Situated within the recent new wave of second language acquisition studies investigating the acquisition of sociolinguistic variation, this article draws on a longitudinal database of advanced French interlanguage to explore a number of issues that have not yet been extensively investigated. They concern the issue of individual variation in the…

The present study explores the use of conjunctions in simple versus complex argumentative tasks performed by second language (L2) learners as a specific measure for the amount of reasoning involved in task performance. The Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2005) states that an increase in cognitive task complexity promotes improvements in L2…

This study compared first and second language (L1/L2) reading rate and task performance on five tasks (scanning, skimming, normal reading, learning, memorizing) in two groups of Mandarin speakers (Canada group, China group). A repeated measures ANOVA design was used with one between-subject factor (Group), two within-subject factors (Language,…

Discusses how native speakers of Spanish, accustomed to dealing with nonnative Spanish speakers, evaluated 18 taped nonnative speech samples that provided a wide sample of pronunciation. Comprehensibility, voice agreeability/ disagreeability, and nativeness of accent were rated. (32 references) (LB)

Focuses on whether university students studying a foreign language at an American university use the same processes and writing strategies in foreign language and first language writing in two different genres (letter and article). Using a computerized tracking device, individual writing sessions were analyzed through statistical techniques and…