Over the last two decades, the question of to which linguistic cues learners pay attention when they decode a new language has been subject to controversy in the field of third language (L3) acquisition. In this article, we present an artificial language learning experiment that investigated how lexical and syntactic similarities between an…

This study examined whether syntactic awareness was related to reading comprehension difficulties in either first language (L1) Chinese or second language (L2) English, or both, among Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children. Parallel L1 and L2 metalinguistic and reading measures, including syntactic word-order, morphological awareness,…

This dissertation is a variationist sociolinguistic analysis of the variable word order and prosody of copular constructions ("Nicolas es feliz" versus "'Feliz' es Nicolas," "Es Nicolas 'feliz,'" "Es 'feliz' Nicolas," "Nicolas is 'happy'") in the Spanish of first- and second-generation…

Extensive studies have been conducted regarding mother tongue (L1) interference and developing English writing skills. This study, however, aims to investigate the influence of the Spanish language on second language (L2) writing skills at several Ecuadorian senior high schools in Loja. To achieve this, 351 students and 42 teachers from second…

There has been considerable progress in second language (L2) research at the syntax-semantics interface addressing how syntax can inform phrasal semantics, in terms of interpretive correlates of word order (Slabakova, 2008). This article provides evidence of a flow of information ostensibly in the opposite direction, from meaning to grammar, at…

One central question in the formal linguistic study of adult multilingual morphosyntax (i.e., L3/Ln acquisition) involves determining the role(s) the L1 and/or the L2 play(s) at the L3 initial state (e.g., Bardel & Falk, Second Language Research 23: 459-484, 2007; Falk & Bardel, Second Language Research: forthcoming; Flynn et al., The…

Studies on syntactic priming strongly suggest that bilinguals can store a single integrated representation of constructions that are similar in both languages (e.g., Spanish and English passives; R. J. Hartsuiker, M. J. Pickering, & E. Veltkamp, 2004). However, they may store 2 separate representations of constructions that involve different word…

Most children master the syntactic structures described in this book with no instruction by the time they start school. However, learning a language is subject to critically sensitive age restraints, and learning a second language becomes increasingly difficult as children age through this zone of sensitivity. The goal of this updated and expanded…

An error corpus of deviant SVO structure was collected from the translation projects of students majoring in translation. Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discoursal criteria were used to judge the deviations. Percentages of interlingual and intralingual errors, the syntactic contexts in which subjects were misplaced, the strategies used to…

Berlin gymnasium students were found to make errors in English word order traceable to German word order and to "hypercorrectness" in avoiding the latter. A suggested taxonomy of errors is presented. A functional language theory is needed to provide the learner with insight into sources of errors. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Deals with the issue of sentence processing in a second language (L2) showing how L2 learners resolve the problem of competing factors of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics in the processing of L2 utterances. The results of a study involving sentence interpretation by L2 learners of English are presented. (Author/SED)

This study examined sentence processing in emergent bilingual children and young adults in both English (second language -- L2) and Spanish (first language -- L1). One hundred participants from five different age groups (5;4-7;11, 8;0-10;11, 11;2-13;11, 14;0-16;8 years, and college-age adults) participated in this study. An online sentence…

When teaching English as a second language to speakers of Punjabi, it is useful for the teacher to have some knowledge of the students' native language. This paper analyzes the differences in word order between English and Punjabi. The five basic sentence patterns in English are contrasted with the equivalent sentence patterns in Punjabi.…

Phrasal verbs occur frequently in written and spoken English and may be difficult for non-native speakers to understand and produce, particularly when parts of the phrasal verb should be separated and when they should be adjacent. The study reported here analyzes natural data in context to determine whether the word order of the parts of a…

Examines competition between conflicting principles in Kenyan English (animacy hierarchy and discourse pressure to place given information before new), manifested in news discourse. Results suggest some differences between spoken and written Kenyan English pointing to a tendency toward a more standard native-speaker variety in news discourse, and…