This study attempts to explain a systematic phenomenon that has been described in interlanguage grammars crosslinguistically: Null-Prep, which consists of omitting the obligatory preposition in certain movement constructions. We propose that Null-Prep is not related to lack of knowledge of "wh"-movement, as previously assumed, but to…

Writing proper English sentences poses a significant challenge for Arabic-speaking postsecondary students studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) due to substantial differences between Arabic and English syntactic structures. This basic qualitative study explored the perceptions of Arabic-speaking EFL learners at an Arabian university…

Writing proper English sentences poses a significant challenge for Arabic-speaking postsecondary students studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) due to substantial differences between Arabic and English syntactic structures. This basic qualitative study explored the perceptions of Arabic-speaking EFL learners at an Arabian university…

The author's response to James Flege's critique (in this issue of "Language Learning") regarding earlier research on second-language timing patterns is presented. (LMO)

It is proposed that error patterns in acquisition of a second language can provide otherwise unavailable evidence for testing linguistic hypotheses about the second language itself. Three types of production and perceptual error patterns found in the learning of English by native Arabic speakers are outlined to support this suggestion. The error…

Presents the results of an experiment which examined the temporal characteristics of voiceless plosives in American English, Arabic, and Arabic-accented English. Results showed that Arabic-accented English departed from the target language goal and constituted an articulation type characterizable as more Arabic than Arabic itself. (Author/SED)

This study examined the interlanguage syntax of Arabic speaking learners of English in the area of the noun phrase, focusing on the closed system elements that can occur before or after the noun head, the noun head and pronouns in line with Quirk and Greenbaum's (1977) treatment of the noun phrase. Participants were 25 Arabic speaking English…

A study of the possible transfer of reading skills from a first language other than English to English, called script-carryover effects, focused on two aspects of the written language: (1) the manner in which the script represents information about sound and meaning, and (2) whether or not the script uses the same graphemic characters as English.…

Discusses the reasons for the occurrence of spelling errors in the writing of a group of Arab learners of English. (Author/HP)

Discusses the design and interpretation of instrumental phonetic studies of second language (L2) speech production. The speech of L2 learners is evaluated to determine to what extent it diverges from the differing phonetic norms of L1, which are estimated from the speech of a small number of native speakers. (Author/LMO)

An analysis of the English word stress placement of six native Arabic speakers and six native English speakers studying Arabic revealed that, while most of the native English subjects produced the expected word stress, the Arab subjects placed stress on English words in conformity with Arabic stress patterns. (CB)

Examines the role and significance of systematic error correction and explicit grammatical explanation in adult foreign language education. The type and nature of certain grammatical errors which are characteristic of the interlanguage of Arab learners of English as a second language and which seem insusceptible to defossilization are…

A study compared the topical structure (TS) of Arabic and English in order to determine whether Arab learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) transfer potential differences between Arabic and English in their English writing, or whether they use an altogether different TS indicative of developmental factors. Four sets of data were compared…

The series of articles in this volume were selected from among those presented at the 8th Annual International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning in April 1994. Articles include: "The Right Tool for the Job: Techniques for Analysis of Natural Language Use" (Georgia M. Green); "Sinclair & Coulthard Revisited: Global-…