This book presents a set of compelling essays collectively making a persuasive case for why a usage-based perspective on language is fast becoming a leading theoretical framework for investigating second language (L2) learning and the foundation for effective, innovative, engaging pedagogy. Drawing on 20 years of research in psychology,…

Despite the contributions language centres across the globe have made to language education and higher education in general, few publications have a specific focus on research work produced by language centre faculty. The purpose of this reviewed, edited volume entitled "Tertiary Education Language Learning: A Collection of Research,"…

This volume sheds empirical light on Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) by providing five sets of analyses of two longitudinal, interactional datasets, involving two dyads exchanging emails over one academic semester. The collective study on CDST is the first of its kind, in that it delves into multiple subsystems of learner language,…

This book is unique in bringing together studies on instructed second language acquisition that focus on a common question: "What renders this research particularly relevant to classroom applications, and what are the advantages, challenges, and potential pitfalls of the methodology adopted?" The empirical studies feature experimental,…

The chapters in this volume, all written by experts in the field, present an array of new research on second language acquisition (SLA) that touches on several current theoretical debates in the field and present a rich range of new empirical data and a number of innovative findings. The studies address questions relating to ultimate attainment,…

Two hundred and ninety-six English majors at universities in Poland, Austria and Hong Kong were given a 50-item questionnaire designed to evaluate their knowledge of grammatical terminology. The main aim was to identify whether the three populations were subject to differing "terminological cultures". This was found to be substantially…

English titles of medical research articles (RAs) are of great importance, the quality of which can, to a certain degree, affect impact factors of the articles, because many readers will make a decision as to whether to read on after reading titles. However, the special genre has not been extensively studied to date. This paper is designed to…

Investigates the ability of 32 two-year-old children to use syntactic (i.e., form class) and semantic (i.e., type of referent) information to interpret the meaning of new nouns. Subjects were taught either a common noun or a proper noun for a block-like or animal-like object and then asked to select the named toy. (Author/CB)

Two strategies that children use to figure out new word meanings--attention to linguistic form class and the assumption of lexical contrast--were examined. It was found that very young children use both form class and lexical contrast to interpret new words. (PCB)

Examines speech samples from six children aged 2 years to 2 years, 5 months, with Mean Lengths of Utterance ranging from 2.93 to 4.14, were examined for evidence of six syntactic categories: determiner, adjective, noun, noun phrase, preposition, and prepositional phrase. (HOD)

Examination of the spontaneous speech of 10 English-speaking children (ages 3 to 5) with specific language impairment revealed evidence of the functional categories of determiner, inflection, and complementizer. However, compared to younger children with comparable mean utterance lengths, these children showed lower percentages of use of many…

A lexical representational analysis of Classical Arabic is proposed that captures a generalization that McCarthy's (1979, 1981) autosegmental analysis misses, namely that idiosyncratic characteristics of the derivational binyanim in Arabic are lexical, not morphological. This analysis captures that generalization by treating all the idiosyncracies…

This study investigates whether other relationships in sentence structure besides the "brother-in-law" relation sanction surrogate agreement in Zinacanteco Tzotzil (Mayan). Surrogate agreement refers to cases in which an element that lies outside the class of regular agreement controllers in a language (the surrogate) controls…

Reveals that young children acquiring Mandarin Chinese differentiate subject from topic, even though Chinese is a "topic-prominent" language. Data are based on results of a standardized, elicited imitation test of 95 Chinese children in Taiwan. Subjects between 2 years, 6 months and 5 years of age responded to coordinate as well as…

The continual model of biliteracy offers a framework in which to situate research, teaching, and language planning in linguistically diverse settings; bilingual teacher education represents a conjunction of all three of these and hence, a good candidate for applying the continual model. This paper uses selected experiences in language teacher…