Presents data from a positron emission tomographic study in which subjects were asked to produce the past tense forms of regular, irregular and nonce stems. Findings, which support the grammar/lexicon linguistic theories, reveal different amounts and areas of cortical activation in the regular and irregular tasks, as well as significantly…

Examines second language students' perceptions of grammar instruction, with specific reference to writing skill. Discusses issues involved in defining a role for grammar study and presents excerpts from student essays and explanations of classroom lessons. Results indicate that the instruction provided helped to improve students' ability to use…

Examined Korean and Chinese college-level ESL learners for relative reliance on phonological and orthographic processing in English word identification. Found that Korean, but not Chinese, students made more false positive errors in judging stimuli that were homophones to category exemplars than in judging spelling controls. Chinese students made…

An error analysis of the word recognition responses of 20 adult cochlear implant users and 19 typical listeners was conducted to determine the types of partial information used when they identified spoken words under auditory-alone and audiovisual conditions. Results indicate there were no significant interactions with hearing status. (Contains…

Examination of the use of short "tongue-twister" phrases in eliciting spontaneous slips of the tongue in five year olds indicated that the technique was a feasible and beneficial method for collecting spoonerism data from children. (24 references) (CB)

Comparison of college students' (N=14) graded and ungraded Spanish compositions revealed that, when they anticipated receiving a grade, students wrote longer compositions with more complex sentences. However, the type and number of errors varied among students. (CB)

Analyzes observations of the pronunciation of French by 32 undergraduate students at the University of Ilorin (Nigeria). The phonological analysis includes: 1) sound variation; 2) terminal sound loss; 3) sound intrusion; 4) assimilation; and 5) liaison. Many factors appear to have affected performance, especially having had a Francophone teacher…

Compared the vowel responses of severely disabled readers with those of normal control children in reading orthographically regular nonwords. Vowel responses were compared on both age and reading level groups, and the vowel responses of two out of three reading disabled groups paralleled those of their reading level peers. (Author/DJD)

Discusses how research in error analysis and discourse analysis can help teachers understand basic writers. Argues that the role of teachers is to recognize basic writers' attempts to construct meaningful prose by focusing on both the meaning of the text and the meaning of students' writing errors. (MM)

The extent to which the second-language English spelling of young Welsh-English bilinguals is systematically idiosyncratic was examined from free compositions written by 10- to 11-year-old children. A model is presented of the second-language spelling process in the form of a "decision tree." (Contains 29 references.) (Author/LB)

This study compared the production of complex syntax by 16 older adults diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease and 25 age-matched control subjects. It found that although individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease did not produce frank lexical or grammatical errors, they did find it difficult to access the "best fit" between meaning and…

The author responds to issues raised in comments about a previous article, and defends his position of discussing Firthian insights from a generative point of view. (11 references) (CK)

Examines second-language classroom applications of computerized text analysis by English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writers, suggesting that the Grammatik III disk-based text analyzer may not be a suitable addition to ESL composition pedagogy. (16 references) (Author/CB)

Approaches to the analysis of utterance disruptions are reviewed, and a system is proposed for analyzing disruptions in spontaneous language, with four disruption categories (pauses, repetitions, revisions, and orphans). Use of the system is illustrated using language samples from 10 traumatically brain-injured and 10 normally developing speakers…

Examination of the oral errors produced by advanced learners of English as a Second Language found that, in spite of many years of classroom instruction and ongoing exposure, errors were still frequent and found to be highly concentrated in specific categories such as lexis and preposition choice. (10 references) (CB)