Provides an overview of the nature of different types of signed languages and offers a detailed discussion of the research currently available with respect to South African Sign Language. (Author/VWL)

Reviews the age factor in second language learning. Sketches some of the relevant research findings that have emerged in the last three decades and hones in on the results recently published on age-related research. Concludes with a discussion of whether there is an age factor in second language learning. (Author/VWL)

Offers comments on an earlier article on age and second language learning, and questions the authors' of that article's interpretation of the research they reviewed. The authors of the original article respond to these comments and questions. (Author/VWL)

Presents the second part of a two-part annotated bibliography of work on extensive reading in a second language. The bibliography offers a classification that may be of value to the teacher or researcher in reading in a foreign language, and that may assist in course development. (Author/VWL)

Discusses some of the distinctive features of topic termination/transition sequences in conversation with which figurative closings are associated, focusing on how they reflect the participants' orientation to their moving to new topics. Interactional use of figurative expressions is considered in contexts where their use fails to secure topical…

To determine whether triage--which determines the probable revisability of a structure--is a feature of human parsing, its scope must be established. This study compares four hypotheses about how much work triage can do. Identifies empirical predictions that differentiate diagnosis with triage from simple basic diagnosis. What little evidence…

This commentary on a research study by Santiago et al. (2000) suggests that a reanalysis of the data that takes word length into account leads to a conclusion that is the opposite of what the study found. (Author/VWL)

Responds to a commentary written in response a research study conducted by the author (Santiago et al., 2000) that suggests that a reanalysis of the data on syllable structure effects that takes word length into account leads to a conclusion that is the opposite of what the study found. (Author/VWL)

Examines criticisms of the teaching of comprehension, especially from adherents of the critical pedagogy approach. Such criticism may take the position that teaching comprehension unduly restricts the range of possible interpretations to text. (Author/VWL)

Examines the concept and practice of returning linguistic favors to host research communities, the so-called "linguistic gratuity principle" (Wolfram,1993). Uses a case study format as the basis for scrutinizing researcher-community relationships. Presents research from the post-insular dialect community of Ocracoke Island in North…

Assesses the contributions made by different approaches to interlanguage pragmatics as a subfield of second language acquisition. Discusses how four particular perspectives on pragmatic development relate to each other. (Author/VWL)

In this response to Pinker and Jackendoff's critique, we extend our previous framework for discussion of language evolution, clarifying certain distinctions and elaborating on a number of points. In the first half of the paper, we reiterate that profitable research into the biology and evolution of language requires fractionation of ''language''…

Persian Languages is one of the widespread branches of Indo-European languages that for long have comprised several important languages. The importance of these languages which lies in the strength of Median, Achamenian, Parthian, and Sasanid Empires during different eras caused a number of researchers to increase their studies about these…

In recent years, a number of researchers in the field of second language acquisition have voiced discontent regarding the tendency of second language acquisition (SLA) research to be conducted within a framework of cognitive science (Firth and Wagner, 1997; Atkinson, 2002; Johnson, 2004). Watson-Gegeo (2004) expresses this same discontent, and…

In this article we compare five groups of learners acquiring Dutch gender as marked on determiners and adjectival inflection. Groups of L1 (first language) children and L1-SLI (first-language specific-language-impairment) children are compared to three Turkish-Dutch L2 (second language) groups: adult L2, child L2 and child L2-SLI. Overall, our…