Learning language requires acquiring the grammatical categories of words in the language, but learning those categories requires understanding the role of words in the syntax. In this study, we examined how this chicken and egg problem is resolved by learners of an artificial language comprising nouns, verbs, adjectives, and case markers following…

We examined theory of mind (ToM; mental state understanding) and language in children with epilepsy (EP; n = 10; mean age = 9.92, SD = 2.34) and with typical development (TD; n = 20; mean age = 10.05, SD = 2.08). The EP group demonstrated worse ToM compared to the TD group (t(28) = -1.11, p = 0.28, d = 0.44) but differences did not persist when…

Referential expressions (REs) have been investigated in L2 English but to date there is no single study that systematically and simultaneously analyzes the development and acquisition of the multiple factors that constrain the choice of REs in natural discourse production. We investigate L1 Spanish-L2 English learners across three proficiency…

Purpose: The results of automatic machine scoring of the Index of Productive Syntax from the Computerized Language ANalysis (CLAN) tools of the Child Language Data Exchange System of TalkBank (MacWhinney, 2000) were compared to manual scoring to determine the accuracy of the machine-scored method. Method: Twenty transcripts of 10 children from…

Purpose: This study evaluated the efficacy of an explicit, combined metalinguistic training and grammar facilitation intervention aimed at improving regular past tense marking for nine children aged 5;10-6;8 (years;months) with developmental language disorder. Method: This study used an ABA across-participant multiple-baseline single-case…

The present study investigates the frequently used speech acts related to positive and negative politeness techniques employed in requests and apologies by faculty members at King Abdulaziz University. Social interaction on University Campus reflects Hejazi culture located in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia. The significance of the study arises…

The current paper aims to search and summarise the current literature on the linguistic aspect of the Orang Asli languages in Malaysia. Following the PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), a systematic review was conducted with a particular focus on three main groups of the Orang Asli in Peninsular…

Syntax, or sentence structure, plays a role in reading comprehension, but how students draw on their awareness of syntax in their reading remains unclear; the mechanism is even more ambiguous in bilingual students. In this study, we evaluated the direct and indirect contributions of syntactic awareness on first-language Chinese and second-language…

In this article we identify ways to scaffold content-specific instruction to support your multilingual learners' academic language development. With the definition that academic language compromises of vocabulary, linguistic functions, and syntax, we share ways to integrate three instructional practices across your instruction. These practices…

The article, "morphosyntactic peculiarities of the speech of children with Down's syndrome", treats, important aspects of the study of two adjacent branches of linguistics, namely, psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics-Language development of the child accompanied by speech disorders, on the other hand, those morphosyntactic features…

While most research on scalar implicature has focused on the lexical scale "some" vs "all," here we investigated an understudied scale formed by two syntactic constructions: categorizations (e.g., "Wilma is a nurse") and comparisons ("Wilma is like a nurse"). An experimental study by Rubio-Fernandez et al.…

This study investigates the differential effects of a task-based inside-school intervention and an outside-school project intervention on the development of speaking skills of 56 beginner second language (L2)-learners. The study extends previous research by looking at development across multiple occasions instead of two (i.e., a pretest and…

This study seeks to investigate the relationship between text formality and writing quality by quantifying text formality in EFL English writing. In order to conduct the research, 548 English argumentation compositions were evaluated in terms of the five Coh-Metrix text formality dimensions: narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness,…

We conducted a broad-coverage investigation of the effects of syntactic distance and word order on language processing against a dependency-annotated reading time corpus of English. A combined method of quantitative syntax and psycholinguistic analyses was adopted to yield converging evidence. It was found that (i) head-initial structures allow…

Purpose: This tutorial describes how a speech-language pathologist (SLP) might incorporate writing-based principles into therapy sessions to target a variety of speech and language goals for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children in addition to writing. We present an illustrative example of one SLP's experience implementing Strategic and…