An interview with the founder of the Second Language Research Forum covers personal experiences, a researcher's view of applied linguistics, and educating future researchers. (LB)

Analyzes various apparently synonymous words for "friend" (e.g., "homes,""bro") as they are used by one former gang-member to persuade two current gang-members to stop "gangbanging." The article's analysis shows how the meanings of these disparate reference terms are made and remade through talk as…

Presents an interview with Noriko Akatsuka concerning her studies of the relationship between a speaker's state of mind and modality. Notes that the interviewee has concentrated on conditionals using data chiefly from Japanese, Korean, and English, with the primary goal of using conditional construction as a tool to investigate questions…

The relationship between prototype meanings and frequency of use is investigated with a view to establishing a foundation for the problem of "prototype acquisition." One polysemous basic verb, "put," is used in this study of native speaker discourse, and implications for both prototype theory and the acquisition of polysemy are…

Synthesizes work on research concerned with the influence of a second language on speaker's first language competence in late bilingualism. Research in the areas of phonology, morphosyntax, lexis, semantics, pragmatics, rhetoric, and conceptual representations suggests that borrowing, convergence, shift, restructuring, and loss result from the…

Focuses on Elman's (1990) statistical analyses of the hidden unit activation patterns in his simple recurrent network on sentence prediction, first to highlight the feasibility of such analyses and then to show how connectionist explanations contribute to the development of effective explanatory theories. Argues for the evolutionary nature of…

Provides an account of the functions of "sumimasen," one of the expressions used for apology and thanks in everyday Japanese conversation. The study observes the different socio-cultural contexts in which this expression occurs, using a database of 10 hours of daily conversation. The study attempts to relate "sumimasen" to…

Reviews the rationale for and programmatic structure of two experimental language awareness programs and discusses some of the ethical issues requiring consideration in the implementation of such programs. These ethical considerations include the ethics of persuasion and need, the ethics of representation, the ethics of socio-educational change,…

This study focuses on how Chinese writing instruction can cause negative interference for Chinese English-as-a-Second-Language students writing in English. The study shows that in Chinese writing, the main idea can be more general, as a theme, or specific, as a thesis statement. It can also come at the beginning or end of a paper, and the writer…

Presents a tentative cognitive-psychological model of language attrition, which draws on information from studies in second language attrition, neurobiology and psychology. Notes that this model is presented to demonstrate that a model based on consideration of the brain has the potential of providing a plausible account of the process of language…

Discusses an interview focusing on important topics relevant to sociolinguistics and language minorities. Points out that one topic, ethnicity, is among many of the urban phenomena central to the study of linguistics as well as ethnic minorities and that a discussion of sociolinguistics and language minorities entails discussion of racism,…

A qualitative study analyzed the distribution of participation by young children (ages 3-5) in family dinnertime conversation, focusing on "backstage talk," sequences adjacent to those in which the child is involved and within his auditory range, so that the child-projected participation-role alternates between that of addressee and overhearer.…

Proposes a neurobiological model in which a greater number of brain structures than previously indicated are involved in language functions, with particular reference to second language learning. The study examines three areas of the brain rarely associated with language: the anterior cingulate gyrus, the prefrontal cortex, and the basal temporal…

Presents a neurobiologically inspired model of one aspect of adult second language acquisition: procedural linguistic skill acquisition. Notes that the proposed model crucially involves the neural circuitry of the neocerebellum, a brain structure implicated in higher cognitive and, potentially, linguistic functions. (69 references) (Author/CK)

A method for examining intelligibility is studied that involves recording undergraduates' immediate feedback on communication breakdowns, and then analyzing those breakdowns with English-as-a-Second-Language specialists. Pronunciation was found to be the major cause of unintelligibility. (10 references) (Author/LB)