First-language attrition and loss of noun-phrase gender agreement were studied for 22 months with two Puerto Rican sisters, beginning at ages 6.6 and 4.6 years. Analysis of taped mother-child conversations suggests that Spanish gender agreement morphology is vulnerable to language loss. Subjects' gender errors were related to their language…

Examines the psychometric properties of the Input Anxiety Scale, the Processing Anxiety Scale, and the Output Anxiety Scale, which measure anxiety at the input, processing, and output stages of the foreign language learning process. (Author/VWL)

Examines whether instruction can facilitate second language acquisition (SLA). Considers studies investigating the effects of instruction on the rate and ultimate level of attainment of SLA as well as on the route of development of acquisition. Explores implications for classroom teaching in the area of syllabus design, teaching materials,…

Think-aloud protocols were gathered to establish that first-year college level participants noticed targeted linguistic forms (Spanish formal imperatives) while reading an enhanced or unenhanced text. Suggests there are no significant benefits of written input enhancement over unenhanced written input for the amount of reported noticing of Spanish…

This study examined whether exposure to second/foreign language (L2) data under different computerized task conditions had a differential impact on learners' ability to recognize and produce the target structure immediately after exposure to the input and over time. Learners' L2 development was assessed through recognition and…

A central question for psycholinguistics concerns the role of grammatical constraints in online sentence processing. Many current theories maintain that the language processing mechanism constructs a parse or parses that are grammatically consistent with the whole of the perceived input each time it processes a word. Several bottom-up, dynamical…

This paper investigates the value of language classroom negotiation of meaning from both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives. According to Long (1985, 1996) comprehensible input gained through interactional adjustments such as negotiating meaning and modifying output is central to second language acquisition, and much research has been…

This article is concerned with the correspondence conditions that hold between certain semantic relations--including part-whole relations, possession, location, and the semantic features [+- animate] or [+- count]--and certain syntactic structures including genitives and relative clauses. The objective is to determine the extent to which these…

The present investigation is a study of the definitional style of nouns and verbs in typically developing school-age children. A total of 30 children in upper-elementary grades provided verbal definitions for 10 common high-frequency nouns (e.g., apple, boat, baby) and 10 common high- frequency verbs (e.g., climb, sing, throw). All definitions…

Purpose: The purpose of this longitudinal correlational study was to test whether an environmental variable and 4 child variables predicted growth rate of number of different nonimitative words used (i.e., lexical density). Method: Thirty-five young (age range = 21-54 months) children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who were initially…

Background: Children who have reached the age of 2 years without having acquired a 50-word vocabulary and/or who use no word combinations are referred to in the literature as "Late Talkers". Research has not yet identified the factors that cause slow development of expressive language; in particular, relatively little research has been carried out…

Focuses on the form of the input for English for academic purposes listening tests. Reports on the development of a test in two audiotaped versions: a scripted monologue and an unscripted discussion of the same topic by three speakers. (Author/VWL)

The language development of a Finnish-English bilingual child was studied, with focus on the relationship between the developmental patterns of language loss in bilingual situations and the variations in input factors, including social, emotional, and attitudinal factors. Findings suggest the importance of linguistic input outside the home. (17…

Raises a series of problems that attach to the standard analysis of input to learning as the stimulus array minus unattended-to information, where attention is construed as a selection function. Demonstrates the inadequacy of this distinction as the foundation for a theory of input in second-language acquisition. (Author/VWL)

Explores the possibility that particular properties of how number words are used within sentences inform children of the semantic class to which they belong. Analysis of transcripts of the spontaneous speech of three children and their parents suggests that the relevant cues are available as input in parents' speech to children and that children…