This dissertation provides a language processing perspective on the study of second language acquisition (SLA) of tense and aspect. Of special interest are the universal vis-a-vis language-specific dimensions of temporal and aspectual semantics involved. According to the Aspect Hypothesis (AH, e.g. Andersen & Shirai, 1994), the initial…

In Native American communities, the "global here and now" (Appadurai, 2001) is linked to twin movements for standardization and English supremacy, resulting in the decline of Indigenous languages and persistent educational disparities. This article takes up Appadurai's call to democratize research on globalization, juxtaposing theories that…

It has been proposed that external interfaces are vulnerable to residue optionality, whereas pure syntax and internal interfaces are acquirable in second language (L2) acquisition (Sorace, 2005, 2011; Sorace and Filiaci, 2006). The proposal was tested in this article through the interpretation of overt and null embedded arguments in L2 Chinese…

Academic literacies research has tended to focus on writers in context, while systemic functional linguistic research has tended to focus on texts in context. While literacy practices and written texts may be usefully analysed independently, this paper describes how an investigation of genres of academic writing in the BAWE (British Academic…

The central goal of this dissertation is to explore the relative perceptibility of vowel epenthesis in English onset clusters by second language learners whose native language is averse to onset clusters. The dissertation examines how audible vowel epenthesis in different onset clusters is, whether this perceptibility varies from one cluster to…

The present paper based on extensive fieldwork D conducted on Kalasha, an endangered language spoken in the three small valleys in Chitral District of Northwestern Pakistan, exposes a spontaneous dialogue-based elicitation of linguistic material used for the description and documentation of the language. After a brief display of the basic typology…

We examined the roles of metacognitive awareness of reading strategies, syntactic awareness in English, and English vocabulary knowledge in the English reading comprehension of Chinese-speaking university students (n = 278). Results suggested a two-factor model of a General Reading Knowledge factor (metacognitive awareness employed during the…

The dominant approach to research in learning disabilities utilizes experimental and quasi-experimental designs to identify the most effective instructional strategies for students with learning disabilities. Research is always undertaken from a point of view, yet the discourse on "what works?" is generally silent on how theoretical frameworks…

The present article examines discourses on bilingualism in French immersion schools and connects local ideologies of bilingualism to a more global view of what it means to be bilingual in Canada. Bilingualism is usually regarded as two isolated monolingualisms (or monolingual systems) in which there is no place for code-switching, uneven language…

The current study investigates the limited attainment of adult language acquisition in terms of an associative learning phenomenon whereby earlier learned cues attentionally block those that are experienced later. Short- and long-term blocking are demonstrated in experimental investigations of learned attention in the acquisition of temporal…

What do students and teachers believe about the second language learning process? What if these beliefs are in conflict with each other or with prevailing applied linguistic theories? These are the types of questions that are investigated within folk linguistic research. Some researchers have taken a quantitative approach that relied on…

The present article addresses the following question: what variables condition syntactic transfer? Evidence is provided in support of the position that third language (L3) transfer is selective, whereby, at least under certain conditions, it is driven by the typological proximity of the target L3 measured against the other previously acquired…

As an area of research that continues to develop, the study of linguistics worldwide presents the opportunity for the improvement of cross-cultural communication through education and research. Language educators are charged with the task of instructing students to effectively communicate across cultures in a multi-lingual world. The…

This dissertation addresses the extent to which linguistic behavior can be described in terms of the projection of patterns from existing lexical items, through an investigation of Korean reduplication. Korean has a productive pattern of reduplication in which a consonant is inserted in a vowel-initial base, illustrated by forms such as "alok"--"t…

I provide an update on the state of the art of the research--the last one being Collentine (2003)--on the acquisition of the function of the subjunctive and mood selection, as well as the research's implications for pedagogy. The article considers what we currently know about the role of universal grammar, psycholinguistic perspectives on the…