Reports on the early phonological development of six children learning Finnish. Primary focus is on their production of multisyllable targets. There was a tendency to reduce the last element of long words. Results also indicated that the segmental factor may influence the deletion pattern: the syllable that contained a stop was produced,…

Responds to an article that presents research (Kellerman & Yoshioka, 1999) on case drop in Japanese involving Dutch-speaking second language learners and claims there was no evidence their subjects had access to the Empty Category Principle (ECP). This claim is counter to those presented in Kanno (1996) and (1998). Reexamines Kellerman and…

Discusses problems and insights gained during the preparation of a bilingual dictionary of Spanish--a Romance and ultimately Indo-European language--and Swahili, a coastal Bantu language of the Niger-Congo stock of African languages. (Author/VWL)

Examines a mixed pattern of subject omission in Hebrew. Longitudinal data is presented from three children whose first and only language is Hebrew. Findings show very early acquisition of the null subject system. (Author/VWL)

Presents recent investigations in idiomatic language processing, and advances new foci of research from the comprehension and interpretation of phrasal idioms. Concludes that the development of idiomatic competence can be enhanced by establishing the parameters of the comprehension and interpretation process of second language phrasal idioms.…

Examines theoretical concerns about discourses associated typically with what has come to be referred to as the oral tradition and discourses associated typically with academic contexts in order to see how these may relate to students' experiences of higher learning. Looks at the writing of students who are predominantly Xhosa speakers and…

Focuses on the quest of contested speech forms for legitimacy as languages rather than dialects, the distinction being explored solely in a political context. Suggests that although the European Union supports the role of nation states in the legitimization of languages, the regular use of French and English has enhanced the status of these two…

Discusses language planning on the Spanish Balearic isle of Mallorca where Catalan is also a native language, focusing on the sociolinguistic situation in the capital city of Palma. Explores differences between answers to questionnaires and responses to a matched guise experiment. (Author/VWL)

Examines the position of Tamil as an ethnic minority and language in Malaysia, and makes predictions about the prognosis for survival of Tamil in the twenty-first century. (Author/VWL)

Lessons learned from an Irish-English case study reveal new ways of thinking about Spanish-English bilingual education in the United States and bilingual education in general. (Author/VWL)

Seven experiments conducted in Portuguese examined the role of orthography in blending phonologically defined CVC syllables written either with a final mute "e" (orthographic disyllables) or with a final consonant (orthographic monosyllables). (Author/VWL)

Describes an Arabic distance learning course initiative. The most common distance learning formats are reviewed, and justifications for offering such courses are considered. The experiences of instructors who have pioneered the field and some basics that need to be taken into account when developing distance learning courses are presented.…

Investigates the relationship between lexical semantics and derivational morphology in the acquisition of causative/inchoative-related verbs in Turkish as a second language (L2) by Spanish and English speakers. Suggests that L2 learners are attuned to the rich morphology of Turkish and that the acquisition of derivational morphology and lexical…

This document discusses the teaching of Indigenous languages. Immersion programs have become very popular over that past few years, and serve as an effective tool to teaching languages. In addition to language immersions, conferences and language revivals are also effective tools in teaching languages. This document provides an overview of these…

Language shift is the process by which a speech community in a contact situation (i.e. consisting of bilingual speakers) gradually stops using one of its two languages in favor of the other. The causal factors of language shift are generally considered to be social, and researchers have focused on speakers' attitudes (both explicit and unstated)…