Emerging audio technologies over the last decade have provided a new, unprecedented window into the everyday lives of infants and young children. These new approaches will allow us to begin to address longstanding questions about the nature of language experiences across languages, communities and situations and the role of these experiences in…

Frequentist methods have long dominated data analysis in quantitative second language (L2) research. Recently, however, several empirical fields have begun to embrace alternatives known as Bayesian methods. Using an open-source approach, we provide an applied, nontechnical rationale for Bayesian methods in L2 research. First, we compare the…

Factor analysis has been frequently exploited in applied research to provide evidence about the underlying factors in various measurement instruments. A close inspection of a large number of studies published in leading applied linguistic journals shows that there is a misconception among applied linguists as to the relative merits of exploratory…

Despite the fact that Indian Sign Language (ISL) has a significant influence on the native signers in northeastern India, no studies of ISL have yet taken into account the nature of the sign languages in use in this region. This article examines the emergence of both Shillong Sign Language and the Deaf community of Shillong and discusses the…

This paper argues that the goal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) research should be to construct a reliable evidence-base with "engineering power" and generality upon which the design of future CALL software and activities can be based. In order to establish such an evidence base for future CALL design, it suggests that CALL…

Evaluation of methods and techniques for conversational and multimodal spoken dialogue systems is complex, as is gathering data for the modeling and tuning of such techniques. This article describes MushyPeek, an experiment framework that allows us to manipulate the audiovisual behavior of interlocutors in a setting similar to face-to-face…

The method of parametric interpretation used in the computer program "Yorktalk," software that creates synthetic parameter files from phonological representations of speech, is explained. First, the design of the program is described, and the concept of "exponency" in prosodic analysis is explained as it is applied in the…

A distributional analysis of parent-child conversational interactions for three large longitudinal corpora is reported. First, the potential role of conversational interaction in language learning is examined, and it is argued that certain sources of conversational input provide children with excellent opportunities to advance their linguistic…

The computerized morphological parser, AMPLE, grew out of work in computer assisted dialect adaptation. AMPLE contains no language-specific code, but is controlled entirely through external, user-written files, the notations of which were designed for linguists. AMPLE's constructs are linguistic: e.g., allomorph, morpheme, conditioning…

A framework for describing relationships among the different linguistic systems in a bilingual or second language learner is proposed. The framework attempts to represent the ways in which knowledge of one language is used in integrating into memory new knowledge about another language. The model is partially implemented in a computer program that…

A computer program for classifying elements of a language corpus for large-scale analysis is discussed. The approach is based on the assumption that there is a natural unit in speech processing and production, called a tone unit. The program "tags" the five grammatical phrase types (verb, adverb, adjective, noun, and prepositional) to…

A project used a concordancing program with a corpus of academic texts to introduce students unfamiliar with the language of academic discourse to some important, frequent, and significant items in English academic vocabulary. It has developed materials for classroom and independent use intended for native speakers as well as learners of English…

Methods and approaches used at the U.S. Army Research Institute to investigate intelligent computer-assisted foreign language instruction are discussed. The research described explores the use of hypertext and natural language processing for improving language training by articulating student knowledge structures and for providing, incidentally, a…

The value and role of concordancers (simple computer programs that can quickly analyze electronic texts to find occurrences of a given word, part of a word, or phrase and display it within its immediate context) in secondary school English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teaching are examined. First, their use in higher education is discussed,…

A study investigated the instructional effectiveness of Autotutor, an interactive video program developed at Trinity College (Ireland), based on its ability to create an environment promoting learner interaction in a second language. Six students in three monolingual pairs (Japanese, Korean, Spanish) were filmed and recorded using the business…