Sample records for language acquisition device

  1. Language Acquisition without an Acquisition Device

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Grady, William

    2012-01-01

    Most explanatory work on first and second language learning assumes the primacy of the acquisition phenomenon itself, and a good deal of work has been devoted to the search for an "acquisition device" that is specific to humans, and perhaps even to language. I will consider the possibility that this strategy is misguided and that language…

  2. Specific Cognitive Antecedents of Structures and Functions Involved in Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moerk, Ernst L.

    1973-01-01

    The antecedents of verbal behavior, together with the teaching skills of the adult linguistic community, probably constitute all the necessary bases for language acquisition. As they seemed to be sufficient for the explanation of all the known phenomena, an assumption of an innate linguistic language acquisition device was rejected as superfluous.…

  3. How Children Learn Their Mother Tongue: They Don't

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Halpern, Mark

    2016-01-01

    A new solution is offered to the Infant Language Acquisition Problem, rejecting both of Chomsky's alternatives. It proposes that the infant does not acquire his mother tongue by mastering its grammar, whether by inference from personal experience or via an innate Language Acquisition Device such as the UG, but that the language he hears is all…

  4. 41 CFR 101-8.306 - Reasonable accommodation.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-07-01

    ...; acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, such as telecommunications devices or other telephonic devices for hearing impaired persons; provision of reader or qualified sign language interpreters; and...

  5. Augmentative and Alternative Communication for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Evidence-Based Evaluation of the Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP) Programme

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bedwani, Mary-Ann Naguib; Bruck, Susan; Costley, Debra

    2015-01-01

    Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder often have restricted verbal communication. For children who do not use functional speech, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices can be an important support. We evaluated the effectiveness of one AAC programme, the Language Acquisition through Motor Planning (LAMP) using a Vantage…

  6. Transferencia Linguistica y Multilinguismo (Linguistic Transfer and Multilingualism).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sanchez D., Anibal

    1971-01-01

    The problem of interference caused by linguistic transfer in second language learning does not increase with the number of languages that the student has acquired. The ability to learn a second, third, or fourth language depends on what Chomsky calls "the language acquisition device," which is a capacity or a sensitivity formed by a combination of…

  7. Complexity in language acquisition.

    PubMed

    Clark, Alexander; Lappin, Shalom

    2013-01-01

    Learning theory has frequently been applied to language acquisition, but discussion has largely focused on information theoretic problems-in particular on the absence of direct negative evidence. Such arguments typically neglect the probabilistic nature of cognition and learning in general. We argue first that these arguments, and analyses based on them, suffer from a major flaw: they systematically conflate the hypothesis class and the learnable concept class. As a result, they do not allow one to draw significant conclusions about the learner. Second, we claim that the real problem for language learning is the computational complexity of constructing a hypothesis from input data. Studying this problem allows for a more direct approach to the object of study--the language acquisition device-rather than the learnable class of languages, which is epiphenomenal and possibly hard to characterize. The learnability results informed by complexity studies are much more insightful. They strongly suggest that target grammars need to be objective, in the sense that the primitive elements of these grammars are based on objectively definable properties of the language itself. These considerations support the view that language acquisition proceeds primarily through data-driven learning of some form. Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  8. 22 CFR 142.12 - Reasonable accommodation.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-04-01

    ..., acquisition or modification of equipment or devices, the provision of readers or interpreters, and other... facilities, and size of budget; (2) Job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, acquisition and... sign language, when appropriate. (3) The nature and cost of the accommodation needed. (d) A recipient...

  9. Scrutinizing the Factors Affecting Fluency of English among Arab Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Al Ghazali, Fawzi

    2017-01-01

    This research study investigates the cognitive, psychological and personal factors affecting the accuracy and fluency of English language usage among Arab learners. Early research led by Chomsky (1965) and Krashen (1981) suggested that an individual's Language Acquisition Device once triggered at the appropriate time and supported with adequate…

  10. A system design of data acquisition and processing for side-scatter lidar

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zhang, ZhanYe; Xie, ChenBo; Wang, ZhenZhu; Kuang, ZhiQiang; Deng, Qian; Tao, ZongMing; Liu, Dong; Wang, Yingjian

    2018-03-01

    A system for collecting data of Side-Scatter lidar based on Charge Coupled Device (CCD),is designed and implemented. The system of data acquisition is based on Microsoft. Net structure and the language of C# is used to call dynamic link library (DLL) of CCD for realization of the real-time data acquisition and processing. The software stores data as txt file for post data acquisition and analysis. The system has ability to operate CCD device in all-day, automatic, continuous and high frequency data acquisition and processing conditions, which will catch 24-hour information of the atmospheric scatter's light intensity and retrieve the spatial and temporal properties of aerosol particles. The experimental result shows that the system is convenient to observe the aerosol optical characteristics near surface.

  11. Pragmatics and Semiotics: Movies as Aesthetic Audio-Visual Device Expedite Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lu, Lucia Y.

    2014-01-01

    The author as teacher educator and her students as teacher candidates conceptualized pragmatics, semiotics and aesthetics into literacy education by inviting students of diversity to watch movies, talk about movies, write movies, and act movies. Pragmatics is the study of how language is used for communication in various social and cultural…

  12. Analysis of the Effect a Student-Centred Mobile Learning Instructional Method Has on Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Oberg, Andrew; Daniels, Paul

    2013-01-01

    In this study a self-paced instructional method based on the use of Apple's iPod Touch personal mobile devices to deliver content was compared with a group-oriented instructional method of content delivery in terms of learner acquisition of course material. One hundred and twenty-two first-year Japanese university students in four classes were…

  13. Development of Japanese Children's Narrative Skills: Linguistic Devices and Strategies To Encode Their Perspective and Emotion.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Minami, Masahiko

    Studies on child language acquisition suggest that Japanese children begin to use a variety of linguistic signs very early. However, even if young Japanese children learned the social pragmatic functions and interactional dimensions of such linguistic means and communicative devices, they might not have acquired the subtleties of those devices…

  14. Patterns and Effectiveness of Mobile Device Usage by Japanese Undergraduates for L2 Acquisition Purposes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pagel, James W.; Lambacher, Stephen G.

    2014-01-01

    Mobile technologies, such as smartphones and tablets, are rapidly gaining popularity as an effective means to enhance foreign language learning. However, does the incorporation of these mobile devices really benefit the learner or simply satisfy the instructor's need to be innovative and ahead of the learning curve? The present study seeks to…

  15. A Systematic Review of Tablet Computers and Portable Media Players as Speech Generating Devices for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

    PubMed

    Lorah, Elizabeth R; Parnell, Ashley; Whitby, Peggy Schaefer; Hantula, Donald

    2015-12-01

    Powerful, portable, off-the-shelf handheld devices, such as tablet based computers (i.e., iPad(®); Galaxy(®)) or portable multimedia players (i.e., iPod(®)), can be adapted to function as speech generating devices for individuals with autism spectrum disorders or related developmental disabilities. This paper reviews the research in this new and rapidly growing area and delineates an agenda for future investigations. In general, participants using these devices acquired verbal repertoires quickly. Studies comparing these devices to picture exchange or manual sign language found that acquisition was often quicker when using a tablet computer and that the vast majority of participants preferred using the device to picture exchange or manual sign language. Future research in interface design, user experience, and extended verbal repertoires is recommended.

  16. Managing RFID sensors networks with a general purpose RFID middleware.

    PubMed

    Abad, Ismael; Cerrada, Carlos; Cerrada, Jose A; Heradio, Rubén; Valero, Enrique

    2012-01-01

    RFID middleware is anticipated to one of the main research areas in the field of RFID applications in the near future. The Data EPC Acquisition System (DEPCAS) is an original proposal designed by our group to transfer and apply fundamental ideas from System and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems into the areas of RFID acquisition, processing and distribution systems. In this paper we focus on how to organize and manage generic RFID sensors (edge readers, readers, PLCs, etc…) inside the DEPCAS middleware. We denote by RFID Sensors Networks Management (RSNM) this part of DEPCAS, which is built on top of two new concepts introduced and developed in this work: MARC (Minimum Access Reader Command) and RRTL (RFID Reader Topology Language). MARC is an abstraction layer used to hide heterogeneous devices inside a homogeneous acquisition network. RRTL is a language to define RFID Reader networks and to describe the relationship between them (concentrator, peer to peer, master/submaster).

  17. Development and application of General Purpose Data Acquisition Shell (GPDAS) at advanced photon source

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Chung, Youngjoo; Kim, Keeman.

    1991-01-01

    An operating system shell GPDAS (General Purpose Data Acquisition Shell) on MS-DOS-based microcomputers has been developed to provide flexibility in data acquisition and device control for magnet measurements at the Advanced Photon Source. GPDAS is both a command interpreter and an integrated script-based programming environment. It also incorporates the MS-DOS shell to make use of the existing utility programs for file manipulation and data analysis. Features include: alias definition, virtual memory, windows, graphics, data and procedure backup, background operation, script programming language, and script level debugging. Data acquisition system devices can be controlled through IEEE488 board, multifunction I/O board, digitalmore » I/O board and Gespac crate via Euro G-64 bus. GPDAS is now being used for diagnostics R D and accelerator physics studies as well as for magnet measurements. Their hardware configurations will also be discussed. 3 refs., 3 figs.« less

  18. Managing RFID Sensors Networks with a General Purpose RFID Middleware

    PubMed Central

    Abad, Ismael; Cerrada, Carlos; Cerrada, Jose A.; Heradio, Rubén; Valero, Enrique

    2012-01-01

    RFID middleware is anticipated to one of the main research areas in the field of RFID applications in the near future. The Data EPC Acquisition System (DEPCAS) is an original proposal designed by our group to transfer and apply fundamental ideas from System and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems into the areas of RFID acquisition, processing and distribution systems. In this paper we focus on how to organize and manage generic RFID sensors (edge readers, readers, PLCs, etc…) inside the DEPCAS middleware. We denote by RFID Sensors Networks Management (RSNM) this part of DEPCAS, which is built on top of two new concepts introduced and developed in this work: MARC (Minimum Access Reader Command) and RRTL (RFID Reader Topology Language). MARC is an abstraction layer used to hide heterogeneous devices inside a homogeneous acquisition network. RRTL is a language to define RFID Reader networks and to describe the relationship between them (concentrator, peer to peer, master/submaster). PMID:22969370

  19. Language acquisition for deaf children: Reducing the harms of zero tolerance to the use of alternative approaches.

    PubMed

    Humphries, Tom; Kushalnagar, Poorna; Mathur, Gaurav; Napoli, Donna Jo; Padden, Carol; Rathmann, Christian; Smith, Scott R

    2012-04-02

    Children acquire language without instruction as long as they are regularly and meaningfully engaged with an accessible human language. Today, 80% of children born deaf in the developed world are implanted with cochlear devices that allow some of them access to sound in their early years, which helps them to develop speech. However, because of brain plasticity changes during early childhood, children who have not acquired a first language in the early years might never be completely fluent in any language. If they miss this critical period for exposure to a natural language, their subsequent development of the cognitive activities that rely on a solid first language might be underdeveloped, such as literacy, memory organization, and number manipulation. An alternative to speech-exclusive approaches to language acquisition exists in the use of sign languages such as American Sign Language (ASL), where acquiring a sign language is subject to the same time constraints of spoken language development. Unfortunately, so far, these alternatives are caught up in an "either - or" dilemma, leading to a highly polarized conflict about which system families should choose for their children, with little tolerance for alternatives by either side of the debate and widespread misinformation about the evidence and implications for or against either approach. The success rate with cochlear implants is highly variable. This issue is still debated, and as far as we know, there are no reliable predictors for success with implants. Yet families are often advised not to expose their child to sign language. Here absolute positions based on ideology create pressures for parents that might jeopardize the real developmental needs of deaf children. What we do know is that cochlear implants do not offer accessible language to many deaf children. By the time it is clear that the deaf child is not acquiring spoken language with cochlear devices, it might already be past the critical period, and the child runs the risk of becoming linguistically deprived. Linguistic deprivation constitutes multiple personal harms as well as harms to society (in terms of costs to our medical systems and in loss of potential productive societal participation).

  20. Language and Recursion

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lowenthal, Francis

    2010-11-01

    This paper examines whether the recursive structure imbedded in some exercises used in the Non Verbal Communication Device (NVCD) approach is actually the factor that enables this approach to favor language acquisition and reacquisition in the case of children with cerebral lesions. For that a definition of the principle of recursion as it is used by logicians is presented. The two opposing approaches to the problem of language development are explained. For many authors such as Chomsky [1] the faculty of language is innate. This is known as the Standard Theory; the other researchers in this field, e.g. Bates and Elman [2], claim that language is entirely constructed by the young child: they thus speak of Language Acquisition. It is also shown that in both cases, a version of the principle of recursion is relevant for human language. The NVCD approach is defined and the results obtained in the domain of language while using this approach are presented: young subjects using this approach acquire a richer language structure or re-acquire such a structure in the case of cerebral lesions. Finally it is shown that exercises used in this framework imply the manipulation of recursive structures leading to regular grammars. It is thus hypothesized that language development could be favored using recursive structures with the young child. It could also be the case that the NVCD like exercises used with children lead to the elaboration of a regular language, as defined by Chomsky [3], which could be sufficient for language development but would not require full recursion. This double claim could reconcile Chomsky's approach with psychological observations made by adherents of the Language Acquisition approach, if it is confirmed by researches combining the use of NVCDs, psychometric methods and the use of Neural Networks. This paper thus suggests that a research group oriented towards this problematic should be organized.

  1. 76 FR 14954 - National Professional Development Program; Office of English Language Acquisition, Language...

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2011-03-18

    ... Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students; Overview... to provide instruction that accelerates ELs' acquisition of language, literacy, and content knowledge.... Rosalinda Barrera, Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director for English Language Acquisition, Language...

  2. First Language Acquisition and Teaching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena

    2011-01-01

    "First language acquisition" commonly means the acquisition of a single language in childhood, regardless of the number of languages in a child's natural environment. Language acquisition is variously viewed as predetermined, wondrous, a source of concern, and as developing through formal processes. "First language teaching" concerns schooling in…

  3. Contributions of the Study of Japanese as a Second language to our General Understanding of Second Language Acquisition and the Definition of Second Language Acquisition Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wakabayashi, Shigenori

    2003-01-01

    Reviews three books on the acquisition of Japanese as a second language: "Second Language Acquisition Process in the Classroom" by A.S. Ohta;"The Acquisition of Grammar by Learners of Japanese" (English translation of title), by H. Noda, K. Sakoda, K. Shibuya, and N. Kobayashi; and "The Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language," B. K. Kanno,…

  4. Papers in Language Learning and Language Acquisition. AFinLA Yearbook 1980. No. 28.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sajavaara, Kari, Ed.; And Others

    Papers include: (1) "Language Acquisitional Universals: L1, L2, Pidgins, and FLT" (Henning Wode); (2) "Language Acquisition, Language Learning and the School Curriculum" (Norman F. Davies); (3) "Language Teaching and Acquisition of Communication" (Kari Sajavaara, Jaakko Lehtonen); (4) "On the Distinction between…

  5. Investigating Second Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jordens, Peter, Ed.; Lalleman, Josine, Ed.

    Essays in second language acquisition include: "The State of the Art in Second Language Acquisition Research" (Josine Lalleman); "Crosslinguistic Influence with Special Reference to the Acquisition of Grammar" (Michael Sharwood Smith); "Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants: A Multiple Case Study of Turkish and…

  6. A Research on Second Language Acquisition and College English Teaching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Changyu

    2009-01-01

    It was in the 1970s that American linguist S.D. Krashen created the theory of "language acquisition". The theories on second language acquisition were proposed based on the study on the second language acquisition process and its rules. Here, the second language acquisition process refers to the process in which a learner with the…

  7. 78 FR 65303 - Request for Information To Inform the Title III Technical Assistance Agenda and the Future...

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2013-10-31

    ... for English Language Acquisition (NCELA) AGENCY: Office of English Language Acquisition, Language... of English Language Acquisition, 400 Maryland Avenue SW., Room 5C148, Washington, DC 20202- 6132... assistance, including materials through the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and...

  8. Minimalism and Beyond: Second Language Acquisition for the Twenty-First Century.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Balcom, Patricia A.

    2001-01-01

    Provides a general overview of two books--"The Second Time Around: Minimalism and Second Language Acquisition" and "Second Language Syntax: A Generative Introduction--and shows how the respond to key issues in second language acquisition, including the process of second language acquisition, access to universal grammar, the role of…

  9. Language Transfer in Language Learning. Language Acquisition & Language Disorders 5.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gass, Susan M., Ed.; Selinker, Larry, Ed.

    The study of native language influence in Second Language Acquisition has undergone significant changes over the past few decades. This book, which includes 12 chapters by distinguished researchers in the field of second language acquisition, traces the conceptual history of language transfer from its early role within a Contrastive Analysis…

  10. 77 FR 31606 - Privacy Act of 1974; System of Records

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2012-05-29

    ... Acquisition, Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students, Department.... Barrera, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and... Secretary and Director for English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement for...

  11. Second Language Acquisition Research and Second Language Teaching.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Corder, S. Pit

    1985-01-01

    Discusses second language acquisition, the importance of comprehensible input to this acquisition, and the inadequacy of the theory of language interference as an explanation for errors in second language speech. The role of the teacher in the language classroom and the "procedural syllabus" are described. (SED)

  12. 75 FR 26942 - Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2010-05-13

    ... Management. Office of English Language Acquisitions Type of Review: Reinstatement. Title: Application for Grants Under English Language Acquisition and Language Enhancement: Native American and Alaska Native... Grants Under English Language Acquisition and Language Enhancement: Native American and Alaska Native...

  13. Advanced Language Attrition of Spanish in Contact with Brazilian Portuguese

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Iverson, Michael Bryan

    2012-01-01

    Language acquisition research frequently concerns itself with linguistic development and result of the acquisition process with respect to a first or subsequent language. For some, it seems tacitly assumed that a first language, once acquired, remains stable, regardless of exposure to and the acquisition of additional language(s) beyond the first…

  14. Insights into Second Language Acquisition Theory and Different Approaches to Language Teaching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ponniah, Joseph

    2010-01-01

    This paper attempts to review second language acquisition theory and some of the methods practiced in language classes. The review substantiates that comprehensible input as the crucial determining factor for language acquisition and consciously learned linguistic knowledge can be used only to edit the output of the acquired language sometimes…

  15. Comparing Vocabulary Learning of EFL Learners by Using Two Different Strategies: Mobile Learning vs. Flashcards

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Azabdaftari, Behrooz; Mozaheb, Mohammad Amin

    2012-01-01

    Vocabulary acquisition is one of the most important aspects of language learning. There are a number of techniques and technologies which enhance vocabulary learning in the year 2012, e.g. wordlists, flashcards and m-learning. Mobile phones are among those devices which not only meet the expectations of their users for communication, but are also…

  16. A Latin Functionalist Dictionary as a Self-Learning Language Device: Previous Experiences to Digitalization

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Márquez, Manuel; Chaves, Beatriz

    2016-01-01

    The application of a methodology based on S.C. Dik's Functionalist Grammar linguistic principles, which is addressed to the teaching of Latin to secondary students, has resulted in a quantitative improvement in students' acquisition process of knowledge. To do so, we have used a self-learning tool, an ad hoc dictionary, of which the use in…

  17. Variability and Variation in Second Language Acquisition Orders: A Dynamic Reevaluation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lowie, Wander; Verspoor, Marjolijn

    2015-01-01

    The traditional morpheme order studies in second language acquisition have tried to demonstrate the existence of a fixed order of acquisition of English morphemes, regardless of the second language learner's background. Such orders have been taken as evidence of the preprogrammed nature of language acquisition. This article argues for a…

  18. Schizophrenia and second language acquisition.

    PubMed

    Bersudsky, Yuly; Fine, Jonathan; Gorjaltsan, Igor; Chen, Osnat; Walters, Joel

    2005-05-01

    Language acquisition involves brain processes that can be affected by lesions or dysfunctions in several brain systems and second language acquisition may depend on different brain substrates than first language acquisition in childhood. A total of 16 Russian immigrants to Israel, 8 diagnosed schizophrenics and 8 healthy immigrants, were compared. The primary data for this study were collected via sociolinguistic interviews. The two groups use language and learn language in very much the same way. Only exophoric reference and blocking revealed meaningful differences between the schizophrenics and healthy counterparts. This does not mean of course that schizophrenia does not induce language abnormalities. Our study focuses on those aspects of language that are typically difficult to acquire in second language acquisition. Despite the cognitive compromises in schizophrenia and the manifest atypicalities in language of speakers with schizophrenia, the process of acquiring a second language seems relatively unaffected by schizophrenia.

  19. Language Acquisition and Language Learning: A Plea for Syncretism.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Higgs, Theodore V.

    1985-01-01

    Discusses the apparent opposition between the concepts of language learning and language acquisition in the context of adult second-language study. Proposes that these two concepts are mutually supportive, not mutually exclusive. Demonstrates how the implications of learning vs. acquisition can be integrated into a communicative…

  20. Language Acquisition and Language Learning: Developing the System of External and Internal Perspectives

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zascerinska, Jelena

    2010-01-01

    Introduction. The use of three-five languages is of the greatest importance in order to form varied cooperative networks for the creation of new knowledge. Aim of the paper is to analyze the synergy between language acquisition and language learning. Materials and Methods. The search for the synergy between language acquisition and language…

  1. Language, Culture and Cognition: A Collection of Studies in First and Second Language Acquisition. Multilingual Matters 69.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Malave, Lilliam M., Ed.; Duquette, Georges, Ed.

    Papers on language processing, culture, and language learning and teaching include: "A Theory of Intelligence as Semiosis: With a Couple of Comments on Interlanguage Development" (John W. Oller, Jr.); "Along the Way: Interlanguage Systems in Second Language Acquisition" (Larry Selinker); "Strategy and Tactics in Second Language Acquisition"…

  2. Language acquisition is model-based rather than model-free.

    PubMed

    Wang, Felix Hao; Mintz, Toben H

    2016-01-01

    Christiansen & Chater (C&C) propose that learning language is learning to process language. However, we believe that the general-purpose prediction mechanism they propose is insufficient to account for many phenomena in language acquisition. We argue from theoretical considerations and empirical evidence that many acquisition tasks are model-based, and that different acquisition tasks require different, specialized models.

  3. Some Myths You May Have Heard about First Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gathercole, Virginia C.

    1988-01-01

    Reviews research and empirical evidence to refute three first language acquisition myths: (1) comprehension precedes production; (2) children acquire language in a systematic, rule-governed way; and (3) the impetus behind first language acquisition is communicative need. (Author/CB)

  4. Second Language Acquisition: Possible Insights from Studies on How Birds Acquire Song.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Neapolitan, Denise M.; And Others

    1988-01-01

    Reviews research that demonstrates parallels between general linguistic and cognitive processes in human language acquisition and avian acquisition of song and discusses how such research may provide new insights into the processes of second-language acquisition. (Author/CB)

  5. Linguistic Diversity in First Language Acquisition Research: Moving beyond the Challenges

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kelly, Barbara F.; Forshaw, William; Nordlinger, Rachel; Wigglesworth, Gillian

    2015-01-01

    The field of first language acquisition (FLA) needs to take into account data from the broadest typological array of languages and language-learning environments if it is to identify potential universals in child language development, and how these interact with socio-cultural mechanisms of acquisition. Yet undertaking FLA research in remote…

  6. Social and Cognitive Factors in Second Language Acquisition: Selected Proceedings of the 1999 Second Language Research Forum.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Swierzbin, Bonnie, Ed.; Morris, Frank, Ed.; Anderson, Michael E., Ed.; Klee, Carol A., Ed.; Tarone, Elaine, Ed.

    This edited volume includes the following chapters: "Three Kinds of Sociolinguistics and SLA: A Psycholinguistic Perspective" (Dennis R. Preston); "Getting Serious about Language Play: Language Play, Interlanguage Variation, and Second Language Acquisition" (Elaine Tarone); "Oppositional Talk and the Acquisition of Modality in L2 English" (Tom…

  7. Adult Second Language Acquisition: Laotian Hmong in Southland.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lert, Erika Nagy

    The study described in this paper focuses on English language acquisition by adult Hmong Laotian immigrants in an English as a Second Language (ESL) program in a city in the Northeastern United States. Preexistent levels of literacy and second language familiarity are discounted as influences on the speed of students' acquisition of language.…

  8. The Neurobiology of Affect in Language. A Supplement to "Language Learning."

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schumann, John H.

    1997-01-01

    This document presents a theory of how the psychology and neurobiology of stimulus appraisal influence variability in second language acquisition, and extends the notion of affect developed for second language acquisition to primary language acquisition and to cognition in general. The first chapter lays out a psychological framework that develops…

  9. Goldstone R/D High Speed Data Acquisition System

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Deutsch, L. J.; Jurgens, R. F.; Brokl, S. S.

    1984-01-01

    A digital data acquisition system that meets the requirements of several users (initially the planetary radar program) is planned for general use at Deep Space Station 14 (DSS 14). The system, now partially complete, is controlled by VAX 11/780 computer that is programmed in high level languages. A DEC Data Controller is included for moderate-speed data acquisition, low speed data display, and for a digital interface to special user-provided devices. The high-speed data acquisition is performed in devices that are being designed and built at JPL. Analog IF signals are converted to a digitized 50 MHz real signal. This signal is filtered and mixed digitally to baseband after which its phase code (a PN sequence in the case of planetary radar) is removed. It may then be accumulated (or averaged) and fed into the VAX through an FPS 5210 array processor. Further data processing before entering the VAX is thus possible (computation and accumulation of the power spectra, for example). The system is to be located in the research and development pedestal at DSS 14 for easy access by researchers in radio astronomy as well as telemetry processing and antenna arraying.

  10. Structural brain changes linked to delayed first language acquisition in congenitally deaf individuals.

    PubMed

    Pénicaud, Sidonie; Klein, Denise; Zatorre, Robert J; Chen, Jen-Kai; Witcher, Pamela; Hyde, Krista; Mayberry, Rachel I

    2013-02-01

    Early language experience is essential for the development of a high level of linguistic proficiency in adulthood and in a recent functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiment, we showed that a delayed acquisition of a first language results in changes in the functional organization of the adult brain (Mayberry et al., 2011). The present study extends the question to explore if delayed acquisition of a first language also modulates the structural development of the brain. To this end, we carried out anatomical MRI in the same group of congenitally deaf individuals who varied in the age of acquisition of a first language, American Sign Language -ASL (Mayberry et al., 2011) and used a neuroanatomical technique, Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM), to explore changes in gray and white matter concentrations across the brain related to the age of first language acquisition. The results show that delayed acquisition of a first language is associated with changes in tissue concentration in the occipital cortex close to the area that has been found to show functional recruitment during language processing in these deaf individuals with a late age of acquisition. These findings suggest that a lack of early language experience affects not only the functional but also the anatomical organization of the brain. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    White, Lydia

    1990-01-01

    Discusses the motivation for Universal Grammar (UG), as assumed in the principles and parameters framework of generative grammar (Chomsky, 1981), focusing on the logical problem of first-language acquisition and the potential role of UG in second-language acquisition. Recent experimental research regarding the second-language status of the…

  12. Beyond Poverty: Engaging with Input in Generative SLA

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rankin, Tom; Unsworth, Sharon

    2016-01-01

    A generative approach to language acquisition is no different from any other in assuming that target language input is crucial for language acquisition. This discussion note addresses the place of input in generative second language acquisition (SLA) research and the perception in the wider field of SLA research that generative SLA…

  13. Beyond Production: Learners' Perceptions about Interactional Processes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mackey, Alison

    2002-01-01

    The interaction hypothesis of second language acquisition and associated work by Gass (Input, Interaction, and the Second Language Learner, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Mahwah, NJ, 1997), Long (The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition, in: W.C. Ritchie, T.K. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of Language Acquisition,…

  14. A Correlational Study: Personality Types and Foreign Language Acquisition in Undergraduate Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Capellan, Frank

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality types and second language acquisition. The study addressed a problem that is inadequately investigated in foreign language acquisition research; specifically, personality traits as predictors of language learning in college students studying Spanish as a foreign…

  15. Research in Second Language Acquisition: Selected Papers of the Los Angeles Second Language Acquisition Research Forum. Issues In Second Language Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Scarcella, Robin C., Ed.; Krashen, Stephen D., Ed.

    The following papers are included: (1) "The Theoretical and Practical Relevance of Simple Codes in Second Language Acquisition" (Krashen); (2) "Talking to Foreigners versus Talking to Children: Similarities and Differences" (Freed); (3) "The Levertov Machine" (Stevick); (4) "Acquiring a Second Language when You're Not the Underdog" (Edelsky and…

  16. Can language acquisition be facilitated in cochlear implanted children? Comparison of cognitive and behavioral psychologists' viewpoints.

    PubMed

    Monshizadeh, Leila; Vameghi, Roshanak; Yadegari, Fariba; Sajedi, Firoozeh; Hashemi, Seyed Basir

    2016-11-08

    To study how language acquisition can be facilitated for cochlear implanted children based on cognitive and behavioral psychology viewpoints? To accomplish this objective, literature related to behaviorist and cognitive psychology prospects about language acquisition were studied and some relevant books as well as Medline, Cochrane Library, Google scholar, ISI web of knowledge and Scopus databases were searched. Among 25 articles that were selected, only 11 met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. Based on the inclusion criteria, review articles, expert opinion studies, non-experimental and experimental studies that clearly focused on behavioral and cognitive factors affecting language acquisition in children were selected. Finally, the selected articles were appraised according to guidelines of appraisal of medical studies. Due to the importance of the cochlear implanted child's language performance, the comparison of behaviorist and cognitive psychology points of view in child language acquisition was done. Since each theoretical basis, has its own positive effects on language, and since the two are not in opposition to one another, it can be said that a set of behavioral and cognitive factors might facilitate the process of language acquisition in children. Behavioral psychologists believe that repetition, as well as immediate reinforcement of child's language behavior help him easily acquire the language during a language intervention program, while cognitive psychologists emphasize on the relationship between information processing, memory improvement through repetitively using words along with "associated" pictures and objects, motor development and language acquisition. It is recommended to use a combined approach based on both theoretical frameworks while planning a language intervention program.

  17. Incidental acquisition of foreign language vocabulary through brief multi-modal exposure.

    PubMed

    Bisson, Marie-Josée; van Heuven, Walter J B; Conklin, Kathy; Tunney, Richard J

    2013-01-01

    First language acquisition requires relatively little effort compared to foreign language acquisition and happens more naturally through informal learning. Informal exposure can also benefit foreign language learning, although evidence for this has been limited to speech perception and production. An important question is whether informal exposure to spoken foreign language also leads to vocabulary learning through the creation of form-meaning links. Here we tested the impact of exposure to foreign language words presented with pictures in an incidental learning phase on subsequent explicit foreign language learning. In the explicit learning phase, we asked adults to learn translation equivalents of foreign language words, some of which had appeared in the incidental learning phase. Results revealed rapid learning of the foreign language words in the incidental learning phase showing that informal exposure to multi-modal foreign language leads to foreign language vocabulary acquisition. The creation of form-meaning links during the incidental learning phase is discussed.

  18. A Cross-Linguistic Study of the Acquisition of Clitic and Pronoun Production

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Belletti, Adriana; Costa, João; Friedmann, Naama; Gavarró, Anna; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Tuller, Laurice; Lobo, Maria; Andelkovic, Darinka; Argemí, Núria; Avram, Larisa; Berends, Sanne; Brunetto, Valentina; Delage, Hélène; Ezeizabarrena, María-José; Fattal, Iris; Haman, Ewa; van Hout, Angeliek; de López, Kristine Jensen; Katsos, Napoleon; Kologranic, Lana; Krstic, Nadezda; Kraljevic, Jelena Kuvac; Miekisz, Aneta; Nerantzini, Michaela; Queraltó, Clara; Radic, Zeljana; Ruiz, Sílvia; Sauerland, Uli; Sevcenco, Anca; Smoczynska, Magdalena; Theodorou, Eleni; van der Lely, Heather; Veenstra, Alma; Weston, John; Yachini, Maya; Yatsushiro, Kazuko

    2016-01-01

    This study develops a single elicitation method to test the acquisition of third-person pronominal objects in 5-year-olds for 16 languages. This methodology allows us to compare the acquisition of pronominals in languages that lack object clitics ("pronoun languages") with languages that employ clitics in the relevant context…

  19. Some Implications of Research in Second Language Acquisition for Foreign Language Teaching.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lombardo, Linda

    On the continuum along which theories of first and second language acquisition are located, the two extremes represent the classic controversy of nature (nativist) vs. nurture (environmentalist), while those in the middle view language acquisition as a result of a more or less balanced interaction between innate capacities and linguistic…

  20. Age and Language Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Collard, Lucien

    1977-01-01

    An investigation of the differences between first and second language acquisition and the relationship between age and second language learning. The stages in native language acquisition and the advantages of an early start in second language learning are discussed. (AMH)

  1. Taking a Social Turn for the Worse: The Language Socialization Paradigm for Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gregg, Kevin R.

    2006-01-01

    In recent years, a number of researchers in the field of second language acquisition have voiced discontent regarding the tendency of second language acquisition (SLA) research to be conducted within a framework of cognitive science (Firth and Wagner, 1997; Atkinson, 2002; Johnson, 2004). Watson-Gegeo (2004) expresses this same discontent, and…

  2. The Parameter of Aspect in Second Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Slabakova, Roumyana

    1999-01-01

    Presents a detailed study of the second-language (L2) acquisition of English aspect by native speakers of Slavic languages. Results bring new evidence to bear on the theoretical choice between direct access to the L2 value or starting out the process of acquisition with the first-language value of a parameter, supporting the latter view.…

  3. Language Acquisition and Assessment in Normal and Handicapped Preschool Children: A Review of the Literature. Final Report. Volume II.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Longhurst, Thomas M.

    The second of four documents provides a summary of the scientific literature pertaining to spontaneous language acquisition in handicapped preschool children, and reviews and evaluates procedures for assessing language acquisition in these children. Chapter l focuses on language development in nonhandicapped children after they have acquired their…

  4. Can language acquisition be facilitated in cochlear implanted children? Comparison of cognitive and behavioral psychologists’ viewpoints

    PubMed Central

    Monshizadeh, Leila; Vameghi, Roshanak; Yadegari, Fariba; Sajedi, Firoozeh; Hashemi, Seyed Basir

    2016-01-01

    AIM To study how language acquisition can be facilitated for cochlear implanted children based on cognitive and behavioral psychology viewpoints? METHODS To accomplish this objective, literature related to behaviorist and cognitive psychology prospects about language acquisition were studied and some relevant books as well as Medline, Cochrane Library, Google scholar, ISI web of knowledge and Scopus databases were searched. Among 25 articles that were selected, only 11 met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. Based on the inclusion criteria, review articles, expert opinion studies, non-experimental and experimental studies that clearly focused on behavioral and cognitive factors affecting language acquisition in children were selected. Finally, the selected articles were appraised according to guidelines of appraisal of medical studies. RESULTS Due to the importance of the cochlear implanted child’s language performance, the comparison of behaviorist and cognitive psychology points of view in child language acquisition was done. Since each theoretical basis, has its own positive effects on language, and since the two are not in opposition to one another, it can be said that a set of behavioral and cognitive factors might facilitate the process of language acquisition in children. Behavioral psychologists believe that repetition, as well as immediate reinforcement of child’s language behavior help him easily acquire the language during a language intervention program, while cognitive psychologists emphasize on the relationship between information processing, memory improvement through repetitively using words along with “associated” pictures and objects, motor development and language acquisition. CONCLUSION It is recommended to use a combined approach based on both theoretical frameworks while planning a language intervention program. PMID:27872829

  5. 76 FR 3120 - Native American and Alaska Native Children in School Program; Office of English Language...

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2011-01-19

    ... English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English.... Barrera, Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director, Office of English Language Acquisition, Language... learners (ELs) \\1\\, and to promote parental and community participation in language instruction educational...

  6. Age of language acquisition and cortical language organization in multilingual patients undergoing awake brain mapping.

    PubMed

    Fernández-Coello, Alejandro; Havas, Viktória; Juncadella, Montserrat; Sierpowska, Joanna; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; Gabarrós, Andreu

    2017-06-01

    OBJECTIVE Most knowledge regarding the anatomical organization of multilingualism is based on aphasiology and functional imaging studies. However, the results have still to be validated by the gold standard approach, namely electrical stimulation mapping (ESM) during awake neurosurgical procedures. In this ESM study the authors describe language representation in a highly specific group of 13 multilingual individuals, focusing on how age of acquisition may influence the cortical organization of language. METHODS Thirteen patients who had a high degree of proficiency in multiple languages and were harboring lesions within the dominant, left hemisphere underwent ESM while being operated on under awake conditions. Demographic and language data were recorded in relation to age of language acquisition (for native languages and early- and late-acquired languages), neuropsychological pre- and postoperative language testing, the number and location of language sites, and overlapping distribution in terms of language acquisition time. Lesion growth patterns and histopathological characteristics, location, and size were also recorded. The distribution of language sites was analyzed with respect to age of acquisition and overlap. RESULTS The functional language-related sites were distributed in the frontal (55%), temporal (29%), and parietal lobes (16%). The total number of native language sites was 47. Early-acquired languages (including native languages) were represented in 97 sites (55 overlapped) and late-acquired languages in 70 sites (45 overlapped). The overlapping distribution was 20% for early-early, 71% for early-late, and 9% for late-late. The average lesion size (maximum diameter) was 3.3 cm. There were 5 fast-growing and 7 slow-growing lesions. CONCLUSIONS Cortical language distribution in multilingual patients is not homogeneous, and it is influenced by age of acquisition. Early-acquired languages have a greater cortical representation than languages acquired later. The prevalent native and early-acquired languages are largely represented within the perisylvian left hemisphere frontoparietotemporal areas, and the less prevalent late-acquired languages are mostly overlapped with them.

  7. Societal Responses to Adult Difficulties in L2 Acquisition: Toward an Evolutionary Perspective on Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schumann, John H.

    2013-01-01

    It is generally accepted that second language (L2) acquisition becomes more difficult as one grows older and that success in adult L2 acquisition is highly variable. Nevertheless, humans in language contact situations have to cope with intergroup communication. This article examines the ways society has responded to this challenge. It describes…

  8. Is CALL Obsolete? Language Acquisition and Language Learning Revisited in a Digital Age

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jarvis, Huw; Krashen, Stephen

    2014-01-01

    In this article, Huw Jarvis and Stephen Krashen ask "Is CALL Obsolete?" When the term CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) was introduced in the 1960s, the language education profession knew only about language learning, not language acquisition, and assumed the computer's primary contribution to second language acquisition…

  9. Child Language Acquisition: Contrasting Theoretical Approaches

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ambridge, Ben; Lieven, Elena V. M.

    2011-01-01

    Is children's language acquisition based on innate linguistic structures or built from cognitive and communicative skills? This book summarises the major theoretical debates in all of the core domains of child language acquisition research (phonology, word-learning, inflectional morphology, syntax and binding) and includes a complete introduction…

  10. Simulation/Gaming and the Acquisition of Communicative Competence in Another Language.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Garcia-Carbonell, Amparo; Rising, Beverly; Montero, Begona; Watts, Frances

    2001-01-01

    Discussion of communicative competence in second language acquisition focuses on a theoretical and practical meshing of simulation and gaming methodology with theories of foreign language acquisition, including task-based learning, interaction, and comprehensible input. Describes experiments conducted with computer-assisted simulations in…

  11. 75 FR 60261 - Federal Acquisition Regulation; Award-Fee Language Revision

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2010-09-29

    ...-AL42 Federal Acquisition Regulation; Award-Fee Language Revision AGENCIES: Department of Defense (DoD...: Final rule. SUMMARY: The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (Councils) have adopted as final, with changes, the interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition...

  12. Statistical learning and the challenge of syntax: Beyond finite state automata

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Elman, Jeff

    2003-10-01

    Over the past decade, it has been clear that even very young infants are sensitive to the statistical structure of language input presented to them, and use the distributional regularities to induce simple grammars. But can such statistically-driven learning also explain the acquisition of more complex grammar, particularly when the grammar includes recursion? Recent claims (e.g., Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch, 2002) have suggested that the answer is no, and that at least recursion must be an innate capacity of the human language acquisition device. In this talk evidence will be presented that indicates that, in fact, statistically-driven learning (embodied in recurrent neural networks) can indeed enable the learning of complex grammatical patterns, including those that involve recursion. When the results are generalized to idealized machines, it is found that the networks are at least equivalent to Push Down Automata. Perhaps more interestingly, with limited and finite resources (such as are presumed to exist in the human brain) these systems demonstrate patterns of performance that resemble those in humans.

  13. Rapid Profile: A Second Language Screening Procedure.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mackey, Alison; And Others

    1991-01-01

    Rapid Profile, developed by Manfred Pienemann of National Languages Institute of Australia/Language Acquisition Research Centre, is a computer-based procedure for screening speech samples collected from language learners to assess their level of language development as compared to standard patterns in the acquisition of the target language. Rapid…

  14. Input and Intake in Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gagliardi, Ann C.

    2012-01-01

    This dissertation presents an approach for a productive way forward in the study of language acquisition, sealing the rift between claims of an innate linguistic hypothesis space and powerful domain general statistical inference. This approach breaks language acquisition into its component parts, distinguishing the input in the environment from…

  15. Syntactic Markedness and Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mazurkewich, Irene

    1985-01-01

    Argues that Chomsky's theory of generative grammar provides a model for second language acquisition that meets the criteria of descriptive and exploratory adequacy in accounting for the language learning process. Illustrates this by presenting data on the acquisition of dative complements and dative questions in a passive context by second…

  16. Studies in First and Second Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eckman, Fred R., Ed.; Hastings, Ashley J., Ed.

    Papers presented at a 1977 symposium on language acquisition held at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee are included. Contents are as follows: "Assumptions, Methods and Goals in Language Acquisition Research" (Sheldon); "The Mother as LAD: Interaction between Order and Frequency of Parental Input and Child Production"…

  17. New Dimensions in Second Language Acquisition Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Andersen, Roger W., Ed.

    The following papers are included: (1) "Some Common Goals for Second and First Language Acquisition Research" by Kenji Hakuta; (2) "Research on the Measurement of Affective Variables: Some Remaining Questions" by John W. Oller, Jr.; (3) "The Effects of Neurological Age on Nonprimary Language Acquisition" by Thomas…

  18. The Road to Language Learning Is Not Entirely Iconic: Iconicity, Neighborhood Density, and Frequency Facilitate Acquisition of Sign Language.

    PubMed

    Caselli, Naomi K; Pyers, Jennie E

    2017-07-01

    Iconic mappings between words and their meanings are far more prevalent than once estimated and seem to support children's acquisition of new words, spoken or signed. We asked whether iconicity's prevalence in sign language overshadows two other factors known to support the acquisition of spoken vocabulary: neighborhood density (the number of lexical items phonologically similar to the target) and lexical frequency. Using mixed-effects logistic regressions, we reanalyzed 58 parental reports of native-signing deaf children's productive acquisition of 332 signs in American Sign Language (ASL; Anderson & Reilly, 2002) and found that iconicity, neighborhood density, and lexical frequency independently facilitated vocabulary acquisition. Despite differences in iconicity and phonological structure between signed and spoken language, signing children, like children learning a spoken language, track statistical information about lexical items and their phonological properties and leverage this information to expand their vocabulary.

  19. Bilingual Language Acquisition in a Minority Context: Using the Irish-English Communicative Development Inventory to Track Acquisition of an Endangered Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Toole, Ciara; Hickey, Tina M.

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the role of language exposure in vocabulary acquisition in Irish, a threatened minority language in Ireland which is usually acquired with English in a bilingual context. Using a bilingual Irish-English adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories) [Fenson, L., V. A. Marchman, D. J. Thal, P. S.…

  20. School Libraries Addressing the Needs of ELL Students: Enhancing Language Acquisition, Confidence, and Cultural Fluency in ELL Students by Developing a Targeted Collection and Enriching Your Makerspace

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Murphy, Peggy Henderson

    2018-01-01

    English Language Learner (ELL) students are sometimes a small constituency. Many resources already in the library can be used to enhance their language acquisition, confidence, and cultural fluency--resources such as graphic novels, hi-lo books, and makerspace materials. This article discusses enhancing language acquisition, confidence, and…

  1. Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis. Second Language Acquisition Research: Theoretical and Methodological Issues.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Birdsong, David, Ed.

    This book considers the question of whether, or to what extent, a critical period limits the acquisition of a first language as well as a second language acquired postpubertally. The diversity of opinion on this question is represented in this volume. It is a question that has been approached by researchers working in linguistic theory, evolution…

  2. Language Acquisition as Rational Contingency Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ellis, Nick C.

    2006-01-01

    This paper considers how fluent language users are rational in their language processing, their unconscious language representation systems optimally prepared for comprehension and production, how language learners are intuitive statisticians, and how acquisition can be understood as contingency learning. But there are important aspects of second…

  3. The Utility of Cognitive Plausibility in Language Acquisition Modeling: Evidence from Word Segmentation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Phillips, Lawrence; Pearl, Lisa

    2015-01-01

    The informativity of a computational model of language acquisition is directly related to how closely it approximates the actual acquisition task, sometimes referred to as the model's "cognitive plausibility." We suggest that though every computational model necessarily idealizes the modeled task, an informative language acquisition…

  4. Incidental Foreign-Language Acquisition by Children Watching Subtitled Television Programs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ina, Lekkai

    2014-01-01

    Series of international studies have shown that subtitled television programs provide a rich context for foreign language acquisition. This study investigated whether incidental language acquisition occurs from watching a television program with/without subtitles. Children in the experimental conditions watch: (a) a 15 minute snapshot of a well…

  5. Language Acquisitional Universals: L1, L2, Pidgins, and FLT.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wode, Henning

    Human capacity for language acquisition is not strictly compartmentalized, with one acquisitional mechanism for the native language and others totally unrelated to it; rather, it consists of a unified mechanism flexible enough to handle various differences in external settings. This learning system operates on the formal properties of the…

  6. Can Production Precede Comprehension in L2 Acquisition?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tasseva-Kurktchieva, Mila

    2015-01-01

    So far, the comprehension and production language modes have typically been studied separately in generative second language acquisition research, with the focus shifting from one to the other. This article revisits the asymmetric relationship between comprehension and production by examining the second language (L2) acquisition of the noun phrase…

  7. The Comparative Method of Language Acquisition Research: A Mayan Case Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pye, Clifton; Pfeiler, Barbara

    2014-01-01

    This article demonstrates how the Comparative Method can be applied to cross-linguistic research on language acquisition. The Comparative Method provides a systematic procedure for organizing and interpreting acquisition data from different languages. The Comparative Method controls for cross-linguistic differences at all levels of the grammar and…

  8. Language Acquisition: The Age Factor. Multilingual Matters 47.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Singleton, David

    This book provides an overview of research and thinking on age-related dimensions of language acquisition, intended for students, researchers, and educators with some experience in linguistics and applied linguistics. The first chapter introduces the variety of issues associated with age and language acquisition. Chapter 2 examines the evidence…

  9. L3 Acquisition of German Adjectival Inflection: A Generative Account

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jaensch, Carol

    2011-01-01

    Studies testing the knowledge of syntactic properties have resulted in two potentially contrasting proposals in relation to third language acquisition (TLA); the Cumulative Enhancement Model (Flynn et al., 2004), which proposes that previously learned languages will positively affect the acquisition of a third language (L3); and the "second…

  10. Genetic variance in a component of the language acquisition device: ROBO1 polymorphisms associated with phonological buffer deficits.

    PubMed

    Bates, Timothy C; Luciano, Michelle; Medland, Sarah E; Montgomery, Grant W; Wright, Margaret J; Martin, Nicholas G

    2011-01-01

    The region containing ROBO1 (Chromosome 3p12.3) has been implicated as a susceptibility gene for reading disorder and language deficit by translocation and linkage data. No association studies have yet been reported supporting any candidate gene. Here we report the first association of this gene with language deficits, specifically with phonological buffer deficits (a phenotype implicated in language acquisition, Specific Language Impairment and Speech Sound Disorder) and dyslexia (reading and spelling ability traits) in an unselected sample of adolescent twins and their siblings. Family-based analyses were performed on 144 tag SNPs in ROBO1, typed in 538 families with up to five offspring and tested for association with a developmental marker of language impairment (phonological buffer capacity, assessed using non word repetition). A reading and spelling ability measure--based on validated measures of lexical processing (irregular word) and grapheme-phoneme decoding (pseudo word)--and measures of short-term and working memory were also analysed. Significant association for phonological buffer capacity was observed for 21 of 144 SNPs tested, peaking at 8.70 × 10(-05) and 9.30 × 10(-05) for SNPs rs6803202 and rs4535189 respectively for nonword repetition, values that survive correction for multiple testing. Twenty-two SNPs showed significant associations for verbal storage (forward digit span)--a trait linked to phonological span. By contrast, just 5 SNPs reached nominal significance for working-memory, not surviving correction, and, importantly, only one SNP in the 144 tested reached nominal significance (0.04) for association with reading and spelling ability. These results provide strong support for ROBO1 as a gene involved in a core trait underpinning language acquisition, with a specific function in supporting a short-term buffer for arbitrary phonological strings. These effects of ROBO1 appear to be unrelated to brain mechanisms underpinning reading ability, at least by adolescence. While replication will be critical, the present results strongly support ROBO1 as the first gene discovered to be associated with language deficits affecting normal variation in language ability. Its functional role in neuronal migration underlying bilateral symmetry and lateralization of neuronal function further suggests a role in the evolution of human language ability.

  11. [First language acquisition research and theories of language acquisition].

    PubMed

    Miller, S; Jungheim, M; Ptok, M

    2014-04-01

    In principle, a child can seemingly easily acquire any given language. First language acquisition follows a certain pattern which to some extent is found to be language independent. Since time immemorial, it has been of interest why children are able to acquire language so easily. Different disciplinary and methodological orientations addressing this question can be identified. A selective literature search in PubMed and Scopus was carried out and relevant monographies were considered. Different, partially overlapping phases can be distinguished in language acquisition research: whereas in ancient times, deprivation experiments were carried out to discover the "original human language", the era of diary studies began in the mid-19th century. From the mid-1920s onwards, behaviouristic paradigms dominated this field of research; interests were focussed on the determination of normal, average language acquisition. The subsequent linguistic period was strongly influenced by the nativist view of Chomsky and the constructivist concepts of Piaget. Speech comprehension, the role of speech input and the relevance of genetic disposition became the centre of attention. The interactionist concept led to a revival of the convergence theory according to Stern. Each of these four major theories--behaviourism, cognitivism, interactionism and nativism--have given valuable and unique impulses, but no single theory is universally accepted to provide an explanation of all aspects of language acquisition. Moreover, it can be critically questioned whether clinicians consciously refer to one of these theories in daily routine work and whether therapies are then based on this concept. It remains to be seen whether or not new theories of grammar, such as the so-called construction grammar (CxG), will eventually change the general concept of language acquisition.

  12. A Statistical-Physics Approach to Language Acquisition and Language Change

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Cassandro, Marzio; Collet, Pierre; Galves, Antonio; Galves, Charlotte

    1999-02-01

    The aim of this paper is to explain why Statistical Physics can help understanding two related linguistic questions. The first question is how to model first language acquisition by a child. The second question is how language change proceeds in time. Our approach is based on a Gibbsian model for the interface between syntax and prosody. We also present a simulated annealing model of language acquisition, which extends the Triggering Learning Algorithm recently introduced in the linguistic literature.

  13. Language Acquisition and Language Revitalization

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Grady, William; Hattori, Ryoko

    2016-01-01

    Intergenerational transmission, the ultimate goal of language revitalization efforts, can only be achieved by (re)establishing the conditions under which an imperiled language can be acquired by the community's children. This paper presents a tutorial survey of several key points relating to language acquisition and maintenance in children,…

  14. First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in prelingually deaf signers: Evidence from sensitivity to grammaticality judgement in British Sign Language

    PubMed Central

    Cormier, Kearsy; Schembri, Adam; Vinson, David; Orfanidou, Eleni

    2012-01-01

    Age of acquisition (AoA) effects have been used to support the notion of a critical period for first language acquisition. In this study, we examine AoA effects in deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users via a grammaticality judgment task. When English reading performance and nonverbal IQ are factored out, results show that accuracy of grammaticality judgement decreases as AoA increases, until around age 8, thus showing the unique effect of AoA on grammatical judgement in early learners. No such effects were found in those who acquired BSL after age 8. These late learners appear to have first language proficiency in English instead, which may have been used to scaffold learning of BSL as a second language later in life. PMID:22578601

  15. Examining the Relationship between Interaction and Linguistic Outcomes: Is the Online Learning Environment a Viable Alternative to Traditional Classroom Instruction for Beginning Language Learners?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Flesvig Bruland, Nicole

    2013-01-01

    Many in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) agree that interaction is a critical component in the process of second language acquisition (Hatch 1978; Long, 1996; Pica 1994). According to Long (1996), second language (L2) learners have the best chance of successful L2 acquisition when placed in an environment in which conversational…

  16. Formulas in First and Second Language Acquisition. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, No. 18.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vihman, Marilyn May

    The use of formulaic speech is seen as a learning strategy in children's first language (L1) acquisition to a limited extent, and to an even greater extent in their second language (L2) acquisition. While the first utterances of the child learning L1 are mostly one-word constructions, many of them are routine words or phrases that the child learns…

  17. A Minimalist Approach to Null Subjects and Objects in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Park, H.

    2004-01-01

    Studies of the second language acquisition of pronominal arguments have observed that: (1) L1 speakers of null subject languages of the Spanish type drop more subjects in their second language (L2) English than first language (L1) speakers of null subject languages of the Korean type and (2) speakers of Korean-type languages drop more objects than…

  18. The Missing Link in Vision and Governance: Foreign Language Acquisition Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kramsch, Claire J.

    1987-01-01

    Foreign language acquisition research (concerned with the theoretical and practical issues related to socialization into and literacy in another language and culture) can help integrate language, literature, and culture in foreign language departments because it draws on insights gained from such diverse fields as anthropology, sociology,…

  19. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Computer Technology in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lai, Cheng-Chieh; Kritsonis, William Allan

    2006-01-01

    The purpose of this article is to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of computer technology and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) programs for current second language learning. According to the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition & Language Instruction Educational Programs' report (2002), more than nine million…

  20. Usage-Based Language: Investigating the Latent Structures That Underpin Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ellis, Nick C.; O'Donnell, Matthew Brook; Romer, Ute

    2013-01-01

    Each of us as language learners had different language experiences, yet somehow we have converged upon broadly the same language system. From diverse, often noisy samples, we have attained similar linguistic competence. How so? What mechanisms channel language acquisition? Could our linguistic commonalities possibly have converged from our shared…

  1. Handbook of Child Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ritchie, William C., Ed.; Bhatia, Tej K., Ed.

    This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the major areas of research in the field of child language acquisition. It is divided into seven parts and 19 chapters. Part I is an introduction and overview. Part II covers central issues in the study of child language acquisition, focusing on syntax, including those of innateness, maturation, and…

  2. Revisiting First Language Acquisition through Empirical and Rational Perspectives

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tahriri, Abdorreza

    2012-01-01

    Acquisition in general and first language acquisition in particular is a very complex and a multifaceted phenomenon. The way that children acquire a language in a very limited period is astonishing. Various approaches have been proposed so far to account for this extraordinary phenomenon. These approaches are indeed based on various philosophical…

  3. Some Aspects of Developing Background Knowledge in Second Language Acquisition Revisited

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zashchitina, Galina; Moysyak, Natalia

    2017-01-01

    The article focuses on defining how background knowledge impacts on second-language acquisition by giving a brief overview of schema theory, the interaction of the basic modes of information processing. A challenge of dealing with culturally specific texts in second language acquisition is also touched upon. Different research-supported views on…

  4. A Shared Platform for Studying Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    MacWhinney, Brian

    2017-01-01

    The study of second language acquisition (SLA) can benefit from the same process of datasharing that has proven effective in areas such as first language acquisition and aphasiology. Researchers can work together to construct a shared platform that combines data from spoken and written corpora, online tutors, and Web-based experimentation. Many of…

  5. Assess the Critical Period Hypothesis in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Du, Lihong

    2010-01-01

    The Critical Period Hypothesis aims to investigate the reason for significant difference between first language acquisition and second language acquisition. Over the past few decades, researchers carried out a series of studies to test the validity of the hypothesis. Although there were certain limitations in these studies, most of their results…

  6. Field Dependence/Independence in Second Language Acquisition and Implications for Educators and Instructional Designers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hoffman, Suzanne Q.

    1997-01-01

    Discusses whether the relationship between field dependence/independence (FD/I) and second-language acquisition is significant. The article contains introductory material defining FD/I within the context of second-language acquisition, a review of relevant research, and a discussion of the research's implications for educators and instructional…

  7. Environmental Influence on Language Acquisition: Comparing Second and Foreign Language Acquisition of Swedish

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hakansson, Gisela; Norrby, Catrin

    2010-01-01

    This article explores the influence of the learning environment on the second language acquisition of Swedish. Data were collected longitudinally over 1 year from 35 university students studying Swedish in Malmo, Sweden, and in Melbourne, Australia. Three areas were investigated: grammar, pragmatics, and lexicon. The development of grammar was…

  8. Review Article: Second Language Acquisition of Bantu Languages--A (Mostly) Untapped Research Opportunity

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Spinner, Patti

    2011-01-01

    This review article presents a summary of research on the second language acquisition of Bantu languages, including Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa and Lingala. Although second language (L2) research on these languages is currently very limited, work in morphosyntax and phonology suggests promising directions for future study, particularly on noun class,…

  9. L'acquisition d'une language seconde: Quelques developpements theoriques recents (Second Language Acquisition: Some Recent Theoretical Developments).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Py, Bernard, Ed.

    1994-01-01

    This collection of articles on second language learning includes: "Action, langage et discours. Les fondements d'une psychologie du langage" ("Action, Language, and Discourse. Foundations of a Psychology of Language") (Jean-Paul Bronckart); "Contextes socio-culturels et appropriation des languages secondes: l'apprentissage en milieu social et la…

  10. Caregivers' suffix frequencies and suffix acquisition by language impaired, late talking, and typically developing children.

    PubMed

    Warlaumont, Anne S; Jarmulowicz, Linda

    2012-11-01

    Acquisition of regular inflectional suffixes is an integral part of grammatical development in English and delayed acquisition of certain inflectional suffixes is a hallmark of language impairment. We investigate the relationship between input frequency and grammatical suffix acquisition, analyzing 217 transcripts of mother-child (ages 1 ; 11-6 ; 9) conversations from the CHILDES database. Maternal suffix frequency correlates with previously reported rank orders of acquisition and with child suffix frequency. Percentages of children using a suffix are consistent with frequencies in caregiver speech. Although late talkers acquire suffixes later than typically developing children, order of acquisition is similar across populations. Furthermore, the third person singular and past tense verb suffixes, weaknesses for children with language impairment, are less frequent in caregiver speech than the plural noun suffix, a relative strength in language impairment. Similar findings hold across typical, SLI and late talker populations, suggesting that frequency plays a role in suffix acquisition.

  11. 76 FR 18538 - Applications for New Awards; National Professional Development Program

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2011-04-04

    ... DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION [CFDA 84.195N] Applications for New Awards; National Professional Development Program AGENCY: Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic... Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students...

  12. The Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986: 30 Years of Acquisition Reform

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2016-12-01

    making it more difficult to purchase commercial items from a sole source when the value is above the simplified acquisition threshold; such language ...that private-sector witnesses supported language in the bill that proposed “an aggressive training program for the acquisition workforce” because “a...TECHNOLOGICAL EDGE ACT (2015) The most recent effort before the current sweeping reform language proposed in the 2017 NDAA was the Agile Acquisition to Retain

  13. First language acquisition differs from second language acquisition in prelingually deaf signers: evidence from sensitivity to grammaticality judgement in British Sign Language.

    PubMed

    Cormier, Kearsy; Schembri, Adam; Vinson, David; Orfanidou, Eleni

    2012-07-01

    Age of acquisition (AoA) effects have been used to support the notion of a critical period for first language acquisition. In this study, we examine AoA effects in deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users via a grammaticality judgment task. When English reading performance and nonverbal IQ are factored out, results show that accuracy of grammaticality judgement decreases as AoA increases, until around age 8, thus showing the unique effect of AoA on grammatical judgement in early learners. No such effects were found in those who acquired BSL after age 8. These late learners appear to have first language proficiency in English instead, which may have been used to scaffold learning of BSL as a second language later in life. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Addressing Cultural and Native Language Interference in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Allard, Daniele; Bourdeau, Jacqueline; Mizoguchi, Riichiro

    2011-01-01

    This paper addresses the problem of cultural and native language interference in second/foreign language acquisition. More specifically, it examines issues of interference that can be traced to a student's native language and that also have a cultural component. To this effect, an understanding of what actually comprises both interference and…

  15. On Teaching Strategies in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yang, Hong

    2008-01-01

    How to acquire a second language is a question of obvious importance to teachers and language learners, and how to teach a second language has also become a matter of concern to the linguists' interest in the nature of primary linguistic data. Starting with the development stages of second language acquisition and Stephen Krashen's theory, this…

  16. Three Fundamental Concepts in Second Language Acquisition and Their Relevance in Multilingual Contexts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kramsch, Claire; Whiteside, Anne

    2007-01-01

    This article considers how 3 fundamental concepts of second language acquisition (SLA), the native speaker, interlanguage, and the language learner have fared since Firth and Wagner (1997). We review the ascendancy of these concepts and their relationship to the traditional dichotomies of language learning versus language use and individual mind…

  17. Verb Particle and Preposition Acquisition in Language-Impaired Preschoolers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Watkins, Ruth V.; Rice, Mabel L.

    1991-01-01

    This study examined the acquisition of verb particles and prepositions in language-impaired, language-matched, and age-matched preschool children (total n=42). Results indicated that the use of verb particles constituted a particularly challenging task for the language-impaired subjects relative to both the age-matched and language-matched peers.…

  18. Do Adults Show an Effect of Delayed First Language Acquisition When Calculating Scalar Implicatures?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Davidson, Kathryn; Mayberry, Rachel I.

    2015-01-01

    Language acquisition involves learning not only grammatical rules and a lexicon but also what people are intending to convey with their utterances: the semantic/pragmatic component of language. In this article we separate the contributions of linguistic development and cognitive maturity to the acquisition of the semantic/pragmatic component of…

  19. Assessment of Language Learners' Strategies: Do They Prefer Learning or Acquisition Strategies?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Altmisdort, Gonca

    2016-01-01

    The aim of this study is to evaluate learning and acquisition strategies used by second/foreign language learners. This study is a comparative investigation of learning and acquisition strategies of successful and less successful language learners. The main question of the study is to investigate if there is a relationship between the learners'…

  20. Implementing Oral English Language Acquisition Policy in Career and Technical Education Classes: Changing to a Social Pedagogy Paradigm

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crockett, Kelley E.

    2010-01-01

    Federal and state policies have long sought to address the social inequities faced by limited English proficient (LEP) students through the improvement of English language acquisition. English language acquisition policy has focused on access to resources, qualified teachers, and instructional methodologies (e.g. pedagogy) that create a learning…

  1. Second Language Acquisition, Culture Shock and Language Stress of Adult Latina Students in New York.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Buttaro, Lucia

    This study identified the second language acquisition, culture shock, and language stress of adult Latinas in New York as related to language, culture, and education. Participants were eight adult Latinas, for whom Spanish was the first language, who had come to the United States 10-15 years previously and developed some functioning English as a…

  2. "If We Lose Their Language We Lose Our History": Knowledge and Disposition in Maori Language Acquisition Policy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Albury, Nathan John

    2018-01-01

    Localising knowledge and dispositions helps to predict the likely success of top-down language policies. In so far as language acquisition is a pillar of language revitalisation policy, then community perspectives on learning a minority language deserve attention. This article presents the knowledge, dispositions, and ideas of around 1,300…

  3. The Comprehension Approach to Foreign Language Instruction.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Winitz, Harris, Ed.

    The comprehension approach to second language education emphasizes acquisition of listening comprehension prior to and as a vehicle for acquisition of other language skills. The following articles on this approach are collected here: (1) "Nonlinear Learning and Language Teaching" (Winitz); (2) "Aital cal aprene las lengas…

  4. Vocabulary Levels and Size of Malaysian Undergraduates

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harji, Madhubala Bava; Balakrishnan, Kavitha; Bhar, Sareen Kaur; Letchumanan, Krishnaveni

    2015-01-01

    Vocabulary is a fundamental requirement of language acquisition, and its competence enables independent reading and effective language acquisition. Effective language use requires adequate level of vocabulary knowledge; therefore, efforts must be made to identify students' vocabulary base for greater efficiency and competency in the language.…

  5. Music and Early Language Acquisition

    PubMed Central

    Brandt, Anthony; Gebrian, Molly; Slevc, L. Robert

    2012-01-01

    Language is typically viewed as fundamental to human intelligence. Music, while recognized as a human universal, is often treated as an ancillary ability – one dependent on or derivative of language. In contrast, we argue that it is more productive from a developmental perspective to describe spoken language as a special type of music. A review of existing studies presents a compelling case that musical hearing and ability is essential to language acquisition. In addition, we challenge the prevailing view that music cognition matures more slowly than language and is more difficult; instead, we argue that music learning matches the speed and effort of language acquisition. We conclude that music merits a central place in our understanding of human development. PMID:22973254

  6. Music and early language acquisition.

    PubMed

    Brandt, Anthony; Gebrian, Molly; Slevc, L Robert

    2012-01-01

    Language is typically viewed as fundamental to human intelligence. Music, while recognized as a human universal, is often treated as an ancillary ability - one dependent on or derivative of language. In contrast, we argue that it is more productive from a developmental perspective to describe spoken language as a special type of music. A review of existing studies presents a compelling case that musical hearing and ability is essential to language acquisition. In addition, we challenge the prevailing view that music cognition matures more slowly than language and is more difficult; instead, we argue that music learning matches the speed and effort of language acquisition. We conclude that music merits a central place in our understanding of human development.

  7. Acquisition by Processing Theory: A Theory of Everything?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carroll, Susanne E.

    2004-01-01

    Truscott and Sharwood Smith (henceforth T&SS) propose a novel theory of language acquisition, "Acquisition by Processing Theory" (APT), designed to account for both first and second language acquisition, monolingual and bilingual speech perception and parsing, and speech production. This is a tall order. Like any theoretically ambitious…

  8. 76 FR 46206 - NASA Implementation of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Award Fee Language Revision

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2011-08-02

    ... of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Award Fee Language Revision AGENCY: National Aeronautics and... Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-46. DATES: Effective Date: August 2, 2011. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT... on February 8, 2011 (76 FR 6696) implementing Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-46 which...

  9. Incidental Foreign Language Acquisition from Media Exposure

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kuppens, An H.

    2010-01-01

    A number of experimental studies have demonstrated the incidental acquisition of a foreign language by children and adolescents when watching foreign language television. While such experiments can only establish short-term effects, this article investigates the extent to which children's foreign language skills benefit from their long-term…

  10. Learning to Learn a Foreign Language. Principles of Second Language Acquisition: An Orientation for Foreign Language Teachers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pfannkuche, Anthony; And Others

    The manual designed to accompany an orientation seminar for students concerning language learning processes and strategies and the design of their program includes materials for five sessions, in three sections. The first section covers language learning and acquisition in general and contains a survey of the participants' foreign language…

  11. Hit or Miss, or Missing: The Role of Second Language Acquisition Research in Language Teacher Training.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rankin, Jamie

    1994-01-01

    This article discusses how the syllabus for language teacher training in German has evolved and considers what direction foreign language teacher training might take if it were to follow the cue of "Deutsch als Fremdsprache" and appropriate the research agenda of second-language acquisition studies. (Contains 51 references.) (JL)

  12. Cross-Linguistic Influence in Third Language Perception: L2 and L3 Perception of Japanese Contrasts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Onishi, Hiromi

    2013-01-01

    This dissertation examines the possible influence of language learners' second language (L2) on their perception of phonological contrasts in their third language (L3). Previous studies on Third Language Acquisition (TLA) suggest various factors as possible sources of cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of an L3. This dissertation…

  13. Review Article: Recent Publications on Research Methods in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ionin, Tania

    2013-01-01

    The central goal of the field of second language acquisition (SLA) is to describe and explain how second language learners acquire the target language. In order to achieve this goal, SLA researchers work with second language data, which can take a variety of forms, including (but not limited to) such commonly used methods as naturalistic…

  14. Songs vs. Stories: Impact of Input Sources on ESL Vocabulary Acquisition by Preliterate Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lesniewska, Justyna; Pichette, François

    2016-01-01

    Research in second language acquisition has paid little attention to preliterate children learning a language which is absent from their environment outside the language class. This study examines the acquisition of English words by 24 French-speaking children aged 35-59 months, who were introduced to 57 words, embedded in stories and songs. Four…

  15. Acquisition of speech rhythm in first language.

    PubMed

    Polyanskaya, Leona; Ordin, Mikhail

    2015-09-01

    Analysis of English rhythm in speech produced by children and adults revealed that speech rhythm becomes increasingly more stress-timed as language acquisition progresses. Children reach the adult-like target by 11 to 12 years. The employed speech elicitation paradigm ensured that the sentences produced by adults and children at different ages were comparable in terms of lexical content, segmental composition, and phonotactic complexity. Detected differences between child and adult rhythm and between rhythm in child speech at various ages cannot be attributed to acquisition of phonotactic language features or vocabulary, and indicate the development of language-specific phonetic timing in the course of acquisition.

  16. Language Learners in Study Abroad Contexts. Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    DuFon, Margaret A., Ed.; Churchill, Eton, Ed.

    2006-01-01

    Examining the overseas experience of language learners in diverse contexts through a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, studies in this volume look at the acquisition of language use, socialization processes, learner motivation, identity and learning strategies. In this way, the volume offers a privileged window into learner…

  17. Multilingual Communication and Language Acquisition: New Research Directions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Canagarajah, A. Suresh; Wurr, Adrian J.

    2011-01-01

    In this article, we outline the differences between a monolingual and multilingual orientation to language and language acquisition. The increasing contact between languages in the context of globalization motivates such a shift of paradigms. Multilingual communicative practices have remained vibrant in non-western communities for a long time. We…

  18. Very Early Processing Skills and Language Acquisition in Autism Spectrum Disorder

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kushner, Nicole Blake

    2017-01-01

    With the increasing prevalence of autism diagnoses, large percentage of diagnosed individuals with comorbid language difficulties, and negative effects of these difficulties on language development and overall functioning, research on language acquisition in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder is essential. The current study used data…

  19. "Language Learning" Roundtable: Memory and Second Language Acquisition 2012, Hong Kong

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wen, Zhisheng; McNeill, Arthur; Mota, Mailce Borges

    2014-01-01

    Organized under the auspices of the "Language Learning" Roundtable Conference Grant (2012), this seminar aimed to provide an interactive forum for a group of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers with particular interests in cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics to discuss key theoretical and methodological issues in the…

  20. Language aptitude for pronunciation in advanced second language (L2) learners: behavioural predictors and neural substrates.

    PubMed

    Hu, Xiaochen; Ackermann, Hermann; Martin, Jason A; Erb, Michael; Winkler, Susanne; Reiterer, Susanne M

    2013-12-01

    Individual differences in second language (L2) aptitude have been assumed to depend upon a variety of cognitive and personality factors. Especially, the cognitive factor phonological working memory has been conceptualised as language learning device. However, strong associations between phonological working memory and L2 aptitude have been previously found in early-stage learners only, not in advanced learners. The current study aimed at investigating the behavioural and neurobiological predictors of advanced L2 learning. Our behavioural results showed that phonetic coding ability and empathy, but not phonological working memory, predict L2 pronunciation aptitude in advanced learners. Second, functional neuroimaging revealed this behavioural trait to be correlated with hemodynamic responses of the cerebral network of speech motor control and auditory-perceptual areas. We suggest that the acquisition of L2 pronunciation aptitude is a dynamic process, requiring a variety of neural resources at different processing stages over time. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. How Much of Language Acquisition Does Operant Conditioning Explain?

    PubMed

    Sturdy, Christopher B; Nicoladis, Elena

    2017-01-01

    Since the 1950s, when Chomsky argued that Skinner's arguments could not explain syntactic acquisition, psychologists have generally avoided explicitly invoking operant or instrumental conditioning as a learning mechanism for language among human children. In this article, we argue that this is a mistake. We focus on research that has been done on language learning in human infants and toddlers in order to illustrate our points. Researchers have ended up inventing learning mechanisms that, in actual practice, not only resemble but also in fact are examples of operant conditioning (OC) by any other name they select. We argue that language acquisition researchers should proceed by first ruling out OC before invoking alternative learning mechanisms. While it is possible that OC cannot explain all of the language acquisition, simple learning mechanisms that work across species may have some explanatory power in children's language learning.

  2. How Much of Language Acquisition Does Operant Conditioning Explain?

    PubMed Central

    Sturdy, Christopher B.; Nicoladis, Elena

    2017-01-01

    Since the 1950s, when Chomsky argued that Skinner’s arguments could not explain syntactic acquisition, psychologists have generally avoided explicitly invoking operant or instrumental conditioning as a learning mechanism for language among human children. In this article, we argue that this is a mistake. We focus on research that has been done on language learning in human infants and toddlers in order to illustrate our points. Researchers have ended up inventing learning mechanisms that, in actual practice, not only resemble but also in fact are examples of operant conditioning (OC) by any other name they select. We argue that language acquisition researchers should proceed by first ruling out OC before invoking alternative learning mechanisms. While it is possible that OC cannot explain all of the language acquisition, simple learning mechanisms that work across species may have some explanatory power in children’s language learning. PMID:29163295

  3. Age of acquisition effects on the functional organization of language in the adult brain.

    PubMed

    Mayberry, Rachel I; Chen, Jen-Kai; Witcher, Pamela; Klein, Denise

    2011-10-01

    Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we neuroimaged deaf adults as they performed two linguistic tasks with sentences in American Sign Language, grammatical judgment and phonemic-hand judgment. Participants' age-onset of sign language acquisition ranged from birth to 14 years; length of sign language experience was substantial and did not vary in relation to age of acquisition. For both tasks, a more left lateralized pattern of activation was observed, with activity for grammatical judgment being more anterior than that observed for phonemic-hand judgment, which was more posterior by comparison. Age of acquisition was linearly and negatively related to activation levels in anterior language regions and positively related to activation levels in posterior visual regions for both tasks. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. 76 FR 6696 - NASA Implementation of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Award Fee Language Revision

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2011-02-08

    ... of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Award Fee Language Revision AGENCY: National Aeronautics and... (NFS) to implement the FAR Award Fee revision issued in Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-46.... Background Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-46 significantly revised FAR Parts 16.305, 16.401, and 16...

  5. Does Equal Access Mean Treat the Same? From Theory to Practice in the Classroom of English as an Additional Language Learner in Ireland--Towards a Transformative Agenda

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kelly, Niamh

    2014-01-01

    While a substantial body of research exists on First- and Second-Language Acquisition (SLA), research on the language acquisition process that a language minority student goes through when they are acquiring a second language has been largely unexplored. Pedagogical practices that espouse language learning theories facilitate both the language…

  6. The Acquisition of Tense in English: Distinguishing Child Second Language from First Language and Specific Language Impairment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Paradis, Johanne; Rice, Mabel L.; Crago, Martha; Marquis, Janet

    2008-01-01

    This study reports on a comparison of the use and knowledge of tense-marking morphemes in English by first language (L1), second language (L2), and specific language impairment (SLI) children. The objective of our research was to ascertain whether the L2 children's tense acquisition patterns were similar or dissimilar to those of the L1 and SLI…

  7. The Use of the Bilingual Aphasia Test for Assessment and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to Modulate Language Acquisition in Minimally Verbal Children with Autism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schneider, Harry D.; Hopp, Jenna P.

    2011-01-01

    Minimally verbal children with autism commonly demonstrate language dysfunction, including immature syntax acquisition. We hypothesised that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) should facilitate language acquisition in a cohort (n = 10) of children with immature syntax. We modified the English version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test (BAT)…

  8. Recovery from First-Language Transfer: The Second Language Acquisition of English Double Objects by Korean Speakers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Oh, Eunjeong

    2010-01-01

    Previous studies on second language (L2) acquisition of English dative alternation by Korean speakers (Oh and Zubizarreta, 2003, 2006a, 2006b) have shown that the acquisition of English benefactive double object (DO) (e.g. "John baked Mary a cake") lags behind that of its counterpart goal double object (e.g. "John sent Mary the letter"). This…

  9. The Perception of Stress Pattern in Young Cochlear Implanted Children: An EEG Study.

    PubMed

    Vavatzanidis, Niki K; Mürbe, Dirk; Friederici, Angela D; Hahne, Anja

    2016-01-01

    Children with sensorineural hearing loss may (re)gain hearing with a cochlear implant-a device that transforms sounds into electric pulses and bypasses the dysfunctioning inner ear by stimulating the auditory nerve directly with an electrode array. Many implanted children master the acquisition of spoken language successfully, yet we still have little knowledge of the actual input they receive with the implant and specifically which language sensitive cues they hear. This would be important however, both for understanding the flexibility of the auditory system when presented with stimuli after a (life-) long phase of deprivation and for planning therapeutic intervention. In rhythmic languages the general stress pattern conveys important information about word boundaries. Infant language acquisition relies on such cues and can be severely hampered when this information is missing, as seen for dyslexic children and children with specific language impairment. Here we ask whether children with a cochlear implant perceive differences in stress patterns during their language acquisition phase and if they do, whether it is present directly following implant stimulation or if and how much time is needed for the auditory system to adapt to the new sensory modality. We performed a longitudinal ERP study, testing in bimonthly intervals the stress pattern perception of 17 young hearing impaired children (age range: 9-50 months; mean: 22 months) during their first 6 months of implant use. An additional session before the implantation served as control baseline. During a session they passively listened to an oddball paradigm featuring the disyllable "baba," which was stressed either on the first or second syllable (trochaic vs. iambic stress pattern). A group of age-matched normal hearing children participated as controls. Our results show, that within the first 6 months of implant use the implanted children develop a negative mismatch response for iambic but not for trochaic deviants, thus showing the same result as the normal hearing controls. Even congenitally deaf children show the same developing pattern. We therefore conclude (a) that young implanted children have early access to stress pattern information and (b) that they develop ERP responses similar to those of normal hearing children.

  10. The P-chain: relating sentence production and its disorders to comprehension and acquisition

    PubMed Central

    Dell, Gary S.; Chang, Franklin

    2014-01-01

    This article introduces the P-chain, an emerging framework for theory in psycholinguistics that unifies research on comprehension, production and acquisition. The framework proposes that language processing involves incremental prediction, which is carried out by the production system. Prediction necessarily leads to prediction error, which drives learning, including both adaptive adjustment to the mature language processing system as well as language acquisition. To illustrate the P-chain, we review the Dual-path model of sentence production, a connectionist model that explains structural priming in production and a number of facts about language acquisition. The potential of this and related models for explaining acquired and developmental disorders of sentence production is discussed. PMID:24324238

  11. The P-chain: relating sentence production and its disorders to comprehension and acquisition.

    PubMed

    Dell, Gary S; Chang, Franklin

    2014-01-01

    This article introduces the P-chain, an emerging framework for theory in psycholinguistics that unifies research on comprehension, production and acquisition. The framework proposes that language processing involves incremental prediction, which is carried out by the production system. Prediction necessarily leads to prediction error, which drives learning, including both adaptive adjustment to the mature language processing system as well as language acquisition. To illustrate the P-chain, we review the Dual-path model of sentence production, a connectionist model that explains structural priming in production and a number of facts about language acquisition. The potential of this and related models for explaining acquired and developmental disorders of sentence production is discussed.

  12. Developmental and Evolutionary Lexicon Acquisition in Cognitive Agents/Robots with Grounding Principle: A Short Review.

    PubMed

    Rasheed, Nadia; Amin, Shamsudin H M

    2016-01-01

    Grounded language acquisition is an important issue, particularly to facilitate human-robot interactions in an intelligent and effective way. The evolutionary and developmental language acquisition are two innovative and important methodologies for the grounding of language in cognitive agents or robots, the aim of which is to address current limitations in robot design. This paper concentrates on these two main modelling methods with the grounding principle for the acquisition of linguistic ability in cognitive agents or robots. This review not only presents a survey of the methodologies and relevant computational cognitive agents or robotic models, but also highlights the advantages and progress of these approaches for the language grounding issue.

  13. Developmental and Evolutionary Lexicon Acquisition in Cognitive Agents/Robots with Grounding Principle: A Short Review

    PubMed Central

    Rasheed, Nadia; Amin, Shamsudin H. M.

    2016-01-01

    Grounded language acquisition is an important issue, particularly to facilitate human-robot interactions in an intelligent and effective way. The evolutionary and developmental language acquisition are two innovative and important methodologies for the grounding of language in cognitive agents or robots, the aim of which is to address current limitations in robot design. This paper concentrates on these two main modelling methods with the grounding principle for the acquisition of linguistic ability in cognitive agents or robots. This review not only presents a survey of the methodologies and relevant computational cognitive agents or robotic models, but also highlights the advantages and progress of these approaches for the language grounding issue. PMID:27069470

  14. Adult English Language Learners' Perceptions of Audience Response Systems (Clickers) as Communication Aides: A Q-Methodology Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rodriguez, Lisa Ann; Shepard, MaryFriend

    2013-01-01

    This study explored the perceptions of adult English language learners about audience response systems (clickers) as tools to facilitate communication. According to second language acquisition theory, learners' receptive capabilities in the early stages of second language acquisition surpass expressive capabilities, often rendering them silent in…

  15. Predictors of Second Language Acquisition in Latino Children with Specific Language Impairment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gutierrez-Clellen, Vera; Simon-Cereijido, Gabriela; Sweet, Monica

    2012-01-01

    Purpose: This study evaluated the extent to which the language of intervention, the child's development in Spanish, and the effects of English vocabulary, use, proficiency, and exposure predict differences in the rates of acquisition of English in Latino children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: In this randomized controlled trial,…

  16. Language Acquisition by Children with Down Syndrome: A Naturalistic Approach to Assisting Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vilaseca, R.M.; Del Rio, M-J.

    2004-01-01

    Many child language studies emphasize the value of verbal and social support, of 'scaffolding' processes and mutual adjustments that naturally occur in adult-child interactions in everyday contexts. Based on such theories, this study attempted to improve the language and communication skills in children with special educational needs through…

  17. Knowledge, Skills, and Training in Second Language Acquisition: A Comparative Study of Preservice Teachers' Perceptions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wilson, Christine

    2017-01-01

    Preservice teachers must have opportunities in their university teaching programs to apply theories of second language learning. Courses in second language acquisition and English as a second language methodology are essential to prepare mainstream teachers for teaching culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Additionally, creating a…

  18. Prospective Foreign Language Teachers' Preference of Teaching Methods for the Language Acquisition Course in Turkish Higher Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    GüvendIr, Emre

    2013-01-01

    Considering the significance of taking student preferences into account while organizing teaching practices, the current study explores which teaching method prospective foreign language teachers mostly prefer their teacher to use in the language acquisition course. A teaching methods evaluation form that includes six commonly used teaching…

  19. Authenticity and Authorship in the Computer-Mediated Acquisition of L2 Literacy.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kramsch, Claire

    2000-01-01

    Examines two tenets of communicative language teaching--authenticity of the input and authorship of the language user--in an electronic environment. Reviews research in textually-mediated second language acquisition and analyzes two cases of computer-mediated language learning: the construction of a multimedia CD-ROM by American college learners…

  20. The Evolution of Language Acquisition in Immigrant Students in Catalonia: The Role of the Home Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sansó, Clara; Navarro, José Luis; Huguet, Ángel

    2015-01-01

    Introduction: The development of immigrant students' language proficiency is one of the main challenges facing education professionals today. Our study was a longitudinal analysis of Catalan and Spanish language acquisition. Method: Participants were 72 immigrant students (27 Spanish speakers and 45 non-Spanish speakers) enrolled in compulsory…

  1. Bilingual Welsh-English Children's Acquisition of Vocabulary and Reading: Implications for Bilingual Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rhys, Mirain; Thomas, Enlli Môn

    2013-01-01

    Previous studies have highlighted early differences in bilinguals' rate of language acquisition in comparison with monolinguals. However, these differences seem to disappear with increasing age and exposure to the language, and do so quicker in dominant community languages than in minority status languages. This study aimed to replicate these…

  2. Two functions of early language experience.

    PubMed

    Arshavsky, Yuri I

    2009-05-01

    The unique human ability of linguistic communication, defined as the ability to produce a practically infinite number of meaningful messages using a finite number of lexical items, is determined by an array of "linguistic" genes, which are expressed in neurons forming domain-specific linguistic centers in the brain. In this review, I discuss the idea that infants' early language experience performs two complementary functions. In addition to allowing infants to assimilate the words and grammar rules of their mother language, early language experience initiates genetic programs underlying language production and comprehension. This hypothesis explains many puzzling characteristics of language acquisition, such as the existence of a critical period for acquiring the first language and the absence of a critical period for the acquisition of additional language(s), a similar timetable for language acquisition in children belonging to families of different social and cultural status, the strikingly similar timetables in the acquisition of oral and sign languages, and the surprisingly small correlation between individuals' final linguistic competence and the intensity of their training. Based on the studies of microcephalic individuals, I argue that genetic factors determine not only the number of neurons and organization of interneural connections within linguistic centers, but also the putative internal properties of neurons that are not limited to their electrophysiological and synaptic properties.

  3. Language Acquisition in the Swedish-Speaking Minority in Finland.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brunell, A. Viking

    1991-01-01

    Documents the differences in language acquisition and school achievement between Finnish- and Swedish-speaking students in Finland's comprehensive school systems. Discusses the need for language maintenance and enrichment measures in both out-of-school and in-school environments. (SR)

  4. Timelines for English Language Acquisition: A Study of the Rates of Second Language Acquisition among Hispanic English Language Learners Including Exceptionalities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dixon, Jennifer J.

    2012-01-01

    This study explores No Child Left Behind's required timetable for English language learners (ELLs) to reach English language proficiency within five years, as outlined in the Annual Measurable Achievement Outcomes (AMAOs), despite the lack of research evidence to support this as a reasonable expectation. Analysis was conducted on the archived data…

  5. Testing Hypotheses about Second Language Acquisition: The Copula and Negative in Three Subjects. Working Papers on Bilingualism, No. 3.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cancino, Herlinda; And Others

    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…

  6. Sign Language Acquisition and Use by Single-Generation Deaf Adults in Australia Who Attended Specific Educational Settings for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Winn, Stephen

    2007-01-01

    This article examines the acquisition and use of Australian Sign Language (Auslan) by 53 profoundly deaf adults (31 male, 22 female) who attended educational units for deaf and hard of hearing children. The results indicate that, regardless of age, the acquisition of sign language, particularly Auslan, by deaf people occurred primarily through…

  7. Auditory Discrimination of Lexical Stress Patterns in Hearing-Impaired Infants with Cochlear Implants Compared with Normal Hearing: Influence of Acoustic Cues and Listening Experience to the Ambient Language.

    PubMed

    Segal, Osnat; Houston, Derek; Kishon-Rabin, Liat

    2016-01-01

    To assess discrimination of lexical stress pattern in infants with cochlear implant (CI) compared with infants with normal hearing (NH). While criteria for cochlear implantation have expanded to infants as young as 6 months, little is known regarding infants' processing of suprasegmental-prosodic cues which are known to be important for the first stages of language acquisition. Lexical stress is an example of such a cue, which, in hearing infants, has been shown to assist in segmenting words from fluent speech and in distinguishing between words that differ only the stress pattern. To date, however, there are no data on the ability of infants with CIs to perceive lexical stress. Such information will provide insight to the speech characteristics that are available to these infants in their first steps of language acquisition. This is of particular interest given the known limitations that the CI device has in transmitting speech information that is mediated by changes in fundamental frequency. Two groups of infants participated in this study. The first group included 20 profoundly hearing-impaired infants with CI, 12 to 33 months old, implanted under the age of 2.5 years (median age of implantation = 14.5 months), with 1 to 6 months of CI use (mean = 2.7 months) and no known additional problems. The second group of infants included 48 NH infants, 11 to 14 months old with normal development and no known risk factors for developmental delays. Infants were tested on their ability to discriminate between nonsense words that differed on their stress pattern only (/dóti/ versus /dotí/ and /dotí/ versus /dóti/) using the visual habituation procedure. The measure for discrimination was the change in looking time between the last habituation trial (e.g., /dóti/) and the novel trial (e.g., /dotí/). (1) Infants with CI showed discrimination between lexical stress pattern with only limited auditory experience with their implant device, (2) discrimination of stress patterns in infants with CI was reduced compared with that of infants with NH, (3) both groups showed directional asymmetry in discrimination, that is, increased discrimination from the uncommon to the common stress pattern in Hebrew (/dóti/ versus /dotí/) compared with the reversed condition. The CI device transmitted sufficient acoustic information (amplitude, duration, and fundamental frequency) to allow discrimination between stress patterns in young hearing-impaired infants with CI. The present pattern of results is in support of a discrimination model in which both auditory capabilities and "top-down" interactions are involved. That is, the CI infants detected changes between stressed and unstressed syllables after which they developed a bias for the more common weak-strong stress pattern in Hebrew. The latter suggests that infants with CI were able to extract the statistical distribution of stress patterns by listening to the ambient language even after limited auditory experience with the CI device. To conclude, in relation to processing of lexical stress patterns, infants with CI followed similar developmental milestones as hearing infants thus establishing important prerequisites for early language acquisition.

  8. Acculturation, Communication Apprehension, and Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mettler, Sally

    1987-01-01

    Describes acculturation as the negotiation of linguistic, behavioral, and affiliation barriers. Reviews three models of second-language acquisition and highlights problems for the learner related to linguistic noise, comprehension lag, and communication apprehension. Considers ways English-as-a-Second-Language instructors can ease linguistic and…

  9. 48 CFR 752.7011 - Orientation and language training.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Orientation and language training. 752.7011 Section 752.7011 Federal Acquisition Regulations System AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL....7011 Orientation and language training. For use in all USAID cost-reimbursement contracts involving...

  10. 48 CFR 752.7011 - Orientation and language training.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Orientation and language training. 752.7011 Section 752.7011 Federal Acquisition Regulations System AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL....7011 Orientation and language training. For use in all USAID cost-reimbursement contracts involving...

  11. 48 CFR 752.7011 - Orientation and language training.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Orientation and language training. 752.7011 Section 752.7011 Federal Acquisition Regulations System AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL....7011 Orientation and language training. For use in all USAID cost-reimbursement contracts involving...

  12. 48 CFR 752.7011 - Orientation and language training.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Orientation and language training. 752.7011 Section 752.7011 Federal Acquisition Regulations System AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL....7011 Orientation and language training. For use in all USAID cost-reimbursement contracts involving...

  13. Real-Time Processing of ASL Signs: Delayed First Language Acquisition Affects Organization of the Mental Lexicon

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lieberman, Amy M.; Borovsky, Arielle; Hatrak, Marla; Mayberry, Rachel I.

    2015-01-01

    Sign language comprehension requires visual attention to the linguistic signal and visual attention to referents in the surrounding world, whereas these processes are divided between the auditory and visual modalities for spoken language comprehension. Additionally, the age-onset of first language acquisition and the quality and quantity of…

  14. Impact of Home Language and Literacy Support on English-Chinese Biliteracy Acquisition among Chinese Heritage Language Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lu, Chan; Koda, Keiko

    2011-01-01

    Studies on monolingual children have shown that home language and literacy support is crucial in children's early literacy acquisition. However, such support has not been examined as thoroughly among bilingual children, including heritage speakers. This study investigated the effect of home language and literacy support on important precursors of…

  15. PSYCHOLINGUISTIC SIMILARITIES IN THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN AS NATIVE LANGUAGES.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    SLOBIN, DAN I.

    ONE APPROACH TO CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IS THAT OF TRANSFORMATIONAL, GENERATIVE GRAMMAR WHICH EMPHASIZES MAN'S ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND AND PRODUCE AN UNLIMITED VARIETY OF SENTENCES THROUGH CONTROL OF A LIMITED NUMBER OF LANGUAGE RULES. THUS, A CHILD LEARNS TO SPEAK BY DEVELOPING HIS OWN THEORIES OF THE STRUCTURE OF HIS LANGUAGE. STUDIES OF…

  16. Listening in a Multilingual World: The Challenges of Second Language (L2) Listening

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rost, Michael

    2014-01-01

    Research into language acquisition and oral language use was examined in order to identify key factors that contribute to the successful acquisition of second language (L2) listening ability. The factors were grouped into three major domains: affective, cognitive, and interpersonal. It is claimed that in each domain, proficient L2 listeners have…

  17. Saying What We Mean: Making a Case for "Language Acquisition" to Become "Language Development"

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Larsen-Freeman, Diane

    2015-01-01

    As applied linguists know very well, how we use language both constructs and reflects our understanding. It is therefore important that we use terms that do justice to our concerns. In this presentation, I suggest that a more apt designation than "multilingual" or "second language acquisition" (SLA) is "multilingual"…

  18. Language-General and Language-Specific Influences on Children's Acquisition of Argument Structure: A Comparison of French and English

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Naigles, Letitia R.; Lehrer, Nadine

    2002-01-01

    This research investigates language-general and language-specific properties of the acquisition of argument structure. Ten French preschoolers enacted forty sentences containing motion verbs; sixteen sentences were ungrammatical in that the syntactic frame was incompatible with the standard argument structure for the verb (e.g. *"Le tigre va le…

  19. Developing language in a developing body: the relationship between motor development and language development.

    PubMed

    Iverson, Jana M

    2010-03-01

    ABSTRACTDuring the first eighteen months of life, infants acquire and refine a whole set of new motor skills that significantly change the ways in which the body moves in and interacts with the environment. In this review article, I argue that motor acquisitions provide infants with an opportunity to practice skills relevant to language acquisition before they are needed for that purpose; and that the emergence of new motor skills changes infants' experience with objects and people in ways that are relevant for both general communicative development and the acquisition of language. Implications of this perspective for current views of co-occurring language and motor impairments and for methodology in the field of child language research are also considered.

  20. Developing language in a developing body: the relationship between motor development and language development*

    PubMed Central

    Iverson, Jana M.

    2010-01-01

    During the first eighteen months of life, infants acquire and refine a whole set of new motor skills that significantly change the ways in which the body moves in and interacts with the environment. In this review article, I argue that motor acquisitions provide infants with an opportunity to practice skills relevant to language acquisition before they are needed for that purpose; and that the emergence of new motor skills changes infants’ experience with objects and people in ways that are relevant for both general communicative development and the acquisition of language. Implications of this perspective for current views of co-occurring language and motor impairments and for methodology in the field of child language research are also considered. PMID:20096145

  1. Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers.

    PubMed

    Katsos, Napoleon; Cummins, Chris; Ezeizabarrena, Maria-José; Gavarró, Anna; Kuvač Kraljević, Jelena; Hrzica, Gordana; Grohmann, Kleanthes K; Skordi, Athina; Jensen de López, Kristine; Sundahl, Lone; van Hout, Angeliek; Hollebrandse, Bart; Overweg, Jessica; Faber, Myrthe; van Koert, Margreet; Smith, Nafsika; Vija, Maigi; Zupping, Sirli; Kunnari, Sari; Morisseau, Tiffany; Rusieshvili, Manana; Yatsushiro, Kazuko; Fengler, Anja; Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Konstantzou, Katerina; Farby, Shira; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Vernice, Mirta; Okabe, Reiko; Isobe, Miwa; Crosthwaite, Peter; Hong, Yoonjee; Balčiūnienė, Ingrida; Ahmad Nizar, Yanti Marina; Grech, Helen; Gatt, Daniela; Cheong, Win Nee; Asbjørnsen, Arve; Torkildsen, Janne von Koss; Haman, Ewa; Miękisz, Aneta; Gagarina, Natalia; Puzanova, Julia; Anđelković, Darinka; Savić, Maja; Jošić, Smiljana; Slančová, Daniela; Kapalková, Svetlana; Barberán, Tania; Özge, Duygu; Hassan, Saima; Chan, Cecilia Yuet Hung; Okubo, Tomoya; van der Lely, Heather; Sauerland, Uli; Noveck, Ira

    2016-08-16

    Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here, we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier's specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for "all," "none," "some," "some…not," and "most" in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-y-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language- and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation.

  2. A Teacher’s Guide for Using Learning Strategies in English-as-a-Second- Language Instruction

    DTIC Science & Technology

    1984-11-01

    learner strategies used in the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL). The Teacher’s Guide demonstrates for ESL...strategies to apply to a wide range of language learning tasks are far more likely to be effective language learners . The language lessons in this section...skills in the acquisition of English as a second language (ESL). This study completed a review of the literature on learning strategies in

  3. The Effect on Cumulative Language Acquisition Increase for English Language Learner Students in Kindergarten through Third Grade Who Attended Multiple Years of Summer Remediation Programs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baker, Gregory A.

    2013-01-01

    Already academically at risk, students in the rapidly growing English Language Learner (ELL) student population in the United States face additional challenges due to regression of English language acquisition over the average ten-week agrarian summer break when they return to homes in which Spanish was the primary language spoken. While the…

  4. Foreign Language Acquisition and Melody Singing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mora, Carmen Fonseca

    2000-01-01

    Considers the value of relating music and language in the English-as-Foreign-Language (EFL) classroom. This "melodic" approach is based on evidence that musicality of speech has an effect not only on the pronunciation skills of EFL students but also their entire acquisition process. (Author/VWL)

  5. Improving Language Acquisition through Journal Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chanthalangsy, Sonevilay; Moskalis, Stan

    This study examined how journal writing could improve language minority students' language acquisition. Participants were Serbo-Croatian and Laotian second and third graders from two elementary schools. Initial student surveys and writing assignments, conducted in September to document the problem, found that students lacked writing skills,…

  6. Age of acquisition predicts rate of lexical evolution.

    PubMed

    Monaghan, Padraic

    2014-12-01

    The processes taking place during language acquisition are proposed to influence language evolution. However, evidence demonstrating the link between language learning and language evolution is, at best, indirect, constituting studies of laboratory-based artificial language learning studies or computational simulations of diachronic change. In the current study, a direct link between acquisition and evolution is established, showing that for two hundred fundamental vocabulary items, the age at which words are acquired is a predictor of the rate at which they have changed in studies of language evolution. Early-acquired words are more salient and easier to process than late-acquired words, and these early-acquired words are also more stably represented within the community's language. Analysing the properties of these early-acquired words potentially provides insight into the origins of communication, highlighting features of words that have been ultra-conserved in language. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Language acquisition from a biolinguistic perspective.

    PubMed

    Crain, Stephen; Koring, Loes; Thornton, Rosalind

    2017-10-01

    This paper describes the biolinguistic approach to language acquisition. We contrast the biolinguistic approach with a usage-based approach. We argue that the biolinguistic approach is superior because it provides more accurate and more extensive generalizations about the properties of human languages, as well as a better account of how children acquire human languages. To distinguish between these accounts, we focus on how child and adult language differ both in sentence production and in sentence understanding. We argue that the observed differences resist explanation using the cognitive mechanisms that are invoked by the usage-based approach. In contrast, the biolinguistic approach explains the qualitative parametric differences between child and adult language. Explaining how child and adult language differ and demonstrating that children perceive unity despite apparent diversity are two of the hallmarks of the biolinguistic approach to language acquisition. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Acquisition of speech rhythm in a second language by learners with rhythmically different native languages.

    PubMed

    Ordin, Mikhail; Polyanskaya, Leona

    2015-08-01

    The development of speech rhythm in second language (L2) acquisition was investigated. Speech rhythm was defined as durational variability that can be captured by the interval-based rhythm metrics. These metrics were used to examine the differences in durational variability between proficiency levels in L2 English spoken by French and German learners. The results reveal that durational variability increased as L2 acquisition progressed in both groups of learners. This indicates that speech rhythm in L2 English develops from more syllable-timed toward more stress-timed patterns irrespective of whether the native language of the learner is rhythmically similar to or different from the target language. Although both groups showed similar development of speech rhythm in L2 acquisition, there were also differences: German learners achieved a degree of durational variability typical of the target language, while French learners exhibited lower variability than native British speakers, even at an advanced proficiency level.

  9. Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition: Empirical Findings, Theoretical Considerations, and Crosslinguistic Comparisons.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Clahsen, Harald, Ed.

    The collection of essays and studies concerning generative grammar and first and second language acquisition includes: "The Optional-Infinitive Stage in Child English: Evidence from Negation" (Tony Harris, Ken Wexler); "Towards a Structure-Building Model of Acquisition" (Andrew Radford); "The Underspecification of…

  10. Statistical learning and language acquisition

    PubMed Central

    Romberg, Alexa R.; Saffran, Jenny R.

    2011-01-01

    Human learners, including infants, are highly sensitive to structure in their environment. Statistical learning refers to the process of extracting this structure. A major question in language acquisition in the past few decades has been the extent to which infants use statistical learning mechanisms to acquire their native language. There have been many demonstrations showing infants’ ability to extract structures in linguistic input, such as the transitional probability between adjacent elements. This paper reviews current research on how statistical learning contributes to language acquisition. Current research is extending the initial findings of infants’ sensitivity to basic statistical information in many different directions, including investigating how infants represent regularities, learn about different levels of language, and integrate information across situations. These current directions emphasize studying statistical language learning in context: within language, within the infant learner, and within the environment as a whole. PMID:21666883

  11. The comparative method of language acquisition research: a Mayan case study.

    PubMed

    Pye, Clifton; Pfeiler, Barbara

    2014-03-01

    This article demonstrates how the Comparative Method can be applied to cross-linguistic research on language acquisition. The Comparative Method provides a systematic procedure for organizing and interpreting acquisition data from different languages. The Comparative Method controls for cross-linguistic differences at all levels of the grammar and is especially useful in drawing attention to variation in contexts of use across languages. This article uses the Comparative Method to analyze the acquisition of verb suffixes in two Mayan languages: K'iche' and Yucatec. Mayan status suffixes simultaneously mark distinctions in verb transitivity, verb class, mood, and clause position. Two-year-old children acquiring K'iche' and Yucatec Maya accurately produce the status suffixes on verbs, in marked distinction to the verbal prefixes for aspect and agreement. We find evidence that the contexts of use for the suffixes differentially promote the children's production of cognate status suffixes in K'iche' and Yucatec.

  12. Chemical education experiences from the English language learner perspective

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Flores, Annette

    2011-12-01

    The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) is a region populated by Spanish-speaking immigrants and their descendants producing a large English Language Learner (ELL) student population. ELLs have historically had low literacy rates and achievement levels when compared to their counterparts. In order to address this achievement gap, previous research efforts and curriculum interventions have focused on language acquisition as being the determining factor in ELL education, with little attention given to academic content acquisition. More current research efforts have transitioned into English language acquisition through academic content instruction; this present research study specifically focuses on ELL experiences in chemistry. Participants were high school chemistry students who identified as ELL or had recently exited out of ELL status. Students were interviewed to identify factors that attributed to their experiences in chemistry. Findings indicate code-switching as a key to learning chemistry in English but also the deterrent in English language acquisition.

  13. Supporting Young Indigenous Children's Language Development in Canada: A Review of Research on Needs and Promising Practices

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ball, Jessica

    2009-01-01

    This article offers an original review of research and reports about young Indigenous children's language development needs and approaches to meeting them. The review addresses not only children's acquisition of an Indigenous language but also their acquisition of other languages (e.g., English and French), because their progress in one linguistic…

  14. L1 Frequency in Foreign Language Acquisition: Recurrent Word Combinations in French and Spanish EFL Learner Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Paquot, Magali

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated French and Spanish EFL (English as a foreign language) learners' preferred use of three-word lexical bundles with discourse or stance-oriented function with a view to exploring the role of first language (L1) frequency effects in foreign language acquisition. Word combinations were extracted from learner performance data…

  15. Language Attrition and Reactivation in the Context of Bilingual First Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Slavkov, Nikolay

    2015-01-01

    This paper reports on a case study of a child raised in the context of bilingual first-language acquisition in English and Bulgarian, where the latter represents a minority (heritage) language. Using diary data and spontaneous speech recordings, the study identifies a period of loss of production in Bulgarian (1;7-2;3) and a subsequent…

  16. Labov's Concept of the Vernacular Speech: The Site of Language Structure, Acquisition and Change

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Agnihotri, Rama Kant

    2013-01-01

    The basic questions that a scholar interested in the study of language asks are concerned with language structure, acquisition, and change. William Labov is a linguist who has deeply influenced the linguistic scene in the past 60 years. It is to Labov's credit that he showed, backed by solid evidence, that the questions concerning language change,…

  17. The Influence of Working Memory and Phonological Processing on English Language Learner Children's Bilingual Reading and Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Swanson, H. Lee; Orosco, Michael J.; Lussier, Cathy M.; Gerber, Michael M.; Guzman-Orth, Danielle A.

    2011-01-01

    In this study, we explored whether the contribution of working memory (WM) to children's (N = 471) 2nd language (L2) reading and language acquisition was best accounted for by processing efficiency at a phonological level and/or by executive processes independent of phonological processing. Elementary school children (Grades 1, 2, & 3) whose…

  18. Interactive natural language acquisition in a multi-modal recurrent neural architecture

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Heinrich, Stefan; Wermter, Stefan

    2018-01-01

    For the complex human brain that enables us to communicate in natural language, we gathered good understandings of principles underlying language acquisition and processing, knowledge about sociocultural conditions, and insights into activity patterns in the brain. However, we were not yet able to understand the behavioural and mechanistic characteristics for natural language and how mechanisms in the brain allow to acquire and process language. In bridging the insights from behavioural psychology and neuroscience, the goal of this paper is to contribute a computational understanding of appropriate characteristics that favour language acquisition. Accordingly, we provide concepts and refinements in cognitive modelling regarding principles and mechanisms in the brain and propose a neurocognitively plausible model for embodied language acquisition from real-world interaction of a humanoid robot with its environment. In particular, the architecture consists of a continuous time recurrent neural network, where parts have different leakage characteristics and thus operate on multiple timescales for every modality and the association of the higher level nodes of all modalities into cell assemblies. The model is capable of learning language production grounded in both, temporal dynamic somatosensation and vision, and features hierarchical concept abstraction, concept decomposition, multi-modal integration, and self-organisation of latent representations.

  19. Lingua Franca English, Multilingual Communities, and Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Canagarajah, Suresh

    2007-01-01

    Firth and Wagner (1997) questioned the dichotomies nonnative versus native speaker, learner versus user, and interlanguage versus target language, which reflect a bias toward innateness, cognition, and form in language acquisition. Research on lingua franca English (LFE) not only affirms this questioning, but reveals what multilingual communities…

  20. Second Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Larsen-Freeman, Diane

    2000-01-01

    Discusses the second language acquisition (SLA) process and the differential success of second language learners. Examines the fundamental challenges that this characterization faces, and highlights the contributions SLA is capable of in the coming decade. Offers topics for a training and development of curriculum for future applied linguists from…

  1. 48 CFR 752.211-70 - Language and measurement.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Language and measurement. 752.211-70 Section 752.211-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL....211-70 Language and measurement. The following clause shall be used in all USAID-direct contracts...

  2. Intensive Input in Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Trimino, Andy; Ferguson, Nancy

    This paper discusses the role of input as one of the universals in second language acquisition theory. Considerations include how language instructors can best organize and present input and when certain kinds of input are more important. A self-administered program evaluation exercise using relevant theoretical and methodological contributions…

  3. Supporting Language Access: Teaching Talk without Words

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adams, Gail Fox

    2014-01-01

    In neurotypical infants, genetically-specified attachment/attention mechanisms underpin the motivation to interact, which enables the acquisition of socio-cultural norms for language and accounts for the efficacy of socialization processes (Lee et al., 2009; Schumann, 2013). In children with autism, as in second language acquisition,…

  4. The development of language and literacy: evaluating the stereotypes.

    PubMed

    Goodman, Judith C; Wagovich, Stacy A

    2009-01-01

    People hold many stereotypes about the development of language and reading. We review current data concerning three stereotypes: (1) Girls learn language faster than boys; (2) Biological factors determine the time course of language acquisition; and (3) Dyslexia is a visual problem involving the reversal of letters. In each case, recent data leads to a different picture of the acquisition of language and literacy and deepens our understanding of the processes involved.

  5. Second Language Reading and Vocabulary Learning.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Huckin, Thomas, Ed.; And Others

    This book contains 14 essays on reading and vocabulary learning in second language acquisition. Chapters include: "Research on ESL/EFL Vocabulary Acquisition: Putting It in Context" (James Coady); "Implications for L2 Vocabulary Acquisition and Instruction From L1 Vocabulary Research" (Fredricka Stoller and William Grabe); "Patterns and Perils of…

  6. 48 CFR 52.214-34 - Submission of Offers in the English Language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Submission of Offers in the English Language. 52.214-34 Section 52.214-34 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (CONTINUED) CLAUSES AND FORMS SOLICITATION PROVISIONS AND CONTRACT CLAUSES Text of...

  7. The Ubiquity of Frequency Effects in First Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ambridge, Ben; Kidd, Evan; Rowland, Caroline F.; Theakston, Anna L.

    2015-01-01

    This review article presents evidence for the claim that frequency effects are pervasive in children's first language acquisition, and hence constitute a phenomenon that any successful account must explain. The article is organized around four key domains of research: children's acquisition of single words, inflectional morphology, simple…

  8. Frequency Effects in Second Language Acquisition: An Annotated Survey

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kartal, Galip; Sarigul, Ece

    2017-01-01

    The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between frequency and language acquisition from many perspectives including implicit and explicit instruction, frequency effects on morpheme acquisition in L2, the relationship between frequency and multi-word constructions, frequency effects on phonetics, vocabulary, gerund and infinitive…

  9. 48 CFR 52.214-34 - Submission of Offers in the English Language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 2 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Submission of Offers in the English Language. 52.214-34 Section 52.214-34 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (CONTINUED) CLAUSES AND FORMS SOLICITATION PROVISIONS AND CONTRACT CLAUSES Text of...

  10. 48 CFR 52.214-34 - Submission of Offers in the English Language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 2 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Submission of Offers in the English Language. 52.214-34 Section 52.214-34 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (CONTINUED) CLAUSES AND FORMS SOLICITATION PROVISIONS AND CONTRACT CLAUSES Text of...

  11. 48 CFR 52.214-34 - Submission of Offers in the English Language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 2 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Submission of Offers in the English Language. 52.214-34 Section 52.214-34 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (CONTINUED) CLAUSES AND FORMS SOLICITATION PROVISIONS AND CONTRACT CLAUSES Text of...

  12. Balancing Generalization and Lexical Conservatism: An Artificial Language Study with Child Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wonnacott, Elizabeth

    2011-01-01

    Successful language acquisition involves generalization, but learners must balance this against the acquisition of lexical constraints. Such learning has been considered problematic for theories of acquisition: if learners generalize abstract patterns to new words, how do they learn lexically-based exceptions? One approach claims that learners use…

  13. Foreign Language Textbook Activities: Keeping Pace with Second Language Acquisition Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aski, Janice M.

    2003-01-01

    Recent research in second language acquisition found that learners reached higher levels of achievement when grammar practice included the processing and negotiation of meaning. Explored the degree to which certain textbook activities reflected earlier findings. Activities for two grammar points from Italian texts still rely heavily on…

  14. Bilingual First Language Acquisition: Exploring the Limits of the Language Faculty.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Genesee, Fred

    2001-01-01

    Reviews current research in three domains of bilingual acquisition: pragmatic features of bilingual code mixing, grammatical constraints on child bilingual code mixing, and bilingual syntactic development. Examines implications from these domains for the understanding of the limits of the mental faculty to acquire language. (Author/VWL)

  15. 48 CFR 615.205-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Use of English language. 615.205-70 Section 615.205-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING... Information 615.205-70 Use of English language. The requirements of DOSAR 614.201-70 also apply when...

  16. 48 CFR 614.201-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Use of English language. 614.201-70 Section 614.201-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING METHODS AND CONTRACT TYPES SEALED BIDDING Solicitation of Bids 614.201-70 Use of English language. Use of...

  17. Combining Language Corpora with Experimental and Computational Approaches for Language Acquisition Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Monaghan, Padraic; Rowland, Caroline F.

    2017-01-01

    Historically, first language acquisition research was a painstaking process of observation, requiring the laborious hand coding of children's linguistic productions, followed by the generation of abstract theoretical proposals for how the developmental process unfolds. Recently, the ability to collect large-scale corpora of children's language…

  18. Toward More Substantial Theories of Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jenson, Cinnamon Ann

    2015-01-01

    Cognitive linguists argue that certain sets of knowledge of language are innate. However, critics have argued that the theoretical concept of "innateness" should be eliminated since it is ambiguous and insubstantial. In response, I aim to strengthen theories of language acquisition and identify ways to make them more substantial. I…

  19. 48 CFR 352.239-71 - Standard for encryption language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Standard for encryption language. 352.239-71 Section 352.239-71 Federal Acquisition Regulations System HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES... Standard for encryption language. As prescribed in 339.101(d)(2), the Contracting Officer shall insert the...

  20. 48 CFR 614.201-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Use of English language. 614.201-70 Section 614.201-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING METHODS AND CONTRACT TYPES SEALED BIDDING Solicitation of Bids 614.201-70 Use of English language. Use of...

  1. 48 CFR 614.201-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Use of English language. 614.201-70 Section 614.201-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING METHODS AND CONTRACT TYPES SEALED BIDDING Solicitation of Bids 614.201-70 Use of English language. Use of...

  2. 48 CFR 615.205-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Use of English language. 615.205-70 Section 615.205-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING... Information 615.205-70 Use of English language. The requirements of DOSAR 614.201-70 also apply when...

  3. 48 CFR 614.201-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Use of English language. 614.201-70 Section 614.201-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING METHODS AND CONTRACT TYPES SEALED BIDDING Solicitation of Bids 614.201-70 Use of English language. Use of...

  4. 48 CFR 615.205-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Use of English language. 615.205-70 Section 615.205-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING... Information 615.205-70 Use of English language. The requirements of DOSAR 614.201-70 also apply when...

  5. 48 CFR 615.205-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Use of English language. 615.205-70 Section 615.205-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING... Information 615.205-70 Use of English language. The requirements of DOSAR 614.201-70 also apply when...

  6. 48 CFR 615.205-70 - Use of English language.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Use of English language. 615.205-70 Section 615.205-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE CONTRACTING... Information 615.205-70 Use of English language. The requirements of DOSAR 614.201-70 also apply when...

  7. Orthographic Consistency and Individual Learner Differences in Second Language Literacy Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kim, Sun-A; Packard, Jerome; Christianson, Kiel; Anderson, Richard C.; Shin, Jeong-Ah

    2016-01-01

    This study investigated whether orthographic consistency and individual learner differences including working memory (WM), first language (L1) background, and second language (L2) proficiency affect Chinese L2 learners' literacy acquisition. Seventy American college students in beginning or intermediate Chinese classes participated in a character…

  8. The Reading Venture: Accelerating Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sifontes, Aida I.; Baez, Dodie

    This presentation describes how to use reading to improve second language acquisition. Part 1, "Building Awareness of Reading Habits and Attitudes," has students report their habits and attitudes about reading in English and their native language and recognize the importance of reading for improving English skills. Part 2, "Choosing a Book," has…

  9. Understanding Successful and Unsuccessful EFL Students in Chinese Universities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gan, Zhengdong; Humphreys, Gillian; Hamp-Lyons, Liz

    2004-01-01

    Unlike success in first language acquisition, success in learning a second or foreign language is considerably more variable. Recently, second language acquisition researchers have called for more integrative research on individual difference factors. With this goal in mind, this study followed a larger, quantitative study of the links between…

  10. Environmental Correlates of Individual Differences in Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Furrow, David; Nelson, Katherine

    1984-01-01

    Reports on a study of mothers' uses of nouns and pronouns and their references to objects and persons as environmental variables which might relate to children's nominal preferences. Findings suggest that environmental factors do contribute to stylistic differences in language acquisition and that the communicative functions of language are an…

  11. Television as a Talking Picture Book: A Prop for Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lemish, Dafna; Rice, Mabel L.

    1986-01-01

    Provides longitudinal observations of young children's behaviors while viewing television in their own homes when the children were actively involved in the process of language acquisition. The observations show an overwhelming and consistent occurrence of language-related behaviors among children and parents in the viewing situation. (Author/SED)

  12. Interactional Feedback in Naturalistic Interaction between L2 English Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ranaweera, Mahishi

    2015-01-01

    Theoretical and empirical data support that the feedback given in small group activities promote second language acquisition. There are many studies that have examined the impact of interaction on second language acquisition in controlled language situations. This study examines the small group activity "conversation partner" in order to…

  13. The Acquisition of Non-Null Subjects in English: A Minimalist Account.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wakabayashi, Shigenori

    2002-01-01

    Explains the differences between learners with a Japanese-type language as their first language (L1) and those with a Spanish-type language concerning the acquisition of the prohibition of null-subjects in English. Adopts the minimalist program as the theoretical framework for the study. (Author/VWL)

  14. A Study of Multimedia Application-Based Vocabulary Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shao, Jing

    2012-01-01

    The development of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has created the opportunity for exploring the effects of the multimedia application on foreign language vocabulary acquisition in recent years. This study provides an overview the computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and detailed a developing result of CALL--multimedia. With the…

  15. Modality-specific processing precedes amodal linguistic processing during L2 sign language acquisition: A longitudinal study.

    PubMed

    Williams, Joshua T; Darcy, Isabelle; Newman, Sharlene D

    2016-02-01

    The present study tracked activation pattern differences in response to sign language processing by late hearing second language learners of American Sign Language. Learners were scanned before the start of their language courses. They were scanned again after their first semester of instruction and their second, for a total of 10 months of instruction. The study aimed to characterize modality-specific to modality-general processing throughout the acquisition of sign language. Results indicated that before the acquisition of sign language, neural substrates related to modality-specific processing were present. After approximately 45 h of instruction, the learners transitioned into processing signs on a phonological basis (e.g., supramarginal gyrus, putamen). After one more semester of input, learners transitioned once more to a lexico-semantic processing stage (e.g., left inferior frontal gyrus) at which language control mechanisms (e.g., left caudate, cingulate gyrus) were activated. During these transitional steps right hemispheric recruitment was observed, with increasing left-lateralization, which is similar to other native signers and L2 learners of spoken language; however, specialization for sign language processing with activation in the inferior parietal lobule (i.e., angular gyrus), even for late learners, was observed. As such, the present study is the first to track L2 acquisition of sign language learners in order to characterize modality-independent and modality-specific mechanisms for bilingual language processing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Social and Psychological Factors in Second Language Acquisition: A Study of an Individual. Proceedings of the Los Angeles Second Language Research Forum.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jones, Rebecca A.

    The social and psychological factors which affect one person's acquisition of a second language are described in journal format. The psychological factors discussed are: (1) language shock, (2) culture shock, and (3) culture stress. The two social factors examined are both grouped under the term "social distance" but include (1) types of…

  17. Teaching English through Action: Total Physical Response (T.P.R.). A Right-Brain/Left-Brain Approach to Language Acquisition. A Workshop.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Segal, Bertha E.

    Materials from a teacher workshop on the Total Physical Response method for teaching English as a second language are presented. The technique describes the process of first language acquisition, uses physical activities in the classroom to reinforce learning, and allows a long period of receptive language learning before requiring production. The…

  18. Impacto de un programa de lectura extensiva en la adquisicion de una segunda lengua (Impact of an Extensive Reading Program on Second Language Acquisition).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coll, Ana; And Others

    This study investigates the application of Krashen's Input Hypothesis, studying the relationship between exposure to the target language and language acquisition within the context of the English-as-a-foreign-language secondary classroom in Spain. The project studied the effect of additional reading instruction with emphasis on reading for…

  19. Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers

    PubMed Central

    Cummins, Chris; Gavarró, Anna; Kuvač Kraljević, Jelena; Hrzica, Gordana; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Skordi, Athina; Jensen de López, Kristine; Sundahl, Lone; van Hout, Angeliek; Hollebrandse, Bart; Overweg, Jessica; Faber, Myrthe; van Koert, Margreet; Smith, Nafsika; Vija, Maigi; Zupping, Sirli; Kunnari, Sari; Morisseau, Tiffany; Rusieshvili, Manana; Yatsushiro, Kazuko; Fengler, Anja; Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Konstantzou, Katerina; Farby, Shira; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Vernice, Mirta; Okabe, Reiko; Isobe, Miwa; Crosthwaite, Peter; Hong, Yoonjee; Balčiūnienė, Ingrida; Ahmad Nizar, Yanti Marina; Grech, Helen; Gatt, Daniela; Cheong, Win Nee; Asbjørnsen, Arve; Torkildsen, Janne von Koss; Haman, Ewa; Miękisz, Aneta; Gagarina, Natalia; Puzanova, Julia; Anđelković, Darinka; Savić, Maja; Jošić, Smiljana; Slančová, Daniela; Kapalková, Svetlana; Barberán, Tania; Özge, Duygu; Hassan, Saima; Chan, Cecilia Yuet Hung; Okubo, Tomoya; van der Lely, Heather; Sauerland, Uli; Noveck, Ira

    2016-01-01

    Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here, we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier’s specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for “all,” “none,” “some,” “some…not,” and “most” in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-y-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language- and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation. PMID:27482119

  20. Atypical brain lateralisation in the auditory cortex and language performance in 3- to 7-year-old children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder: a child-customised magnetoencephalography (MEG) study.

    PubMed

    Yoshimura, Yuko; Kikuchi, Mitsuru; Shitamichi, Kiyomi; Ueno, Sanae; Munesue, Toshio; Ono, Yasuki; Tsubokawa, Tsunehisa; Haruta, Yasuhiro; Oi, Manabu; Niida, Yo; Remijn, Gerard B; Takahashi, Tsutomu; Suzuki, Michio; Higashida, Haruhiro; Minabe, Yoshio

    2013-10-08

    Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is used to measure the auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF), which reflects language-related performance. In young children, however, the simultaneous quantification of the bilateral auditory-evoked response during binaural hearing is difficult using conventional adult-sized MEG systems. Recently, a child-customised MEG device has facilitated the acquisition of bi-hemispheric recordings, even in young children. Using the child-customised MEG device, we previously reported that language-related performance was reflected in the strength of the early component (P50m) of the auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) in typically developing (TD) young children (2 to 5 years old) [Eur J Neurosci 2012, 35:644-650]. The aim of this study was to investigate how this neurophysiological index in each hemisphere is correlated with language performance in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and TD children. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure the auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF), which reflects language-related performance. We investigated the P50m that is evoked by voice stimuli (/ne/) bilaterally in 33 young children (3 to 7 years old) with ASD and in 30 young children who were typically developing (TD). The children were matched according to their age (in months) and gender. Most of the children with ASD were high-functioning subjects. The results showed that the children with ASD exhibited significantly less leftward lateralisation in their P50m intensity compared with the TD children. Furthermore, the results of a multiple regression analysis indicated that a shorter P50m latency in both hemispheres was specifically correlated with higher language-related performance in the TD children, whereas this latency was not correlated with non-verbal cognitive performance or chronological age. The children with ASD did not show any correlation between P50m latency and language-related performance; instead, increasing chronological age was a significant predictor of shorter P50m latency in the right hemisphere. Using a child-customised MEG device, we studied the P50m component that was evoked through binaural human voice stimuli in young ASD and TD children to examine differences in auditory cortex function that are associated with language development. Our results suggest that there is atypical brain function in the auditory cortex in young children with ASD, regardless of language development.

  1. Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphology by Internationally Adopted Children from China

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pierce, Lara J.; Genesee, Fred; Paradis, Johanne

    2013-01-01

    Acquisition of English grammatical morphology was examined in five internationally adopted (IA) children from China (aged 0;10-1;1 at adoption) during the first three years' exposure to English to determine whether acquisition patterns were characteristic of child second language (L2) learners or monolingual first language (L1) learners. Results…

  2. Second Language Acquisition Research and the Study of Non-Native Varieties of English: Some Issues in Common.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ritchie, William C.

    1986-01-01

    Proposes that the study of basilectal and acrolectal Singapore English can contribute to a better understanding of second language acquisition and use, emphasizing the operation of the monitor and specifications of the hierarchy of difficulty in the acquisition of syntactic structures. (Author/CB)

  3. What We Know about Second Language Acquisition: A Synthesis from Four Perspectives

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dixon, L. Quentin; Zhao, Jing; Shin, Jee-Young; Wu, Shuang; Su, Jung-Hsuan; Burgess-Brigham, Renata; Gezer, Melike Unal; Snow, Catherine

    2012-01-01

    Educational policies that impact second language (L2) learners--a rapidly-growing group--are often enacted without consulting relevant research. This review synthesized research regarding optimal conditions for L2 acquisition, facilitative L2 learner and teacher characteristics, and speed of L2 acquisition, from four bodies of work--foreign…

  4. Consonant Cluster Acquisition by L2 Thai Speakers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rungruang, Apichai

    2017-01-01

    Attempts to account for consonant cluster acquisition are always made into two aspects. One is transfer of the first language (L1), and another is markedness effects on the developmental processes in second language acquisition. This study has continued these attempts by finding out how well Thai university students were able to perceive English…

  5. Chinese Learners' Acquisition of English Verbs: A Corpus-Driven Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Linxiao; Jo, Hie-myung

    2012-01-01

    Limited research has investigated advanced language learners' acquisition of English verbs. The current study examines and compares the acquisition pattern of English verbs among Chinese second language (L2) learners at both intermediate and advanced levels to answer the following questions: (1) Do L2 learners acquire regular verbs and irregular…

  6. Sociolinguistic Variation and Acquisition in Two-Way Language Immersion: Negotiating the Standard

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Starr, Rebecca Lurie

    2016-01-01

    This book investigates the acquisition of sociolinguistic knowledge in the early elementary school years of a Mandarin-English two-way immersion program in the United States. Using ethnographic observation and quantitative analysis of data, the author explores how input from teachers and classmates shapes students' language acquisition. The book…

  7. Individual Differences in Language Acquisition and Processing.

    PubMed

    Kidd, Evan; Donnelly, Seamus; Christiansen, Morten H

    2018-02-01

    Humans differ in innumerable ways, with considerable variation observable at every level of description, from the molecular to the social. Traditionally, linguistic and psycholinguistic theory has downplayed the possibility of meaningful differences in language across individuals. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that there is significant variation among speakers at any age as well as across the lifespan. Here, we review recent research in psycholinguistics, and argue that a focus on individual differences (IDs) provides a crucial source of evidence that bears strongly upon core issues in theories of the acquisition and processing of language; specifically, the role of experience in language acquisition, processing, and attainment, and the architecture of the language system. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Powerful timing generator using mono-chip timers: An application to pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Saint-Jalmes, Hervé; Barjhoux, Yves

    1982-01-01

    We present a 10 line-7 MHz timing generator built on a single board around two LSI timer chips interfaced to a 16-bit microcomputer. Once programmed from the host computer, this device is able to generate elaborate logic sequences on its 10 output lines without further interventions from the CPU. Powerful architecture introduces new possibilities over conventional memory-based timing simulators and word generators. Loop control on a given sequence of events, loop nesting, and various logic combinations can easily be implemented through a software interface, using a symbolic command language. Typical applications of such a device range from development, emulation, and test of integrated circuits, circuit boards, and communication systems to pulse-controlled instrumentation (radar, ultrasonic systems). A particular application to a pulsed Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometer is presented, along with customization of the device for generating four-channel radio-frequency pulses and the necessary sequence for subsequent data acquisition.

  9. Sentence Reading and Writing for Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pichette, Francois; de Serres, Linda; Lafontaine, Marc

    2012-01-01

    This study compares the relative effectiveness of reading and writing sentences for the incidental acquisition of new vocabulary in a second language. It also examines if recall varies according to the concreteness of target words. Participants were 203 French-speaking intermediate and advanced English as second language (ESL) learners, tested for…

  10. Psycholinguistic Techniques and Resources in Second Language Acquisition Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Roberts, Leah

    2012-01-01

    In this article, a survey of current psycholinguistic techniques relevant to second language acquisition (SLA) research is presented. I summarize many of the available methods and discuss their use with particular reference to two critical questions in current SLA research: (1) What does a learner's current knowledge of the second language (L2)…

  11. A Quantitative Analysis of Language Interventions for Children with Autism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kane, Meghan; Connell, James E.; Pellecchia, Melanie

    2010-01-01

    Research and services continue to expand to community-based programs serving individuals diagnosed with autism. A focus of great interest in those efforts is that of language acquisition and functional usage. For the purpose of this evaluation, language acquisition interventions are grouped into two broad categories, contrived and naturalistic.…

  12. Dissimilation in the Second Language Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese Tones

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zhang, Hang

    2016-01-01

    This article extends Optimality Theoretic studies to the research on second language tone phonology. Specifically, this work analyses the acquisition of identical tone sequences in Mandarin Chinese by adult speakers of three non-tonal languages: English, Japanese and Korean. This study finds that the learners prefer not to use identical lexical…

  13. Direct Instruction in Second Language Acquisition: A Critical Review of Related Literature

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hernandez, Hjalmar Punla

    2017-01-01

    Second Language Acquisition (SLA), as a sub-discipline in applied linguistics, is rapidly growing and changing (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). As such, it has yielded stirring issues on both naturalistic and instructed settings causing reviews and/or investigations by language researchers. This paper accordingly serves as a humble attempt at…

  14. Memory Retention in Second Language Acquisition and Instruction: Insights from Literature and Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sanatullova-Allison , Elvira

    2014-01-01

    This article reviews some essential theoretical and empirical research literature that discusses the role of memory in second language acquisition and instruction. Two models of literature review--thematic and study-by-study--were used to analyze and synthesize the existing research. First, issues of memory retention in second language acquisition…

  15. The Spacing Effect and Its Relevance to Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rogers, John

    2017-01-01

    This commentary discusses some theoretical and methodological issues related to research on the spacing effect in second language acquisition research (SLA). There has been a growing interest in SLA in how the temporal distribution of input might impact language development. SLA research in this area has frequently drawn upon the rich field of…

  16. Target Language Variation and Second-Language Acquisition: Learning English in New York City.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eisenstein, Miriam R.

    1986-01-01

    Investigates the role of dialect variation in the acquisition of American English by adult second language learners. The study revealed that dialect differences present problems for learners and cause variable intelligibility and negative learner attitude toward some varieties of English and its speakers. This attitude could negatively affect a…

  17. EMOTIONS AND IMAGES IN LANGUAGE--A LEARNING ANALYSIS OF THEIR ACQUISITION AND FUNCTION.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    STAATS, ARTHUR W.

    THIS ARTICLE PRESENTED THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSES CONCERNING IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE. IT WAS SUGGESTED THAT A LEARNING THEORY WHICH INEGRATES INSTRUMENTAL AND CLASSICAL CONDITIONING, CUTTING ACROSS THEORETICAL LINES, COULD SERVE AS THE BASIS FOR A COMPREHENSIVE THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND FUNCTION. THE PAPER ILLUSTRATED THE…

  18. Gender Differences in Identity and Acculturation Patterns and L2 Accent Attainment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Polat, Nihat; Mahalingappa, Laura J.

    2010-01-01

    Addressing the influence of sociocultural theory, current views of second language acquisition situate language learning in a much broader context than the isolated box of the classroom. There is need to consider second language (L2) acquisition practices more broadly. This study addresses differences between girls and boys of Kurdish ethnic…

  19. Second Language Acquisition in Applied Linguistics: 1925-2015 and Beyond

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tarone, Elaine

    2015-01-01

    Taking 1925, the founding year of "Language", the journal of the Linguistics Society of America, as a benchmark for "the past", and 2015 as benchmark for "the present", the author considers what was known then and what is known now about second language acquisition in applied linguistics. The field has grown more…

  20. Playing to Learn: A Review of Physical Games in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tomlinson, Brian; Masuhara, Hitomi

    2009-01-01

    This article focuses on the potential of competitive games involving physical movement to facilitate the acquisition of a second or foreign language and argues that such activities can promote educational development too. It first provides a critical overview of the literature on physical games in language learning. Then, it outlines our…

  1. Language Learning in Mindbodyworld: A Sociocognitive Approach to Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Atkinson, Dwight

    2014-01-01

    Based on recent research in cognitive science, interaction, and second language acquisition (SLA), I describe a sociocognitive approach to SLA. This approach adopts a "non-cognitivist" view of cognition: Instead of an isolated computational process in which input is extracted from the environment and used to build elaborate internal…

  2. The Interpretability Hypothesis: Evidence from Wh-Interrogatives in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tsimpli, Ianthi Maria; Dimitrakopoulou, Maria

    2007-01-01

    The second language acquisition (SLA) literature reports numerous studies of proficient second language (L2) speakers who diverge significantly from native speakers despite the evidence offered by the L2 input. Recent SLA theories have attempted to account for native speaker/non-native speaker (NS/NNS) divergence by arguing for the dissociation…

  3. Cerebral Dominance, Language Acquisition, and Foreign Accents.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Scovel, Tom

    1969-01-01

    Implicit in the discussion of views taken by Wolfe, Geschwind, and Newmark is a claim that no learning theory based solely on "nurture" can account for the fact that language acquisition in childhood is a trait, in adulthood a skill. The child can master the language system completely, regardless of his intellectual capacity or his social…

  4. Learning Additional Languages as Hierarchical Probabilistic Inference: Insights From First Language Processing.

    PubMed

    Pajak, Bozena; Fine, Alex B; Kleinschmidt, Dave F; Jaeger, T Florian

    2016-12-01

    We present a framework of second and additional language (L2/L n ) acquisition motivated by recent work on socio-indexical knowledge in first language (L1) processing. The distribution of linguistic categories covaries with socio-indexical variables (e.g., talker identity, gender, dialects). We summarize evidence that implicit probabilistic knowledge of this covariance is critical to L1 processing, and propose that L2/L n learning uses the same type of socio-indexical information to probabilistically infer latent hierarchical structure over previously learned and new languages. This structure guides the acquisition of new languages based on their inferred place within that hierarchy, and is itself continuously revised based on new input from any language. This proposal unifies L1 processing and L2/L n acquisition as probabilistic inference under uncertainty over socio-indexical structure. It also offers a new perspective on crosslinguistic influences during L2/L n learning, accommodating gradient and continued transfer (both negative and positive) from previously learned to novel languages, and vice versa.

  5. Learning Additional Languages as Hierarchical Probabilistic Inference: Insights From First Language Processing

    PubMed Central

    Pajak, Bozena; Fine, Alex B.; Kleinschmidt, Dave F.; Jaeger, T. Florian

    2015-01-01

    We present a framework of second and additional language (L2/Ln) acquisition motivated by recent work on socio-indexical knowledge in first language (L1) processing. The distribution of linguistic categories covaries with socio-indexical variables (e.g., talker identity, gender, dialects). We summarize evidence that implicit probabilistic knowledge of this covariance is critical to L1 processing, and propose that L2/Ln learning uses the same type of socio-indexical information to probabilistically infer latent hierarchical structure over previously learned and new languages. This structure guides the acquisition of new languages based on their inferred place within that hierarchy, and is itself continuously revised based on new input from any language. This proposal unifies L1 processing and L2/Ln acquisition as probabilistic inference under uncertainty over socio-indexical structure. It also offers a new perspective on crosslinguistic influences during L2/Ln learning, accommodating gradient and continued transfer (both negative and positive) from previously learned to novel languages, and vice versa. PMID:28348442

  6. Directed Blogging with Community College ESL Students: Its Effects on Awareness of Language Acquisition Processes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnson, Cathy

    2012-01-01

    English as a Second Language (ESL) students often have problems progressing in their acquisition of the language and frequently do not know how to solve this dilemma. Many of them think of their second language studies as just another school subject that they must pass in order to move on to the next level, so few of them realize the metacognitive…

  7. Fostering Language Acquisition in Daycare Settings: What Does the Research Tell Us? Working Papers in Early Childhood Development, No. 49

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beller, Simone

    2008-01-01

    The ways in which children learn a language--be it their mother tongue or their second language--can have a strong influence on their success in school. Researchers in linguistics and early child development have tried to determine the factors that can help and hinder language acquisition in young children, with some conflicting results. In this…

  8. Generative Research on Second Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eubank, Lynn

    1995-01-01

    Reviews recent trends in generative research on second language acquisition, focusing on the role of universal grammar, parameter resetting, and anaphoric binding. An annotated bibliography discusses five important works in the field. (61 references) (MDM)

  9. L2 vs. L3 Initial State: A Comparative Study of the Acquisition of French DPs by Vietnamese Monolinguals and Cantonese-English Bilinguals

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Leung, Yan-Kit Ingrid

    2005-01-01

    This paper compares the initial state of second language acquisition (L2A) and third language acquisition (L3A) from the generative linguistics perspective. We examine the acquisition of the Determiner Phrase (DP) by two groups of beginning French learners: an L2 group (native speakers of Vietnamese who do not speak any English) and an L3 group…

  10. Early sound patterns in the speech of two Brazilian Portuguese speakers.

    PubMed

    Teixeira, Elizabeth Reis; Davis, Barbara L

    2002-06-01

    Sound patterns in the speech of two Brazilian-Portuguese speaking children are compared with early production patterns in English-learning children as well as English and Brazilian-Portuguese (BP) characteristics. The relationship between production system effects and ambient language influences in the acquisition of early sound patterns is of primary interest, as English and BP are characterized by differing phonological systems. Results emphasize the primacy of production system effects in early acquisition, although even the earliest word forms show evidence of perceptual effects from the ambient language in both BP children. Use of labials and coronals and low and midfront vowels in simple syllable shapes is consistent with acquisition data for this period across languages. However, potential ambient language influences include higher frequencies of dorsals, use of multisyllabic words, and different phone types in syllable-offset position. These results suggest that to fully understand early acquisition of sound systems one must account for both production system effects and perceptual effects from the ambient language.

  11. Exploring Cross-Linguistic Vocabulary Effects on Brain Structures Using Voxel-Based Morphometry

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Green, David W.; Crinion, Jenny; Price, Cathy J.

    2007-01-01

    Given that there are neural markers for the acquisition of a non-verbal skill, we review evidence of neural markers for the acquisition of vocabulary. Acquiring vocabulary is critical to learning one's native language and to learning other languages. Acquisition requires the ability to link an object concept (meaning) to sound. Is there a region…

  12. The Role of Repeated Exposure to Multimodal Input in Incidental Acquisition of Foreign Language Vocabulary

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bisson, Marie-Josée; van Heuven, Walter J. B.; Conklin, Kathy; Tunney, Richard J.

    2014-01-01

    Prior research has reported incidental vocabulary acquisition with complete beginners in a foreign language (FL), within 8 exposures to auditory and written FL word forms presented with a picture depicting their meaning. However, important questions remain about whether acquisition occurs with fewer exposures to FL words in a multimodal situation…

  13. The Interaction of Language-Specific and Universal Factors during the Acquisition of Morphophonemic Alternations with Exceptions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baer-Henney, Dinah; Kügler, Frank; van de Vijver, Ruben

    2015-01-01

    Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel…

  14. Le Carte Blanc or La Carte Blanche? Bilingual Children's Acquisition of French Adjective Agreement

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nicoladis, Elena; Marchak, Kristan

    2011-01-01

    Because of less exposure to either language, bilingual children's language acquisition can be delayed relative to monolingual children in domains related to input frequency. This study predicted that the acquisition of gender agreement with adjectives in French would be delayed in bilingual children on a picture description task. The results…

  15. Learned Attention in Adult Language Acquisition: A Replication and Generalization Study and Meta-Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ellis, Nick C.; Sagarra, Nuria

    2011-01-01

    This study investigates associative learning explanations of the limited attainment of adult compared to child language acquisition in terms of learned attention to cues. It replicates and extends Ellis and Sagarra (2010) in demonstrating short- and long-term learned attention in the acquisition of temporal reference in Latin. In Experiment 1,…

  16. Tense over Time: The Longitudinal Course of Tense Acquisition in Children with Specific Language Impairment.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rice, Mabel L.; Wexler, Kenneth; Hershberger, Scott

    1998-01-01

    A longitudinal study of 43 typical children (ages 2 to 8) and 21 children with specific language impairments (SLI) found that a diverse set of morphemes share the property of tense marking, that acquisition shows linear and nonlinear components, and that mean length of utterance predicts rate of acquisition. (Author/CR)

  17. Low-Educated Immigrants and the Social Relevance of Second Language Acquisition Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Young-Scholten, Martha

    2013-01-01

    Since the 1980s' decoupling of the formal study of second language acquisition from pedagogical concerns, the social relevance of such research has been of little concern. Early studies, in the 1970s, of uninstructed adult learners' acquisition of morphosyntax pointed to social implications: these working class immigrants had varying levels of…

  18. The Utility of Cognitive Plausibility in Language Acquisition Modeling: Evidence From Word Segmentation.

    PubMed

    Phillips, Lawrence; Pearl, Lisa

    2015-11-01

    The informativity of a computational model of language acquisition is directly related to how closely it approximates the actual acquisition task, sometimes referred to as the model's cognitive plausibility. We suggest that though every computational model necessarily idealizes the modeled task, an informative language acquisition model can aim to be cognitively plausible in multiple ways. We discuss these cognitive plausibility checkpoints generally and then apply them to a case study in word segmentation, investigating a promising Bayesian segmentation strategy. We incorporate cognitive plausibility by using an age-appropriate unit of perceptual representation, evaluating the model output in terms of its utility, and incorporating cognitive constraints into the inference process. Our more cognitively plausible model shows a beneficial effect of cognitive constraints on segmentation performance. One interpretation of this effect is as a synergy between the naive theories of language structure that infants may have and the cognitive constraints that limit the fidelity of their inference processes, where less accurate inference approximations are better when the underlying assumptions about how words are generated are less accurate. More generally, these results highlight the utility of incorporating cognitive plausibility more fully into computational models of language acquisition. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  19. Time-resolved EPR spectroscopy in a Unix environment.

    PubMed

    Lacoff, N M; Franke, J E; Warden, J T

    1990-02-01

    A computer-aided time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometer implemented under version 2.9 BSD Unix was developed by interfacing a Varian E-9 EPR spectrometer and a Biomation 805 waveform recorder to a PDP-11/23A minicomputer having MINC A/D and D/A capabilities. Special problems with real-time data acquisition in a multiuser, multitasking Unix environment, addressing of computer main memory for the control of hardware devices, and limitation of computer main memory were resolved, and their solutions are presented. The time-resolved EPR system and the data acquisition and analysis programs, written entirely in C, are described. Furthermore, the benefits of utilizing the Unix operating system and the C language are discussed, and system performance is illustrated with time-resolved EPR spectra of the reaction center cation in photosystem 1 of green plant photosynthesis.

  20. Restrictions on biological adaptation in language evolution.

    PubMed

    Chater, Nick; Reali, Florencia; Christiansen, Morten H

    2009-01-27

    Language acquisition and processing are governed by genetic constraints. A crucial unresolved question is how far these genetic constraints have coevolved with language, perhaps resulting in a highly specialized and species-specific language "module," and how much language acquisition and processing redeploy preexisting cognitive machinery. In the present work, we explored the circumstances under which genes encoding language-specific properties could have coevolved with language itself. We present a theoretical model, implemented in computer simulations, of key aspects of the interaction of genes and language. Our results show that genes for language could have coevolved only with highly stable aspects of the linguistic environment; a rapidly changing linguistic environment does not provide a stable target for natural selection. Thus, a biological endowment could not coevolve with properties of language that began as learned cultural conventions, because cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. We argue that this rules out the possibility that arbitrary properties of language, including abstract syntactic principles governing phrase structure, case marking, and agreement, have been built into a "language module" by natural selection. The genetic basis of human language acquisition and processing did not coevolve with language, but primarily predates the emergence of language. As suggested by Darwin, the fit between language and its underlying mechanisms arose because language has evolved to fit the human brain, rather than the reverse.

  1. Best Practices in Using Video Technology to Promote Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McNulty, Anastassia; Lazarevic, Bojan

    2012-01-01

    Inclusion of technology in the process of second language acquisition has always been a priority for both teachers and theoreticians. This paper reviews the current trends in using video-based language instruction in K-12 educational settings. Although it has been demonstrated for many years that the use of video as an instructional medium…

  2. Individual Differences in Sequence Learning Ability and Second Language Acquisition in Early Childhood and Adulthood

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Granena, Gisela

    2013-01-01

    Language aptitude has been hypothesized as a factor that can compensate for postcritical period effects in language learning capacity. However, previous research has primarily focused on instructed contexts and rarely on acquisition-rich learning environments where there is a potential for massive amounts of input. In addition, the studies…

  3. The Impact of Host Family Relations and Length of Stay on Adolescent Identity Expression during Study Abroad

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Grieve, Averil Marie

    2015-01-01

    This study focuses on the relationships between host family success, social integration, length of stay and acquisition of adolescent language by students on extended international homestay programmes. Degree of adolescent language acquisition and integration is measured by use of two hallmarks of adolescent language: markers of approximation…

  4. Tense or Aspect?: Effects of L1 Tense/Aspect Prominence in L2 Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Martinovic-Zic, Aida

    2009-01-01

    This study introduces a typological model of the "conceptual language-specific approach" to the L2 research on the acquisition of tense-aspect. The model is based on the typological notion of prominence, classifying languages into tense-prominent and aspect-prominent (Bhat 1999) and the L1 research proposal that language-specific…

  5. Early Language Stimulation of Down's Syndrome Babies: A Study on the Optimum Age To Begin.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Aparicio, Maria Teresa Sanz; Balana, Javier Menendez

    2002-01-01

    Examined the marked delay in language acquisition suffered by babies with Down Syndrome and how early treatment affects the subsequent observed development among 36 subjects in Spain. Found statistically significant differences in language acquisitions in favor of newborns, compared with 90-day-old through 18-month-old infants who experienced…

  6. Specificity and Sensitivity Ratios of the Pediatric Language Acquisition Screening Tool for Early Referral-Revised.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sherman, Tracy; Shulman, Brian B.

    1999-01-01

    This study examined test characteristics of the Pediatric Language Acquisition Screening Tool for Early Referral-Revised (PLASTER-R), a set of developmental questionnaires for children 3 to 60 months of age. The PLASTER-R was moderately to highly successful in identifying children within normal limits for language development. Test-retest…

  7. If a Chimpanzee Could Talk and Other Reflections on Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gill, Jerry H.

    This book relates several case studies of language acquisition--for example, chimpanzees "learning" to speak at a higher level than so-called 'wolf' children and a father and mother who, against the advice of professionals, force their way into the closed world of an autistic son--to examine the threshold of language, that point…

  8. Language and Literacy Acquisition through Parental Mediation in American Sign Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bailes, Cynthia Neese; Erting, Lynne C.; Thumann-Prezioso, Carlene; Erting, Carol J.

    2009-01-01

    This longitudinal case study examined the language and literacy acquisition of a Deaf child as mediated by her signing Deaf parents during her first three years of life. Results indicate that the parents' interactions with their child were guided by linguistic and cultural knowledge that produced an intuitive use of child-directed signing (CDSi)…

  9. Research in the Doctoral Program in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    De Costa, Peter I.; Bernales, Carolina; Merrill, Margaret

    2011-01-01

    Faculty and graduate students in the Doctoral Program in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison engage in a broad spectrum of research. From Professor Sally Magnan's research on study abroad and Professor Monika Chavez's work in foreign language policy through Professor Richard Young's examination of…

  10. Infant Language Development Is Related to the Acquisition of Walking

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Walle, Eric A.; Campos, Joseph J.

    2014-01-01

    The present investigation explored the question of whether walking onset is related to infant language development. Study 1 used a longitudinal design (N = 44) to assess infant locomotor and language development every 2 weeks from 10 to 13.5 months of age. The acquisition of walking was associated with a significant increase in both receptive and…

  11. The Foreign Language and Intercultural Competence Teacher: The Acquisition of a New Professional Identity

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sercu, Lies

    2006-01-01

    It has now become commonplace to state that foreign language learning should be viewed in an intercultural perspective. The main objective of foreign language education is no longer defined strictly in terms of the acquisition of communicative competence. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural communicative competence. The aim of the…

  12. Early Acquisition of Basic Word Order in Japanese

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sugisaki, Koji

    2008-01-01

    The acquisition of word order has been one of the central issues in the study of child language. One striking finding from the detailed investigation of various child languages is that from the earliest observable stages, children are highly sensitive to the basic word order of their target language. However, the evidence so far comes mainly from…

  13. Portraits of the L2 User. Second Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cook, Vivian, Ed.

    This collection of papers treats second language users in their own right rather than as failed native speakers, reflecting a new shift within the field of second language acquisition research. The 13 papers are: (1) "Background to the L2 User" (Vivian Cook); (2) "Lexical Representation and Lexical Processing in the L2 User"…

  14. Unconventional Expressions: Productive Syntax in the L2 Acquisition of Formulaic Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen; Stringer, David

    2017-01-01

    This article presents a generative analysis of the acquisition of formulaic language as an alternative to current usage-based proposals. One influential view of the role of formulaic expressions in second language (L2) development is that they are a bootstrapping mechanism into the L2 grammar; an initial repertoire of constructions allows for…

  15. Acquisition of Zero Relative Clauses in English by Adult Turkish Learners of English

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ordem, Eser

    2017-01-01

    Studies on acquisition of relative clauses by first and second language learners have evoked considerable interest in recent decades. In line with such studies, in this present study we aim to show the possible effect of first language (Turkish) on second language (English) in zero relative clause constructions. English uses certain stranded…

  16. The proper treatment of language acquisition and change in a population setting.

    PubMed

    Niyogi, Partha; Berwick, Robert C

    2009-06-23

    Language acquisition maps linguistic experience, primary linguistic data (PLD), onto linguistic knowledge, a grammar. Classically, computational models of language acquisition assume a single target grammar and one PLD source, the central question being whether the target grammar can be acquired from the PLD. However, real-world learners confront populations with variation, i.e., multiple target grammars and PLDs. Removing this idealization has inspired a new class of population-based language acquisition models. This paper contrasts 2 such models. In the first, iterated learning (IL), each learner receives PLD from one target grammar but different learners can have different targets. In the second, social learning (SL), each learner receives PLD from possibly multiple targets, e.g., from 2 parents. We demonstrate that these 2 models have radically different evolutionary consequences. The IL model is dynamically deficient in 2 key respects. First, the IL model admits only linear dynamics and so cannot describe phase transitions, attested rapid changes in languages over time. Second, the IL model cannot properly describe the stability of languages over time. In contrast, the SL model leads to nonlinear dynamics, bifurcations, and possibly multiple equilibria and so suffices to model both the case of stable language populations, mixtures of more than 1 language, as well as rapid language change. The 2 models also make distinct, empirically testable predictions about language change. Using historical data, we show that the SL model more faithfully replicates the dynamics of the evolution of Middle English.

  17. The Age of Second Language Acquisition Determines the Variability in Activation Elicited by Narration in Three Languages in Broca's and Wernicke's Area

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bloch, Constantine; Kaiser, Anelis; Kuenzli, Esther; Zappatore, Daniela; Haller, Sven; Franceschini, Rita; Luedi, Georges; Radue, Ernst-Wilhelm; Nitsch, Cordula

    2009-01-01

    It is generally accepted that the presence of a second language (L2) has an impact on the neuronal substrates build up and used for language processing; the influence of the age of L2 exposure, however, is not established. We tested the hypothesis that the age of L2 acquisition has an effect on the cortical representation of a multilingual…

  18. Bilinguals’ Existing Languages Benefit Vocabulary Learning in a Third Language

    PubMed Central

    Bartolotti, James; Marian, Viorica

    2017-01-01

    Learning a new language involves substantial vocabulary acquisition. Learners can accelerate this process by relying on words with native-language overlap, such as cognates. For bilingual third language learners, it is necessary to determine how their two existing languages interact during novel language learning. A scaffolding account predicts transfer from either language for individual words, whereas an accumulation account predicts cumulative transfer from both languages. To compare these accounts, twenty English-German bilingual adults were taught an artificial language containing 48 novel written words that varied orthogonally in English and German wordlikeness (neighborhood size and orthotactic probability). Wordlikeness in each language improved word production accuracy, and similarity to one language provided the same benefit as dual-language overlap. In addition, participants’ memory for novel words was affected by the statistical distributions of letters in the novel language. Results indicate that bilinguals utilize both languages during third language acquisition, supporting a scaffolding learning model. PMID:28781384

  19. Bilinguals' Existing Languages Benefit Vocabulary Learning in a Third Language.

    PubMed

    Bartolotti, James; Marian, Viorica

    2017-03-01

    Learning a new language involves substantial vocabulary acquisition. Learners can accelerate this process by relying on words with native-language overlap, such as cognates. For bilingual third language learners, it is necessary to determine how their two existing languages interact during novel language learning. A scaffolding account predicts transfer from either language for individual words, whereas an accumulation account predicts cumulative transfer from both languages. To compare these accounts, twenty English-German bilingual adults were taught an artificial language containing 48 novel written words that varied orthogonally in English and German wordlikeness (neighborhood size and orthotactic probability). Wordlikeness in each language improved word production accuracy, and similarity to one language provided the same benefit as dual-language overlap. In addition, participants' memory for novel words was affected by the statistical distributions of letters in the novel language. Results indicate that bilinguals utilize both languages during third language acquisition, supporting a scaffolding learning model.

  20. Temporal Dynamics of Late Second Language Acquisition: Evidence from Event-Related Brain Potentials

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Steinhauer, Karsten; White, Erin J.; Drury, John E.

    2009-01-01

    The ways in which age of acquisition (AoA) may affect (morpho)syntax in second language acquisition (SLA) are discussed. We suggest that event-related brain potentials (ERPs) provide an appropriate online measure to test some such effects. ERP findings of the past decade are reviewed with a focus on recent and ongoing research. It is concluded…

  1. Gruppeorganiseret og selvstyret fremmedsprogstilegnelse. Et undervisningseksperiment pa RUC [and] Skolesprogene. Om fremmedsprogenes status og funktion i gymnasiet. ROLIG Papir 22 (Group Organized and Self Managed Foreign Language Acquisition. A Research Project at RUC [and] School Languages. On the Status and Function of Foreign Languages in Secondary Schools. ROLIG Paper 22).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jakobsen, Karen Sonne

    Two articles highlight different issues on foreign language learning and instruction in Denmark. The first article describes a research project at Roskilde University Center that focuses on group organized and self managed foreign language acquisition. The idea for the project came about as a result of concern over problems related to foreign…

  2. Age of language learning shapes brain structure: a cortical thickness study of bilingual and monolingual individuals.

    PubMed

    Klein, Denise; Mok, Kelvin; Chen, Jen-Kai; Watkins, Kate E

    2014-04-01

    We examined the effects of learning a second language (L2) on brain structure. Cortical thickness was measured in the MRI datasets of 22 monolinguals and 66 bilinguals. Some bilingual subjects had learned both languages simultaneously (0-3 years) while some had learned their L2 after achieving proficiency in their first language during either early (4-7 years) or late childhood (8-13 years). Later acquisition of L2 was associated with significantly thicker cortex in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and thinner cortex in the right IFG. These effects were seen in the group comparisons of monolinguals, simultaneous bilinguals and early and late bilinguals. Within the bilingual group, significant correlations between age of acquisition of L2 and cortical thickness were seen in the same regions: cortical thickness correlated with age of acquisition positively in the left IFG and negatively in the right IFG. Interestingly, the monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals did not differ in cortical thickness in any region. Our results show that learning a second language after gaining proficiency in the first language modifies brain structure in an age-dependent manner whereas simultaneous acquisition of two languages has no additional effect on brain development. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. The Contribution of Phonological and Morphological Awareness in Chinese-English Bilingual Reading Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lin, Candise Y.; Cheng, Chenxi; Wang, Min

    2018-01-01

    The current study examined the contribution of cross-language phonological and morphological awareness to reading acquisition in bilingual children. Participants were 140 children (M[subscript age] = 8.26 years) between Grades 1-4 who learned Chinese as their first language and English as their second language. Awareness of phoneme, onset-rime,…

  4. The Etiology of Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition in Australian School Students: A Behavior-Genetic Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coventry, William; Anton-Mendez, Ines; Ellis, Elizabeth M.; Levisen, Christina; Byrne, Brian; van Daal, Victor H. P.; Ellis, Nick C.

    2012-01-01

    We present one of the first behavior-genetic studies of individual differences in school students' levels of achievement in instructed second language acquisition (ISLA). We assessed these language abilities in Australian twin pairs (maximum N pairs = 251) by means of teacher ratings, class rankings, and self-ratings of proficiency, and used the…

  5. Developing Language in a Developing Body: The Relationship between Motor Development and Language Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Iverson, Jana M.

    2010-01-01

    During the first eighteen months of life, infants acquire and refine a whole set of new motor skills that significantly change the ways in which the body moves in and interacts with the environment. In this review article, I argue that motor acquisitions provide infants with an opportunity to practice skills relevant to language acquisition before…

  6. Second Language Acquisition of Variable Structures in Spanish by Portuguese Speakers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Geeslin, Kimberly L.; Guijarro-Fuentes, Pedro

    2006-01-01

    This study provides a model for examining the second language (L2) acquisition of structures where the first language (L1) and (L2) are similar, and where native speaker (NS) use varies. Research on the copula contrast in Spanish ("ser" and "estar" mean "to be") has shown that an assessment of learner choice cannot rely on an error analysis…

  7. Modularity, Working Memory, and Second Language Acquisition: A Research Program

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Truscott, John

    2017-01-01

    Considerable reason exists to view the mind, and language within it, as modular, and this view has an important place in research and theory in second language acquisition (SLA) and beyond. But it has had very little impact on the study of working memory and its role in SLA. This article considers the need for modular study of working memory,…

  8. Utility of Krashen's Five Hypotheses in the Saudi Context of Foreign Language Acquisition/Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gulzar, Malik Ajmal; Gulnaz, Fahmeeda; Ijaz, Attiya

    2014-01-01

    In the last twenty years, the paradigm that has dominated the discipline of language teaching is the SLA theory and Krashen's five hypotheses which are still proving flexible to accommodate earlier reforms. This paper reviews second language acquisition (SLA) theory to establish an understanding of its role in the EFL/ESL classrooms. Other areas…

  9. Analytical Review of Universal Grammar (UG) Approach on Second Language Acquisition (SLA)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Irwandy

    2015-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to explore the analysis of Universal Grammar (UG) approach on Second Language Acquisition (SLA). This paper is significant as the sources for teacher or researcher of the second language since this elaboration is deeply focusing on the use of UG on SLA. The method used in this academic writing is inductive method of…

  10. Word Meaning as a Palimpsest: A Defense of Sociocultural Theory

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Song, Seonmi; Kellogg, David

    2011-01-01

    Vygotsky's work on the acquisition of foreign language words has been criticized for lacking a formal view of language as a system and for taking little interest in questions such as the route and rate of language acquisition. We argue that word meanings really do not constitute a formal system, either in the way they develop, or in the way they…

  11. Implications of Second Language Acquisition Theory for Business English Teaching in Current China

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wenzhong, Zhu; Muchun, Wan

    2015-01-01

    Second language acquisition (SLA) as a sub-branch of applied linguistics has been researched by Chinese and foreign scholars for over 40 years, but few researches have been done on its implications for Business English teaching which needs more language teaching theories to support. This paper makes a review of related studies, and puts forward a…

  12. Common Ground between Form and Content: The Pragmatic Solution to the Bootstrapping Problem

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Oller, John W.

    2005-01-01

    The frame of reference for this article is second or foreign language (L2 or FL) acquisition, but the pragmatic bootstrapping hypothesis applies to language processing and acquisition in any context or modality. It is relevant to teaching children to read. It shows how connections between target language surface forms and their content can be made…

  13. Difficulty in Learning Similar-Sounding Words: A Developmental Stage or a General Property of Learning?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pajak, Bozena; Creel, Sarah C.; Levy, Roger

    2016-01-01

    How are languages learned, and to what extent are learning mechanisms similar in infant native-language (L1) and adult second-language (L2) acquisition? In terms of vocabulary acquisition, we know from the infant literature that the ability to discriminate similar-sounding words at a particular age does not guarantee successful word-meaning…

  14. Insights from Skill Acquisition Theory for Grammar Activity Sequencing and Design in Foreign Language Teaching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Criado, Raquel

    2016-01-01

    This article presents a framework for the elaboration of Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) grammar materials for adults based on the application to SLA of Skill Acquisition Theory (SAT). This theory is argued to compensate for the major drawbacks of FLT settings in comparison with second language contexts (lack of classroom learning time and limited…

  15. The Effect of Aided Language Stimulation on Vocabulary Acquisition in Children with Little or No Functional Speech

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dada, Shakila; Alant, Erna

    2009-01-01

    Purpose: To describe the nature and frequency of the aided language stimulation program and determine the effects of a 3-week-long aided language stimulation program on the vocabulary acquisition skills of children with little or no functional speech (LNFS). Method: Four children participated in this single-subject,multiple-probe study across…

  16. The Exploring Nature of Vocabulary Acquisition and Common Main Gaps in the Current Studies of Vocabulary Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fazeli, Seyed Hossein

    2012-01-01

    Vocabulary can be a key factor for success, central to a language, and paramount to a language learner. In such situation, the lexicon may be the most important component for learners (Grass and Selinker, 1994), and mastering of vocabulary is an essential component of second/foreign language teaching and learning that has been repeatedly…

  17. The Symbolic World of the Bilingual Child: Digressions on Language Acquisition, Culture and the Process of Thinking

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nowak-Fabrykowski, Krystyna; Shkandrij, Miroslav

    2004-01-01

    In this paper we explore the relationship between language acquisition, and the construction of a symbolic world. According to Bowers (1989) language is a collection of patterns regulating social life. This conception is close to that of Symbolic Interactionists (Charon, 1989) who see society as made up of interacting individuals who are symbol…

  18. The Acquisition of Relative Clauses: How Do Second Language Learners of Arabic Do It?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Algady, Dola

    2013-01-01

    The new developments in syntactic theory under Minimalism reconsiders the relation between the language faculty and general cognitive systems whereby language acquisition is accomplished by the interaction of Chomsky (2005)'s three factors: (F1) a minimally specified UG (Genetic endowment); (F2) Primary Linguistic Data (PLD), i.e., input; and (F3)…

  19. Language/culture/mind/brain. Progress at the margins between disciplines.

    PubMed

    Kuhl, P K; Tsao, F M; Liu, H M; Zhang, Y; De Boer, B

    2001-05-01

    At the forefront of research on language are new data demonstrating infants' strategies in the early acquisition of language. The data show that infants perceptually "map" critical aspects of ambient language in the first year of life before they can speak. Statistical and abstract properties of speech are picked up through exposure to ambient language. Moreover, linguistic experience alters infants' perception of speech, warping perception in a way that enhances native-language speech processing. Infants' strategies are unexpected and unpredicted by historical views. At the same time, research in three additional disciplines is contributing to our understanding of language and its acquisition by children. Cultural anthropologists are demonstrating the universality of adult speech behavior when addressing infants and children across cultures, and this is creating a new view of the role adult speakers play in bringing about language in the child. Neuroscientists, using the techniques of modern brain imaging, are revealing the temporal and structural aspects of language processing by the brain and suggesting new views of the critical period for language. Computer scientists, modeling the computational aspects of childrens' language acquisition, are meeting success using biologically inspired neural networks. Although a consilient view cannot yet be offered, the cross-disciplinary interaction now seen among scientists pursuing one of humans' greatest achievements, language, is quite promising.

  20. Ovide Decroly's Views on Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lebrun, Yvan; Van De Craen, Piet

    1975-01-01

    Belgian physician and psychologist Ovide Decroly, keenly interested in language acquisition, devised tests to measure verbal skills in children and campaigned for the adoption of the sentence method rather than the word-building method in teaching reading and writing. (Author/CL)

  1. Brain Bases of Morphological Processing in Young Children

    PubMed Central

    Arredondo, Maria M.; Ip, Ka I; Hsu, Lucy Shih-Ju; Tardif, Twila; Kovelman, Ioulia

    2017-01-01

    How does the developing brain support the transition from spoken language to print? Two spoken language abilities form the initial base of child literacy across languages: knowledge of language sounds (phonology) and knowledge of the smallest units that carry meaning (morphology). While phonology has received much attention from the field, the brain mechanisms that support morphological competence for learning to read remain largely unknown. In the present study, young English-speaking children completed an auditory morphological awareness task behaviorally (n = 69, ages 6–12) and in fMRI (n = 16). The data revealed two findings: First, children with better morphological abilities showed greater activation in left temporo-parietal regions previously thought to be important for supporting phonological reading skills, suggesting that this region supports multiple language abilities for successful reading acquisition. Second, children showed activation in left frontal regions previously found active in young Chinese readers, suggesting morphological processes for reading acquisition might be similar across languages. These findings offer new insights for developing a comprehensive model of how spoken language abilities support children’s reading acquisition across languages. PMID:25930011

  2. Thinking About Multiword Constructions: Usage-Based Approaches to Acquisition and Processing.

    PubMed

    Ellis, Nick C; Ogden, Dave C

    2017-07-01

    Usage-based approaches to language hold that we learn multiword expressions as patterns of language from language usage, and that knowledge of these patterns underlies fluent language processing. This paper explores these claims by focusing upon verb-argument constructions (VACs) such as "V(erb) about n(oun phrase)." These are productive constructions that bind syntax, lexis, and semantics. It presents (a) analyses of usage patterns of English VACs in terms of their grammatical form, semantics, lexical constituency, and distribution patterns in large corpora; (b) patterns of VAC usage in child-directed speech and child language acquisition; and (c) investigations of VAC free-association and psycholinguistic studies of online processing. We conclude that VACs are highly patterned in usage, that this patterning drives language acquisition, and that language processing is sensitive to the forms of the syntagmatic construction and their distributional statistics, the contingency of their association with meaning, and spreading activation and prototypicality effects in semantic reference. Language users have rich implicit knowledge of the statistics of multiword sequences. Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  3. Development of induction current acquisition device based on ARM

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ji, Yanju; Liu, Xiyang; Huang, Wanyu; Yao, Jiang; Yuan, Guiyang; Hui, Luan; Guan, Shanshan

    2018-03-01

    We design an induction current acquisition device based on ARM in order to realize high resolution and high sampling rate of acquisition for the induction current in wire-loop. Considering its characteristics of fast attenuation and small signal amplitude, we use the method of multi-path fusion for noise suppression. In the paper, the design is carried out from three aspects of analog circuit and device selection, independent power supply structure and the electromagnetic interference suppression of high frequency. DMA and ping-pong buffer, as a new data transmission technology, solves real time storage problem of massive data. The performance parameters of ARM acquisition device are tested. The comparison test of ARM acquisition device and cRIO acquisition device is performed at different time constants. The results show that it has 120dB dynamic range, 47kHz bandwidth, 96kHz sampling rate, 5μV the smallest resolution, and its average error value is not more than 4%, which proves the high accuracy and stability of the device.

  4. On the Second Language Acquisition of Spanish Reflexive Passives and Reflexive Impersonals by French- and English-Speaking Adults

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tremblay, Annie

    2006-01-01

    This study, a partial replication of Bruhn de Garavito (1999a; 1999b), investigates the second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish reflexive passives and reflexive impersonals by French- and English-speaking adults at an advanced level of proficiency. The L2 acquisition of Spanish reflexive passives and reflexive impersonals by native French and…

  5. Do Adults Show an Effect of Delayed First Language Acquisition When Calculating Scalar Implicatures?

    PubMed

    Davidson, Kathryn; Mayberry, Rachel I

    Language acquisition involves learning not only grammatical rules and a lexicon, but also what someone is intending to convey with their utterance: the semantic/pragmatic component of language. In this paper we separate the contributions of linguistic development and cognitive maturity to the acquisition of the semantic/pragmatic component of language by comparing deaf adults who had either early or late first exposure to their first language (ASL). We focus on the particular type of meaning at the semantic/pragmatic interface called scalar implicature , for which preschool-age children typically differ from adults. Children's behavior has been attributed to either their not knowing appropriate linguistic alternatives to consider or to cognitive developmental differences between children and adults. Unlike children, deaf adults with late language exposure are cognitively mature, although they never fully acquire some complex linguistic structures, and thus serve as a test for the role of language in such interpretations. Our results indicate an overall high performance by late learners, especially when implicatures are not based on conventionalized items. However, compared to early language learners, late language learners compute fewer implicatures when conventionalized linguistic alternatives are involved (e.g. ). We conclude that (i) in general, Gricean pragmatic reasoning does not seem to be impacted by delayed first language acquisition and can account for multiple quantity implicatures, but (ii) the creation of a scale based on lexical items can lead to ease in alternative creation that may be advantageously learned early in life, and that this may be one of several factors contributing to differences between adults and children on scalar implicature tasks.

  6. Second Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McLaughlin, Barry; Harrington, Michael

    1989-01-01

    A distinction is drawn between representational and processing models of second-language acquisition. The first approach is derived primarily from linguistics, the second from psychology. Both fields, it is argued, need to collaborate more fully, overcoming disciplinary narrowness in order to achieve more fruitful research. (GLR)

  7. Learn Locally, Act Globally: Learning Language from Variation Set Cues

    PubMed Central

    Onnis, Luca; Waterfall, Heidi R.; Edelman, Shimon

    2011-01-01

    Variation set structure — partial overlap of successive utterances in child-directed speech — has been shown to correlate with progress in children’s acquisition of syntax. We demonstrate the benefits of variation set structure directly: in miniature artificial languages, arranging a certain proportion of utterances in a training corpus in variation sets facilitated word and phrase constituent learning in adults. Our findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms of L1 acquisition by children, and for the development of more efficient algorithms for automatic language acquisition, as well as better methods for L2 instruction. PMID:19019350

  8. A longitudinal study of lexical and grammar development in deaf Italian children provided with early cochlear implantation.

    PubMed

    Chilosi, Anna Maria; Comparini, Alessandro; Scusa, Maria Flora; Orazini, Laura; Forli, Francesca; Cipriani, Paola; Berrettini, Stefano

    2013-01-01

    A growing number of studies on deaf children with cochlear implant (CI) document a significant improvement in receptive and expressive language skills after implantation, even if they show language delay when compared with normal-hearing peers. Data on language acquisition in CI Italian children are still scarce and limited to only certain aspects of language. The purpose of this study is to prospectively describe the trajectories of language development in early CI Italian children, with particular attention to the transition from first words to combinatorial speech and to acquisition of complex grammar in a language with rich morphology, such as Italian. Six children, with profound prelingual deafness, provided with CI, between 16 and 24 months of age were prospectively assessed and followed over a mean period of up to 34.8 months postimplant. During follow-up, each child received between four to five individual language evaluations through a combination of indirect procedures (parent reports of early lexical and grammar development) and direct ones (administration of standardized receptive and expressive language tests with Italian norms and collection of spontaneous language samples). In relation to chronological age, the acquisition of expressive vocabulary was delayed. However, considering the duration of hearing experience, most CI participants showed an earlier start and faster growth of expressive rather than receptive vocabulary in comparison with typically developing children. This quite atypical result persisted right up until the end of the follow-up. The acquisition of expressive grammar was delayed relative to chronological age, though all but one CI participant achieved the expected grammar level after approximately 3 years of CI use. In addition, the rate of grammar acquisition was not homogeneous during development, showing two different paces: one comparable with normal hearing in the transition from holophrastic to primitive combinatorial speech and a much slower one to attain more advanced levels of morphosyntactic control. From a rehabilitative viewpoint, our results suggest the importance of implementing rehabilitation in lexical comprehension, even when expressive vocabulary appears to be within normal range. Moreover, assessment of language acquisition in CI Italian children should focus on those grammar aspects that are more vulnerable to early acoustic deprivation (such as free and bound morphology) to ensure enhanced language therapy planning.

  9. Dependency distance: A new perspective on the syntactic development in second language acquisition. Comment on "Dependency distance: A new perspective on syntactic patterns in natural language" by Haitao Liu et al.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Jiang, Jingyang; Ouyang, Jinghui

    2017-07-01

    Liu et al. [1] offers a clear and informative account of the use of dependency distance in studying natural languages, with a focus on the viewpoint that dependency distance minimization (DDM) can be regarded as a linguistic universal. We would like to add the perspective of employing dependency distance in the studies of second languages acquisition (SLA), particularly the studies of syntactic development.

  10. Language acquisition and use: learning and applying probabilistic constraints.

    PubMed

    Seidenberg, M S

    1997-03-14

    What kinds of knowledge underlie the use of language and how is this knowledge acquired? Linguists equate knowing a language with knowing a grammar. Classic "poverty of the stimulus" arguments suggest that grammar identification is an intractable inductive problem and that acquisition is possible only because children possess innate knowledge of grammatical structure. An alternative view is emerging from studies of statistical and probabilistic aspects of language, connectionist models, and the learning capacities of infants. This approach emphasizes continuity between how language is acquired and how it is used. It retains the idea that innate capacities constrain language learning, but calls into question whether they include knowledge of grammatical structure.

  11. Lexique et procedures heuristiques. Arguments pour un renouvellement de l'enseignement du vocabulaire au degre elementaire (Word-Study and Heuristic Processes. Arguments for a Renewal in the Teaching of Vocabulary at the Elementary Level). Acts of the Colloquium of the Swiss Interuniversity Commission for Applied Linguistics. CILA Bulletin, No. 28.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Muller, Charles

    A study is described of heuristic devices useful in learning both native and second languages. The study concerns particularly the means used by very young students (second and third graders) in vocabulary acquisition and in the establishment of semantic relationships. It was of concern to verify if (1) the children would use their knowledge of…

  12. Does Adding Mathematics to English Language Learners' Timetables Improve Their Acquisition of English?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stacey, Jenny

    2016-01-01

    This enquiry based project set out to find out if adult English language learners, known as ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) learners in the UK, might benefit, in terms of their acquisition of English, from studying maths. This research has been conducted at a medium sized FE college in the East Midlands where I teach. I evaluate…

  13. Input Skewedness, Consistency, and Order of Frequent Verbs in Frequency-Driven Second Language Construction Learning: A Replication and Extension of Casenhiser and Goldberg (2005) to Adult Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nakamura, Daisuke

    2012-01-01

    Recent usage-based models of language acquisition research has found that three frequency manipulations; (1) skewed input (Casenhiser & Goldberg 2005), (2) input consistency (Childers & Tomasello 2001), and (3) order of frequent verbs (Goldberg, Casenhiser, & White 2007) facilitated construction learning in children. The present paper addresses…

  14. Developmental Asynchrony in the Acquisition of Subject Properties in Child L2 English and Spanish

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pladevall-Ballester, Elisabet

    2016-01-01

    Given that L1A of subject properties in non-null subject languages emerges later than that of null subject languages, this study aims at determining to what extent the same pattern of acquisition is observed in early child L2A in bilingual immersion settings where English and Spanish are both source and target languages. Using an elicited oral…

  15. Do Learners Lighten Up?: Phonetic and Allophonic Acquisition of Spanish /l/ by English-Speaking Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Solon, Megan

    2017-01-01

    This study explores the second language (L2) acquisition of a segment that exists in learners' first language (L1) and in their L2 but that differs in its phonetic realization and allophonic patterning in the two languages. Specifically, this research tracks development in one aspect of the production of the alveolar lateral /l/ in the L2 Spanish…

  16. Bad Influence?--An Investigation into the Purported Negative Influence of Foreign Domestic Helpers on Children's Second Language English Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Leung, Alex Ho-Cheong

    2012-01-01

    This paper explores the purported negative influence of foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) on child second language acquisition (SLA) by studying Hong Kong Cantonese children's listening ability in second language (L2) English. 31 kindergarten third graders aged 4;6 to 6, and 29 first year secondary students aged 11-14 who have had a Filipino…

  17. Innovations in Second Language Research Methods.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gass, Susan M.

    2001-01-01

    Focuses on two approaches to research in second language acquisition: (1) various types of acceptability judgments or probes aimed at assessing acquisition of syntactic structure; and (2) various types of stimulated recall designed to gather learners' accounts of their own thought processes. (Author/VWL)

  18. The Foray into the Neurosciences: Have We Learned Anything Useful Yet?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mollica, Anthony; Danesi, Marcel

    1995-01-01

    Reviews research on the neuroscientific perspective to second-language acquisition and teaching, focusing on the "critical period" of language acquisition, brain hemispheric mapping, universal grammar theory, the modal directionality principle, and the modal focusing principle. (contains 74 references) (MDM)

  19. Semantic facilitation in bilingual first language acquisition.

    PubMed

    Bilson, Samuel; Yoshida, Hanako; Tran, Crystal D; Woods, Elizabeth A; Hills, Thomas T

    2015-07-01

    Bilingual first language learners face unique challenges that may influence the rate and order of early word learning relative to monolinguals. A comparison of the productive vocabularies of 435 children between the ages of 6 months and 7 years-181 of which were bilingual English learners-found that monolinguals learned both English words and all-language concepts faster than bilinguals. However, bilinguals showed an enhancement of an effect previously found in monolinguals-the preference for learning words with more associative cues. Though both monolinguals and bilinguals were best fit by a similar model of word learning, semantic network structure and growth indicated that the two groups were learning English words in a different order. Further, in comparison with a model of two-monolinguals-in-one-mind, bilinguals overproduced translational equivalents. Our results support an emergent account of bilingual first language acquisition, where learning a word in one language facilitates its acquisition in a second language. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Relationship of Piaget's sensorimotor period to language acquisition of profoundly retarded children.

    PubMed

    Kahn, J V

    1975-05-01

    The relationship of Stage 6 of Piaget's sensorimotor period and the acquisition of meaningful expressive language was investigated. The sample consisted of eight profoundly retarded children who exhibited some meaningful expressive language and eight profoundly retarded children who exhibited none. Chronological ages of the children ranged from 47 to 98 months. A strong relationship was found between meaningful expressive language and Stage 6 functioning as tested by the Uzgiris and Hunt (Note 1) instrument. The findings were discussed in terms of supporting Piaget's theory that cognitive structures exist which are prerequisites for the development of language.

  1. Cognitive and linguistic biases in morphology learning.

    PubMed

    Finley, Sara

    2018-05-30

    Morphology is the study of the relationship between form and meaning. The study of morphology involves understanding the rules and processes that underlie word formation, including the use and productivity of affixes, and the systems that create novel word forms. The present review explores these processes by examining the cognitive components that contribute to typological regularities among morphological systems across the world's language. The review will focus on research in morpheme segmentation, the suffixing preference, acquisition of morphophonology, and acquiring morphological categories and inflectional paradigms. The review will highlight research in a range of areas of linguistics, from child language acquisition, to computational modeling, to adult language learning experiments. In order to best understand the cognitive biases that shape morphological learning, a broad, interdisciplinary approach must be taken. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Linguistic Theory Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Language. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  2. Learning grammatical categories from distributional cues: flexible frames for language acquisition.

    PubMed

    St Clair, Michelle C; Monaghan, Padraic; Christiansen, Morten H

    2010-09-01

    Numerous distributional cues in the child's environment may potentially assist in language learning, but what cues are useful to the child and when are these cues utilised? We propose that the most useful source of distributional cue is a flexible frame surrounding the word, where the language learner integrates information from the preceding and the succeeding word for grammatical categorisation. In corpus analyses of child-directed speech together with computational models of category acquisition, we show that these flexible frames are computationally advantageous for language learning, as they benefit from the coverage of bigram information across a large proportion of the language environment as well as exploiting the enhanced accuracy of trigram information. Flexible frames are also consistent with the developmental trajectory of children's sensitivity to different sources of distributional information, and they are therefore a useful and usable information source for supporting the acquisition of grammatical categories. 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Three Myths from the Language Acquisition Literature

    PubMed Central

    Schoneberger, Ted

    2010-01-01

    Three popular assertions have hindered the promotion of an empiricist approach to language acquisition: (a) that Brown and Hanlon (1970) claimed to offer data that parents do not reinforce their children's grammaticality; (b) that Brown and Hanlon also claimed to offer data that parents do not provide negative evidence (i.e., corrective feedback) for ungrammaticality; and (c) that Gold (1967) claimed to offer a formal proof showing that, without negative evidence, a child cannot acquire a language solely from environmental input. In this paper I offer introductory comments on the nature–nurture distinction (including interactionism, and the nativists' claim to have found a gene for language). Next I debunk the three aforementioned assertions by arguing that the authors (Brown & Hanlon; Gold) never made the claims attributed to them; review evidence on the role of reinforcement and corrective feedback in language acquisition; and offer some concluding comments. PMID:22477466

  4. 21 CFR 801.16 - Medical devices; Spanish-language version of certain required statements.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-04-01

    ... 21 Food and Drugs 8 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Medical devices; Spanish-language version of....16 Medical devices; Spanish-language version of certain required statements. If devices restricted to... Spanish is the predominant language, such labeling is authorized under § 801.15(c). ...

  5. Language Nests and Language Acquisition: An Empirical Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Okura, Eve K.

    2017-01-01

    This dissertation presents the findings from interviews conducted with language nest workers, teachers, language nest coordinators, administrators of language revitalization programs, principals and directors of language immersion schools that work in close proximity with language nests, and linguists involved in language revitalization efforts.…

  6. Assessing Differences and Similarities between Instructed Heritage Language Learners and L2 Learners in Their Knowledge of Spanish Tense-Aspect and Mood (TAM) Morphology

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Montrul, Silvina; Perpinan, Silvia

    2011-01-01

    The acquisition of the aspectual difference between the preterit and imperfect in the past tense and the acquisition of the contrast between subjunctive and indicative mood are classic problem areas in second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish by English-speaking learners (Collentine, 1995, 1998, 2003; Salaberry, 1999; Slabakova & Montrul, 2002;…

  7. Music Perception Influences Language Acquisition: Melodic and Rhythmic-Melodic Perception in Children with Specific Language Impairment.

    PubMed

    Sallat, Stephan; Jentschke, Sebastian

    2015-01-01

    Language and music share many properties, with a particularly strong overlap for prosody. Prosodic cues are generally regarded as crucial for language acquisition. Previous research has indicated that children with SLI fail to make use of these cues. As processing of prosodic information involves similar skills to those required in music perception, we compared music perception skills (melodic and rhythmic-melodic perception and melody recognition) in a group of children with SLI (N = 29, five-year-olds) to two groups of controls, either of comparable age (N = 39, five-year-olds) or of age closer to the children with SLI in their language skills and about one year younger (N = 13, four-year-olds). Children with SLI performed in most tasks below their age level, closer matching the performance level of younger controls with similar language skills. These data strengthen the view of a strong relation between language acquisition and music processing. This might open a perspective for the possible use of musical material in early diagnosis of SLI and of music in SLI therapy.

  8. Music Perception Influences Language Acquisition: Melodic and Rhythmic-Melodic Perception in Children with Specific Language Impairment

    PubMed Central

    Sallat, Stephan; Jentschke, Sebastian

    2015-01-01

    Language and music share many properties, with a particularly strong overlap for prosody. Prosodic cues are generally regarded as crucial for language acquisition. Previous research has indicated that children with SLI fail to make use of these cues. As processing of prosodic information involves similar skills to those required in music perception, we compared music perception skills (melodic and rhythmic-melodic perception and melody recognition) in a group of children with SLI (N = 29, five-year-olds) to two groups of controls, either of comparable age (N = 39, five-year-olds) or of age closer to the children with SLI in their language skills and about one year younger (N = 13, four-year-olds). Children with SLI performed in most tasks below their age level, closer matching the performance level of younger controls with similar language skills. These data strengthen the view of a strong relation between language acquisition and music processing. This might open a perspective for the possible use of musical material in early diagnosis of SLI and of music in SLI therapy. PMID:26508812

  9. Learning difficulties or learning English difficulties? Additional language acquisition: an update for paediatricians.

    PubMed

    Clifford, Vanessa; Rhodes, Anthea; Paxton, Georgia

    2014-03-01

    Australia is a diverse society: 26% of the population were born overseas, a further 20% have at least one parent born overseas and 19% speak a language other than English at home. Paediatricians are frequently involved in the assessment and management of non-English-speaking-background children with developmental delay, disability or learning issues. Despite the diversity of our patient population, information on how children learn additional or later languages is remarkably absent in paediatric training. An understanding of second language acquisition is essential to provide appropriate advice to this patient group. It takes a long time (5 years or more) for any student to develop academic competency in a second language, even a student who has received adequate prior schooling in their first language. Refugee students are doubly disadvantaged as they frequently have limited or interrupted prior schooling, and many are unable to read and write in their first language. We review the evidence on second language acquisition during childhood, describe support for English language learners within the Australian education system, consider refugee-background students as a special risk group and address common misconceptions about how children learn English as an additional language. © 2013 The Authors. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health © 2013 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (Royal Australasian College of Physicians).

  10. Interaction and Instructed Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Loewen, Shawn; Sato, Masatoshi

    2018-01-01

    Interaction is an indispensable component in second language acquisition (SLA). This review surveys the instructed SLA research, both classroom and laboratory-based, that has been conducted primarily within the interactionist approach, beginning with the core constructs of interaction, namely input, negotiation for meaning, and output. The review…

  11. Piagetian and Vygotskian Approach to Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tomasello, Michael

    1996-01-01

    Recent research has established closer links between language, cognition, and social life than Piaget or Vygotsky imagined. Connections have been established between object permanence development and acquisition of disappearance words and the quantity and quality of child-adult joint attentional social interactions and children's early word…

  12. Captioned Television as Comprehensible Input: Effects of Incidental Word Learning from Context for Language Minority Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Neuman, Susan B.; Koskinen, Patricia

    1992-01-01

    Analyzes whether comprehensible input via captioned television influences acquisition of science vocabulary and concepts using 129 bilingual seventh and eighth graders. Finds that comprehensible input is a key ingredient in language acquisition and reading development. (MG)

  13. On TESOL '75: New Directions in Second Language Learning, Teaching and Bilingual Education. Selected Papers from the Annual TESOL Convention (9th, Los Angeles, CA, March 4-9, 1975)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burt, Marina K., Ed.; Dulay, Heidi C., Ed.

    This volume consists of 35 papers divided into the following 12 sections: (1) organizational policy: a dialogue between TESOL and bilingual education--two papers on compatibility and cooperation; (2) second language acquisition--six papers dealing with language learning and teaching, effect of background on learning, order of acquisition,…

  14. Role of Focus-on-Form Instruction, Corrective Feedback and Uptake in Second Language Classrooms: Some Insights from Recent Second Language Acquisition Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Afitska, Oksana

    2015-01-01

    A considerable number of studies on focus-on-form instruction, corrective feedback and uptake have been carried out in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research over the last two decades. These studies have investigated the above-mentioned concepts from different perspectives, in a number of different contexts and in a number of…

  15. Reading skills in young adolescents with a history of Specific Language Impairment: The role of early semantic capacity.

    PubMed

    Buil-Legaz, Lucía; Aguilar-Mediavilla, Eva; Rodríguez-Ferreiro, Javier

    2015-01-01

    This study assessed the reading skills of 19 Spanish-Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and 16 age-matched control children. Children with SLI have difficulties with oral language comprehension, which may affect later reading acquisition. We conducted a longitudinal study examining reading acquisition in these children between 8 and 12 years old and we relate this data with early oral language acquisition at 6 years old. Compared to the control group, the SLI group presented impaired decoding and comprehension skills at age 8, as evidenced by poor scores in all the assessed tasks. Nevertheless, only text comprehension abilities appeared to be impaired at age 12. Individual analyses confirmed the presence of comprehension deficits in most of the SLI children. Furthermore, early semantic verbal fluency at age 6 appeared to significantly predict the reading comprehension capacity of SLI participants at age 12. Our results emphasize the importance of semantic capacity at early stages of oral language development over the consolidation of reading acquisition at later stages. Readers will recognize the relevance of prior oral language impairment, especially semantic capacity, in children with a history of SLI as a risk factor for the development of later reading difficulties. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. [What bimodal bilingual have to say about bilingual developing?

    PubMed

    de Quadros, Ronice Müller; Lillo-Martin, Diane; Pichler, Deborah Chen

    2013-07-01

    The goal of this work is to present what our research with hearing children from Deaf parents, acquiring Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) and Portuguese, and American Sign Language (ASL) and English (Lillo-Martin et. al. 2010) have to say about bilingual development. The data analyzed in this study is part of the database of spontaneous interactions collected longitudinally, alternating contexts of sign and spoken languages. Moreover, there is data from experimental studies with tests in both pairs of languages that is incorporated to the present study. A general view about previous studies related to bimodal bilingual acquisition with hearing children, from "deaf" parents, will be presented. Then, we will show some linguistics aspects of this kind of acquisition found in our study and discuss about bilingual acquisition.

  17. Word recognition and phonetic structure acquisition: Possible relations

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Morgan, James

    2002-05-01

    Several accounts of possible relations between the emergence of the mental lexicon and acquisition of native language phonological structure have been propounded. In one view, acquisition of word meanings guides infants' attention toward those contrasts that are linguistically significant in their language. In the opposing view, native language phonological categories may be acquired from statistical patterns of input speech, prior to and independent of learning at the lexical level. Here, a more interactive account will be presented, in which phonological structure is modeled as emerging consequentially from the self-organization of perceptual space underlying word recognition. A key prediction of this model is that early native language phonological categories will be highly context specific. Data bearing on this prediction will be presented which provide clues to the nature of infants' statistical analysis of input.

  18. Growth of language-related brain areas after foreign language learning.

    PubMed

    Mårtensson, Johan; Eriksson, Johan; Bodammer, Nils Christian; Lindgren, Magnus; Johansson, Mikael; Nyberg, Lars; Lövdén, Martin

    2012-10-15

    The influence of adult foreign-language acquisition on human brain organization is poorly understood. We studied cortical thickness and hippocampal volumes of conscript interpreters before and after three months of intense language studies. Results revealed increases in hippocampus volume and in cortical thickness of the left middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus for interpreters relative to controls. The right hippocampus and the left superior temporal gyrus were structurally more malleable in interpreters acquiring higher proficiency in the foreign language. Interpreters struggling relatively more to master the language displayed larger gray matter increases in the middle frontal gyrus. These findings confirm structural changes in brain regions known to serve language functions during foreign-language acquisition. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. QR-on-a-chip: a computer-recognizable micro-pattern engraved microfluidic device for high-throughput image acquisition.

    PubMed

    Yun, Kyungwon; Lee, Hyunjae; Bang, Hyunwoo; Jeon, Noo Li

    2016-02-21

    This study proposes a novel way to achieve high-throughput image acquisition based on a computer-recognizable micro-pattern implemented on a microfluidic device. We integrated the QR code, a two-dimensional barcode system, onto the microfluidic device to simplify imaging of multiple ROIs (regions of interest). A standard QR code pattern was modified to arrays of cylindrical structures of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Utilizing the recognition of the micro-pattern, the proposed system enables: (1) device identification, which allows referencing additional information of the device, such as device imaging sequences or the ROIs and (2) composing a coordinate system for an arbitrarily located microfluidic device with respect to the stage. Based on these functionalities, the proposed method performs one-step high-throughput imaging for data acquisition in microfluidic devices without further manual exploration and locating of the desired ROIs. In our experience, the proposed method significantly reduced the time for the preparation of an acquisition. We expect that the method will innovatively improve the prototype device data acquisition and analysis.

  20. Acquisition of Mathematical Language: Suggestions and Activities for English Language Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cirillo, Michelle; Bruna, Katherine Richardson; Herbel-Eisenmann, Beth

    2010-01-01

    In this article, we describe aspects of mathematical language that could be problematic to English-language learners, provide recommendations for teaching English-language learners, and suggest activities intended to foster language development in mathematics. (Contains 1 figure.)

  1. The "Globularization Hypothesis" of the Language-ready Brain as a Developmental Frame for Prosodic Bootstrapping Theories of Language Acquisition.

    PubMed

    Irurtzun, Aritz

    2015-01-01

    In recent research (Boeckx and Benítez-Burraco, 2014a,b) have advanced the hypothesis that our species-specific language-ready brain should be understood as the outcome of developmental changes that occurred in our species after the split from Neanderthals-Denisovans, which resulted in a more globular braincase configuration in comparison to our closest relatives, who had elongated endocasts. According to these authors, the development of a globular brain is an essential ingredient for the language faculty and in particular, it is the centrality occupied by the thalamus in a globular brain that allows its modulatory or regulatory role, essential for syntactico-semantic computations. Their hypothesis is that the syntactico-semantic capacities arise in humans as a consequence of a process of globularization, which significantly takes place postnatally (cf. Neubauer et al., 2010). In this paper, I show that Boeckx and Benítez-Burraco's hypothesis makes an interesting developmental prediction regarding the path of language acquisition: it teases apart the onset of phonological acquisition and the onset of syntactic acquisition (the latter starting significantly later, after globularization). I argue that this hypothesis provides a developmental rationale for the prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis of language acquisition (cf. i.a. Gleitman and Wanner, 1982; Mehler et al., 1988, et seq.; Gervain and Werker, 2013), which claim that prosodic cues are employed for syntactic parsing. The literature converges in the observation that a large amount of such prosodic cues (in particular, rhythmic cues) are already acquired before the completion of the globularization phase, which paves the way for the premises of the prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis, allowing babies to have a rich knowledge of the prosody of their target language before they can start parsing the primary linguistic data syntactically.

  2. Second Language Acquisition Research in Japan. JALT Applied Materials.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robinson, Peter, Ed.; Sawyer, Mark, Ed.; Ross, Steven, Ed.

    This collection of papers includes the following: "Second Language Acquisition Research in Japan: Theoretical Issues" (Peter Robinson, Mark Sawyer, and Steven Ross); (2) "Focus on Form: Implicit and Explicit Form Focused Instruction Incorporated into a Communicative Task" (Hitoshi Muranoi); (3) "A Task that Works for…

  3. Brain Dynamics Sustaining Rapid Rule Extraction from Speech

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    de Diego-Balaguer, Ruth; Fuentemilla, Lluis; Rodriguez-Fornells, Antoni

    2011-01-01

    Language acquisition is a complex process that requires the synergic involvement of different cognitive functions, which include extracting and storing the words of the language and their embedded rules for progressive acquisition of grammatical information. As has been shown in other fields that study learning processes, synchronization…

  4. Extended, Embodied Cognition and Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Atkinson, Dwight

    2010-01-01

    A "cognitivist" approach to cognition has traditionally dominated second language acquisition (SLA) studies. In this article, I examine two alternative approaches--"extended cognition" and "embodied cognition"--for how they might help us conceptualize SLA. More specifically, I present: (i) summaries of extended and embodied cognition, followed by…

  5. Developing L2 Pragmatics

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen

    2013-01-01

    This article positions research on the acquisition of pragmatics as an inquiry in the greater field of second language acquisition research. Viewing pragmatics from this intersection, I consider five areas of research that are of interest in both fields and have the potential to make significant contributions to second language pragmatics…

  6. Computational Evaluation of the Traceback Method

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kol, Sheli; Nir, Bracha; Wintner, Shuly

    2014-01-01

    Several models of language acquisition have emerged in recent years that rely on computational algorithms for simulation and evaluation. Computational models are formal and precise, and can thus provide mathematically well-motivated insights into the process of language acquisition. Such models are amenable to robust computational evaluation,…

  7. Auditory Processing Disorder and Foreign Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Veselovska, Ganna

    2015-01-01

    This article aims at exploring various strategies for coping with the auditory processing disorder in the light of foreign language acquisition. The techniques relevant to dealing with the auditory processing disorder can be attributed to environmental and compensatory approaches. The environmental one involves actions directed at creating a…

  8. Probe into the Internal Mechanism of Interlanguage Fossilization

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Huang, Qian

    2009-01-01

    Interlanguage fossilization is normal for second language acquisition. It is also a hotspot for studies on theory of foreign language acquisition. Many reasons cause the interlanguage fossilization. This paper probes into the internal mechanism of interlanguage fossilization from five aspects, namely the physiological aspect, the psychological…

  9. Cross-language Activation and the Phonetics of Code-switching

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Piccinini, Page Elizabeth

    It is now well established that bilinguals have both languages activated to some degree at all times. This cross-language activation has been documented in several research paradigms, including picture naming, reading, and electrophysiological studies. What is less well understood is how the degree a language is activated can vary in different language environments or contexts. Furthermore, when investigating effects of order of acquisition and language dominance, past research has been mixed, as the two variables are often conflated. In this dissertation, I test how degree of cross-language activation can vary according to context by examining phonetic productions in code-switching speech. Both spontaneous speech and scripted speech are analyzed. Follow-up perception experiments are conducted to see if listeners are able to anticipate language switches, potentially due to the phonetic cues in the signal. Additionally, by focusing on early bilinguals who are L1 Spanish but English dominant, I am able to see what plays a greater role in cross-language activation, order of acquisition or language dominance. I find that speakers do have intermediate phonetic productions in code-switching contexts relative to monolingual contexts. Effects are larger and more consistent in English than Spanish. Similar effects are found in speech perception. Listeners are able to anticipate language switches from English to Spanish but not Spanish to English. Together these results suggest that language dominance is a more important factor than order of acquisition in cross-language activation for early bilinguals. Future models on bilingual language organization and access should take into account both context and language dominance when modeling degrees of cross-language activation.

  10. Foreign-grammar acquisition while watching subtitled television programmes.

    PubMed

    Van Lommel, Sven; Laenen, Annouschka; d'Ydewalle, Géry

    2006-06-01

    Past research has shown that watching a subtitled foreign movie (i.e. foreign language in the soundtrack and native language in the subtitles) leads to considerable foreign-language vocabulary acquisition; however, acquisition of the grammatical rules has failed to emerge. The aim of this study was to obtain evidence for the acquisition of grammatical rules in watching subtitled foreign movies. Given an informal context, younger children were predicted to outperform older children in acquiring a foreign language; however, older children will take more advantage of explicit instruction compared with younger children. In Experiment 1, 62 sixth-graders from a primary school and 47 sixth-graders from a secondary school volunteered to participate. The participants in Experiment 2 were 94 sixth-graders from primary schools and 84 sixth-graders from secondary schools. The two experiments manipulated the instructions (incidental- vs. intentional-language learning). Moreover, before the experiments began, some participants explicitly received some of the foreign grammatical rules (presented rules), while the movie contained cases of presented rules as well as cases of rules which had to be inferred (not-presented rules). Rule acquisition through the movie only was not obtained; there was a strong effect of advance rule presentation but only on the items of presented rules, particularly among the older participants. Contrary to vocabulary, grammar may be too complicated to acquire from a rather short movie presentation.

  11. Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web and Mobile Devices

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2016-02-22

    SPONSORED REPORT SERIES Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web and Mobile Devices 22...ACQUISITION RESEARCH PROGRAM SPONSORED REPORT SERIES Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web ...Policy Naval Postgraduate School Executive Summary Many people within large enterprises rely on up to four Web -based or mobile devices for their

  12. Acquisition of stress and pitch accent in English-Spanish bilingual children

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kim, Sahyang; Andruski, Jean; Nathan, Geoffrey S.; Casielles, Eugenia; Work, Richard

    2005-09-01

    Although understanding of prosodic development is considered crucial for understanding of language acquisition in general, few studies have focused on how children develop native-like prosody in their speech production. This study will examine the acquisition of lexical stress and postlexical pitch accent in two English-Spanish bilingual children. Prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish are different in terms of frequent stress patterns (trochaic versus penultimate), phonetic realization of stress (reduced unstressed vowel versus full unstressed vowel), and frequent pitch accent types (H* versus L*+H), among others. Thus, English-Spanish bilingual children's prosodic development may provide evidence of their awareness of language differences relatively early during language development, and illustrate the influence of markedness or input frequency in prosodic acquisition. For this study, recordings from the children's one-word stage are used. Durations of stressed and unstressed syllables and F0 peak alignment are measured, and pitch accent types in different accentual positions (nuclear versus prenuclear) are transcribed using American English ToBI and Spanish ToBI. Prosodic development is compared across ages within each language and across languages at each age. Furthermore, the bilingual children's productions are compared with monolingual English and Spanish parents' productions.

  13. The Gender Gap in Second Language Acquisition: Gender Differences in the Acquisition of Dutch among Immigrants from 88 Countries with 49 Mother Tongues.

    PubMed

    van der Slik, Frans W P; van Hout, Roeland W N M; Schepens, Job J

    2015-01-01

    Gender differences were analyzed across countries of origin and continents, and across mother tongues and language families, using a large-scale database, containing information on 27,119 adult learners of Dutch as a second language. Female learners consistently outperformed male learners in speaking and writing proficiency in Dutch as a second language. This gender gap remained remarkably robust and constant when other learner characteristics were taken into account, such as education, age of arrival, length of residence and hours studying Dutch. For reading and listening skills in Dutch, no gender gap was found. In addition, we found a general gender by education effect for all four language skills in Dutch for speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Female language learners turned out to profit more from higher educational training than male learners do in adult second language acquisition. These findings do not seem to match nurture-oriented explanatory frameworks based for instance on a human capital approach or gender-specific acculturation processes. Rather, they seem to corroborate a nature-based, gene-environment correlational framework in which language proficiency being a genetically-influenced ability interacting with environmental factors such as motivation, orientation, education, and learner strategies that still mediate between endowment and acquiring language proficiency at an adult stage.

  14. 75 FR 59102 - Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement; Part 204, Administrative Matters

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2010-09-27

    ... indexing methodology across DoD. This technical amendment adds language to the Defense Federal Acquisition... DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Defense Acquisition Regulations System 48 CFR Part 204 Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement; Part 204, Administrative Matters AGENCY: Defense Acquisition Regulations...

  15. 75 FR 51416 - Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement; Acquisition of Commercial Items

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2010-08-20

    ... be used for the acquisition of commercial items, and revised the language to address the conditions... DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Defense Acquisition Regulations System 48 CFR Parts 202, 212, and 234 [DFARS Case 2008-D011] Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement; Acquisition of Commercial Items...

  16. Evaluation, Use, and Refinement of Knowledge Representations through Acquisition Modeling

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pearl, Lisa

    2017-01-01

    Generative approaches to language have long recognized the natural link between theories of knowledge representation and theories of knowledge acquisition. The basic idea is that the knowledge representations provided by Universal Grammar enable children to acquire language as reliably as they do because these representations highlight the…

  17. Spanish Second Language Acquisition: State of the Science.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lafford, Barbara A., Ed.; Salaberry, Rafael, Ed.

    This collection of papers provides an overview of previous studies on the acquisition of Spanish as a second or foreign language, theoretical approaches used in these studies, and effects of various pedagogical approaches on the development of Spanish interlanguage systems. The 10 chapters include the following: (1) "Phonology: Staking Out…

  18. Consciousness in SLA: A Modular Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Truscott, John

    2015-01-01

    Understanding the place of consciousness in second language acquisition (SLA) is crucial for an understanding of how acquisition occurs. Considerable work has been done on this topic, but nearly all of it assumes a highly non-modular view, according to which language and its development is "nothing special". As this assumption runs…

  19. Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use: The Taipei Lectures.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krashen, Stephen D.

    This book is based on a series of four lectures, presented at National Taipei University, Taiwan, which reviewed the fundamentals of second language acquisition theory, presented original research supporting the theory, offered counterarguments to criticisms, and explored new areas that appeared to have promise for progress in both theory and…

  20. Complexity and Conflicting Grammars in Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Westergaard, Marit

    2014-01-01

    The article by Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) presents many interesting ideas about first and second language acquisition as well as some experimental data convincingly illustrating the difference between production and comprehension. The article extends the concept of Universal Bilingualism proposed in Roeper (1999) to second…

  1. On Learning to Talk: Are Principles Derived from the Learning Laboratory Applicable?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Palermo, David S.

    While studies in learning and verbal behavior show that learning comes through paired-associate problems, they do not explain the acquisition of language. Three paradigms demonstrate mediation effect in paired-associate learning: response equivalence, stimulus equivalence, and chaining model. By reviewing children's language acquisition patterns…

  2. Exploring Stephen Krashen's "i+1" Acquisition Model in the Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Payne, Mark

    2011-01-01

    Stephen Krashen's theories can appear "seductive" to teachers of languages, in that they identify a seemingly clear way forward for language acquisition in the classroom. However, reification of Krashen's theories, in particular the notion of attaining "i+1" through comprehensible input, is demonstrated to be problematic. Based…

  3. Acquisition of Multiple Questions in English, Russian, and Malayalam

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Grebenyova, Lydia

    2011-01-01

    This article presents the results of four studies exploring the acquisition of the language-specific syntactic and semantic properties of multiple interrogatives in English, Russian, and Malayalam, languages that behave differently with respect to the syntax and semantics of multiple interrogatives. A corpus analysis investigated the frequency of…

  4. Captioned Instructional Video: Effects on Content Comprehension, Vocabulary Acquisition and Language Proficiency

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    BavaHarji, Madhubala; Alavi, Zhinoos Kamal; Letchumanan, Krishnaveni

    2014-01-01

    This experimental design study examined the effects of viewing captioned instructional videos on EFL learners' content comprehension, vocabulary acquisition and language proficiency. It also examined the participants' perception of viewing the captioned instructional videos. The 92 EFL students in two classes, who were undertaking the "Tape…

  5. Defining Grammatical Difficulty: A Student Teacher Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Graus, Johan; Coppen, Peter-Arno

    2015-01-01

    Numerous second language acquisition (SLA) researchers have tried to define grammatical difficulty in second and foreign language acquisition--often as part of an attempt to relate the efficacy of different types of instruction to the degree of difficulty of grammatical structures. The resulting proliferation of definitions and the lack of a…

  6. Acquisition of Irregular Past Tense by Children with Specific Language Impairment.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rice, Mabel L.; Wexler, Kenneth; Marquis, Janet; Hershberger, Scott

    2000-01-01

    This study explored the acquisition of regular and irregular past tense in 21 children with specific language impairment. The findings support a morphosyntactic rather than morphophonological learning model, such as the extended optional infinitive model, with regard to the limitations in finiteness marking and for affected children. (Contains…

  7. Reading and Vocabulary Acquisition: Supporting Evidence and Some Objections

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krashen, Stephen

    2013-01-01

    I continue here the long-standing discussion on the familiar topic of whether subconscious language acquisition is more powerful than conscious language learning, with a focus on vocabulary, adding recent studies as well as older ones I missed in previous publications on this topic (e.g. Krashen, 2004).

  8. Enhancement of the Acquisition Process for a Combat System-A Case Study to Model the Workflow Processes for an Air Defense System Acquisition

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2009-12-01

    Business Process Modeling BPMN Business Process Modeling Notation SoA Service-oriented Architecture UML Unified Modeling Language CSP...system developers. Supporting technologies include Business Process Modeling Notation ( BPMN ), Unified Modeling Language (UML), model-driven architecture

  9. Teaching Sociolinguistic Variation in the Intermediate Language Classroom: "Voseo" in Latin America

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shenk, Elaine M.

    2014-01-01

    The acquisition of sociolinguistic variation by second language learners has gained increased attention. Some research highlights the value of naturalistic exposure through study abroad while other studies point out that classroom input can facilitate the acquisition of particular features of variation. Nevertheless, said attention to the…

  10. Sequencing in SLA: Phonological Memory, Chunking, and Points of Order.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ellis, Nick C.

    1996-01-01

    Argues that much of language acquisition is sequence learning and that the resultant long-term knowledge base of language sequences serves as the database for grammar acquisition. The article also proposes mechanisms to analyze sequence information that result in knowledge of underlying grammar. (184 references) (Author/CK)

  11. Statistical Literacy among Applied Linguists and Second Language Acquisition Researchers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Loewen, Shawn; Lavolette, Elizabeth; Spino, Le Anne; Papi, Mostafa; Schmidtke, Jens; Sterling, Scott; Wolff, Dominik

    2014-01-01

    The importance of statistical knowledge in applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA) research has been emphasized in recent publications. However, the last investigation of the statistical literacy of applied linguists occurred more than 25 years ago (Lazaraton, Riggenbach, & Ediger, 1987). The current study undertook a partial…

  12. The Priority of Listening Comprehension over Speaking in the Language Acquisition Process

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Xu, Fang

    2011-01-01

    By elaborating the definition of listening comprehension, the characteristic of spoken discourse, the relationship between STM and LTM and Krashen's comprehensible input, the paper puts forward the point that the priority of listening comprehension over speaking in the language acquisition process is very necessary.

  13. Using Vocabulary Notebooks for Vocabulary Acquisition and Teaching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dubiner, Deborah

    2017-01-01

    Vocabulary knowledge is recognized as an essential element for second language acquisition and reading comprehension. One known way to encourage and support vocabulary development amongst second language learners is keeping a vocabulary notebook. The primary purpose of the present study was to document two aspects of student teachers' own…

  14. Language Policy and Planning in South America.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hornberger, Nancy H.

    1994-01-01

    A discussion of language policy formation and planning in South America focuses on the highland indigenous sectors and covers the following: colonial languages; immigrant languages; and indigenous languages, including planning, acquisition planning, and corpus planning. (Contains 83 references.) (LB)

  15. Pidgins and Creoles as Models of Language Change: The State of the Art.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McWhorter, John H.

    2003-01-01

    Examines the interface between language change and Creole studies. Discusses the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis, the Creole continuum, Creoles and grammaticalization, theoretic syntax, creole prototypes, and second language acquisition and language change. (Author/VWL)

  16. Age and input effects in the acquisition of mood in Heritage Portuguese.

    PubMed

    Flores, Cristina; Santos, Ana Lúcia; Jesus, Alice; Marques, Rui

    2017-07-01

    The present study analyzes the effect of age and amount of input in the acquisition of European Portuguese as a heritage language. An elicited production task centred on mood choice in complement clauses was applied to a group of fifty bilingual children (six- to sixteen-year-olds) who are acquiring Portuguese as a minority language in a German dominant environment. The results show a significant effect of the age at testing and the amount of input in the acquisition of the subjunctive. In general, acquisition is delayed with respect to monolinguals, even though higher convergence with the monolingual grammar is observed after twelve years of age. Results also reveal that children with more exposure to the heritage language at home show faster acquisition than children from mixed households: the eight- to nine-year-old age boundary seems relevant for those speakers with more exposure, and the twelve- to thirteen-year-old age boundary for those with less exposure.

  17. Achieving Better Buying Power Through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web-Based and Mobile Devices

    DTIC Science & Technology

    2015-04-30

    mobile devices used within academic, business , or government enterprises. Acquisition personnel in such enterprises will increasingly be called on to...Graduate School of Business & Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School. To request defense acquisition research, to become a research sponsor, or to...address challenges in the acquisition of software systems for Web-based or mobile devices used within academic, business , or government enterprises

  18. Bilinguals' Existing Languages Benefit Vocabulary Learning in a Third Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bartolotti, James; Marian, Viorica

    2017-01-01

    Learning a new language involves substantial vocabulary acquisition. Learners can accelerate this process by relying on words with native-language overlap, such as cognates. For bilingual third language learners, it is necessary to determine how their two existing languages interact during novel language learning. A scaffolding account predicts…

  19. How arbitrary is language?

    PubMed Central

    Monaghan, Padraic; Shillcock, Richard C.; Christiansen, Morten H.; Kirby, Simon

    2014-01-01

    It is a long established convention that the relationship between sounds and meanings of words is essentially arbitrary—typically the sound of a word gives no hint of its meaning. However, there are numerous reported instances of systematic sound–meaning mappings in language, and this systematicity has been claimed to be important for early language development. In a large-scale corpus analysis of English, we show that sound–meaning mappings are more systematic than would be expected by chance. Furthermore, this systematicity is more pronounced for words involved in the early stages of language acquisition and reduces in later vocabulary development. We propose that the vocabulary is structured to enable systematicity in early language learning to promote language acquisition, while also incorporating arbitrariness for later language in order to facilitate communicative expressivity and efficiency. PMID:25092667

  20. Iconicity and Sign Lexical Acquisition: A Review

    PubMed Central

    Ortega, Gerardo

    2017-01-01

    The study of iconicity, defined as the direct relationship between a linguistic form and its referent, has gained momentum in recent years across a wide range of disciplines. In the spoken modality, there is abundant evidence showing that iconicity is a key factor that facilitates language acquisition. However, when we look at sign languages, which excel in the prevalence of iconic structures, there is a more mixed picture, with some studies showing a positive effect and others showing a null or negative effect. In an attempt to reconcile the existing evidence the present review presents a critical overview of the literature on the acquisition of a sign language as first (L1) and second (L2) language and points at some factor that may be the source of disagreement. Regarding sign L1 acquisition, the contradicting findings may relate to iconicity being defined in a very broad sense when a more fine-grained operationalisation might reveal an effect in sign learning. Regarding sign L2 acquisition, evidence shows that there is a clear dissociation in the effect of iconicity in that it facilitates conceptual-semantic aspects of sign learning but hinders the acquisition of the exact phonological form of signs. It will be argued that when we consider the gradient nature of iconicity and that signs consist of a phonological form attached to a meaning we can discern how iconicity impacts sign learning in positive and negative ways. PMID:28824480

  1. Broca's area and the language instinct.

    PubMed

    Musso, Mariacristina; Moro, Andrea; Glauche, Volkmar; Rijntjes, Michel; Reichenbach, Jürgen; Büchel, Christian; Weiller, Cornelius

    2003-07-01

    Language acquisition in humans relies on abilities like abstraction and use of syntactic rules, which are absent in other animals. The neural correlate of acquiring new linguistic competence was investigated with two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. German native speakers learned a sample of 'real' grammatical rules of different languages (Italian or Japanese), which, although parametrically different, follow the universal principles of grammar (UG). Activity during this task was compared with that during a task that involved learning 'unreal' rules of language. 'Unreal' rules were obtained manipulating the original two languages; they used the same lexicon as Italian or Japanese, but were linguistically illegal, as they violated the principles of UG. Increase of activation over time in Broca's area was specific for 'real' language acquisition only, independent of the kind of language. Thus, in Broca's area, biological constraints and language experience interact to enable linguistic competence for a new language.

  2. The history of imitation in learning theory: the language acquisition process.

    PubMed Central

    Kymissis, E; Poulson, C L

    1990-01-01

    The concept of imitation has undergone different analyses in the hands of different learning theorists throughout the history of psychology. From Thorndike's connectionism to Pavlov's classical conditioning, Hull's monistic theory, Mowrer's two-factor theory, and Skinner's operant theory, there have been several divergent accounts of the conditions that produce imitation and the conditions under which imitation itself may facilitate language acquisition. In tracing the roots of the concept of imitation in the history of learning theory, the authors conclude that generalized imitation, as defined and analyzed by operant learning theorists, is a sufficiently robust formulation of learned imitation to facilitate a behavior-analytic account of first-language acquisition. PMID:2230633

  3. [Prosody, speech input and language acquisition].

    PubMed

    Jungheim, M; Miller, S; Kühn, D; Ptok, M

    2014-04-01

    In order to acquire language, children require speech input. The prosody of the speech input plays an important role. In most cultures adults modify their code when communicating with children. Compared to normal speech this code differs especially with regard to prosody. For this review a selective literature search in PubMed and Scopus was performed. Prosodic characteristics are a key feature of spoken language. By analysing prosodic features, children gain knowledge about underlying grammatical structures. Child-directed speech (CDS) is modified in a way that meaningful sequences are highlighted acoustically so that important information can be extracted from the continuous speech flow more easily. CDS is said to enhance the representation of linguistic signs. Taking into consideration what has previously been described in the literature regarding the perception of suprasegmentals, CDS seems to be able to support language acquisition due to the correspondence of prosodic and syntactic units. However, no findings have been reported, stating that the linguistically reduced CDS could hinder first language acquisition.

  4. English speech acquisition in 3- to 5-year-old children learning Russian and English.

    PubMed

    Gildersleeve-Neumann, Christina E; Wright, Kira L

    2010-10-01

    English speech acquisition in Russian-English (RE) bilingual children was investigated, exploring the effects of Russian phonetic and phonological properties on English single-word productions. Russian has more complex consonants and clusters and a smaller vowel inventory than English. One hundred thirty-seven single-word samples were phonetically transcribed from 14 RE and 28 English-only (E) children, ages 3;3 (years;months) to 5;7. Language and age differences were compared descriptively for phonetic inventories. Multivariate analyses compared phoneme accuracy and error rates between the two language groups. RE children produced Russian-influenced phones in English, including palatalized consonants and trills, and demonstrated significantly higher rates of trill substitution, final devoicing, and vowel errors than E children, suggesting Russian language effects on English. RE and E children did not differ in their overall production complexity, with similar final consonant deletion and cluster reduction error rates, similar phonetic inventories by age, and similar levels of phonetic complexity. Both older language groups were more accurate than the younger language groups. We observed effects of Russian on English speech acquisition; however, there were similarities between the RE and E children that have not been reported in previous studies of speech acquisition in bilingual children. These findings underscore the importance of knowing the phonological properties of both languages of a bilingual child in assessment.

  5. Linguistics in Language Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kumar, Rajesh; Yunus, Reva

    2014-01-01

    This article looks at the contribution of insights from theoretical linguistics to an understanding of language acquisition and the nature of language in terms of their potential benefit to language education. We examine the ideas of innateness and universal language faculty, as well as multilingualism and the language-society relationship. Modern…

  6. Doctoral Degrees Granted in Foreign Languages in the United States: 1995.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Benseler, David P.; And Others

    1996-01-01

    Lists doctoral degrees granted in the United States in African languages and literatures; Celtic languages and literatures; comparative literature; foreign-/second-language acquisition and teaching; French, Germanic, and Italian languages and literatures; theoretical linguistics; Near and Middle Eastern languages and literatures; and Portuguese,…

  7. Immigrant Languages in Europe.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Extra, Guus, Ed.; Verhoeven, Ludo, Ed.

    Papers from a 1990 Dutch colloquium on immigrant language varieties in Europe are presented in four categories: (1) use of immigrant language varieties in Europe; (2) first language acquisition in a second language context; (3) code-switching; and (4) language maintenance and loss. Papers include: "Sweden Finnish" (Jarmo Lainio);…

  8. Emergence of Japanese Infants' Prosodic Preferences in Infant-Directed Vocabulary

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hayashi, Akiko; Mazuka, Reiko

    2017-01-01

    The article examines the role of infant-directed vocabulary (IDV) in infants language acquisition, specifically addressing the question of whether IDV forms that are not prominent in adult language may nonetheless be useful to the process of acquisition. Japanese IDV offers a good test case, as IDV characteristically takes a bisyllabic…

  9. Acquisition des competences discursives dans un contexte plurilingue (Acquisition of Discourse Competencies in a Multilingual Context).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berthoud, Anne-Claude, Ed.

    1996-01-01

    This collection of articles on second language learning in a multilingual environment includes: "Franzosisch-Deutsch: Zweisprachiges Lernen au der Sekundarstufe 1" (French-German: Learning Two Languages at Secondary School, Level 1) (Otto Stern, Brigit Eriksson, Christine Le Pape, Hans Reutener, Cecilia Serra Oesch); "Das Projekt…

  10. Spacing Techniques in Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition: Short-Term Gains vs. Long-Term Memory

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schuetze, Ulf

    2015-01-01

    This article reports the results of two experiments using the spacing technique (Leitner, 1972; Landauer & Bjork, 1978) in second language vocabulary acquisition. In the past, studies in this area have produced mixed results attempting to differentiate between massed, uniform and expanded intervals of spacing (Balota, Duchek, & Logan,…

  11. Re-Assembling Formal Features in Second Language Acquisition: Beyond Minimalism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carroll, Susanne E.

    2009-01-01

    In this commentary, Lardiere's discussion of features is compared with the use of features in constraint-based theories, and it is argued that constraint-based theories might offer a more elegant account of second language acquisition (SLA). Further evidence is reported to question the accuracy of Chierchia's (1998) Nominal Mapping Parameter.…

  12. "Tramites" and "Transportes": The Acquisition of Second Language Communicative Competence for One Speech Event in Puno, Peru.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hornberger, Nancy H.

    1989-01-01

    Analyzes ethnographic data regarding one prolonged speech event, the negotiation of a driver's license at the Ministry of Transportation in Puno, Peru, from the perspective of Hymes' redefinition of linguistic competence. Implications for the acquisition of second language communicative competence are also discussed. (Author/CB)

  13. "Ser" and "Estar": Corrective Input to Children's Errors of the Spanish Copula Verbs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Holtheuer, Carolina; Rendle-Short, Johanna

    2013-01-01

    Evidence for the role of corrective input as a facilitator of language acquisition is inconclusive. Studies show links between corrective input and grammatical use of some, but not other, language structures. The present study examined relationships between corrective parental input and children's errors in the acquisition of the Spanish copula…

  14. Individual Differences in Statistical Learning Predict Children's Comprehension of Syntax

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kidd, Evan; Arciuli, Joanne

    2016-01-01

    Variability in children's language acquisition is likely due to a number of cognitive and social variables. The current study investigated whether individual differences in statistical learning (SL), which has been implicated in language acquisition, independently predicted 6- to 8-year-old's comprehension of syntax. Sixty-eight (N = 68)…

  15. Language Acquisition in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Developmental Review

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eigsti, Inge-Marie; de Marchena, Ashley B.; Schuh, Jillian M.; Kelley, Elizabeth

    2011-01-01

    This paper reviews the complex literature on language acquisition in the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Because of the high degree of interest in ASD in the past decade, the field has been changing rapidly, with progress in both basic science and applied clinical areas. In addition, psycholinguistically-trained researchers have increasingly…

  16. Informed Consent in Research on Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thomas, Margaret; Pettitt, Nicole

    2017-01-01

    The practice of securing informed consent from research participants has a relatively low profile in second language (L2) acquisition research, despite its prominence in the biomedical and social sciences. This review article analyses the role that informed consent now typically plays in L2 research; discusses an example of an L2 study where…

  17. Contexts and Pragmatics Learning: Problems and Opportunities of the Study Abroad Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Taguchi, Naoko

    2018-01-01

    Despite different epistemologies and assumptions, all theories in second language (L2) acquisition emphasize the centrality of context in understanding L2 acquisition. Under the assumption that language emerges from use in context, the cognitivist approach focuses on distributions and properties of input to infer both learning objects and process…

  18. Learning (Not) to Predict: Grammatical Gender Processing in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hopp, Holger

    2016-01-01

    In two experiments, this article investigates the predictive processing of gender agreement in adult second language (L2) acquisition. We test (1) whether instruction on lexical gender can lead to target predictive agreement processing and (2) how variability in lexical gender representations moderates L2 gender agreement processing. In a…

  19. Three Myths from the Language Acquisition Literature

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schoneberger, Ted

    2010-01-01

    Three popular assertions have hindered the promotion of an empiricist approach to language acquisition: (a) that Brown and Hanlon (1970) claimed to offer data that parents do not reinforce their children's grammaticality; (b) that Brown and Hanlon also claimed to offer data that parents do not provide negative evidence (i.e., corrective feedback)…

  20. Children's Interaction and Lexical Acquisition in Text-Based Online Chat

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coyle, Yvette; Reverte Prieto, Maria José

    2017-01-01

    This is an empirical study in which we explore child foreign language learners' interactional strategy use, uptake, and lexical acquisition in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). The study was carried out with 16 10-year-old Spanish English as a foreign language learners paired with age- and proficiency-matched English native…

  1. A System for English Vocabulary Acquisition Based on Code-Switching

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mazur, Michal; Karolczak, Krzysztof; Rzepka, Rafal; Araki, Kenji

    2016-01-01

    Vocabulary plays an important part in second language learning and there are many existing techniques to facilitate word acquisition. One of these methods is code-switching, or mixing the vocabulary of two languages in one sentence. In this paper the authors propose an experimental system for computer-assisted English vocabulary learning in…

  2. Parameter Resetting in Second Language Acquisition. University Research Institute Final Project Report, 1987-88.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Phinney-Liapis, Marianne

    Analyses of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP) suggest that several factors may influence the resetting process for second language acquisition, such as specific "trigger" data, awareness of agreement as a part of awareness of agreement (INFL), and stylistic rules such as subject postposing and anaphoric reference. Four tests were…

  3. English Transitivity Alternation in Second Language Acquisition: An Attentional Approach. China Perspectives

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Yuxia

    2017-01-01

    The correct use of English verb argument structure is crucial for foreign learners of the English language. Based on an experimental study recruiting 162 Chinese English learners at different proficiency levels, this book suggests that the acquisition of English transitivity alternation follows as a consequence of the cognitive processing of…

  4. An Empirical Generative Framework for Computational Modeling of Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Waterfall, Heidi R.; Sandbank, Ben; Onnis, Luca; Edelman, Shimon

    2010-01-01

    This paper reports progress in developing a computer model of language acquisition in the form of (1) a generative grammar that is (2) algorithmically learnable from realistic corpus data, (3) viable in its large-scale quantitative performance and (4) psychologically real. First, we describe new algorithmic methods for unsupervised learning of…

  5. The Relationship between WTC and Oral Proficiency Measurements in the Study Abroad Context

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robson, Graham G.

    2015-01-01

    Theories of second language acquisition such as the Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996) and Pushed Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1995) emphasize that learners must actually communicate in order to bring about the conditions for language acquisition. Learners who are more willing to communicate may create more opportunities for interaction, and thereby…

  6. A Sensitive Period for the Acquisition of Complex Morphology: Evidence from American Sign Language.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Galvan, Dennis

    A study investigated acquisition of three independent yet simulatneously produced morphological systems in American Sign Language (ASL): the linguistic use of space, use of classifiers, and inflections for aspect, all information incorporated into the production of a sign. Subjects were 30 deaf children with severe or profound prelingual hearing…

  7. Neuroimaging and Research into Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sabourin, Laura

    2009-01-01

    Neuroimaging techniques are becoming not only more and more sophisticated but are also coming to be increasingly accessible to researchers. One thing that one should take note of is the potential of neuroimaging research within second language acquisition (SLA) to contribute to issues pertaining to the plasticity of the adult brain and to general…

  8. Comprehensible Input and Second Language Acquisition: What Is the Relationship?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Loschky, Lester

    1994-01-01

    Examined the influence of input and interactional modifications on second-language acquisition, assigning 41 learners of Japanese to 1 of 3 experimental groups: (1) unmodified input with no interaction; (2) premodified input with no interaction; and (3) unmodified input with the chance for negotiated input. Results indicated that comprehension was…

  9. Dominance and Age in Bilingualism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Birdsong, David

    2014-01-01

    The present article examines the relationship between age and dominance in bilingual populations. Age in bilingualism is understood as the point in development at which second language (L2) acquisition begins and as the chronological age of users of two languages. Age of acquisition (AoA) is a factor in determining which of a bilingual's two…

  10. Symbiotic Gesture and the Sociocognitive Visibility of Grammar in Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Churchill, Eton; Okada, Hanako; Nishino, Takako; Atkinson, Dwight

    2010-01-01

    This article argues for the embodied and environmentally embedded nature of second language acquisition (SLA). Through fine-grained analysis of interaction using Goodwin's (2003a) concept of "symbiotic gesture"--gesture coupled with its rich environmental context to produce complex social action--we illustrate how a tutor, learner, and grammar…

  11. Lexical Errors and Accuracy in Foreign Language Writing. Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    del Pilar Agustin Llach, Maria

    2011-01-01

    Lexical errors are a determinant in gaining insight into vocabulary acquisition, vocabulary use and writing quality assessment. Lexical errors are very frequent in the written production of young EFL learners, but they decrease as learners gain proficiency. Misspellings are the most common category, but formal errors give way to semantic-based…

  12. "Learning" and "Acquisition" -- How Real Is the Dichotomy: Some Neurophysical Evidence.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lueers, Nancy M.

    The dichotomy of language acquisition versus language learning is critically examined by comparing the concepts presented in Krashen's Monitor Model and Stevick's Levertov Machine to information from the field of neurophysiology regarding the brain's processes. It is proposed that support exists for the theory that two very different processes…

  13. Plenary Speeches: Is the Second Language Acquisition Discipline Disintegrating?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hulstijn, Jan H.

    2013-01-01

    After characterizing the study of second language acquisition (SLA) from three viewpoints, I try to answer the question, raised by DeKeyser (2010), of whether the SLA field is disintegrating. In answering this question, I first propose a distinction between SLA as the relatively fundamental academic discipline and SLA as the relatively applied…

  14. Language Acquisition: Some Acoustic and Interactive Aspects of Infancy. Final Report.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zlatin, Marsha A.; Horii, Yoshiyuki

    This longitudinal study examines the early stages of language acquisition in four first-born infants from birth to two years. Selected aspects of vocal-verbal behavior exhibited by the children and their parents were examined. Home and laboratory recordings, diaries, interviews, and developmental observation were principal data sources. Substudies…

  15. Language Proficiency Modulates the Recruitment of Non-Classical Language Areas in Bilinguals

    PubMed Central

    Leonard, Matthew K.; Torres, Christina; Travis, Katherine E.; Brown, Timothy T.; Hagler, Donald J.; Dale, Anders M.; Elman, Jeffrey L.; Halgren, Eric

    2011-01-01

    Bilingualism provides a unique opportunity for understanding the relative roles of proficiency and order of acquisition in determining how the brain represents language. In a previous study, we combined magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of word processing in a group of Spanish-English bilinguals who were more proficient in their native language. We found that from the earliest stages of lexical processing, words in the second language evoke greater activity in bilateral posterior visual regions, while activity to the native language is largely confined to classical left hemisphere fronto-temporal areas. In the present study, we sought to examine whether these effects relate to language proficiency or order of language acquisition by testing Spanish-English bilingual subjects who had become dominant in their second language. Additionally, we wanted to determine whether activity in bilateral visual regions was related to the presentation of written words in our previous study, so we presented subjects with both written and auditory words. We found greater activity for the less proficient native language in bilateral posterior visual regions for both the visual and auditory modalities, which started during the earliest word encoding stages and continued through lexico-semantic processing. In classical left fronto-temporal regions, the two languages evoked similar activity. Therefore, it is the lack of proficiency rather than secondary acquisition order that determines the recruitment of non-classical areas for word processing. PMID:21455315

  16. Motmot, an open-source toolkit for realtime video acquisition and analysis.

    PubMed

    Straw, Andrew D; Dickinson, Michael H

    2009-07-22

    Video cameras sense passively from a distance, offer a rich information stream, and provide intuitively meaningful raw data. Camera-based imaging has thus proven critical for many advances in neuroscience and biology, with applications ranging from cellular imaging of fluorescent dyes to tracking of whole-animal behavior at ecologically relevant spatial scales. Here we present 'Motmot': an open-source software suite for acquiring, displaying, saving, and analyzing digital video in real-time. At the highest level, Motmot is written in the Python computer language. The large amounts of data produced by digital cameras are handled by low-level, optimized functions, usually written in C. This high-level/low-level partitioning and use of select external libraries allow Motmot, with only modest complexity, to perform well as a core technology for many high-performance imaging tasks. In its current form, Motmot allows for: (1) image acquisition from a variety of camera interfaces (package motmot.cam_iface), (2) the display of these images with minimal latency and computer resources using wxPython and OpenGL (package motmot.wxglvideo), (3) saving images with no compression in a single-pass, low-CPU-use format (package motmot.FlyMovieFormat), (4) a pluggable framework for custom analysis of images in realtime and (5) firmware for an inexpensive USB device to synchronize image acquisition across multiple cameras, with analog input, or with other hardware devices (package motmot.fview_ext_trig). These capabilities are brought together in a graphical user interface, called 'FView', allowing an end user to easily view and save digital video without writing any code. One plugin for FView, 'FlyTrax', which tracks the movement of fruit flies in real-time, is included with Motmot, and is described to illustrate the capabilities of FView. Motmot enables realtime image processing and display using the Python computer language. In addition to the provided complete applications, the architecture allows the user to write relatively simple plugins, which can accomplish a variety of computer vision tasks and be integrated within larger software systems. The software is available at http://code.astraw.com/projects/motmot.

  17. Naturalistic acquisition in an early language classroom.

    PubMed

    Dahl, Anne; Vulchanova, Mila D

    2014-01-01

    This study investigated whether it is possible to provide naturalistic second language acquisition (SLA) of vocabulary for young learners in a classroom situation without resorting to a classical immersion approach. Participants were 60 first-grade pupils in two Norwegian elementary schools in their first year. The control group followed regular instruction as prescribed by the school curriculum, while the experimental group received increased naturalistic target language input. This entailed extensive use of English by the teacher during English classes, and also during morning meetings and for simple instructions and classroom management throughout the day. Our hypothesis was that it is possible to facilitate naturalistic acquisition through better quality target language exposure within a normal curriculum. The students' English vocabulary knowledge was measured using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, version 4 (PPVT-IV, Dunn and Dunn, 2007a), at the beginning and the end of the first year of school. Findings are that (1) early-start second-language (L2) programs in school do not in themselves guarantee vocabulary development in the first year, (2) a focus on increased exposure to the L2 can lead to a significant increase in receptive vocabulary comprehension in the course of only 8 months, and (3) even with relatively modest input, learners in such an early-start L2 program can display vocabulary acquisition comparable in some respects to that of younger native children matched on vocabulary size. The overall conclusion is that naturalistic vocabulary acquisition is in fact possible in a classroom setting.

  18. Naturalistic acquisition in an early language classroom

    PubMed Central

    Dahl, Anne; Vulchanova, Mila D.

    2014-01-01

    This study investigated whether it is possible to provide naturalistic second language acquisition (SLA) of vocabulary for young learners in a classroom situation without resorting to a classical immersion approach. Participants were 60 first-grade pupils in two Norwegian elementary schools in their first year. The control group followed regular instruction as prescribed by the school curriculum, while the experimental group received increased naturalistic target language input. This entailed extensive use of English by the teacher during English classes, and also during morning meetings and for simple instructions and classroom management throughout the day. Our hypothesis was that it is possible to facilitate naturalistic acquisition through better quality target language exposure within a normal curriculum. The students' English vocabulary knowledge was measured using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, version 4 (PPVT-IV, Dunn and Dunn, 2007a), at the beginning and the end of the first year of school. Findings are that (1) early-start second-language (L2) programs in school do not in themselves guarantee vocabulary development in the first year, (2) a focus on increased exposure to the L2 can lead to a significant increase in receptive vocabulary comprehension in the course of only 8 months, and (3) even with relatively modest input, learners in such an early-start L2 program can display vocabulary acquisition comparable in some respects to that of younger native children matched on vocabulary size. The overall conclusion is that naturalistic vocabulary acquisition is in fact possible in a classroom setting. PMID:24860518

  19. Revise and resubmit: How real-time parsing limitations influence grammar acquisition

    PubMed Central

    Pozzan, Lucia; Trueswell, John C.

    2015-01-01

    We present the results from a three-day artificial language learning study on adults. The study examined whether sentence-parsing limitations, in particular, difficulties revising initial syntactic/semantic commitments during comprehension, shape learners’ ability to acquire a language. Findings show that both comprehension and production of morphology pertaining to sentence argument structure are delayed when this morphology consistently appears at the end, rather than at the beginning, of sentences in otherwise identical grammatical systems. This suggests that real-time processing constraints impact acquisition; morphological cues that tend to guide linguistic analyses are easier to learn than cues that revise these analyses. Parallel performance in production and comprehension indicates that parsing constraints affect grammatical acquisition, not just real-time commitments. Properties of the linguistic system (e.g., ordering of cues within a sentence) interact with the properties of the cognitive system (cognitive control and conflict-resolution abilities) and together affect language acquisition. PMID:26026607

  20. The Evolutionary Significance of Pongid Sign Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hewes, Gordon W.

    Experiments in teaching language or language-like behavior to chimpanzees and other primates may bear on the problem of the origin of language. Evidence appears to support the theory that man's first language was gestural. Recent pongid language experiments suggest: (1) a capacity for language is not solely human and therefore does not represent…

  1. A Whole-School Approach to Promoting Languages

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lane, Nathan

    2015-01-01

    Languages teachers are all aware of the significant advantages and benefits learning a language provides, and believe in the importance of second language acquisition. However, why is it that languages teachers need to justify learning a second language and work hard to encourage more students to see the importance of learning a language and to…

  2. 77 FR 14480 - Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement: Commercial Determination Approval (DFARS Case...

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2012-03-12

    ... acquisitions made pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 12.102(f)(1).'' This language clarifies that... DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Defense Acquisition Regulations System 48 CFR Part 212 RIN 0750-AH61 Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement: Commercial Determination Approval (DFARS Case 2011-D041) AGENCY...

  3. 75 FR 38687 - Federal Acquisition Regulation; FAR Case 2008-023, Clarification of Criteria for Sole Source...

    Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

    2010-07-02

    ... a sole source SDVOSB concern acquisition. The final rule contains language that more closely mirrors...-AL29 Federal Acquisition Regulation; FAR Case 2008-023, Clarification of Criteria for Sole Source...: Final rule. SUMMARY: The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations...

  4. FLAX: Flexible and Open Corpus-Based Language Collections Development

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fitzgerald, Alannah; Wu, Shaoqun; Marín, María José

    2015-01-01

    In this case study we present innovative work in building open corpus-based language collections by focusing on a description of the opensource multilingual Flexible Language Acquisition (FLAX) language project, which is an ongoing example of open materials development practices for language teaching and learning. We present language-learning…

  5. Language in Comparative Perspective. Chapter 11

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Rumbaugh, Duane M.; Savage-Rumbaugh, E. Sue

    1994-01-01

    The twentieth century will be noted for a wide variety of scientific and technological advancements, including powered flight, antibiotics, space travel, and the breaking of the genetic code. It also should be noted as the century in which major psychological, as well as biological, continuities between animal and human have been defined. Charles Darwin (1859) was quite right when he anticipated continuity in mental processes, some of which provide for language. Though none will argue that any animal has the full capacity of humans for language, none should deny that at least some animals have quite impressive competencies for language skills, including speech comprehension. The finding that the language skills in the bonobo and the chimpanzee are likely more fully and efficiently developed as a result of early rearing than by formal training at a later age declares a continuity even stronger than that defined by the language acquisition potential of the ape. To clarify, because early rearing facilitates the emergence of language in ape as well as in child, a naturalness to the familiar course of language acquisition, whereby comprehension precedes production, is also corroborated. In turn, the continuity and the shared naturalness of language acquisition serve jointly to define an advanced and critical point of linkage between the genera Pan and Homo - and, as concluded by Domjan (1993), one worthy of contributing to the series of reconceptions of ourselves as anticipated by Ploog and Melnechuk (1971).

  6. The Gender Gap in Second Language Acquisition: Gender Differences in the Acquisition of Dutch among Immigrants from 88 Countries with 49 Mother Tongues

    PubMed Central

    van der Slik, Frans W. P.; van Hout, Roeland W. N. M.; Schepens, Job J.

    2015-01-01

    Gender differences were analyzed across countries of origin and continents, and across mother tongues and language families, using a large-scale database, containing information on 27,119 adult learners of Dutch as a second language. Female learners consistently outperformed male learners in speaking and writing proficiency in Dutch as a second language. This gender gap remained remarkably robust and constant when other learner characteristics were taken into account, such as education, age of arrival, length of residence and hours studying Dutch. For reading and listening skills in Dutch, no gender gap was found. In addition, we found a general gender by education effect for all four language skills in Dutch for speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Female language learners turned out to profit more from higher educational training than male learners do in adult second language acquisition. These findings do not seem to match nurture-oriented explanatory frameworks based for instance on a human capital approach or gender-specific acculturation processes. Rather, they seem to corroborate a nature-based, gene-environment correlational framework in which language proficiency being a genetically-influenced ability interacting with environmental factors such as motivation, orientation, education, and learner strategies that still mediate between endowment and acquiring language proficiency at an adult stage. PMID:26540465

  7. A study of the effects of English language proficiency and scientific reasoning skills on the acquisition of science content knowledge of Hispanic English language learners and native English language-speaking students participating in grade 10 science classes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Torres, Hector Neftali, Sr.

    2000-11-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of English language proficiency and levels of scientific reasoning skills of Hispanic English language learners and native English language speaking students on their acquisition of science content knowledge as measured by a state-wide standardized science test. The researcher studied a group of high school Hispanic English language learners and native English language speaking students participating in Grade 10 science classes. The language proficiency of the students was to be measured through the use of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) instrument. A Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning developed by Lawson (1978) was administered in either English or Spanish to the group of Hispanic English language learners and in English to the group of native English language-speaking students in order to determine their levels of scientific reasoning skills. The students' acquisition of science content knowledge was measured through the use of statewide-standardized science test developed by the State's Department of Education. This study suggests that the levels of English language proficiency appear to influence the acquisition of science content knowledge of Hispanic English language learners in the study. The results of the study also suggest that with regards to scientific reasoning skills, students that showed high levels or reflective reasoning skills for the most part performed better on the statewide-standardized science test than students with intuitive or transitional reasoning skills. This assertion was supported by the studies conducted by Lawson and his colleagues, which showed that high levels of reasoning or reflective reasoning skills are prerequisite for most high school science courses. The findings in this study imply that high order English language proficiency combined with high levels of reasoning skills enhances students' abilities to learn science content subject matter. This lends support to Cummins' theoretical framework, which indicates that learning science content subject matter requires cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). The study also indicates that CALP maybe the combination of high order English language proficiency and high levels of reasoning skills. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

  8. The Interaction of Language-Specific and Universal Factors During the Acquisition of Morphophonemic Alternations With Exceptions.

    PubMed

    Baer-Henney, Dinah; Kügler, Frank; van de Vijver, Ruben

    2015-09-01

    Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance (phonetic motivation), and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning. Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  9. Conventions for sign and speech transcription of child bimodal bilingual corpora in ELAN.

    PubMed

    Chen Pichler, Deborah; Hochgesang, Julie A; Lillo-Martin, Diane; de Quadros, Ronice Müller

    2010-01-01

    This article extends current methodologies for the linguistic analysis of sign language acquisition to cases of bimodal bilingual acquisition. Using ELAN, we are transcribing longitudinal spontaneous production data from hearing children of Deaf parents who are learning either American Sign Language (ASL) and American English (AE), or Brazilian Sign Language (Libras, also referred to as Língua de Sinais Brasileira/LSB in some texts) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Our goal is to construct corpora that can be mined for a wide range of investigations on various topics in acquisition. Thus, it is important that we maintain consistency in transcription for both signed and spoken languages. This article documents our transcription conventions, including the principles behind our approach. Using this document, other researchers can chose to follow similar conventions or develop new ones using our suggestions as a starting point.

  10. Conventions for sign and speech transcription of child bimodal bilingual corpora in ELAN

    PubMed Central

    Chen Pichler, Deborah; Hochgesang, Julie A.; Lillo-Martin, Diane; de Quadros, Ronice Müller

    2011-01-01

    This article extends current methodologies for the linguistic analysis of sign language acquisition to cases of bimodal bilingual acquisition. Using ELAN, we are transcribing longitudinal spontaneous production data from hearing children of Deaf parents who are learning either American Sign Language (ASL) and American English (AE), or Brazilian Sign Language (Libras, also referred to as Língua de Sinais Brasileira/LSB in some texts) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Our goal is to construct corpora that can be mined for a wide range of investigations on various topics in acquisition. Thus, it is important that we maintain consistency in transcription for both signed and spoken languages. This article documents our transcription conventions, including the principles behind our approach. Using this document, other researchers can chose to follow similar conventions or develop new ones using our suggestions as a starting point. PMID:21625371

  11. The ontogeny of phonological categories and the primacy of lexical learning in linguistic development.

    PubMed

    Beckman, M E; Edwards, J

    2000-01-01

    In this paper, we draw on recent developments in several areas of cognitive science that suggest that the lexicon is at the core of grammatical generalizations at several different levels of representation. Evidence comes from many sources, including recent studies on language processing in adults and on language acquisition in children. Phonological behavior is influenced very early by pattern frequency in the lexicon of the ambient language, and we propose that phonological acquisition might provide the initial bootstrapping into grammatical generalization in general. The phonological categories over which pattern frequencies are calculated, however, are neither transparently available in the audiovisual signal nor deterministically fixed by the physiological and perceptual capacities of the species. Therefore, we need several age-appropriate models of how the lexicon can influence a child's interactions with the ambient language over the course of phonological acquisition.

  12. Rapid Statistical Learning Supporting Word Extraction From Continuous Speech.

    PubMed

    Batterink, Laura J

    2017-07-01

    The identification of words in continuous speech, known as speech segmentation, is a critical early step in language acquisition. This process is partially supported by statistical learning, the ability to extract patterns from the environment. Given that speech segmentation represents a potential bottleneck for language acquisition, patterns in speech may be extracted very rapidly, without extensive exposure. This hypothesis was examined by exposing participants to continuous speech streams composed of novel repeating nonsense words. Learning was measured on-line using a reaction time task. After merely one exposure to an embedded novel word, learners demonstrated significant learning effects, as revealed by faster responses to predictable than to unpredictable syllables. These results demonstrate that learners gained sensitivity to the statistical structure of unfamiliar speech on a very rapid timescale. This ability may play an essential role in early stages of language acquisition, allowing learners to rapidly identify word candidates and "break in" to an unfamiliar language.

  13. The critical period hypothesis in second language acquisition: a statistical critique and a reanalysis.

    PubMed

    Vanhove, Jan

    2013-01-01

    In second language acquisition research, the critical period hypothesis (cph) holds that the function between learners' age and their susceptibility to second language input is non-linear. This paper revisits the indistinctness found in the literature with regard to this hypothesis's scope and predictions. Even when its scope is clearly delineated and its predictions are spelt out, however, empirical studies-with few exceptions-use analytical (statistical) tools that are irrelevant with respect to the predictions made. This paper discusses statistical fallacies common in cph research and illustrates an alternative analytical method (piecewise regression) by means of a reanalysis of two datasets from a 2010 paper purporting to have found cross-linguistic evidence in favour of the cph. This reanalysis reveals that the specific age patterns predicted by the cph are not cross-linguistically robust. Applying the principle of parsimony, it is concluded that age patterns in second language acquisition are not governed by a critical period. To conclude, this paper highlights the role of confirmation bias in the scientific enterprise and appeals to second language acquisition researchers to reanalyse their old datasets using the methods discussed in this paper. The data and R commands that were used for the reanalysis are provided as supplementary materials.

  14. Stop consonant voicing in young children's speech: Evidence from a cross-sectional study

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ganser, Emily

    There are intuitive reasons to believe that speech-sound acquisition and language acquisition should be related in development. Surprisingly, only recently has research begun to parse just how the two might be related. This study investigated possible correlations between speech-sound acquisition and language acquisition, as part of a large-scale, longitudinal study of the relationship between different types of phonological development and vocabulary growth in the preschool years. Productions of voiced and voiceless stop-initial words were recorded from 96 children aged 28-39 months. Voice Onset Time (VOT, in ms) for each token context was calculated. A mixed-model logistic regression was calculated which predicted whether the sound was intended to be voiced or voiceless based on its VOT. This model estimated the slopes of the logistic function for each child. This slope was referred to as Robustness of Contrast (based on Holliday, Reidy, Beckman, and Edwards, 2015), defined as being the degree of categorical differentiation between the production of two speech sounds or classes of sounds, in this case, voiced and voiceless stops. Results showed a wide range of slopes for individual children, suggesting that slope-derived Robustness of Contrast could be a viable means of measuring a child's acquisition of the voicing contrast. Robustness of Contrast was then compared to traditional measures of speech and language skills to investigate whether there was any correlation between the production of stop voicing and broader measures of speech and language development. The Robustness of Contrast measure was found to correlate with all individual measures of speech and language, suggesting that it might indeed be predictive of later language skills.

  15. Mobile-Assisted Second Language Learning: Developing a Learner-Centered Framework

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Leow, Choy Khim; Yahaya, Wan Ahmad Jaafar Wan; Samsudin, Zarina

    2014-01-01

    The Mobile Assisted Language Learning concept has offered infinite language learning opportunities since its inception 20 years ago. Second Language Acquisition however embraces a considerably different body of knowledge from first language learning. While technological advances have optimized the psycholinguistic environment for language…

  16. A Single-Display Groupware Collaborative Language Laboratory

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Calderón, Juan Felipe; Nussbaum, Miguel; Carmach, Ignacio; Díaz, Juan Jaime; Villalta, Marco

    2016-01-01

    Language learning tools have evolved to take into consideration new teaching models of collaboration and communication. While second language acquisition tasks have been taken online, the traditional language laboratory has remained unchanged. By continuing to follow its original configuration based on individual work, the language laboratory…

  17. 48 CFR 5.704 - Publicizing preaward.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

    2010-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Publicizing preaward. 5.704 Section 5.704 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION ACQUISITION...), use clear and concise language to describe the planned procurement. Use descriptions of the goods and...

  18. 48 CFR 5.704 - Publicizing preaward.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

    2011-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Publicizing preaward. 5.704 Section 5.704 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION ACQUISITION...), use clear and concise language to describe the planned procurement. Use descriptions of the goods and...

  19. 48 CFR 5.704 - Publicizing preaward.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

    2013-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Publicizing preaward. 5.704 Section 5.704 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION ACQUISITION...), use clear and concise language to describe the planned procurement. Use descriptions of the goods and...

  20. 48 CFR 5.704 - Publicizing preaward.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

    2012-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Publicizing preaward. 5.704 Section 5.704 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION ACQUISITION...), use clear and concise language to describe the planned procurement. Use descriptions of the goods and...

  1. 48 CFR 5.704 - Publicizing preaward.

    Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

    2014-10-01

    ... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Publicizing preaward. 5.704 Section 5.704 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION ACQUISITION...), use clear and concise language to describe the planned procurement. Use descriptions of the goods and...

  2. Deaf children's non-verbal working memory is impacted by their language experience

    PubMed Central

    Marshall, Chloë; Jones, Anna; Denmark, Tanya; Mason, Kathryn; Atkinson, Joanna; Botting, Nicola; Morgan, Gary

    2015-01-01

    Several recent studies have suggested that deaf children perform more poorly on working memory tasks compared to hearing children, but these studies have not been able to determine whether this poorer performance arises directly from deafness itself or from deaf children's reduced language exposure. The issue remains unresolved because findings come mostly from (1) tasks that are verbal as opposed to non-verbal, and (2) involve deaf children who use spoken communication and therefore may have experienced impoverished input and delayed language acquisition. This is in contrast to deaf children who have been exposed to a sign language since birth from Deaf parents (and who therefore have native language-learning opportunities within a normal developmental timeframe for language acquisition). A more direct, and therefore stronger, test of the hypothesis that the type and quality of language exposure impact working memory is to use measures of non-verbal working memory (NVWM) and to compare hearing children with two groups of deaf signing children: those who have had native exposure to a sign language, and those who have experienced delayed acquisition and reduced quality of language input compared to their native-signing peers. In this study we investigated the relationship between NVWM and language in three groups aged 6–11 years: hearing children (n = 28), deaf children who were native users of British Sign Language (BSL; n = 8), and deaf children who used BSL but who were not native signers (n = 19). We administered a battery of non-verbal reasoning, NVWM, and language tasks. We examined whether the groups differed on NVWM scores, and whether scores on language tasks predicted scores on NVWM tasks. For the two executive-loaded NVWM tasks included in our battery, the non-native signers performed less accurately than the native signer and hearing groups (who did not differ from one another). Multiple regression analysis revealed that scores on the vocabulary measure predicted scores on those two executive-loaded NVWM tasks (with age and non-verbal reasoning partialled out). Our results suggest that whatever the language modality—spoken or signed—rich language experience from birth, and the good language skills that result from this early age of acquisition, play a critical role in the development of NVWM and in performance on NVWM tasks. PMID:25999875

  3. More Than Words: The Role of Multiword Sequences in Language Learning and Use.

    PubMed

    Christiansen, Morten H; Arnon, Inbal

    2017-07-01

    The ability to convey our thoughts using an infinite number of linguistic expressions is one of the hallmarks of human language. Understanding the nature of the psychological mechanisms and representations that give rise to this unique productivity is a fundamental goal for the cognitive sciences. A long-standing hypothesis is that single words and rules form the basic building blocks of linguistic productivity, with multiword sequences being treated as units only in peripheral cases such as idioms. The new millennium, however, has seen a shift toward construing multiword linguistic units not as linguistic rarities, but as important building blocks for language acquisition and processing. This shift-which originated within theoretical approaches that emphasize language learning and use-has far-reaching implications for theories of language representation, processing, and acquisition. Incorporating multiword units as integral building blocks blurs the distinction between grammar and lexicon; calls for models of production and comprehension that can accommodate and give rise to the effect of multiword information on processing; and highlights the importance of such units to learning. In this special topic, we bring together cutting-edge work on multiword sequences in theoretical linguistics, first-language acquisition, psycholinguistics, computational modeling, and second-language learning to present a comprehensive overview of the prominence and importance of such units in language, their possible role in explaining differences between first- and second-language learning, and the challenges the combined findings pose for theories of language. Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

  4. [Environmental and genetic variables related with alterations in language acquisition in early childhood].

    PubMed

    Moriano-Gutierrez, A; Colomer-Revuelta, J; Sanjuan, J; Carot-Sierra, J M

    2017-01-01

    A great deal of research has addressed problems in the correct acquisition of language, but with few overall conclusions. The reasons for this lie in the individual variability, the existence of different measures for assessing language and the fact that a complex network of genetic and environmental factors are involved in its development. To review the environmental and genetic variables that have been studied to date, in order to gain a better under-standing of the causes of specific language impairment and create new evidence that can help in the development of screening systems for the early detection of these disorders. The environmental variables related with poorer early child language development include male gender, low level of education of the mother, familial history of problems with language or psychiatric problems, perinatal problems and health problems in early childhood. Bilingualism seems to be a protective factor. Temperament and language are related. Within the genetic factors there are several specific genes associated with language, two of which have a greater influence on its physiological acquisition: FOXP2 and CNTNAP2. The other genes that are most related with specific language disorders are ATP2C2, CMIP, ROBO2, ZNF277 and NOP9. The key to comprehending the development of specific language disorders lies in reaching an understanding of the true role played by genes in the ontogenesis, in the regulation of the different developmental processes, and how this role is modulated by the environment.

  5. The Role of Variable Rules in Language Acquisition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Adamson, H. D.

    This paper attempts to show the relationship between variable rules and more widely used psycholinguistic constructs such as amalgams and schemas, and to point out how variationists' methods can be useful in the study of language acquisition. The traditional rule, the rule for forming the past tense of regular verbs in English, is discussed as it…

  6. Lexical Category Acquisition via Nonadjacent Dependencies in Context: Evidence of Developmental Change and Individual Differences

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sandoval, Michelle

    2014-01-01

    Lexical categories like noun and verb are foundational to language acquisition, but these categories do not come neatly packaged for the infant language learner. Some have proposed that infants can begin to solve this problem by tracking the frequent nonadjacent word (or morpheme) contexts of these categories. However, nonadjacent relationships…

  7. Emergent Literacy and Reading Acquisition: A Longitudinal Study from Kindergarten to Primary School

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pinto, Giuliana; Bigozzi, Lucia; Vezzani, Claudio; Tarchi, Christian

    2017-01-01

    This study explores the predictivity of an emergent literacy model on the acquisition of reading in primary school in a language with a transparent writing system. As writing systems have different levels of transparency, results cannot be easily transferred between languages. In this study, we explored the predictivity of phonological awareness,…

  8. Designing a Virtual Social Space for Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Woolson, Maria Alessandra

    2012-01-01

    Middleverse de Español (MdE) is an evolving platform for foreign language (FL) study, aligned to the goals of ACTFL's National Standards and 2007 MLA report. The project simulates an immersive environment in a virtual 3-D space for the acquisition of translingual and transcultural competence in Spanish meant to support content-based and…

  9. The Second Language Acquisition of Number and Gender in Swahili: A Feature Reassembly Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Spinner, Patti

    2013-01-01

    Much of the recent discussion surrounding the second language acquisition of morphology has centered on the question of whether learners can acquire new formal features. Lardiere's (2008, 2009) Feature Reassembly approach offers a new direction for research in this area by emphasizing the challenges presented by crosslinguistic differences in the…

  10. The Acquisition of Sociolinguistic Evaluations among Polish-Born Adolescents Learning English: Evidence from Perception

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Clark, Lynn; Schleef, Erik

    2010-01-01

    In order to achieve full native-like competence in a second language, speakers must also acquire sociolinguistic awareness in that language. This paper reports the results of a study investigating the acquisition of sociolinguistic awareness among immigrant Polish adolescents learning English in the UK. This paper asks whether Polish-born…

  11. Report to the Legislature: English Language Acquisition Professional Development. Line Item 7027-1004

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Massachusetts Department of Education, 2008

    2008-01-01

    The Department of Education respectfully submits this "Report to the Legislature: English Language Acquisition Professional Development" pursuant to Chapter 61 of the Acts of 2007, line item 7027-1004, and pursuant to G.L c. 69s.1I, the Department of Education addressing several provisions. School district implementation of sheltered…

  12. Application Features of Language Acquisition Assessment System in Kazakhstan: KAZTEST

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dinayeva, Bekzat B.; Sapina, Sabira M.; Utanova, Aizada K.; Aitova, Nurlykhan N.

    2016-01-01

    The article deals with the analysis of peculiarities of language acquisition assessment system in Kazakhstan--KAZTEST. The author pays attention to the role of control as a way of assessment students' skills, habits and knowledge. In addition, author determined the place and functions of tests as a form of control. The author explores the…

  13. Earlier Is Better: Learning English in Saudi Arabia

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alsairi, Meshari A.

    2018-01-01

    Various studies have been carried out in order to find out the suitable age for foreign language acquisition. Every research study has had a different Critical Period (CP) and most of them have not been really close together in terms of years. Critical Period refers to the actual time frame during which foreign language acquisition should take…

  14. Omnivorous Representation Might Lead to Indigestion: Commentary on Amaral and Roeper

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Slabakova, Roumyana

    2014-01-01

    This article offers commentary that the Multiple Grammar (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper (A&R) in the present issue lacks elaboration of the psychological mechanisms at work in second language acquisition. Topics discussed include optionality in a speaker's grammar and the rules of verb position in…

  15. Consonants and Vowels: Different Roles in Early Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hochmann, Jean-Remy; Benavides-Varela, Silvia; Nespor, Marina; Mehler, Jacques

    2011-01-01

    Language acquisition involves both acquiring a set of words (i.e. the lexicon) and learning the rules that combine them to form sentences (i.e. syntax). Here, we show that consonants are mainly involved in word processing, whereas vowels are favored for extracting and generalizing structural relations. We demonstrate that such a division of labor…

  16. Looking Ahead: Future Directions in, and Future Research into, Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Larsen-Freeman, Diane

    2018-01-01

    This article begins by situating modern-day second language acquisition (SLA) research in a historical context, tracing its evolution from cognitive to social to sociocognitive accounts. Next, the influence of the zeitgeist is considered. In this era of rapid change and turmoil, there are both perils and opportunities afforded by globalization. In…

  17. Corrective Feedback in SLA: Theoretical Relevance and Empirical Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chen, Jin; Lin, Jianghao; Jiang, Lin

    2016-01-01

    Corrective feedback (CF) refers to the responses or treatments from teachers to a learner's nontargetlike second language (L2) production. CF has been a crucial and controversial topic in the discipline of second language acquisition (SLA). Some SLA theorists believe that CF is harmful to L2 acquisition and should be ruled out completely while…

  18. Input, Triggering and Poverty of the Stimulus in the Second Language Acquisition of Japanese Passives

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hara, Masahiro

    2007-01-01

    This article adopts an input perspective in examining a poverty-of-the stimulus (POS) learning situation in second language acquisition (SLA). Analysis of grammaticality judgement data from 81 English-speaking and 85 Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese isolates triggering input that informed English learners of subtle semantic properties of the…

  19. An Explanation of the Effectiveness of Written Corrective Feedback in Second-Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wagner, Jason

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical explanation for the effectiveness of Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) in increasing second-language (L2) students' grammatical accuracy. WCF is examined via Skill Acquisition Theory (SAT) in order to account for uneven patterns of its effectiveness. As the study demonstrates, WCF is effective…

  20. Acculturation in Relation to the Acquisition of a Second Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jiang, Mei; Green, Raymond J.; Henley, Tracy B.; Masten, William G.

    2009-01-01

    Learners who begin to acquire a second language (L2) in a naturalistic environment after puberty are thought to be constrained by biological age factors and to have greater difficulty obtaining native-like L2. However, the extant literature suggests that L2 acquisition may be positively affected by post-maturational factors, such as acculturation.…

  1. The Acquisition of English Restrictive Relative Clauses by Arab Adult EFL Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alroudhan, Hayat Eid

    2016-01-01

    This study investigates the challenges faced by Arab adult learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) in acquiring English restrictive relative clauses (RRCs), as well as the factors that affect the process of acquisition. This issue has received considerable attention in second language (L2) research. The present study discusses the…

  2. The Effects of Live Music as the Discriminative Stimulus and Reinforcer on the Skill Acquisition of Learners with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harms, Melanie D.

    2013-01-01

    Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders are challenged with memory and language deficits that impact their skills acquisition (Martin, Klusek, Estigarriba, & Roberts, 2009; Turner & Alborz, 2003). The value of music when applied as an antecedent and a reinforcer has long been established to address such memory and language deficits…

  3. The Role of Hypercorrection in the Acquisition of L2 Phonemic Contrasts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Eckman, Fred R.; Iverson, Gregory K.; Song, Jae Yung

    2013-01-01

    This article reports empirical findings from an ongoing investigation into the acquisition of second-language (L2) phonemic contrasts. Specifically, we consider the status and role of the phenomenon of hypercorrection in the various stages through which L2 learners develop and internalize a target language (TL) contrast. We adopt the prevailing…

  4. Universal and Language-Specific Patterns in the Acquisition of Verb Argument Structures in German

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Leischner, Franziska N.; Weissenborn, Jürgen; Naigles, Letitia R.

    2016-01-01

    The study investigated the influence of universal and language-specific morpho-syntactic properties (i.e., flexible word order, case) on the acquisition of verb argument structures in German compared with English. To this end, 65 three- to nine-year-old German learning children and adults were asked to act out grammatical ("The sheep…

  5. Developmental Stages in Receptive Grammar Acquisition: A Processability Theory Account

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Buyl, Aafke; Housen, Alex

    2015-01-01

    This study takes a new look at the topic of developmental stages in the second language (L2) acquisition of morphosyntax by analysing receptive learner data, a language mode that has hitherto received very little attention within this strand of research (for a recent and rare study, see Spinner, 2013). Looking at both the receptive and productive…

  6. Acquisition of English as a Second Language at College Level--An Empirical Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Anil, Beena

    2015-01-01

    English has a universal appeal and in India, English is associated with modernity and progress sometimes with the ideology of its cultural values. The economic value of English is very high in India as even a layman uses English words in his/her "native" communication. The second language acquisition happens for learners at various…

  7. Pedagogy of Notation: Learning Styles Using a Constructivist, Second-Language Acquisition Approach to Dance Notation Pedagogy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Heiland, Teresa L.

    2015-01-01

    Four undergraduate dance majors learned Motif Notation and Labanotation using a second-language acquisition, playful, constructivist approach to learning notation literacy in order to learn and dance the "Parsons Etude." Qualitative outcomes were gathered from student journals and pre- and post-tests that assessed for levels of improved…

  8. The Effects of Teachers’ Motivational Strategies on Learners’ Motivation: A Controlled Investigation of Second Language Acquisition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moskovsky, Christo; Alrabai, Fakieh; Paolini, Stefania; Ratcheva, Silvia

    2013-01-01

    While consensus exists about the critical role of learners’ motivation in second language acquisition, controlled investigations of the effects of teachers’ motivational strategies are limited. The research reported here used a quasi-experimental design to assess the effects of motivational strategies used by Saudi English as a foreign language…

  9. Rapid Learning of an Abstract Language-Specific Category: Polish Children's Acquisition of the Instrumental Construction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dabrowska, Ewa; Tomasello, Michael

    2008-01-01

    Rapid acquisition of linguistic categories or constructions is sometimes regarded as evidence of innate knowledge. In this paper, we examine Polish children's early understanding of an idiosyncratic, language-specific construction involving the instrumental case--which could not be due to innate knowledge. Thirty Polish-speaking children aged 2; 6…

  10. Short-Term Study Abroad for Texas Preservice Teachers: On the Road from Empathy to Critical Awareness

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Palmer, Deborah K.; Menard-Warwick, Julia

    2012-01-01

    Among the coursework offered to preservice teachers at the first author's institution in 2007 was the course "Second Language Acquisition" (SLA). This course was designed to develop multicultural awareness by introducing the theory and practice of second language acquisition and helping future teachers become familiar with the struggles…

  11. The Use of Web Questionnaires in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Research

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wilson, Rosemary; Dewaele, Jean-Marc

    2010-01-01

    The present article focuses on data collection through web questionnaires, as opposed to the traditional pen-and-paper method for research in second language acquisition and bilingualism. It is argued that web questionnaires, which have been used quite widely in psychology, have the advantage of reaching out to a larger and more diverse pool of…

  12. Emotional Coping and Literacy Intervention Decisions: How Hearing Parents Guide Their Deaf Children

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Heuer, Christopher Jon

    2009-01-01

    This qualitative case study investigated the process by which eight hearing parents went about making decisions to promote language acquisition and literacy learning in their deaf children, who or what influenced that process, and how they coped emotionally with the impact of deafness on literacy and language acquisition. Data from interview…

  13. Gesture as Input in Language Acquisition: Learning "Who She Is" from "Where She Is"

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Goodrich, Whitney Sarah-Iverson

    2009-01-01

    This dissertation explores the role co-speech gesture plays as input in language learning, specifically with respect to the acquisition of anaphoric pronouns. Four studies investigate how both adults and children interpret ambiguous pronouns, and how the order-of-mention tendency develops in children. The results suggest that gesture is a useful…

  14. Morphological Innovation in the Acquisition of American Sign Language.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    van Hoek, Karen; And Others

    A study examined aspects of the acquisition of spatialized morphology and syntax in American Sign Language (ASL) learned natively by deaf children of deaf parents. Children aged 2 to 8 were shown story books to elicit narratives, and the resulting use of verbs contained morphological forms not appearing in adult grammar. Analysis of the creative…

  15. Comparing the Picture Exchange Communication System and Sign Language Training for Children with Autism

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tincani, Matt

    2004-01-01

    This study compared the effects of Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) and sign language training on the acquisition of mands (requests for preferred items) of students with autism. The study also examined the differential effects of each modality on students' acquisition of vocal behavior. Participants were two elementary school students…

  16. Stress and Deep Structure: A Measure of Language Acquisition, Grades K-6.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Milner, Joseph O.

    A study was undertaken to see whether developmental patterns of language acquisition could be discovered in children beyond age five. Specifically, the study attempted to uncover a pattern in the development of the skill of stress interpretation, or the understanding of the effect of emphasis of a particular word on the deep structure of the…

  17. Factors Influencing the Second Language Acquisition of Spanish Vibrants

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hurtado, Luz Marcela; Estrada, Chelsea

    2010-01-01

    This article examines the role of linguistic and sociolinguistic factors in the second language (L2) acquisition of Spanish vibrants. The data consist of 2 sets of recordings from 37 students enrolled in a Spanish pronunciation class. The statistical program VarbRul was used to analyze 7,597 samples. The vibration (simple or multiple) and the…

  18. The Effects of Hypertext Glosses on L2 Vocabulary Acquisition: A Meta-Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Yun, Jee Hwan

    2010-01-01

    In the field of second language acquisition (SLA), "comprehensible input" (Krashen, 1985) has been considered a critical factor to help learners acquire foreign and second languages (L2). From this perspective, the notion of extensive or free voluntary reading (Day & Bamford, 1998; Krashen, 1993) has emerged that L2 learners should be given more…

  19. Improving Data Analysis in Second Language Acquisition by Utilizing Modern Developments in Applied Statistics

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Larson-Hall, Jenifer; Herrington, Richard

    2010-01-01

    In this article we introduce language acquisition researchers to two broad areas of applied statistics that can improve the way data are analyzed. First we argue that visual summaries of information are as vital as numerical ones, and suggest ways to improve them. Specifically, we recommend choosing boxplots over barplots and adding locally…

  20. The Role of Perception, Language, and Preference in the Developmental Acquisition of Basic Color Terms

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pitchford, N. J.; Mullen, K. T.

    2005-01-01

    When learning basic color vocabulary, young children show a selective delay in the acquisition of brown and gray relative to other basic color terms. In this study, we first establish the robustness of this finding and then investigate the extent to which perception, language, and color preference may influence color conceptualization.…

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