Notwithstanding the voluminous literature devoted to research genres, more investigation needs to be conducted to demonstrate the pedagogical significance of studying linguistic features in relation to communicative functions. Motivated by a concern for the pedagogical applicability of genre analysis, this paper investigates the extent to which…

Understanding the mechanisms learners use to process target language input is crucial to developing a complete model of both first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition. If adult L2 learners are found to process the target language with mechanisms that differ from those used by child L1 learners and adult native speakers, what…

We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate the contributions of explicit and implicit processes during second language (L2) sentence comprehension. We used a L2 grammaticality judgment task (GJT) to test 20 native English speakers enrolled in the first four semesters of Spanish while recording both accuracy and ERP data. Because…

Moroccan Arabic has two competing syntactic constructions for possessive marking: a synthetic one and an analytic one. The distribution of these constructions is investigated in semi-spontaneous narratives (frog stories) from four Moroccan cities and from the diaspora community in the Netherlands. This distribution is found to depend very much on…

Although child maltreatment has often been described as leading to language deficits, the few well-controlled investigations of language acquisition in maltreated children have focused on language content rather than form, or have used qualitative rather than quantitative measures. This study examines syntactic complexity in 19 maltreated and 14…

As an official language of newly-independent East Timor, the public role of Tetun has increased markedly since 1999. Its use is, however, hampered by a shortage of agreed, well-understood, technical terminology. This paper reports on a project by the Independent Electoral Commission and the United Nations Development Programme to develop a…

This paper describes the interoperability underpinning a new strategy for delivering accessible computer-based resources to individual learners based on their specified needs and preferences in the circumstances in which they are operating. The new accessibility strategy, known as "AccessForAll," augments the model of universal…

Although there is considerable variability, most individuals with Down syndrome have mental retardation and speech and language deficits, particularly in language production and syntax and poor speech intelligibility. This article describes research findings in the language and communication development of individuals with Down syndrome, first…

This study sought to determine the extent of the serial position effect in listening to French and to specify the relationship between problem areas in listening to French and the position effect. The study addressed three hypotheses relative to the serial position effect and listening to French: (1) Was there a significant difference between the…

This paper reports the results of an experiment with 21 Italian children (age 2;8-5;11) and 29 U.S. children (age 2;7-5;9) who were tested on their knowledge of verb raising to C in main WH-questions, an obligatory movement process in adult Italian and English. Along the lines of recent movement and feature checking theories, it is proposed that,…

Dimensions of word meaning are examined, and a framework for describing and teaching Chinese words in the context of Chinese second language instruction is offered. It is argued that every word has limitations of usage that must be understood before it can be used appropriately. The limitations, or dimensions, include these: connotative (emotional…

In a study with seventh- and eighth-graders, Spanish-English bilinguals (n=41) and English monolinguals (n=48) used brief English contexts to choose among possible meanings for unfamiliar words. Two types of errors were compared: transfer errors, which were answers consistent with Spanish but not English syntax, and non-transfer errors, which were…

A study investigated whether children and adolescents use commas and the principle of Late Closure to guide sentence parsing decisions as adults do in processing syntactically ambiguous sentences. The study consisted of three experiments, conducted similarly but with different subject groups: 24 university students; 24 fourth-graders; and 19…

This final report describes an effective, computer-based method of communicating new syntactic knowledge to students with deafness. "Choosing AVMs," the first intervention developed on the Macintosh computer, used advanced visual markers (AVMs) (icons) to communicate the essence of the syntactical structure to be taught by: (1) capturing…

Spoken narratives as a genre usually show literary stylistic features. Written/literary registers are characterized by lexical density whereas spoken/colloquial genres are characterized by the complex combination of simple clauses into clause complexes. It has been observed that when aiming at informationally dense speech, people often hesitate…