Language is inherently variable, and learner language is particularly variable. The variationist paradigm considers learner language a heterogeneously variable yet inherently rule-governed system. Specifically, learners' alternation between native-like and nonnative-like variants of a variable or invariable target native speaker (NS) form…

The research work attempts to investigate that in any geographical contact zone, where the diverse languages and cultures intersect, there would inevitably be linguistic and cultural integration and assimilation. In a similar vein, the worldwide dissemination of the English language has radically shaped the linguistic and textual devices installed…

Every speaker of a native language undergoes an interlanguage continuum or the way that the language learners go through from the first to the second language. Interlanguage is an essential theory for teachers to know what goes on in the learning process. It makes the teachers look at the varieties of mistaken linguistic forms with an eye for…

This article deals with the interlanguage of adult second language (L2) learners acquiring finiteness. Due to the inaccessibility of bound inflectional morphology, learners use free morphology to mark a syntactic relationship as well as person and number features separately from the thematic verb, expressed by a pattern like "the man is go".…

An analysis of intrasentential codeswitching patterns that refutes a common explanation is presented. It is suggested that the Matrix Language-Frame model, which claims codeswitching to be entirely a matter of sentence production, is inadequate to account for a common but hitherto unexplained phenomenon, the occurrence of "dummy" verbs under…

Recent unrelated studies reveal what appears to be a common acquisitional pattern in second language acquisition (SLA). While some findings show that advanced learners can indeed achieve convergent, native-like competence with formal syntactic properties (even when these are underdetermined by the input), other findings suggest that they can…

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)

A study is presented that examines the null-subject parameter (NSP) and that seeks to attain the following objectives: (1) to assess the validity of the implicational hierarchy for the NSP, especially as proposed by Liceras (1989); and (2) to determine if there is any evidence to support the theory of the Weaker Logical Problem of Acquisition…

A reassessment of the role of negative evidence in nonnative language acquisition argues that the grammar-building process cannot make use of negative evidence to restructure interlanguage grammars, and that second-language learners do not unlearn verb movement but extend the pattern with which they are already familiar. (46 references) (Author/CB)

This paper outlines current cognitive perspectives on second language acquisition (SLA). The Associative-Cognitive CREED holds that SLA is governed by the same principles of associative and cognitive learning that underpin the rest of human knowledge. The major principles of the framework are that SLA is Construction-based, Rational,…

Spanish-speaking learners of Portuguese often transfer features of Spanish language to Portuguese. Learner errors, including those caused by Spanish interference, are analyzed by contrasting Portuguese and Spanish grammar. (SW)

Seeks to establish connections between two different language contact phenomena, interlanguage, and code switching. Data for the study come from an interlanguage corpus that has English as the target language, but also contains material from the speaker's two first languages, Spanish and German; and a German-English code switching corpus…

A study examined the morphosyntactic mechanism of a common code-switching (CS) pattern, the use of an English adjective (content morpheme) + Korean "-ita" (a system morpheme meaning "be") in the speech of Korean-English bilinguals. Data were drawn from audiotaped conversations of three subjects with their family members or…

The validity of 2 implicational universals regarding constituent order in questions is tested in the English speech of 14 native speakers of Japanese, Turkish, and Korean. The interlanguage evidence is found to be generally supportive of the 2 universals. (31 references). (Author/VWL)

An experiment on relative clause formation involving Cantonese students who were learning English was conducted. The study sought to determine whether sentence combining exercises would help Chinese students construct long relative clauses instead of the short relative clauses that exist in their first language. For the experimental group each…