The present study examined the apologies of 18 study abroad (SA) students during a short-term SA experience in Madrid, Spain. Apologies were assessed with a discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of five vignettes that varied across three variables: relative social status of the interlocutor, relative social distance, and seriousness of the…

This article studies three measures of phonological working memory as tools to identify SLI children: word repetition, nonce word repetition, and digit memory. We propose that a deficit in the phonological loop causes a delay in the acquisition of lexicon, morphosyntax, and discourse. In this research we try to find out whether the scores in these…

The study abroad (SA) context is often assumed to foster pragmatic development in a second language (L2), yet previous scholarship confirms that pragmatic norms are culturally-shaped and often remain imperceptible to uninstructed SA students (Bataller, 2010; Cohen & Shively, 2007; Shively, 2010). Because pragmatics is not traditionally taught…

The current study examines English-speaking learners of Spanish and their pragmatic development of request forms during a six-week immersion program in Madrid, Spain. Elicited production and intuition data were analyzed, focusing on personal deictic orientation, directness evidenced by clause type, and the use of "por favor"…