I argue that the variation within and across contexts detailed by Shin & Miller is indicative of a broader phenomenon in which morphosyntax and the discourse context are intertwined, including elements like perspective, discourse relations, information structure, and common ground. Appealing to independent evidence highlighting the role of…

Poverty of the stimulus has been at the heart of ferocious and tear-filled debates at the nexus of psychology, linguistics, and philosophy for decades. This review is intended as a guide for readers without a formal linguistics or philosophy background, focusing on what poverty of the stimulus is and how it's been interpreted, which is…

In this article, I argue that first language (L1), second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition are fundamentally the same process, based on learning by parsing. Both child and adult learners are sensitive to fine linguistic distinctions, and language development takes place in small steps. While the bulk of the article focuses on…

Across languages of the world, some grammatical patterns have been argued to be more common than expected by chance. These are sometimes referred to as (statistical) "language universals." One such universal is the correlation between constituent order freedom and the presence of a case system in a language. Here, we explore whether this…

This article focuses on the acquisition of mood in early complement clauses of European Portuguese (EP). Two semantic features are involved in the EP mood system--epistemicity and veridicality. An elicited production task administered to 80 children aged 4 to 9 showed that, even though children use the subjunctive in [-- epistemic] contexts, the…

Generative approaches to language have long recognized the natural link between theories of knowledge representation and theories of knowledge acquisition. The basic idea is that the knowledge representations provided by Universal Grammar enable children to acquire language as reliably as they do because these representations highlight the…

Foreign language learning contrasts with native language development in two key respects: It is unreliable and it is nonconvergent. At the same time, it is clear that foreign languages are languages. The fundamental difference hypothesis (FDH) was introduced as a way to account for the general characteristics of foreign language learning. The FDH…

Reviews the literature on general learning strategies as they pertain to the UG (universal grammar)- or non-UG debate and the second-language acquisition process and discusses this literature in the context of the literature on learning strategies from psychological research. (Author/JL)

Seven key generalizations based on research findings from the study of children's language offer specific implications for classroom instruction and for instructional policy formulation and decision making. (Author/MLF)

Theories and research on second language acquisition and grammatical theory are reviewed and discussed, especially those concerning the recent interest in understanding the nature of the language-learning faculty. The review includes work in the areas of universal grammar, interlanguage, parameterization of universal grammar, second language…

In comparing the mechanism of a native language sound change and the acquisition of a second language phonology, it is concluded that individuals approach the learning and changing of phonology in a psycholinguistically unified way; the foreign language learner is fundamentally like himself as a native language changer. (Author/POP)

In one experiment, children from 5 to 10 years of age played with puppets and responded to questions concerning the acquisition of one particular linguistic structure by children; in another series of experiments, both children and adults responded to questions regarding nonsense words in differentiating contexts--the focus of the discussion…

A study of the functional aspects of Wernicke's and Broca's areas of the cerebral cortex and their relationship to second language learning and ability. Some implications are drawn regarding second language teaching and methodology. There seems to be a relationship between methodology and the neurological mechanism used by students. (AMH)

Twenty true-false statements are discussed as a way of presenting the scientific knowledge base on which school programs for developing literacy can be built. (Author/MLF)

A definition of bilingualism can include speakers of different languages as well as those who speak several dialects or several sub-varieties of dialects in the same language. Most speakers are able to practice code-switching, whether it is from language to language or dialect to dialect, and the processes involved in such a capability may be the…