The majority of L2 vocabulary studies concentrate on learning word meaning and provide learners with opportunities for semantic elaboration (i.e., focus on word meaning). However, in initial vocabulary learning, engaging in structural elaboration (i.e., focus on word form) with a view to acquiring L2 word form is equally important. The present…

Explanations for the well-documented second language (L2) learning challenge of the English regular past include verb semantics (Bardovi-Harlig, 2000), phonetic properties (Goad, White, & Steele, 2003), and frequency factors (Collins, Trofimovich, White, Cardoso, & Horst, 2009). Difficulty perceiving past-tense morphology (i.e., hearing…

This study investigated how listener experience (extent of previous exposure to non-native speech) and semantic context (degree and type of semantic information available) influence measures of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness of non-native (L2) speech. Participants were 24 native English-speaking listeners, half experienced…

Discusses the need to strengthen vocabulary teaching in second language instruction. Describes a methodology based on the model of lexicon proposed by structural semantics, and illustrates this methodology with exercises in French and Italian. (EKN)

The Spanish verb "haber" presents unresolved puzzles concerning its meaning and derivations. Apart from its familiar and recent function as auxiliary in the perfect tenses, the verb's underlying meaning "to have, to hold" persists in the impersonal "hay" while other morphemes previously associated with "haber" may prove unrelated. (Author/MSE)

Current colloquial use of the simple past and present perfect shows a tendency of the former to encroach on the semantic field of the latter so that the two may be used in free variation in many contexts. The contexts in which this is not possible are defined, and implications for teaching English as a second language are discussed. (MSE)

Suggests that second language learners could benefit from being made aware of the semantic components that unify verbs that display a certain syntactic behavior and the semantic components that exclude other verbs from participating in this behavior. Findings of a study in which production and judgment data on the behavior of "change of state" and…

In a review of two decades of vocabulary research, it is noted that vocabulary has moved from "poor relation" to "guest of honor" status in language teaching. Research areas include specialized bibliographies, vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary teaching, course materials, and lexicography. Future research directions are suggested, including…

Outlines an approach to vocabulary selection for computer-assisted language instruction that presents target language lexical items not as individual entities but as elements in a variety of semantic, morphological, morphosemantic, pragmatic, and interlinguistic relationships. (Author/MSE)

Illustrates one approach to presenting language as a reflection of culture, taking as a topic the marked tendency in French to use negative terms to express positive concepts. Negation in French becomes a fertile source of pedagogical activities since it allows reflection upon at least three points to help students go beyond the grammatical…

Investigates a pedagogical approach to identifying and bridging the gap between cultural prototypes in second language lexical meaning acquisition. Within the framework of prototype theory and a sociocultural perspective,argues that lexical meaning is culturally situated and the teaching and learning of a culturally loaded word may be achieved by…

Shows that the complexity level of metaphor interpretation in English is related much more strongly to age and developmental mental capacity than it is to proficiency in English. It is argued that exposure to relevant metaphors can help the second language learner to understand underlying concepts of the target culture. (53 references) (Author/CK)

Presents descriptions and examples of processes used by French-as-a-Second-Language instructors to teach vocabulary, reporting qualitative analyses of classroom transcripts and pedagogical materials used to teach. Teachers emphasized semantic aspects of lexis; lexical instruction in analytic and experiential classes was characterized by similar…

This study investigated sensitivity to morphological, semantic, and syntactic cues to grammatical gender among 64 students of college-level Italian. Results showed sensitivity to cues in word-final phonemes, but low awareness of gender associations of derivational suffixes. Students had more difficulty dealing with multiple cues, particularly when…

Presents a classification scheme for reading-related exercises advocated in English-as-a-Foreign-Language textbooks. The scheme proposes a hierarchy of the degree and type of mental processing required by various vocabulary exercises. The categories of classification are selective attention, recognition, manipulation, interpretation and…