Discusses areas in which Chinese children will experience conflict between Chinese and English culture and language that will create learning difficulties. (CFM)

Compared the results of the adult learning of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) using an inductive approach as opposed to a deductive one based on explicit contrastive analysis (CA) input. It is suggested that a deductive approach that uses CA input in EFL teaching and learning materials is more effective in minimizing error rates. (54…

Reports on research consisting of compiling a contrastive verb valency dictionary of Dutch, French, and English whose main strength lies in depicting semantic differences between its entries and conceptual differences between languages. Using these analyses, one can start to discern nuclear and peripheral meanings, analyze possible meaning…

Compares the English modals "could,""might,""should,""ought to" and others with German "konnte,""durfte,""sollte,""mubte," referring to the diachronic perspective and using Reichenbach's (1947) grid of times and worlds. The article suggests that the variety of use of…

Studies cognitive pragmatics in order to bridge the gap between the universality and culture-specificity of politeness by means of the idea of the "frame" or "specific knowledge" combined with the theory of relevance by Sperber and Wilson. The article concludes that a general theory of politeness as a particular subsystem in a…

Looks at the influence students' native languages have on comprehension of Anglo-Saxon and Greco-Latinate elements of English vocabulary. Suggests use of a dictionary with etymologies, dictionary of English idioms, small group work involving both non-native and English speakers, etymological reference book, pre-med courses in Greek and Latin…

Discusses the claim that male/female speech style differences in Japanese have the function of indexing the social role of the speaker and that identifying oneself as belonging to the male or female gender has no implication of a higher or lower status in society. The interview's findings imply that students need to be informed of the…

Introduces this special issue of the journal and presents results from comparative research into the principles constraining learner varieties (interlanguages) in use. Articles analyze the oral production of complex verbal tasks in second language Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian. (Author/VWL)

Examines writing in Lithuanian, a language that has received little scholarly attention in the West and particularly the variety of Lithuanian used by the Lithuanian immigrant community in the United States. Examines articles from both Lithuanian and American Lithuanian newspapers to see how the written American variety differs from native norms…

Uses illustrations from the history of Germanica to explain the concept of exaptation when dealing with language evolution, i.e., the reuse of language material that has been coded by morphology but has since lost its grammatical distinction. (46 references) (GLR)

The comparison of languages can be an effective instructional technique if used well. The comparison of isolated elements is less effective than the examination of languages at several levels: system, norm, and usage. (MSE)

In a sociohistorical variation analysis of verb inflection in Early Modern British and American English, corpus-based comparisons focus on several extralinguistic and linguistic factors that have influenced the choice of forms over successive periods of time. Contrary to customary theories of "colonial lag," the rate of change was faster…

Develops an extended and precise rendering of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in order to clarify difficulties in analyzing Italian. The method used is the paradigm method of analysis since there are no universal phonemic rules of pronunciation that will allow one to correctly pronounce Italian. Tables of transcriptions are included. (32…

Academic writing in the fields of counseling psychology, biology, and history was examined from a linguistic perspective. Differences were found in cohesive density and in comparisons of the use of lexical ties and also in the numbers of marked and unmarked clauses and the types of marking used. (35 references) (Author/LB)

Discusses the question of how English-language learners (ELLs) experience writing by probing the effects of researcher positionalities on inquiry practices. Explores positionality through experiences with the discourse of contrastive rhetoric. (Author/VWL)