This paper presents a discussion about the terms of address used mainly in Libyan Arabic, and how they are similar and/or different from the terms used in other Arabic societies. In addition, the current paper describes how the use of such terms is determined by various social factors and perceptions, and how it is emphasized that these titles…

The purpose of this study was to systematically review the factors affecting the language, speech intelligibility, speech production, and lexical tone development of children with hearing loss who use spoken languages other than English. Relevant studies of children with hearing loss published between 2000 and 2011 were reviewed with reference to…

This study investigates how derivational complexity interacts with first language (L1) properties, second language (L2) input, age of first exposure to the target language, and length of exposure in child L2 acquisition. We compared elicited production of "wh"-questions in French in two groups of 15 participants each, one with L1 English…

Despite criticisms set against methods by postmethodologists who believe that teaching methods must be cast aside, new methods can be proposed that better meet learners' needs as a continuation of the chain of former methods introduced in the past. The present study proposes some language teaching techniques after introducing the theoretical…

This article discusses issues related to oral assessment of school knowledge of L2-educated students. In particular, it examines benefits and disadvantages of students being tested in their L1 (their dominant language) and in their L2 (their language of instruction). The study draws on the data from 37 high school students studying in a content…

The present paper aims to reinvigorate discussions of language policy within language, gender and sexuality studies. It provides initial considerations of a poststructuralist, non-heteronormative language policy for German and English--two languages whose structural make-up differs fundamentally with respect to gender representation. Gendered…

This article clarifies some ideas presented in this issue's keynote article (Amaral and Roeper, this issue) and discusses several issues raised by the contributors' comments on the nature of the Multiple Grammars (MG) theory. One of the key goals of the article is to unequivocally state that MG is not a parametric theory and that its…

This article offers commentary on the Multiple Grammars (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in this issue. It argues that more precise definitions are needed for the terms "rule," "simple," and "productive." Topics discussed include Amaral and Roeper's verb second (V2) rule,…

We investigated the effects of instruction method and cross-language similarity during second language (L2) grammar learning. English speakers learned a subset of Swedish using contrast and color highlighting (Salience Group), contrast and highlighting with grammatical explanations (Rule & Salience Group), or neither (Control Group with…

We assessed the roles of first language (L1) and second language (L2) proficiency in the processing of preverbal clitics in L2 Spanish by considering the predictions of four processing theories--the Input Processing Theory, the Unified Competition Model, the Amalgamation Model, and the Associative-Cognitive CREED. We compared the performance of L1…

This article examines the acquisition of embedded verb placement in Swedish children, focusing on Neg-V and V-Neg order. It is proposed that a principle of economy of movement creates an overuse of V-Neg order in embedded clauses and that the low frequency of the target-consistent Neg-V order in child-directed speech obstructs children from…

This article presents a study on the time course of the acquisition of comparison constructions. The order in which comparison constructions (comparatives, measure phrases, superlatives, degree questions, etc.) show up in English- and German-learning children's spontaneous speech is quite fixed. It is shown to be insufficiently determined by…

Pitch is often described metaphorically: for example, Farsi and Turkish speakers use a "thickness" metaphor (low sounds are "thick" and high sounds are "thin"), while German and English speakers use a height metaphor ("low", "high"). This study examines how child and adult speakers of Farsi,…

Much work on child sentence processing has demonstrated that children are able to use various linguistic cues to incrementally resolve temporary syntactic ambiguities, but they fail to use syntactic or interpretability cues that arrive later in the sentence. The present study explores whether children incrementally resolve filler-gap dependencies,…

The early relationship between children's emerging articulatory abilities and their capacity to process speech input was investigated, following recent studies with English-learning infants. Twenty-six monolingual Italian-learning infants were tested at 6 months (no consistent and stable use of consonants, or vocal motor schemes [VMS]) and at…