Responds to an Ellis (2002), which focuses on frequency in language processing, language use, and language acquisition, Emphasizes the importance of placing frequency in an overarching theoretical framework of language acquisition. (Author/VWL)

Investigated the psychological factors that affect access to metalinguistic knowledge in second language (L2) production. A verbalization task was used to assess the metalinguistic knowledge about target uses and a judgment test was administered to determine relative prototypicality of these uses of 64 adult Chinese learners of English.…

Addresses the difficulties second language learners have using articles properly by examining the metalinguistic knowledge of the English article system that learners employ when selecting articles in a given situation. Attempts to better understand the process of "making sense" of the English article system by learners who are at different stages…

Focusing on mother-child verbal interactions in two different contexts, Estonian mothers were videotaped with their 6-year-old children during mealtime and puzzle solving and were asked to fill in a questionnaire on collectivistic attitudes. Results showed mothers' frequency in engaging children in conversation was not related to children's…

Revisits Felix's (1988) and Birdsong's (1994) theories regarding universal grammar. Birdsong's criticism of Felix is upheld by consideration of a statistical model of the data. (Author/VWL)

Suggests that language change is driven by acquisition and argues that the triggers for establishing the properties of language-specific grammars differ according to whether first language or second language acquisition is involved. Presents two case studies of Mozambican African Portuguese, a nonnative variety of Portuguese acquired during…

A cross-modal priming task was used to investigate the role that a word's imageability and its form class play on the time-course with which word meanings are activated. Presents visual target words for lexical decision at different points through the duration of spoken primes. (Author/VWL)

Analyzes the thematic structure of the method and Discussion section of biology research articles. A corpus of 30 journal articles was analyzed using the categories of systematic functional linguistics and a semantic categorization for unmarked themes realized by subject. Revealed differences in the semantic construction of the sections. (VWL)

Overviews current theory and practice and research on second language and second dialect speakers and the language of the law. Suggests most of the studies on the topic have analyzed language in courtrooms, where access to data is much easier than in other legal settings, such as police interviews, mediation sessions, or lawyer-client interviews.…

Acquisition of negation in Italian as a second language (L2) is investigated on the basis of the longitudinal data of five learners with different first languages in the framework of a functional approach focusing on the semantic and pragmatic principles governing the organization of learner varieties and the process of their complexification.…

Attempts to overcome methodological problems in studies of vocabulary size. Problems occur when trying to answer the following three questions: (1) how do we decide what to count as words; (2) how do we choose what words to test; and (3) how do we test the chosen words? (31 references) (Author/VWL)

Examines the work of two scholars who have made the greatest contributions to the variabilist perspective on second-language acquisition, and discusses the acquisition models that each of these scholars has proposed. (50 references) (Author/VWL)

A review of the status of research on literacy concludes that vagueness and ambiguity of definition, measurement, methodology, and evaluation continue to grip the large body of literacy research, debates, and programs, with the underlying assumptions made about the concept of monolingual societies resulting in overly simplified and speculative…

Reviews psycholinguistic theories on the relationship between structure and function in language production. Criticizes the theory that sentence structures are reducible to the general forces of cognition that drive interpretation and communication. Argues that syntactic structures are necessary elements in an explanation of language use. (FMW)

The differential usage of negative forms in French and English is analyzed. French-speakers tend to use negatives often, as in negative questions and impersonal phrases. Study of translations also shows that many words with a positive equivalent in French are translated by a negative word or phrase. (five references) (Author/MSE)