Papers presented at the conference on applied linguistics include the following: "Speaking of Grammars: Is Big Beautiful?" (Jan Svartvik); "A Sociosemiotic View of the Grasp of Language at Reality: The Lexical Field 'Aesthetic Judgment'" (Wolfgang Kuhlwein); "Language as a Target and Instrument of the Educational Process in a Multilingual Setting" (Olga Miseska Tomic); "An Aspect of Social Interaction in Communication: Politeness Strategies and Contrastive Foreign-Language Teaching" (Tatiana Slama-Cazacu); "Investigating the Complexities of Communication in a Second Language" (Tahereh Paribakht); "Applying the Concept of Working Memory to Foreign Language Listening Comprehension" (Elisabet Service); "Thinking as a Component of Language Understanding" (Leena I. Laurinen); "General Model of Written Discourse as a Basis of a Study of Writing" (Anneli Vahapassi); "Summarization: Integrating Reading and Writing" (Liisa Havola); "The Nordwrite Project" (Lars Sigfred Evensen); "Meaning and Diversity" (Jonna Cederquist); "Invalid Talk: Reduction of Personality in the Evaluation of Foreign Language Speaking Skills" (David Marsh); "Emotional Hindrances in the FL Learning Situation: The Weak Self Concept" (Eero J. Laine); "Language in Preschool Education in a Functional Perspective" (Liv Vedeler, Hans Vejieskov); "Some Aspects of Classroom Interaction" (Sten Sjorslev); "Verbal Communication in the Classroom" (Marc Spoelders); "Texts in Study Books for Foreign Language Learners" (Dagmar Neuendorff); "Is Equality and Independent Thinking Possible in an Oral Test?" (Mary Kilborn); and "Testing Pronunciation" ((Jan van Weeren). (MSE)