The definition of "orthographic neighbors" in word recognition research was analyzed in two experiments using a variety of the three-field technique. Only orthographically related pairs differing from the prime by the third or fourth letter showed inhibitory relatedness effects compared with unrelated word condition. Results suggest…

Discusses the need to incorporate form-focused activities into second-language communication instruction, and suggests pedagogical strategies for doing so. Provides examples of tasks that may help realize this goal. Examines relevant empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such tasks. (Author/MSE)

Provides examples illustrating that the study of technologically-mediated communication, if approached from an ethnographic perspective, draws attention to old questions of interactional patterning in what may be radically new contexts of communication. Notes a central issue to be explored, that of the implications of formulating the notion of…

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)

Examined the processes by which children interpret homonyms. Participants were 2-and 3-year olds, 4-year olds, 7-year olds, and 10-year olds. Each child was asked individually to interpret keywords from stories read aloud by the examiner. Keywords were homonyms, nonsense words, or unambiguous words. (Author/VWL)

Examines claims made by Sokolik and Smith (1992) about a connectionist model of acquisition of French gender attribution by reference to various results gained through a number of extensions to their network model. These results suggest a degree of caution in accepting Sokolik and Smith's conclusions.(Author/VWL)

Introduces the fundamental characteristics of corpus-based research and illustrates such research with a study of a complex grammatical feature in English: linking adverbials (i.e., connecting expressions such as "therefore" and "in other words"). Shows that corpus-based research is useful even with features that cannot be…

Examines the relationship of second-language-learning patterns and experience to the acquisition of automatized processing skills in the morphological domain. Finds that Russian-speaking undergraduate students were significantly less accurate and slower than the English-speaking students at a naming task, and less impaired by experimental…

Conceptualizes a framework for conducting critical classroom-discourse analysis. Critiques the scope and method of current models of classroom-interaction analysis and classroom-discourse analysis and advocates using poststructuralist and postcolonialist understandings of discourse to develop a critical framework for understanding what actually…

Provides an overview of research over the last 35 years concerning study abroad participants' perceptions of language and language learning, the role of the language classroom, influence of the social environment, and the study abroad experience. The impact of students' performance on the language learning process and the value of student…

Summarized findings from experimental and quasi-experimental investigations into the effectiveness of second language instruction. Comparisons of average effect sizes from sample studies indicated focused second language instruction results in large target-oriented gains, explicit types of instruction are more effective than implicit types, and…

The study of planned languages and the conscious creation of languages are frequently characterized by strident arguments for or against real or putative objectives of the movements linked to these languages. The brochures reviewed in this article are taken from various documentation series that provide relevant facts and analyses. (Author/VWL)

Analysis of French speech act verbs offers an account of how clarifying verbs (e.g., "preciser, souligner") are used in reported speech microstructures in news writing and how each verb has its own lexico-pragmatic specificity. The verbs contribute to textual cohesion and to clarification in terms of the relationship between the reported speech…

To discover the extent to which academic register develops in language-minority children, it is important to describe the academic register of the minority language and then to develop instruments to measure its development. This article looks at the means that were developed to accomplish these two tasks of description and instrument development…

Describes a partially ethnographic study of written discourse based on texts produced on three floors of an academic building, each containing a different academic community. It is proposed that such an approach can be used to study text-community associations, explore inhabitants' textual careers, piece together group-specific sets and systems of…