Details BootLex, a model using distributional cues to build a lexicon and achieving significant segmentation results with English, Japanese, and Spanish; child- and adult-directed speech, and written text; and variations in coding structure. Compares BootLex with three groups of computational models of the infant segmentation process. Discusses…

This paper explores patterns of language that construct causal reasoning in history textbooks used in the U.S. Two representative passages are analyzed to show how causality can be realized both explicitly and implicitly, and how the resources of the language contribute to highlighting some causal factors and downplaying others, particularly…

This cross-cultural discourse analysis examines the construction of environmental issues on Greenpeace web pages in China, Japan and Germany. To uncover the semantic representation of environmental activism on these sites, the authors sought to identify discursive homogeneity and divergence and to bring to light embedded cultural assumptions. The…

Discourse intonation attempts to explain how intonation patterns in English affect the communicative value of speech, through the use of falling and rising tones along with changes in pitch. The teaching of intonation seems to sit naturally with communicative language learning, but it is not an easy aspect of English to incorporate into the EFL…

In this article we examine language processing and development in Catalan or Spanish-speaking children with SLI, focusing on the study of the verb. We analyse the key initial phase of its process of acquisition and aim to define common features of the SLI group that distinguish them from children with normal language development. We intend to…

Writing and speaking are clearly related activities, but the acts of production are different. To what extent are the underlying processes shared? This paper reports three experiments that use syntactic priming to investigate whether writing and speaking use the same mechanisms to construct syntactic form. People tended to repeat syntactic form…

Recently, there has been increased attention to the development of complex syntax by children with language disorder. An example is the work of Schuele and Nicholls and Schuele and Tolbert who describe the acquisition of relative clauses by a group of children with SLI. The current paper presents data from 66 children with language impairment,…

This paper draws from social science literature on Whiteness and anti-racism as well as personal classroom experience to examine the obstacles educators face in teaching anti-racism to White college students. Emphasis is placed on popular perceptions and common definitions of the word "racism" as it is used in mainstream American society. The…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to differentiate effects of phonotactic probability, the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence, and neighborhood density, the number of words that sound similar to a given word, on adult word learning. A second purpose was to determine what aspect of word learning (viz., triggering learning, formation…

For this article we aimed to understand the emergence of English as a second language for a newly immigrated Mexican student, a native speaker of Spanish, enrolled in a mainstream kindergarten classroom, who was undergoing the "silent period" (Krashen, 1981). Applying ecological approaches that emphasize learners in relationship with their…

This paper analyzes the use of a special type of unspecific noun, called "shell nouns" [Hunston, S., & Francis, G. (1999). "Pattern grammar". Amsterdam: Benjamins; Schmid, H. (2000). "English abstract nouns as conceptual shells: From corpus to cognition". Berlin: Walter de Gruyter], which are frequently used as cohesive devices, in the written…

Analysis of how word-final "m" in Spanish is pronounced in various distributional situations. The major tendency is for it to become an "n" except before "p" and "b" when it is pronounced as bilabial sonorant "m." (Text is in Spanish.) (TL)

This column examines the term "variable rules," which accounts for patterning in language. Variable rules can show variation in the structural description and/or in the process involved in the rule. (SW)

Discusses three different patterns of restrictive and non-restrictive prepositional relative clauses--their functions, variations and permitted uses. (CK)