Presents an interview with Noriko Akatsuka concerning her studies of the relationship between a speaker's state of mind and modality. Notes that the interviewee has concentrated on conditionals using data chiefly from Japanese, Korean, and English, with the primary goal of using conditional construction as a tool to investigate questions…

Focuses on Elman's (1990) statistical analyses of the hidden unit activation patterns in his simple recurrent network on sentence prediction, first to highlight the feasibility of such analyses and then to show how connectionist explanations contribute to the development of effective explanatory theories. Argues for the evolutionary nature of…

Presents a tentative cognitive-psychological model of language attrition, which draws on information from studies in second language attrition, neurobiology and psychology. Notes that this model is presented to demonstrate that a model based on consideration of the brain has the potential of providing a plausible account of the process of language…

Proposes a neurobiological model in which a greater number of brain structures than previously indicated are involved in language functions, with particular reference to second language learning. The study examines three areas of the brain rarely associated with language: the anterior cingulate gyrus, the prefrontal cortex, and the basal temporal…

Presents a neurobiologically inspired model of one aspect of adult second language acquisition: procedural linguistic skill acquisition. Notes that the proposed model crucially involves the neural circuitry of the neocerebellum, a brain structure implicated in higher cognitive and, potentially, linguistic functions. (69 references) (Author/CK)

Addresses, from a neurobiological perspective, the input-intake distinction commonly made in applied linguistics and the role of selective attention in transforming input to intake. The study places primary emphasis upon a neural structure (the nucleus reticularis thalami) that appears to be essential for selective attention. (79 references)…

Discusses the role connectionism plays in the development of cognitive theories and in the explanation of linguistic phenomena inherent in second language acquisition (SLA). Presents a critical look at some existing connectionist models of language functions with a focus on the need for a general cognitive model of SLA that integrates research in…