Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the latent dimensionality of language in dual language learners (DLLs) who spoke Spanish as their native language and were learning English as their second language. Method: Participants included 259 Spanish-English DLLs attending kindergarten. In the spring of their kindergarten year, children…

This study scrutinizes the development of negation in Turkish by analyzing of a monolingual Turkish-speaking child's speech between 28 to 32 months. The developmental progress of negative forms in parent-child exchanges is explained and presented with examples featuring a girl and her parents. The data has been obtained from the CHILDES database…

This study investigates the implicit sequence learning abilities of dyslexic children using an artificial grammar learning task with an extended exposure period. Twenty children with developmental dyslexia participated in the study and were matched with two control groups--one matched for age and other for reading skills. During 3 days, all…

The present study examines the tradeoff between the on-line construction of modifier-noun gender agreement and verb-subject person/number agreement vs. the automatization and entrenchment of agreement, through the study of bilingual speakers of Spanish and the Afro-Colombian creole language Palenquero, whose lexicon is highly cognate with Spanish,…

In Ireland, dyslexic students can apply for reasonable accommodations in Leaving Certificate examinations. One such accommodation is the Spelling and Grammar Waiver (SGW). Questions have been raised regarding its validity, and it has been suggested that it gives an unfair advantage. Mock Leaving Certificate English paper scripts were collected…

English-learning infants attend to lexical stress when learning new words. Attention to lexical stress might be beneficial for word learning by providing an indication of the grammatical class of that word. English disyllabic nouns commonly have trochaic (strong-weak) stress, whereas English disyllabic verbs commonly have iambic (weak-strong)…

While scholars in the field of writing studies have examined scientific writing from multiple perspectives, interest in its thematic structure has been modest. Recent studies suggest that the themes in scientific writing tend to be anchored on one or a few points of departure. There has also been an attempt at quantification using the…

This study focuses on the investigation of frequency and distribution of the active, passive sentences and nominalized structures in new reports about "the terrorist attack in Ankara on October 10th" (2015) across British and American newspapers. In the light of this purpose, the following research questions are addressed: 1. How is the…

The Spanish mood contrast is a good test case for research on acquiring form-meaning connections in contexts where input is variable and multiple areas of the grammar are implicated (e.g., syntax, semantics, pragmatics). Nevertheless, research on interpretation of this contrast lags and little is known about how individual lexical items and…

Purpose: The study aims to explore whether finite verbal morphology is affected in children/adolescents with Down syndrome (DS), whether observed deficits in this domain are indicative of a delayed or deviant development, and whether they are due to phonetic/phonological problems or deficits in phonological short-term memory. Method: An…

From the invention of the alphabet to the explosion of the internet, Dominic Wyse takes us on a unique journey into the process of writing. Starting with seven extraordinary examples that serve as a backdrop to the themes explored, it pays particular attention to key developments in the history of language, including Aristotle's grammar through…

The present research represents a longitudinal investigation into Mobile Instant Messaging to develop second language skills. WhatsApp application was selected as the chat-based communication tool to carry out this study, which focuses on writing and speaking skills' development. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to tackle students…

This book presents a set of compelling essays collectively making a persuasive case for why a usage-based perspective on language is fast becoming a leading theoretical framework for investigating second language (L2) learning and the foundation for effective, innovative, engaging pedagogy. Drawing on 20 years of research in psychology,…

Models of language learning often assume that we learn from all the input we receive. This assumption is particularly strong in the domain of short-term and long-term grammatical convergence, where researchers argue that grammatical convergence is mostly an automatic process insulated from social factors. This article shows that the degree to…

The so-called depth charge sentences (e.g., "no head injury is too trivial to be ignored") were investigated in a comprehension experiment measuring both whether participants understood the stimuli and how certain they were of their interpretation. The experiment revealed that three factors influence the difficulty of depth charge type…