Reviews psycholinguistic research on second-language (L2) self-repair to date with particular attention to the relevance of this field for L2 production and acquisition. (Author/VWL)

Explored the effects of inherent task structure and processing load on narrative retelling task performance, analyzing task performance in terms of competition among fluency, complexity, and accuracy. Research with young adults found that degree of inherent task structure more strongly affected fluency of performance. Processing load influenced…

Examines oral-questionnaire data to assess the tenability of the hypothesis that Africa's language-endangerment situation is characterized by replacement of minority vernaculars with indigenous majority languages. Questionnaire items attended to evaluation accorded minority vernacular as well as language choice in home and non-home settings.…

To determine whether written spelling is superior to oral spelling for children in kindergarten through Grade 2, this study compared children's ability to spell real words and nonsense words orally and in writing. By first and second grade, written spellings were superior to oral spellings in both overall quality and representation of phonological…

Discusses the simplification of forms ending in obstruents by native speakers of Mandarin, in particular two effects that are not obviously motivated by either the native- or the target-language grammars: a tendency to devoice final voiced obstruents and a tendency to maximize the number of bisyllabic forms in the output. (Author/JL)

Examines nonnative-nonnative speaker interaction in English among novice-level Japanese native speakers, focusing on the ability to manage the kind of precision timing found in the turn-taking practices of native speakers. Emphasis is on the interactional competence of low-level nonnative speakers in an ability that is fundamental to the conduct…

Analyzes Spanish lexical data recorded in sociolinguistic interviews with Hispanic community members in Northwest Indiana. Examined how prevalent English is in the spoken Spanish of this community; what variety of Spanish is regarded prestigious; whether lexical forms establish the prestige dialect adopted by speakers of other dialects; the…

Explores the predictors of early mastery versus error in children's acquisition of American Sign Language. Hypothesizes that the most frequent values for a particular parameter in prelinguistic gesture will be the most frequent in early signs and the most likely sources of substitution when children make errors. (Author/VWL)

Written and spoken language samples for 13 students with hearing impairments (HI) attending special classes in Tel Aviv, Israel, and 9 normal hearing students were analyzed for grammatical deviations. HI students exhibited significantly more deviations in written than spoken language samples, especially failure to supply morphological markers,…

Investigates the use of pedagogically directed conversational shadowing, the partial to complete repetition by listeners of a speaker's utterances. Looks at conversational shadowing through transcripts between two Japanese learners of English talking with two English native speakers in mixed dyads in which they were instructed to shadow each…

Examines four different levels of development constituting writing as a technology for thinking. Discusses evolution (what speech affords thinkers), history (how text changed the collective construction of knowledge), ontogeny (how literacy affects the development of mind), and microgenesis (how writing facilitates thinking from moment to moment).…

Three studies were carried out that tested sign theory, which predicts that nonverbal abilities should correlate positively with primary language abilities. The first examined the possible effects of bilingualism on cognitive ability; the second and third examined Korean adults learning English as a foreign language. (Author/VWL)

Proposes a tool for communicative assessment that addresses the particular goals of the intermediate-level foreign language classroom. The Intermediate Group Role-Play, which induces students to practice the discourse strategies emergent at their level of performance, directs students to set up a "Wohngemeinschaft." The framework for this activity…

Describes a connectionist model accounting for newborn infants' ability to finely discriminate almost all human speech contrasts and the fact that their phonemic category boundaries are identical, even for phonemes outside their target language. The model posits an innately guided learning in which an artificial neural network is stored in a…

An oral practice system of "chats" in the classroom functions as an extemporaneous speaking exercise or chat (without notes or prompt sheets), occurring between two students for a minute or so at the beginning of class, following which the presenters respond to other students' questions. (CNP)