teach pronunciation. Knowledge of the target learners' first language (L1) should also be useful when these teachers use contrastive analysis, error analysis or interlanguage theory. However, as far as teaching the pronunciation of the…

Other-orientation (Linell, 2009) is an essential element of language in that all speakers dialogue with an "other" when communicating. They take into consideration the other's assumed perspective, knowledge, and needs, and manipulate their language in response to these assumptions. This study investigated the extent to which…

Variability in the form of article (i.e., a and the) omissions and stressing has been attributed to a mismatch between first (L1) and second language (L2) prosodic and syntactic structures. An overlap between the L1 and L2 systems, on the other hand, is expected to contribute to native-like article productions. This case study aims to explore the…

The computer-assisted language learning (CALL) field seems to change overnight with new technological affordances. Blake revisits his 2000 "LLT" article on computer-mediation communication (CMC) in order to reflect on how the field has examined this topic over the past decade or so. While the Interaction Hypothesis continues to guide…

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammar (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue and touches on other second language acquisition research. Topics discussed include the concept of second language (L2) optionality, a hypothesis regarding the acquisition of the…

This article offers a fine-grained investigation of how first-language (L1) phonetics involving English rhotics affect Spanish rhotic production by second-language (L2) learners. Specifically, this study investigates how different L1 English rhotic articulatory routines (retroflex-like and bunched-like) and the phonetic context that produces…

This review article evaluates the intersection of the content of two recent anthologies in second language (L2) phonology. One of the books lays out both the methodological context and theoretical underpinnings of the field, whereas the other volume reports 11 empirical studies on the L2 acquisition of several aspects of pronunciation by adult…

This dissertation investigates the acquisition of oblique relative clauses in L2 Spanish by English and Moroccan Arabic speakers in order to understand the role of previous linguistic knowledge and its interaction with Universal Grammar on the one hand, and the relationship between grammatical knowledge and its use in real-time, on the other hand.…

Seven postulated stages of acquisition of Spanish as a second language are examined within the context of Processability Theory, whose predictive paradigm is applicable to interlanguage development in any second language (L2). The theory argues that the sequence in which the target language unfolds in the learner is determined by the sequence in…

Investigates the compounding parameter in the second language (L2) Spanish interlanguage of English and French native speakers in light of the subset principle and its predictions for the process of L2 development. (Author/VWL)

It has been argued that extended exposure to naturalistic input provides L2 learners with more of an opportunity to converge of target morphosyntactic competence as compared to classroom-only environments, given that the former provide more positive evidence of less salient linguistic properties than the latter (e.g., Isabelli 2004). Implicitly,…

The distinction in meanings of the English word "educated" and Spanish "educado" is used to illustrate a theory of semantic memory for the bilingual that proposes two lexical stores, one for each language, in close cooperation with and connected by one semantic memory. The postulated relation between the lexicons and the semantic memory is…

A study investigated whether markedness relationships within a target language influence the degree of difficulty in acquisition. The Intralingual Markedness Hypothesis was developed, stating that if structures in the target language differ from those in the native language, and if those structures in the target language are in a markedness…

A study examined the stages of acquisition of Spanish definite articles by two groups of English-speaking learners enrolled in their first semester of Spanish. The approach taken was to analyze writing samples produced by the groups at different times during the semester, to obtain the basis for a pseudo-longitudinal analysis of article usage. The…