Fifteen years ago, Pascual-Leone and colleagues used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate speech production in pre-surgical epilepsy patients and in doing so, introduced a novel tool into language research. TMS can be used to non-invasively stimulate a specific cortical region and transiently disrupt information processing. These…

The ways that children and adults use their limited cognitive processes in comprehending the complex input of a second language are discussed, and an information-processing approach to second-language learning is proposed and supported in a number of areas of second language research. Implications for research and teaching are examined. (MSE)

It is argued that an area of linguistic research ripe for exploration is how the speaker actually makes use of linguistic knowledge in the production or reception of utterances. It is proposed that speech production is a lexically driven rather than semantically driven process and that the speaker's procedural competence is lexico-syntactic in…

Presents a language processing model that distinguishes four functional components of reading and listening: feature detection, primary recognition, secondary recognition, and rehearsal and recoding. Uses the model to describe and incorporate some recent research. (GT)

The linguistic form of a nonliteral expression, and the context in which it occurs, can greatly influence young children's succcess or failure in assigning a meaning to a figurative expression. Experiments have shown that the same metaphorical expression can be easier to understand when expressed in a linguistic form that is familiar to young…

The cognitive aspect of second language learning, specifically by immersion method, is discussed from a biological perspective. The approach taken is that of "connectionism," a recently-developed theoretical and experimental approach to human cognition. It is argued that while general cognitive functioning is unaffected by language immersion,…

This study investigated whether top-down or bottom-up cognitive processing was more important in listening comprehension in large-scale English-as-a-Second-Language tests administered to secondary school students in Hong Kong over a period of seven years. Results suggest that bottom-up processing was more important than top-down processing in…

Research by the staff and advanced students of the North Dakota Summer Institute of Linguistics is presented. In "Verb Agreement and Case Marking in Burushaski" (Stephen R. Willson), an overview of Burushaski morphology and syntax is presented, with special attention to verb agreement and case marking. "A Backwards Binding Construction in Zapotec"…

The Language Aptitude Symposium papers include: "Prognostication and Language Aptitude Testing, 1925-62" (Bernard Spolsky); "You, the Government, and Language Aptitude" (Government Roundtable; abstract only); "Styles of Thinking and Learning" (Robert Sternberg); "Current Research in Measuring Listening"…