Focuses on a single rule of grammar to produce evidence of a memory system for language acquisition and processing that is modular; independent of real-world meaning; unaffected by frequency and similarity; sensitive to formal distinctions; more sophisticated than the explicitly-taught rules it subsumes; developed independently of ambient input;…

Hyperfluency, defined as discourse that is inappropriate and incompetent in the target audience's estimation, and its relationship to composition pedagogy are discussed. It is argued that hyperfluency can signal the growth of an individual's linguistic resources. (16 references) (Author/LB)

Presents evidence for a theory that children learning Russian at a certain age know a syntactic principle that governs the distribution of pronouns, but that they do not know a pragmatic or semantic principle that restricts the situations in which noun phrases may be contraindexed. (Contains 48 references.) (JP)

Some 147 teaching assistants responded to the Survey of First Year Graduate Teaching Assistants in French, part of which focused on handling typical student questions on grammar. Analysis suggests that TAs do not conceptualize language according to the model of communicative competence proposed by Canale and Swain. (36 references) (LB)

Research is reported on the growing English Language Teaching (ELT) literature that sheds new light on components of the diffusion process in one ELT context: the U.S. intensive English program. Findings highlight a new set of perspectives on the role of perceived attributes of ELT innovations. (42 references) (Author/LB)

Investigates the relationship between overall comprehension and the comprehension of coreferential ties for second-language readers of Spanish literature. Significant correlations between overall comprehension and coreferent identification indicate that coreferential tie errors may be symptomatic of confusion about another entity in the text. (42…

Describes historical and current usage of Indo-Portuguese creoles in the Indian areas of Diu, Daman, and Korlai, examining such extralinguistic forces propelling language transition as social, cultural, developmental, and situational factors, and the nature of lexical and structural borrowing. (48 references) (CB)

In an examination of power in speech, the linguistic practices of Japanese men and women giving directions to subordinates were studied. Explanations of gender differences are discussed in terms of a general theory of politeness and the culturally specific strategies for encoding politeness and authority in Japanese. (43 references) (Author/LB)

Terrell's Natural Approach to second-language learning is examined in terms of the degree of acceptance or rejection of his pedagogic views since they were first presented in 1977. Among the issues discussed are his attitudes toward grammar, error correction, and the evolution of educational materials and classroom practices. (205 references)…

Discusses the Kingsman Report (Department of Education and Science, London) on teaching English in Britain, and considers its relevance for teaching English in other countries. The many kinds of English, the labels given to them, and the centrality of the standard language are briefly reviewed. (JL)

The bilingual discourse strategy of alternating languages as language game boundaries is examined, and language alternation is argued to be one of the features of bilingual discourse according to which speakers negotiate where one language game ends and the next one begins. The iconicity of the patterns of language alternation (discourse,…

In-depth analysis of a large corpus of English and German beginning consonant and syllable stress errors revealed that claims regarding these errors can not be replicated for Spanish, leading to the development of hypotheses focusing on Spanish as a pre-final-stress and syllable-timed language. (38 references) (Author/CB)

Examines the distribution and productivity of different linguistic structures and patterns in one target language, French, and shows why this information is important when deciding the linguistic content of French second-language textbooks. (33 references) (GLR)

Four short-term British Council Key English Language Teaching (KELT) tertiary education projects in South India were evaluated. The resulting evaluation model incorporated four outcome criteria for success and four input indicators. Recommendations for future policy are offered. (three references) (Author/LB)

Pronunciation is reexamined from a "top-down" perspective that shifts the focus of attention in language instruction from individual phonemes to suprasegmentals and other features of the larger context of utterances, including prosody, phonological fluency, voice quality, and gestures. (57 references) (Author/LB)