Examines whether four- to six-year-old children are sensitive to the contextual influence of previous discourse on judgements of adequacy of referential communication. Findings show the children could discriminate between the functionally informative and ambiguous communications. (EKN)

Reviews studies on language loss in individuals rather than groups in three categories: research on optimal age for foreign language learning; studies on cognitive aspects of language loss; and investigations concerning attitudes toward language learning, maintenance, and loss. Believes such research may ultimately tell foreign language teachers…

Reviews methodologies of sign language studies with chimpanzees and compares major findings of those studies with studies of human children. Considers relevance of input conditions for language acquisition, evidence used to demonstrate linguistic achievements, and application of rigorous testing procedures in developmental psycholinguistics.…

Two experiments showed that functional completeness--the explicit propositional surface realization of deep-structure clause relations--isolated effective and integral comprehension units, which definitions of comprehension units couched in levels of syntactic structure failed to do. (Author/RL)

Three experiments investigated factors influencing the integration of facts acquired from texts. Subjects encountered related facts in the context of relatively long, meaningful texts, a single text, or in two separate texts. Results indicate that integration can occur in both cases. (SW)

In response to Ellis (2002), which focuses on frequency in language processing, language use, and language acquisition, this article argues in favor of a role for frequency in several areas of second language acquisition, including interactional input and output and speech processing. Also discusses areas where L2 acquisition appears to proceed…

An author reacts to a series of responses written in regard to an earlier article by the author on frequency in language processing, language use, and language acquisition. Addresses a number of issues raised in the responses and concludes by emphasizing that language acquisition is a process of dynamic emergence and learners' language is a…

Examined whether context marked for grammatical gender can constrain the processing of homphone words in French. Homophones whose different meaning are associated with words of different genders were used in two cross-modal semantic priming experiments. (Author/VWL)

Argues for the need to reconcile symbolist and connectionist accounts of second language learning by propounding nine claims, aimed at integrating accounts of representation, processing, and acquisition of second language knowledge. Advocates a nonnativist, emergentist view of first language learning and adopts a version of what could be called a…

Provides a definition of comparison questions and shows how they relate to the semantic categories of two taxonomies for classifying questions, both of which omit comparison questions. Examines the comparison questions that auditors generate when they diagnose problems in a company. (SR)

Demonstrates the important need for language researchers to fill in the considerable theory data gap regarding the primary acquisition of Spanish by pointing out that theory development could be distorted if cross-linguistic comparisons of acquisition evidence draw on a faulty, incomplete data base. (CB)

Discusses the evolution of the connectionist model of language processing, focusing on the parallel distributed processing (PDP) model proposed by Rumelhart and others (1986) that explains the microstructure of cognition in terms of interactive activation between elementary input, output, and intermediate processing units linked by weighted…

The problem of providing a systematic understanding of Language Awareness (LA) is reviewed. Topics covered include principles behind the various terms used to refer to LA and types of knowledge about language, intervention, and the value of studying genre awareness. (39 references) (Author/LB)

Explores the importance of grammatical morphemes for constructing spatially organized situation models, especially how readers infer location in spatial models from prepositions and verb-aspect markers. Shows that grammatical units are as important as lexical units for guiding the construction of situation models during comprehension. (SR)

Provides evidence that automatic lexical priming is a product of an informationally specific lexical level network. An alternative account appealing to retrospective but automatic semantic integration processes is discussed.(52 references) (JL)