The meaning of a word often cannot be formulated by conscious rules, because it is unconscious. Evidence on the verb "break" demonstrates this. The consequence for teaching is that teachers cannot supply meanings in words, but should present a wide range of uses of a word, so that students can intuit the unconscious generalization. (Author)

Papers presented at the symposium of error analysis in Lund, Sweden, in September 1972, approach error analysis specifically in its relation to foreign language teaching and second language learning. Error analysis is defined as having three major aspects: (1) the description of the errors, (2) the explanation of errors by means of contrastive…

Prior to the development of modern sociolinguistics the immediate contribution of linguistics to society as a whole was negligible. Without the further development of sociolinguistics, the situation will not change radically. In order to arrive at a more useful system of linguistics, linguists must realize that this situation does not result…

Three hypotheses are examined in relation to English copula and negative utterances produced by three native Spanish speakers. The hypotheses are interference, interlanguage and L1=L2, which states that acquisition of a language by second language learners will parallel acquisiton of the same language by first language learners. The results of the…

The experimental test measures the ability of a subject to reconstruct obscured words by means of sentence analysis, carried out not as a separate academic task, but in the normal procedure of understanding what the sentence says. It is a task built on the assumption that the ability to handle reduced redundancy is a valid measure of linguistic…

The growing demand on English departments for language-oriented courses for prospective teachers offers increased opportunities to the departmental linguist(s). English linguists possess a special expertise in language structure and analysis that gives them a unique advantage in designing and teaching such courses. A look at the training needs of…

This report describes the steps by which ethnographic literature was explored for cross-cultural differences in the role of language with particular reference to its acquisition and use by children. The exploration is put in the context of ongoing work in the development of a systematic guide to field studies of this sort. A principal effort of…

Noam Chomsky's numerous criticisms of formerly well-accepted beliefs about the nature of language learning (e.g. in his review of Skinner's "Verbal Behavior") have led to a diversity of views regarding the potential application of transformational theory to the teaching of English as a second language/dialect. It seems clear, moreover, that his…

Data were collected regarding the problem of the effects of the Human Development Program procedures on the generation of linguistic tools for the written expression of feelings. Two classes of elementary students participated in the experiment, one a sixth grade of denied children and the other a fifth grade identified as gifted on an…

This paper deals with problems concerning the nature of the input to a phonetic processor. Several assumptions provide the basis for consideration of the problem. There is a phonological level of processing which reflects the sound structure of the language; the rules associated with it are not affected by variables associated either with the…

The papers included in this publication were delivered at a conference initiated by the Centre for Information on Language Teaching in April 1971. Each of the four papers represents a distinct but related interest. The first, "The Language Barrier to Education" by B. Spolsky, examines sociological effects of differences between the language…

William Riley Parker's arguments favoring and supporting the post-World War II boom in language learning in America are criticized in an attempt to discover a more relevant rationale for language instruction in the 1970's. Specifically, the belief that world peace can be maintained and that international understanding can be considerably improved…

One of the several causal mechanisms for errors made by adult second language learners is interference from the native language. This paper attempts to account for the cognitive nature of interference by proposing two psycholinguistically based principles that will explain various types of production and perception errors made of second language…

A model for assessing communicative ability is presented that is prompted by the fact that most error analysts in the past concentrated on morphemic and syntactic levels. It is suggested that emphasis must shift from acquisition of linguistic competence per se to communicative competence. (23 references) (LB)

Drawing on data from a yearlong qualitative study of a primary-grade English immersion class of Spanish-dominant Latina and Latino students, the author analyzes bilingual children's acts of translation during classroom activities. After pointing out the numerous positive benefits that resulted from these acts, the author suggests that encouraging…