The article is a reflection on the various areas of cognitive linguistic research on metonymy that are of potential relevance for SLA. Three of them are particularly relevant: (1) research on metonymy-guided inferencing; (2) research on metonymy-based lexical polysemy, and (3) research on metonymy-based grammatical constructions. Of the three main…

On the basis of two experiments on comprehension, it is argued that children go through at least three stages in acquiring the deictic contrasts between "here and there," and between "this and that." Children follow different routes through these states, since they choose different starting points in mastering deitic contrasts.…

A distinction is drawn between representational and processing models of second-language acquisition. The first approach is derived primarily from linguistics, the second from psychology. Both fields, it is argued, need to collaborate more fully, overcoming disciplinary narrowness in order to achieve more fruitful research. (GLR)

Reports on a study which sought to identify and examine the effects of certain learning strategies--practice, monitoring, and inferencing--on second language learning. (AM)

Reports on an experiment designed to reveal how the learner's passive foreign language vocabulary is built up, what role the context plays, what kinds of learning strategies are involved, and whether a false competence results from these strategies. (IFS/WGA)

Different language sample elicitation techniques may be appropriate for different linguistic phenomena and for learners at different phases of acquisition. These techniques include elicited production, manipulation of given linguistic material (sentence combining, sentence completion), intuition and grammaticality judgment tests, introspection,…

Formal and functional similarities in a learner's first and second languages (L1 and L2) facilitate the perception of cross-linguistic equivalence between individual items (phonemes, morphemes, words, and phrases). The beginning foreign language learner makes frequent use of these perceived equivalences when he learns to understand L2 items. This…

Production data from a longitudinal study of seven children in their first attempts to produce words containing fricatives are presented to illustrate how children use four distinct strategies to approach this relatively difficult class of sounds. The strategies are: (1) favorite sounds--an approach used by a subject who seemed to enjoy playing…

Errors in second language learning are viewed as evidence of the learner's hypotheses and strategies about the new data. Error observation and analysis are important to the formulation of theories about language learning and the preparation of teaching materials. Learning a second language proceeds by a series of approximative reorganizations…

Drawing on recent psychological and neurological research on how individual differences might interact with learning a particular language, the study examines how psycholinguistic research and theory can help in assigning military personnel to language training and to a given language. Using the Defense Language Institute's Defense Language…

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"…