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The present study aimed to examine the speech act of correction produced by Chinese, Americans, and Chinese EFL learners. A total of 120 participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire with two major parts: a Scaled Response Questionnaire (SRQ) and a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). Elicited data were analyzed in terms of three perspectives: perception of face-threat, overall correction strategy use, and the use of external modifications. The results showed some similarities and differences between Chinese and Americans' corrections. As for the EFL learners, they exhibited their interlanguage development in the perception and overall strategy use. In addition, instances of L1 pragmatic transfer were found in the learners' use of some individual strategies and external modifications. Learners' interlanguage development and L1 socio-cultural transfer demonstrated the multi-competence of the learners. The present study suggests that further instruction should be implemented to enrich L2 learners' pragmatic repertoire for successful ELF communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates heritage language (HL) and second language (L2) learners' attitudes and perceptions of their mixed HL–L2 interactions. As part of the activities of a 10‐week course, eight Spanish HL learners and 10 L2 learners worked in mixed dyads to complete a series of collaborative writing tasks designed to leverage their complementary strengths and weaknesses. A beginning‐of‐quarter and an end‐of‐quarter questionnaire were administered. Learners' responses revealed that HL and L2 learners alike had a highly positive experience that changed their initial reluctance toward collaborative writing. Most learners noticed language gains and an improvement in their writing skills. Yet both HL and L2 participants agreed that L2 learners, who were generally perceived as less proficient, benefited more. HL learners also reported affective benefits from their role as linguistic and cultural experts. Although some challenges were noticed, overall, findings support the use of collaborative writing tasks in mixed classes. The Challenge: Mixed classes pose a serious challenge for teachers. Can both heritage and second language learners benefit from working together? How? What difficulties might they encounter? This study explores these questions through heritage and second language learners' perceptions of their mixed interactions during collaborative writing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapidly advancing technology continues to change the landscape of blended foreign language education. Pinpointing the differences between blended language (BL) learning environments and understanding how stakeholders experience such spaces is complex. However, learner experiences can provide a roadmap for the design and development of BL courses. Using a multiple case study approach, this paper reports on stakeholders' experiences and comparisons of two different types of blended Spanish courses, one that harnesses ample technology and another that uses it much less. Using ethnographic data triangulation and systemic functional discourse analysis, four conflicting themes were constructed with respect to two types of BL courses and online versus face-to-face (f2f) classes. The first type of dilemma pertained to (a) the time commitments and (b) relationships developed in each course. The second type of dilemma surrounded the capacity of online and f2f classes for fostering (c) speaking skills development and (d) student understanding. Implications of these four conflicts of opinion for BL course developers, teachers, and researchers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I aim to show the importance of comparison and study of languages, in order to point out their connections, especially regarding Romanic languages. Thus an enlargement of knowledge of Latin's lingua mater, the Indo-European one, is possible. I also point out the importance of substratum in dialectal differentiation as soon as new languages appeared, emphasizing the importance of confronting both theories and practice of speakers of a language and of its varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the concept of languaging (SWAIN, 2006) in the context of form-focused instruction and its role as an important tool for Brazilian foreign language learners, both at advanced level and at elementary level, if linguistic precision is the target. Supported by the Vygotskian sociocultural theory of mind (VYGOTSKY, 1978) and based on studies developed by Swain (2006) in the Canadian context and by Vidal (2003) in the Brazilian scenario, both with advanced learners, the paper shows how Brazilian learners of English of different levels of proficiency and from different instructional realities benefit from languaging - the process of making meaning and shaping knowledge and experience through target-language use. A qualitative analysis of both collaborative dialogue and corrective feedback provide evidence for the claim. It is suggested that form-focused instruction via conscious reflection on language use seems to be a very attractive pedagogical resource to help learners EFL to develop their interlanguage further as well as it serves language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lexikos is the property of Bureau of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A central assumption within the minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995) is that lexical items are bundles of grammatical, semantic and phonetic features, and that the syntactic objects generated by the language faculty are nothing more than rearrangements of features selected from the lexicon. In this perspective, second language acquisition reduces to the task of acquiring the language specific grammatical, semantic and phonetic specifications of vocabulary items, the abstract morphological features of functional categories, and rules of morpho-syntactic mapping (van Hout et al. 2003). Applying computerized language analysis software to a longitudinal corpus of spontaneous oral productions of adult Jamaican learners of French in a guided environment, I analyse the development of a multi-functional lexical item, the preposition "pour" (for, in order to), in the interlanguage of an individual learner. Interested in the effects that the rich language background of Creole societies has on L2 acquisition, I emphasize the transfer influence from the native system (Jamaican Creole (JC) - Standard Jamaican English (SJE) continuum) in the acquisition of this item, and suggest possible avenues of remediation concerning classroom instructed learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Life & School: a Magazine for the Theory and Practice of Education / Život i škola : časopis za teoriju i praksu odgoja i obrazovanja is the property of Zivot i Skola and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article focuses on a discussion of creole morphology in the light of the interlanguage hypothesis which will then shed light on the question of universals, proximity to the superstrate, grammatical complexity and the role of superstrate. The author notes that it has often been implicitly assumed that believing in second language acquisition (SLA) processes in creolization amounts to more or less the same as believing in substrate transfer. The article sees that creoles can be meaningfully analyzed as conventionalized interlanguages of an early stage. More advanced stages can be explained in terms of language-external factors such as the availability of the superstrate.

Copyright of Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of Universidade de Vigo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Criticizing has been a rather under-represented speech act in interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) literature. Native speakers (NSs) find this speech act challenging, often needing to pre-plan how to perform it (Murphy & Neu 1996). Thus, it can be expected that second-language (L2) learners will also experience considerable difficulty. This paper reports a study of the pragmatic strategies used by Vietnamese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) when criticizing in English with a view to shedding light on the pragmatic properties of this under-researched act. Interlanguage data were collected from 36 adult learners via a peer-feedback task, a written questionnaire, and a retrospective interview. First and second language baseline data were collected from two respective groups of 12 Vietnamese NSs and 12 NSs of Australian English, via the same peer-feedback task and questionnaire. Results showed that the English language learners criticized in significantly different ways from the Australian NSs in terms of their preference for realization strategies, their choice of semantic formulae, and their choice and frequency of use of mitigating devices. A number of interplaying factors might explain these differences: learners' limited L2 linguistic competence and lack of fluency, which seemed to load their processing capability under communicative pressure, their lack of L2 pragmatic knowledge, and the influence of L1 pragmatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how 3 fundamental concepts of second language acquisition (SLA), the native speaker, interlanguage, and the language learner have fared since . We review the ascendancy of these concepts and their relationship to the traditional dichotomies of language learning versus language use and individual mind versus social-context-as-environment. We discuss geopolitical changes of the 1990s and the related theoretical shifts from structuralist theories to discourse-based and constructionist social theories, which paved the way for Firth and Wagner. We examine subsequent efforts to reframe SLA as social process and knowledge as social action, arguing that such notions as collaborative dialogue, affordance, and investment have reconceptualized the concepts of output, input, and motivation without, however, escaping their structuralist roots. Looking at data from multilingual exchanges between immigrants recorded in shops in California, we suggest that 3 fundamental concepts be treated as discursive, socially, and historically relative categories, with the subject position of the researcher factored in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the reasons why Chinese learners of English avoid using phrasal verbs in an English community context or when using English as an interlanguage in China. The avoidance of phrasal verbs often leads to ineffective communication. By adopting appropriate pedagogical and methodological approaches or providing proper guidance to learning, Chinese learners of English may achieve the goal of using phrasal verbs appropriately in the context of English as an international language in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching of an invented language rule has been proposed as a possible non-biased, language-independent assessment technique useful in differentiating young L2 learners with specific language impairment from their typically developing peers. The current study explores these notions by testing typically developing sequential bilingual children's ability to learn an invented language rule in either L1 (Spanish) or L2 (English). Participants were 20 children, age 3:6-5:8, who attended a Head Start programme. For all children, Spanish was the primary language spoken in the home and English was the primary language of instruction. Children were randomly assigned two groups. Group L1 was taught the novel language rule in Spanish; Group L2 was taught the novel language rule in English. Performance was better for the L1 group than for the L2 group. Moreover, not all of these typical language learners were able to learn the new rule, even in their strongest language. These findings suggest that even for typically developing children, specific language proficiency as well as individual differences are closely linked to performance on this novel morpheme learning task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurrent theme in the literature on trilingual language use is the question of whether there is a specific ‘trilingual competence.’ In this paper we consider this question in the light of codeswitching patterns in two dyadic trilingual conversations between a mother and daughter conducted in (Lebanese) Arabic, French, and English. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of codeswitching in both conversants shows that, despite the fact that both subjects are fluent in all three languages, uses of switching are significantly different for mother and daughter across a number of features, including relative frequency of different switch types, and the incidence of hybrid constructions involving items from two or more languages. The subjects appear to display qualitatively distinct profiles of competence in the trilingual mode. This in turn leads to the conclusion that the facts of trilingual language use are best characterized in terms of ‘multicompetence’ (Cook, 1991). The paper concludes with some further reflections on the uniqueness of trilingual language use (an ‘old chestnut’ in trilingualism research, cf. Klein, 1995). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the issue of non-target language representations analysing data from the acquisition of novel English synthetic compounds by bilingual (Basque-Spanish) speakers. Past research indicated that English L1 acquirers do not include regular -s inflection within compounds, whereas they do include irregulars (*clawsmarks versus teethmarks) and claimed that this was an innate constraint. More recent research contradicts this claim in the case of L2 acquirers. The aim of this study is to report on further work investigating this issue with bilingual learners in an EFL setting. The results indicate that there is a significant contrast between native and non-native speakers of English in novel compound production and also show that there is a significant effect on the proficiency level of the three groups tested. These results are discussed in the light of the predictions made by the level-ordered morphology model and the dual-mechanism model and also consider the role of the learners' L1s and the amount of target language input in determining novel compounding in L3 English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution documents the strategies bi/plurilingual children spontaneously develop when confronted with a task that demands comprehension of texts in a third language. To illustrate these strategies in context, the paper draws from classroom interaction excerpts: small groups of children (ages 8–10) discover meaning in a text in a language unknown to them (Mandarin written in the Chinese script). International research has long documented the metalinguistic abilities shown by bilinguals in approaching new languages (e.g. Bialystok, 2001; Cummins, 2000), and their facilitative nature for further language learning. This paper documents how competence in two languages, and specifically heightened language awareness, serve as resources to build knowledge in context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is general agreement that conversational interaction can facilitate interlanguage development, much of the research on interaction has been conducted in experimental aboratory settings. Questions have been raised about the generalizability of the benefits observed in the laboratory to the classroom setting. The current research compared interaction in classrooms and laboratories. Seventy-four university-level students learning Spanish as a foreign language worked in dyads to complete 3 different communicative activities in classroom and laboratory settings. Analysis of the interactional patterns of each dyad provided insights into the nature of the interaction in each setting. The data suggest few differences in interactional patterns between the settings. Instead, there were differences depending on the type of task that the learners carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article talks about topic and subject prominence in interlanguage development. The current study examined topic-prominent interlanguage of subject-prominent first language speakers. The results did not support the early universal stage of topic prominence in second language acquisition but showed that learners transferred their subject-prominent L1 features in topic-prominent L2 learning. With increasing L2 proficiency, learners gradually became sensitive to the characteristics of the target language approximating its norms.

Using role play and verbal-report data, this study investigates the sequential organization of politeness strategies of 24 learners of Spanish and whether the learners' ability to negotiate and mitigate a refusal was influenced by length of residence in the target community. Refusal sequences were examined throughout the interaction and across conversational turns. Results showed more frequent attempts at negotiation and greater use of lexical and syntactic mitigation among learners who had spent more time in the target community and also revealed a preference for solidarity and indirectness, which approximated native Spanish speaker norms. It is suggested that the variables of proficiency and length of residence should be considered independently. Finally, learners' perception of social status are discussed.

The relationship between group and individual has been explored within the variationist paradigm. In L1, group patterns of variation are replicated by the individual. Second language acquisition research is concerned with the individual learner, but second language acquisition variationist researchers tend to group learners. Little empirical evidence exists that such grouping is valid, given the importance of individual variation. This article investigates whether it is meaningful to group learners. This is a longitudinal, quantitative study of the acquisition of variation by Irish speakers of French L2 over three years, of which one is a year abroad experience. Participants are five advanced learners, twenty years old, with five years of French classes at secondary school and two at university. A computer (Varbrul) analysis shows similar patterns in group and individual, in the deletion of ne. Theoretical implications are that it is legitimate to apply group standards to individual speakers and that native speaker variation acquisition is linked to a prolonged stay in the native speaker community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous investigations of the variable marking of past time by the L2 learner have given rise to a number of hypotheses which predict the patterns of acquisition and use of past time markers in interlanguage (IL). However, given the complicity between their predictions, it has been previously noted that hypotheses such as the aspect and discourse hypotheses can be supported with the same data. In an attempt to distinguish between the effects of such multiple constraints in advanced French IL, this paper presents quantitative findings to suggest that no single factor exclusively outweighs another, but rather, the factors ‘interact’ in their effect, such that the causes of aspectuo-temporal variation are not singular, but indeed multiple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents evidence of syntactic transfer from Chinese to English based on data obtained from 710 Hong Kong Chinese ESL learners at different proficiency levels. Three methodologies were used: self-reporting in individual interviews, translation (with and without prompts), and grammaticality judgment. The focus of the study was on 5 error types: (a) lack of control of the copula, (b) incorrect placement of adverbs, (c) inability to use the there be structure for expressing the existential or presentative function, (d) failure to use the relative clause, and (e) confusion in verb transitivity. The results showed that many Chinese ESL learners in Hong Kong tended to think in Chinese first before they wrote in English, and that the surface structures of many of the interlanguage strings produced by the participants were identical or very similar to the usual or normative sentence structures of the learners' first language (L1), Cantonese. The extent of syntactic transfer was particularly large for complex target structures and among learners of a lower proficiency level, though high-proficiency learners may also have relied on the syntax and vocabulary of their previous linguistic repertoire, their L1, when finding it difficult to produce output in the target language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the nature of root infinitives (RIs) produced by adult L2 learners in a corpus of L2 French data from 21 English-speaking adults at the beginner and intermediate levels. Although the production of RIs varies across learners, the results show that infinitival verbs appear in contexts requiring the projection of functional categories (e.g. with clitic subjects and in CPs). Moreover, most RIs have a declarative reading, only a few have a modal interpretation. This suggests that adult learners have knowledge of finiteness features and that they may experience problems supplying the exact inflectional morphology (see Lardiere 2000), regardless of the clause-type in which the verb appears. This also corroborates findings from longitudinal studies (Prévost 2003a) and contrasts with L2 French data from anglophone children (Prévost & White 2000a). Finally, the beginners produce finite verbs in nonfinite positions, which is not reported in child L2 French. It is argued that this is due to the lack of overt infinitival morphology in the L1, rather than to impairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many L2 speakers fail to supply functional morphology consistently in production. In this paper, the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis (PTH) is proposed, where this is attributed to L1 constraints on prosodic structure. The PTH maintains that functional material which is appropriately represented in syntax may be deleted in production if prosodic structures necessary in the L2 cannot be built from L1 structures. When non-target-like L1 structures are used to accommodate L2 functional material, use is variable and there are asymmetries in the contexts where it appears. The present focus is on an end-state Turkish-speaking learner of English. It is shown that the prosodic structures available in Turkish can be minimally adapted to yield the structure required for English inflection, where the speaker is highly accurate. To represent English articles, the required structure cannot be built from L1 structures; hence, rate of suppliance is lower and is largely determined by phonological context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the ability of a group of adults with different L1s to utilize 'subject inversion' structures displaying the order VS, S = Focus of new information in L2 Italian. The structures were elicited through an experimental technique creating the relevant pragmatic conditions. The results indicate that VS has not been adequately acquired by the learners. The article also discusses the ability of learners to produce null-subjects in the presence of finite verbal morphology, in particular those L2 subjects whose L1 is a non-null-subject language. Comparison of the results in the elicitation of VS and in the production of null-subjects shows a dissociation, with null-subjects available to a larger extent than VS. The theoretical relevance of these results is discussed in light of the structural mapping of discourse related information, the notion of 'possible interlanguage', the dissociation of properties proposed under the null-subject parameter, and the conditions at the interface for second language learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates constraints on word order optionality in advanced and near-native English-German and Japanese-German interlanguage. Word order optionality in German is mandated by syntactic as well as information-structural and semantic factors at the syntactic interfaces. Studies on the first language acquisition of word order optionality (e.g. Krämer 2000) report a developmental disjunction between syntactic and interface knowledge. In an acceptability judgement task, we find a similar disjunction in the second language acquisition of German word order. Advanced English and Japanese learners demonstrate knowledge of putatively universal syntactic constraints, irrespective of first language differences. Yet, L1-specific differences between English and Japanese learners of German arise in their knowledge of interpretive interface aspects on optional word orders. We argue that these findings point to protracted L1 transfer at the syntactic interfaces in advanced and near-native interlanguage grammars, but do not reflect critical period effects in adult second language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a longitudinal study into the pragmatic development of German learners of English. The data were elicited with the newly developed "Multimedia Elicitation Task" (MET), which contains 16 request scenarios investigating different status and imposition conditions. The 27 participants included 12 German adults studying at a British university for one academic year and an English native speaker control group of 15 students. The data were collected at three distinct points of the Germans' stay in Great Britain: shortly after their arrival, in the middle of their stay and shortly before their return to Germany. The results provide evidence both for temporal patterning and for individual variation in the learner group. Generally, internal lexical downgraders seem to be acquired earlier than syntactic downgraders, and external modifiers can be assigned to four main groups: the first group contains supportive moves that had already been acquired by all the participants before the first data collection session and the remaining three groups comprise external modifiers whose first occurrence in the corpus displays a correlation with the length of stay in the target environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study define pragmatic characteristics of the Russian-Hebrew interlanguage of complaint and investigates its cultural origins. Complaints performed by throe groups (Israelis, Russians, and Russian immigrants to Israel) were analyzed. The results show that the politness strategy of the interlanguage is hybrid, since the immigrants' use both Russian and Hebrew mitigating strategies. However, since the immigrants' linguistic and cultural resources in a target language are limited, they use indicators of politeness to a much lower extent than the two groups of native-speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's interpretation evaluating the use of stigmatized varieties of language in classrooms which include three approaches like instrumental programs, accommodation programs, and awareness programs. The author examines pidgins, creoles, and minority dialects by summarizing research on educational programs in which stigmatized varieties have been used in the classroom. He reviews relevant theory and research in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition.

The author reflects on the denounced pompous language in the practice of defense philosophy. According to the author, with time, different fields of study generated euphemistic jargons, words and phrases that are unclear and highly technical. The use of these words may lead to a slight alteration on the true meaning of the thing being discussed.