This study investigates the effects of meaningful input- and output-based practice on SLA. First-semester Spanish students (n = 45) were assigned to processing instruction, meaningful output-based instruction, or control groups. Experimental groups received the same input in instruction but received meaningful practice that was input or output…

Overgeneralization occurs when a child uses the wrong word to name an object and is often observed in the early stages of word learning. We develop a method to elicit overgeneralizations in the laboratory by priming children to say the names of objects perceptually similar to known and unknown target objects. Experiment 1 examined 18 two-year-old…

All languages rely to some extent on word order to signal relational information. Why? We address this question by exploring communicative and cognitive factors that could lead to a reliance on word order. In Study 1, adults were asked to describe scenes to another using their hands and not their mouths. The question was whether this home-made…

Arguments about the existence of language-specific neural systems and specifically about the independence of syntactic and semantic processing have focused on the event-related brain measures (ERPs) as tool to monitoring moment-by-moment the cognitive processes underlaid. In the present experiments, the available evidence indicates that the ERP…

Five experiments investigated the interpretation of quantified noun phrases in relation to discourse structure. They demonstrated, using questionnaire and on-line reading techniques, that readers in English prefer to give a quantified noun phrase in (VP-external) subject position a presuppositional interpretation, in which the noun phrase limits…

This article provides a brief overview of the various areas of research that have served to clarify the condition of dyslexia. Using topics and content appearing in A. L. Benton and D. Pearl's (1978) text, Dyslexia: An Appraisal of Current Knowledge, as the point of departure, evolution of the definitions of dyslexia is traced to the current and…

Purpose: This study examined the usefulness of the Nonword Repetition Test (NRT; C. Dollaghan & T. F. Campbell, 1998) with 4-year-old children and the relationship among the NRT, language, and other aspects of mental processing. Method: The NRT was administered to 64 children at 4 years of age; 44 had a history of typical language development…

A. Pollatsek, E. D. Reichle, and K. Rayner argue that the critical findings in A. W. Inhoff, B. M. Eiter, and R. Radach are in general agreement with core assumptions of sequential attention shift models if additional assumptions and facts are considered. The current authors critically discuss the hypothesized time line of processing and indicate…

This article addresses the question of how second language (L2) learners understand idiomatic expressions in their second/foreign language and advances the proposition that literal meanings of idiom constituents enjoy processing priority over their figurative interpretations. This suggestion forms the core of the literal-salience resonant model of…

This study examined effects of word writing on second language vocabulary learning. In two experiments, English-speaking learners of Spanish attempted to learn 24 Spanish nouns while viewing word-picture pairs. The participants copied 12 target words and wrote nothing for the other 12 target words being studied. Productive vocabulary learning on…

This book defines and reviews five central problems in the study of second language acquisition (SLA): (subconscious) transfer, staged development, cross-learner systematicity, incompleteness, and variability. The central thesis of the text is that linguistic knowledge is an autonomous component of SLA, distinct from the socially determined use of…

This publication (one of a series) contains 19 articles which report the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instruments for its investigation, and practical applications. Articles are: "Speech Perception Deficits in Poor Readers: Auditory Processing or Phonological Coding?" (Maria Mody and others); "Auditory…

This book is intended for graduate students and practitioners serving the needs of individuals with language-related learning disabilities in regular education, special education, and speech-language pathology. Some chapters are contributed by other authors. An introductory chapter chronicles historical trends in understanding and addressing…

An in-progress interdisciplinary research effort, Conversation Analytic (CA) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) study, is reported. A conversation analytic approach to repair and self-explication is taken that covers both human studies and artificial intelligence. The term "human" is used here in place of "linguistic." Three…

The production of non-narrative information (descriptive versus expository) across written and oral modes was examined for second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade Greek elementary school students. Written and oral protocols were taken from a total of 240 students at each of 3 grades and evaluated according to: (1) the size of the text produced, measured…