Applied linguists have developed complex theories of the ability to communicate in a second language (L2). However, the perspectives on L2 communication ability of speakers who are not trained language professionals have been incorporated neither into theories of communication ability nor in the criteria for assessing performance on…

Although metaphors are essential tools in everyday communication and educational settings, the literature lacks evidence of effective training tools to promote metaphor comprehension in typical development. Grounding in theoretical pragmatics, we developed a novel metaphor comprehension training (MetaCom) for school-age children that focuses on…

Investigated the relationship between children's failures to produce unambiguous utterances and the mental effort demands in children (ages five, six, seven, and nine years), using finger-tapping and message production tasks, separately and simultaneously. Findings suggest that the relative effort requirements of communication decrease with…

At irregular intervals, beginning in 1977, Swedish-Finnish conferences on contrastive and applied linguistics have been arranged in Stockholm and Turko/Abo. This volume presents most of the papers given at the 1982 conference. Papers include: "Free Recall of Mixed Language Lists. Error Patterns in Bilingual Memory" (Karin Aronsson, Anja Metsola,…