The development of German proficiency by a three-year-old Australian boy living in Germany was monitored for a five-month period. His command of German negation is reported. The study is seen as bearing on issues in first and second language acquisition, such as competence and interference. (JB)

Discusses the results of an error analysis of 100 English compositions written by university students in Iran. It is suggested that mistakes are not primarily due to interference from the native language, but to developmental errors, similar to errors made in first language acquisition. (Author/AMH)

Reports on an experiment investigating the modifications in lexicon, grammar, and phonology, made by language teachers as they related to varying levels of proficiency, and are compared to "foreigner talk." (AM)

Maintains that measuring syntactic error alone is inadequate and that syntactic maturity should also be considered. Discusses ways of measuring syntactic maturity in spoken English of nonnative speakers and examines the relationship of syntactic error to syntactic maturity. (EKN)

Describes a study that tests whether the sociolinguistic differences observed in essays in German are a carry-over from the native Scottish English. A previous study is described which tested the hypothesis that social class influences linguistic behavior and could be a cause for errors in a foreign language. (AMH)

Discusses the literature on interference as the cause of errors in second language speech. A study is reported which shows that interference by the native language is most often the factor responsible for the largest number of mistakes in grammar and vocabulary. (Author/AMH)

An error analysis was made of 26 essays written by English-speaking honor students in their first year of university German. Results illustrate the relative frequency of errors occurring in the sample, together with some possible explanations for certain types of errors. (SED)

An experiment is reported comparing the pluralization patterns exhibited by American college students studying German with those of adult and child native speakers of German. Respondents' pluralization of 30 nonsense words did not reveal significant interference between English and German in this regard. (PMJ)

An attempt to refute the opinion that true bilingualism is acquired only in early childhood. The discussion arises from experience with bilingual adults. The results of the study lead to recommendations on the production of materials for the teaching of foreign languages. (Author/AMH)

A short survey of the classifications of Russian verbs from the fields of linguistics and language teaching is presented, and a classification useful for language teaching based on linguistic principles is developed. The classification is demonstrated using 1,400 verbs and 4,000 frequently used words in language teaching. (SW)

Describes a study that examined phonological features of a group of 10 Urdu speaking children (20 to 30 months) to determine if a general theory of language learning can be deduced on the basis of Jakobson's theory of language universals. Addresses the question of how far such a theory is applicable to Urdu speaking children acquiring their native…

Presents a precise and detailed process to be used in error analysis. The process is proposed as a means of making research in error analysis more accessible and useful to others, as well as assuring more objectivity. (Author/AMH)

In order to show the problem second language learners face when confronted with ambiguity, this article explores the linguistic and metalinguistic strategies used by adult Dutch learners of English. These learners possess the cognitive maturity and metalinguistic skills of native speakers but resemble--in knowledge of English-- children acquiring…

Discusses the theoretical foundation for Ferguson's correlation between speed in detecting syntactic errors in written English and acquisition of the listening comprehension skill. A detailed analysis of Ferguson's procedure is given along with references to other pertinent literature. The original conclusions are questioned. (AMH)

Discusses linguistic competence and performance and how analyzing second language learners' errors can provide clues about their interlanguage, which is useful not only for pedagogical reasons, but also for the forwarding of general linguistic theory. (EKN)