In this paper, we investigate the ability of Dutch agrammatic Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics to assign reference to possessive pronouns in elided VP constructions. The assumption is that the comprehension problems in these two populations have different sources that are revealed in distinct patterns of responses. The focus is primarily on the…

This annotated filmography includes titles selected for entertainment value, availability, and either the employment of a major character by a library, or at least one scene involving a major character in a library setting that is critical to the forward movement of the plot. (Contains 1 endnote.)

Effects of negative input for 13 categories of grammatical error were assessed in a longitudinal study of naturalistic adult-child discourse. Two-hour samples of conversational interaction were obtained at two points in time, separated by a lag of 12 weeks, for 12 children (mean age 2;0 at the start). The data were interpreted within the framework…

As an occasional visitor to the land of SLA, I found myself somewhat mystified by the approach of Truscott and Sharwood Smith (henceforth TSS). Unless I have totally misunderstood them, they are arguing against the separate existence of both a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and a Universal Grammar (UG). But who ever thought they were two?…

This contribution discusses findings and hypotheses from empirical data of naturally-occurring codeswitching. The discussion is framed by some comparisons of the approaches of contact linguists and psycholinguists to bilingual production data. However, it emphasizes the relevance of naturally-occurring codeswitching to the theoretical questions…

Seventy-seven 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children were presented with well-formed and ill-formed versions of 10 different sentence types. They were asked to judge the grammaticality of the sentences and correct the ill-formed ones. The sentences were presented in an interview format, developed by McDaniel and Cairns (1990, 1996). Both grammaticality…

Grammar is central to language description and a "posteriori" construct validation of language tests consistently identifies grammar as a significant factor in differentiating between score levels and characterizing overall proficiency. However, there is currently no model of grammatical competence robust enough to be operationalized in tests.…

Background: Clinical services in the UK are increasingly delivering "consultative" methods of intervention rather than "direct" intensive input for children with receptive and expressive language difficulties, yet there has been little systematic evaluation of these different intervention models. Aims: To investigate the…

Despite the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government's determination to implement the "mother tongue education" policy amid strong social resistance one year after the handover, English remains a prestigious language in society. The need for Putonghua (Mandarin/Standard Chinese) is also increasing following ever-expanding…

It is now generally agreed that "output" functions to promote language learning through focus on form. Empirical studies reveal that oral communicative tasks can arouse learners' negotiation of meaning, but they are not so effective in bringing about focus on form. Hence, researchers have suggested using collaborative writing tasks to…

The obligatory use of the preposition a with animate, specific direct objects in Spanish ("Juan conoce a Maria" "Juan knows Maria") is a well-known instance of Differential Object Marking (DOM; Torrego, 1998; Leonetti, 2004). Recent studies have documented the loss and/or incomplete acquisition of several grammatical features in Spanish heritage…

This article examines student attitudes towards and perceptions of technological activities in the language classroom. Data collected from students (n = 71) in the French language departments of five Canadian universities were used to examine which technological activities students preferred, whether and to what degree different activities were…

This exploratory study describes the instructional strategies and related activities a Grade 1 teacher and I used to promote engagements with informational texts in one rural Jamaican primary school. Some of the instructional strategies and activities were bridging connections from the known to the unknown, reading aloud to increase content…

This bibliography is intended for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who desire a convenient guide to linguistic scholarship in English, education, linguistics, and related areas. The listing is selective, but the compiler has tried to provide ample coverage of the major fields and topics, with emphasis on works published in the…

Every sentence conveys a temporal point of view through its aspectual meaning. This viewpoint arises through presenting a situation from a certain temporal perspective and indirectly classifying the situation as an exemplar of an idealized situation type. The information is conveyed by the aspectual categories of a language. This paper presents a…