In the present cross-linguistic study two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of age and linguistic background on response tendencies of preschoolers toward forced-choice questions. A total of 163 2- to 5-year-old children, including 63 Persian speakers, 57 Kurdish speakers and 43 English speakers, were asked a set of…

First language (L1) attrition in adulthood offers new insight on neuroplasticity and the role of language experience in shaping neurocognitive responses to language. Attriters are multilinguals for whom advancing L2 proficiency comes at the cost of the L1, as they experience a shift in exposure and dominance (e.g., due to immigration). To date,…

In this study we compared the effects of two types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on second language (L2) learning and their potential contributions to the development of different types of L2 knowledge. Both types of instruction were pre-emptive in nature, that is planned and teacher generated. In Integrated FFI attention to form was embedded…

The present investigation examines English speakers' ability to identify and discriminate non-native consonant length contrast. Three groups (L1 English No-Instruction, L1 English Instruction, and L1 Finnish control) performed a speeded forced-choice identification task and a speeded AX discrimination task on Finnish non-words (e.g.…

A number of studies have shown that bilingual children have an advantage when performing on phonological awareness tasks, particularly in their stronger language. Little research has been done to date, examining the effects of bilingualism on both languages of bilingual children. In this study Mandarin-English bilingual children's performance on…

A discussion of the use of songs to teach French as a second language focuses on the value of songs in teaching aspects of pronunciation. An introductory section describes the benefits of songs as instructional material, particularly to impart cultural information about Quebec to Canadian anglophones. Three sections outline justifications for the…

Proposes that heritage language education research findings in Canada fall within three interpretive frames, involving (1) interdependence, which posits that languages complement each other; (2) narrativity, which suggests that there is a narrative structure to the developing mind; and (3) cognitive enhancement, which posits that language and…

This study investigates whether second language (L2) phonological learning can be characterized as a gradual and systematically patterned replacement of nonnative segments by native segments in learners' speech, conforming to a two-stage implicational scale. We adopt a dynamic approach to language variation based on Gatbonton's (1975, 1978)…

Examines language effects in class-inclusion performance with 224 children ages 3 through 12 by comparing the standard Piagetian question with two alternate question forms. Overall, the findings were inconsistent with the Piagetian assertion that logical inability produces errors in comparing subclasses; inclusion performance was a function of…

This paper reviews the research on second language acquisition and bilingualism conducted in Canada over the past decade (1970-79). The material on second language acquisition is presented under the followinq headings: approaches to second language instruction, individual differences and second language acquisition, and effects of second language…

Thirty-six three- to four-year-old children were tested to assess whether hearing a word-referent link from an ignorant speaker affected children's abilities to subsequently link the same word with an alternative referent offered by another speaker. In the principal experimental conditions, children first heard either an ignorant or a…

The language of 29 Canadian children was sampled during the first two years of schooling in free conversations and in more formal school-like tasks as part of a three-year longitudinal study of the properties of oral language and their relation to other measures of cognitive, linguistic, and reading performance. The language samples were subjected…

Age differences in recognition and recall of common nouns were studied using three groups of fifty students, with mean ages of 6.7, 11.4, and 16.9. Subjects were randomly placed in either an incidental or intentional learning condition. All subjects were questioned about the physical, phonemic, and semantic aspects of the same words, in the same…

The purpose of this study was to compare traditional classification training for a set of abstract concepts with multiple-relations training consisting of inference practice and the use of a content diagram. To examine this, 200 undergraduate and graduate psychology students completed a Web-based tutorial covering the abstract concepts of a…

A collection of research in Japanese and Korean linguistics includes: "Repetition, Reformulation, and Definitions: Prosodic Indexes of Elaboration in Japanese" (Mieko Banno); "Projection of Talk Using Language, Intonation, Deictic and Iconic Gestures and Other Body Movements" (Keiko Emmett); "Turn-taking in Japanese…