The goal of this special issue on Interfaces is to explore the division of labor between pragmatics and grammar. In the introductory paper a system of different modules and interface mappings has been presented. Some suggestions were made where the job of the acquisition process is. It was posed that most, if not all, acquisition is in the mapping…

This paper provides an Optimality Theoretic account of how Hungarian learners of English acquire /[epsilon]/ and /[ash]/. It is hypothesized that as the learners' pronunciation becomes more nativelike, L1 transfer substitutions will diminish; non-transfer substitutions will be especially prevalent in the intermediate stages, and that all learners…

Spelling competence in English L2 is not the result of specific teaching and training. Two questions are discussed in this article: How do Dutch learners manage to gain control of this complicated system? And what spelling knowledge is acquired? Because beginning learners lack the necessary prerequisites for a phonological strategy, it is claimed…

This article presents and illustrates a formal model of linguistic analysis in order to explain a phenomenon that is fundamental to translators in their practice: the construction of coherence. First, the role of paragraphs in the construction of coherence is explained with the application of the model to a newspaper editorial. It is shown, in…

Research on student questions in L2 classrooms has shown conflicting results. Some studies report that foreign language teachers use direct answers and others express concern about ESL teachers' overuse of ineffective display counter-questions. Here, student questions and their resolutions were analyzed in more than thirty hours of first through…

This article is one among a series of studies on the acquisition of patterns of linguistic variation observable in the speech of native speakers of Canadian French by French immersion (FI) students. The present study is centered on deletion of the central vowel schwa, a widespread feature of casual spoken French. In this study, FI students are…

Previous investigations of the variable marking of past time by the L2 learner have given rise to a number of hypotheses which predict the patterns of acquisition and use of past time markers in interlanguage (IL). However, given the complicity between their predictions, it has been previously noted that hypotheses such as the aspect and discourse…

This article is drawn from a large-scale ongoing study on linguistic progress in advanced French as a second language (FL2). The performance of 48 English-speaking students who spent their third year of university in France the "experimental" group) has been compared to that of 39 classmates who chose to stay and study at home in southern Ontario,…

The relationship between group and individual has been explored within the variationist paradigm. In L1, group patterns of variation are replicated by the individual. Second language acquisition research is concerned with the individual learner, but second language acquisition variationist researchers tend to group learners. Little empirical…

This article examines the relationship between group and individual patterns of variation in one area of the grammar: verbal morphology. The results of studies of the acquisition of English and Hungarian verbal morphology by Chinese learners show that individual patterns of variation closely match group patterns on several dimensions. Multivariate…

Sociolinguistic rules governing choice of pronouns of address are notoriously difficult in French, despite the fact that the number of variants is rather limited: the more formal "vous" versus the more informal "tu." Children with French as L1 learn to use pronouns of address appropriately as part of their socialization process. The learning curve…

The study of the structure of research articles has developed into a significant field of research. The original research focus on texts produced by English academics has been expanded over the years to allow for the investigation of the structure of texts written by academics publishing in various other languages. The ongoing discussion between…

Previous research on second language acquisition with multimedia has suggested that individual differences, including working memory capacity, play an important role in L2 vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension. In this paper, we report on a study of 13 students in a second-year German language course who read a German short story on a…

Intonation, long thought to be a key to effectiveness in spoken language, is more and more commonly addressed in English language teaching through the use of speech visualization technology. While the use of visualization technology is a crucial advance in the teaching of intonation, such teaching can be further enhanced by connecting technology…

One of the main challenges that US schools face in educating English language learners is developing their academic literacy. This paper presents case studies of two K-12 schools that successfully employ high-technology environments, including laptop computers for each student, toward the development of English language learners' academic language…