This study investigated French and Spanish EFL (English as a foreign language) learners' preferred use of three-word lexical bundles with discourse or stance-oriented function with a view to exploring the role of first language (L1) frequency effects in foreign language acquisition. Word combinations were extracted from learner performance data…

In this article I provide evidence that despite frequently cited differences between child first language (L1) and adult second language (L2) speakers in overt behavior (performance) during grammatical development, the nature, source, and limits of implicit knowledge (competence) in native and second language grammars are equivalent (i.e., they…

Expands on a view of "Valueless Features"--which suggests that the second-language (L2) initial state is distinct from natural language grammars because transfer obliterates the values associated with features located under functional heads--by examining data on the L2 acquisition of English by speakers of German. Despite important differences…

This study investigated the use of nonnative function words in the written production of learners of Italian as a third or fourth language with English, Spanish, or French as native or nonnative languages. Results show the frequent use of the French subject pronoun il (he) in learners' texts. The rate of subject insertion and omission was thus…

Three studies comparing the respective roles of interlanguage universals and natural language transfer in determining learners' judgments of grammaticality used college students of French in their second, third, and fourth semesters as subjects. In the first experiment, the subjects were exposed to both grammatical and four types of ungrammatical…

A study investigated "lexical inventions" in the advanced oral French of 39 native Dutch-speakers, 32 of whom had French as a second language (L2) and English as a third language (L3), with the others having L2 English and L3 French. A higher proportion of lexical inventions produced by French L2 speakers derived from non-standard use of…

This contribution documents the strategies bi/plurilingual children spontaneously develop when confronted with a task that demands comprehension of texts in a third language. To illustrate these strategies in context, the paper draws from classroom interaction excerpts: small groups of children (ages 8-10) discover meaning in a text in a language…

A study investigated how skills involved in phonological processing (phonological awareness, verbal working memory, and lexical access) are related to reading achievement when a child learns to read in a language not spoken at home. Subjects were 151 English-speaking children in a French immersion program, initially in grades 1, 3, and 5 in 1995.…

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 the effects of systematic use of similarities between the native and second languages on the lexical competence of second language learners. Subjects were 209 first- and second-year English-speaking university students in French language classes. The students were pre- and post-tested for their visual recognition of…

A study of error patterns of Arabic-speaking learners of French at a Jordanian university revealed a negative influence of Arabic polysemic words on the learning and use of French vocabulary. It is recommended that second-language instruction make use of explicit instruction in vocabulary that, in the native language, has multiple meanings. (MSE)

Errors in the spoken French of immersion students, reflecting a fossilized interlanguage and language transfer, are attributed to an erroneous assumption underlying immersion instruction: that students acquire the second language in the same way they acquire their native language. An improved syllabus aimed at second-language learners is…

A collection of studies of second language acquisition in Swedish, Dutch, Spanish, French, German, and English is presented using a cross-linguistic perspective. The following topics are covered: (1) cross-linguistic first language perspectives on second language acquisition research; (2) use of typological markedness conditions in Swedish as…

Six papers on interlanguage are presented. The first, "Language Transfer," experimentally tests Robert Lado's contrastive analysis principles on the transfer of language skills to second language acquisition. The second paper, called "Interlanguage," builds on this work in discussing the structured nature of interlanguage and…

Defends the full transfer/full access (FT/FA) model, which hypothesizes that the initial state of second-language (L2) acquisition is the final state of L1 acquisition (full transfer) and failure to assign a representation to input data will force subsequent restructuring. The article considers two other competing hypotheses as well as several…