We have documented the significant presence of spontaneous and productive use of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in the speech of five Tunisian boys with autism, an unusual phenomenon. In typical development, MSA is not fully acquired before the late school years. The Arabic language in Tunisia is in a state of diglossia, and (unlike the colloquial…

This study investigated how standard and substandard varieties of first language (L1) Dutch affect grammatical gender assignments to nouns in second language (L2) German. While German distinguishes between masculine, feminine, and neuter gender, the masculine--feminine distinction has nearly disappeared in Standard Dutch. Many substandard Belgian…

The study sought to examine the effect of lexical aspect and narrative discourse structure on the pattern of acquisition and use of English verbal morphology exhibited by creole-speaking students. Findings indicated that the emergent pattern of morphology in the creole participants' written interlanguage appeared to be influenced not only by…

Originally appeared in Workpapers: Teaching English as a Second Language," Volume 5 (June 1971), Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles, California. (VM)

Conducted experiment to determine how the presence of sandhi-variation, a common characteristic of spoken English that reduces the perceptual saliency of many of its features, affects the comprehensibility of English unit. Results indicated that sandhi-variation is an important input-intake filter for English learners but not for those whose…

It is widely believed that listeners understand some dialects more easily than others, although there is very little research that has rigorously measured the effects. This study investigated whether listeners experience more difficulty with regional, ethnic, and international dialects of English than with Standard American English. The results…

An English discourse completion questionnaire consisting of 60 situations designed to elicit suggestions in English was administered to 28 native speakers of Chinese or Malay and to 12 native speakers of American English. Non-native speakers of English were more direct in their responses. Native and non-native speakers significantly differed in…

Patterns of foreign language retention among young children who have been removed from a language contact situation for a period of time are studied. (PP)

Raises three questions concerning the present state of second-language acquisition research: (1) What has it achieved for language teaching? (2) How close is a theory of second-language acquisition? (3) What is its status within the chorus of disciplines that deal with language? (Author/JL)