The interaction between multilingualism and emotions has so far mostly been researched in Northern contexts. The findings obtained suggest that the first language is typically preferred for emotional and mental activities (i.e. 'first language primacy'). In this article, we extend this area of investigation to Africa. We use the Bilingualism and…

Linguistic distancing behaviours indicative of linguistic dissociation (Moore, 2023) have been documented in social scientific and literary accounts focusing on the lives of Japanese-English late plurilinguals (LPs; e.g. Harrison, 2011; Kelsky, 2001; McMahill, 2001; Mori, 1997; Takahashi, 2013). Across these cases, diverse Japanese-English LPs…

Language attrition research has developed in several clearly delimited phases spanning, roughly, each of the three decades between 1982 and 2012 (see Kopke & Schmid 2004 for a more detailed overview and analysis). The first phase was an era of stocktaking, with a number of symposia, collected volumes and special issues of journals. All of…

This article examines how, in a multilingual perspective, language competence is experienced, talked about and practiced by language users themselves. By viewing children as active co-creators of the spaces in which language is used, this article contributes to a research tradition in which focus is shifted from viewing the individual's language…

Learners frequently experience phonologically inconsistent input, such as exposure to multiple accents. Yet, little is known about the consequences of phonological inconsistency for language learning. The current study examines vocabulary acquisition with different degrees of phonological inconsistency, ranging from no inconsistency (e.g., both…

The present article focuses on data collection through web questionnaires, as opposed to the traditional pen-and-paper method for research in second language acquisition and bilingualism. It is argued that web questionnaires, which have been used quite widely in psychology, have the advantage of reaching out to a larger and more diverse pool of…

This paper discusses the biological and social views of grammar with reference to recent research on grammar and language acquisition, arguing that grammars are individual constructs existing in the minds of individual speakers. Contains 24 references. (MDM)

When kindergarten, second-, and fourth-grade children judged and repeated sentences that varied grammatically, the older children produced more accurate judgments, but no age differences were noted for repetition. Unbiased judgment accuracy correlated with prereaders' reading readiness scores, providing evidence for the relationship between the…

The 4th international conference "Nation and Language: Modern Aspects of Socio-Linguistic Development" continues an eight-year old tradition. The conference is organized by Kaunas University of Technology Panevezys Institute and aims to bring scientists and researchers together for a general scientific discussion on new trends in…

Metalinguistic skill is the ability to assume an objective attitude toward language. Metalinguistic awareness is less easily acquired and appears later developmentally than speaking and listening skills. What one needs to know to perceive and use language is not necessarily the same thing that one needs to know to reflect on and comment on…

Discusses the question of whether nonhuman species, such as apes, possess rudimentary language, focusing on the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Noam Chomsky in regard to the development of oral language in young children and apes. (51 references) (MDM)

Using standard classical conditioning and concept-formation paradigms, research showed that all phones of a phoneme were considered "the same" by linguistically naive speakers. Results also supported the notion of the phoneme as a unit that functions in speech perception. (RL)

Linguistics is the study of language, as contrasted with knowledge of a specific language. Formal linguistics is the study of the structures and processes of language, or how it works and is organized. Different approaches to formal linguistics include traditional or prescriptive, structural, and generative or transformational perspectives. Formal…

Current hypotheses about language and language development have certain important implications for the study of language acquisition and function, especially in disadvantaged or minority children. According to these hypotheses, traditional theories concerning linguistic deprivation and related factors are no longer valid. (Author/EB)

Designed to reveal children's awareness of print and use of contextual clues and to discover their metalinguistic awareness, language use, and attitudes toward reading and writing, this instrument consists of six tasks. The first three, print awareness tasks, present familiar labels and signs with different degrees of contextuality. The fourth and…