Interlanguage studies in second language acquisition and language for speciic purposes (LSP), though developed independently, often use the same data and could benefit from mutual interaction. Related issues for future research are presented. Contents of articles in this issue are reviewed. (Author/LMO)

Describes one aspect of a Welsh/English bilingual child being raised in England. The father is a native speaker of Welsh, and the mother has learned Welsh in order to speak it to her son. The father accommodates both the mother's and the child's linguistic errors. Areas of accommodation are identified and possible reasons discussed. (Author/LMO)

Analysis of basilang speech (in terms of word order, reference to time, and reference to space) of Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese speakers of English as a second language indicated that oriental subjects tended not to use prepositions and that Spanish-speaking subjects tended to use "in" to express most locative meanings. (Author/CB)

Compares Italian native language instruction and instruction in English and French as a second language and discusses how the similarities may be used to improve the effectiveness of language teaching. (MSE)

This study investigated language transfer, particularly in the realm of pragmatics, in a native Korean-speaking student of advanced Japanese. A series of tasks including a verbal report were used to elicit Japanese production and comprehension data. Results indicate that the learner drew heavily on his native language in completing the tasks, but…

An analysis of the English word stress placement of six native Arabic speakers and six native English speakers studying Arabic revealed that, while most of the native English subjects produced the expected word stress, the Arab subjects placed stress on English words in conformity with Arabic stress patterns. (CB)

Describes a study conducted to test the hypothesis that focused conversations with native speakers held on a weekly basis will contribute to the development of learners' internal grammars of Spanish. This study centered on college students as they developed an appreciation of the different contexts requiring the preterite or the imperfect tense…

Studies the role played by native language transfer and task formality in the second-language acquisition of the Spanish voiced stop phonemes /b d g/ and their spirantized variants to identify specific problems affecting learners. Results indicate that native language transfer markedly inhibits acquisition of the voiced spirants. (21 references)…

Summaries of five language-related research projects are presented from Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Topics include teaching/learning Bahasa Malaysia; English-language programs in Malaysian teacher education colleges; interlanguage variability in verbs; reading/writing theories; and cross-cultural strategies and English in written business…

Discusses how second-language learners whose first languages contain an article system differ in their acquisition of English articles from learners whose first languages do not contain such a system. Reviews the approach of Mizuno's (1988) interlanguage analysis for uncovering the process in second-language acquisition, and summarizes findings of…

The effect of the presence of cafeteria noise on the perception of native English and Mandarin-accented speech was assessed in a sentence-verification task and a sentence-transcription task. The outcomes of both tasks indicated strong adverse effects of noise on the intelligibility of many of the accented utterances. (Author/JL)

The notion that acquisition of a second language may be influenced by transfer of typological features from the first language is discussed, focusing on the role of topic-prominence in the interlanguage stages of a native Cantonese-speaker learning English. First, the topic-prominent surface structure manifestations in oral Cantonese are examined.…

If teacher education is to train second language teachers to be principled practitioners, it is essential to resist the attraction of panaceas and recipe-type solutions to instructional problems, and to promote teachers' better understanding of what constitutes successful language learning. Second language acquisition (SLA) research, both applied…

This article examines the phenomenon of fossilization in second language (SL) learning and instruction, discussing this process as a form of simplification. Fossilization occurs when particular linguistic forms become permanently established in the interlanguage of SL learners in a form that is deviant from the target language norm and that…

In linguistic analysis of the speech act, the data used to support theoretical conclusions are too often comprised of semantically isolated utterances of the ideal speaker-hearer. In reality, one of the most revealing kinds of data is imperfect data, where the functioning language processes are often unmasked. The study of first language…