Research on second language (L2) acquisition in the generative tradition (GenSLA) addresses the nature of interlanguage competence, examining the roles of Universal Grammar, the mother tongue and the input in shaping the acquisition, representation and use of second languages. This field is sometimes dismissed by applied linguists as irrelevant…

Characteristics of language production shared by interlanguage and agrammatism, a linguistic symptom of aphasia, are discussed, and it is proposed that the two constitute a reduced system within the language, derived from the language's conceptual system. (MSE)

Reviews research related to the second language acquisition social context, and the interface of social context and interlanguage grammar. (Author/VWL)

The first contacts between linguistics and second language acquisition date from the period of contrastive analysis of languages, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When contrastive analysis failed as an explanatory model, linguists lost interest in second language research and descriptive/contrastive studies declined, resulting in a changed…

Records an interview with Pit Corder, retired chair of Applied Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, in which he reflects on the implications for language teaching and learning of recent research into second language acquisition and language transfer, as well as on the status of applied linguistics in the mid-1980's. (Author/SED)

This issue contains seven articles, including the following: "Dictionary, Systemicity, Motivation" (Tom Bartlett); "The Nature of the Initial State Zulu L2 Grammar and Subsequent Interlanguage Development" (Sibusisiwe Dube); "Translating the Folk" (Bryan Fletcher); "The Acquisition of the English Article System…

Reviews the research on first and second language acquisition, enumerates some basic features of human language learning, and discusses implications for the foreign language classroom. (RM)

Questions the value of the theory of interlanguage for language learning research. (AM)

Raises three questions concerning the present state of second-language acquisition research: (1) What has it achieved for language teaching? (2) How close is a theory of second-language acquisition? (3) What is its status within the chorus of disciplines that deal with language? (Author/JL)

This article summarizes a study (Odlin 1978) using variable rules analyses to describe the contraction patterns of six Mexican students of English as a second language. (CFM)

This paper reports on a pilot study examining how Chinese-speaking learners of English reset the non-empty topic [-Te] parameter. Whereas Chinese allows empty topics coindexed with variables in both subject and object positions, English does not. With respect to this particular parameter, Chinese can be said to form a superset of English as the…

Revised texts of five papers from a conference on Dutch applied linguistics are presented. "Learning a Foreign Language in a Natural Acquisition Context Without Instruction" (Wolfgang Klein) advocates observing and analyzing language learning in progress in natural language learning contexts and presents data from a European project on…

The interlanguage hypothesis stresses that errors are a normal part of the language learning process. At the same time, in the view of many, the teacher has a responsibility to provide short cuts for the learner through appropriate corrective feedback. Conventionally, this has been taken to imply correction of expression by requiring repetition of…