Anaphoric expressions such as repeated names, overt pronouns, and null pronouns serve a major role in the creation and maintenance of discourse coherence. The felicitous use of an anaphoric expression is highly dependent on the discourse salience of the entity introduced by the antecedent. Gordon et al. ("Cogn Sci" 17:311-347, 1993)…

The extensive literature on subject expression in Spanish makes for rich comparisons between generative (formal) and usage-based (functional) approaches to language acquisition. This article explores how the problem of subject expression has been conceptualized within each research tradition, as well as unanswered questions that both approaches…

Griffith University is set across five campuses in south-east Queensland, Australia, and has a student population of 43,000. The School of Languages and Linguistics (LAL) offers programs in linguistics, international English, Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, as well as English language enhancement courses. Research strands reflect the…

Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Quechua is the largest indigenous language family to constitute the first language (L1) of second language (L2) Spanish speakers. Despite sheer number of speakers and typologically interesting contrasts, Quechua-Spanish second language acquisition is a nearly untapped research area,…

This review article evaluates the intersection of the content of two recent anthologies in second language (L2) phonology. One of the books lays out both the methodological context and theoretical underpinnings of the field, whereas the other volume reports 11 empirical studies on the L2 acquisition of several aspects of pronunciation by adult…

This paper focuses on the dearth of language-processing research addressing Spanish heritage speakers in assimilationist communities. First, we review key offline work on this population, and we then summarize the few psycholinguistic (online) studies that have already been carried out. In an attempt to encourage more such research, in the next…

A review of the literature regarding native and second language reading leads to suggestions for reading strategies to use in the foreign language classroom. These strategies involve appropriate text selection, prereading activities, and such aspects of reading as skimming, decoding, intensive reading, and comprehension. (CB)

Data was collected from 45-minute conversational interviews of 20 Cubans, who arrived in the United States in 1980, to analyze vocalic processes in Cuban Spanish. Four vocalic processes found in Cuban Spanish (raising and devoicing of unstressed vowels, lengthening of stressed vowels, and diphthongization of stressed mid vowels) were examined.…

Demonstrates the important need for language researchers to fill in the considerable theory data gap regarding the primary acquisition of Spanish by pointing out that theory development could be distorted if cross-linguistic comparisons of acquisition evidence draw on a faulty, incomplete data base. (CB)

Presents a preliminary study of the use of the Spanish preposition "a" with inanimate direct object nouns (DOs). The properties of such constructions at the lexical, sentence, and discourse levels are described, and the general principles that condition the preposition's appearance are discussed. (21 references) (GLR)

Presents examples of how children acquire language through the principles-and-parameters model, a highly modular system in which different theories interact so that only permissible sequences arise, and highlights research on Spanish syntax and semantics. (136 references) (CB)

A discussion of second language (L2) pronunciation looks at the ways in which native-like pronunciation can be defined. It addresses, through review of relevant literature and more detailed examination of a study by the author, these issues: how to identify native-like pronunciation; how to measure pronunciation in comparison with native speakers'…

Traces the historical bases, significant research, and instructional trends in Spanish language instruction over the last century. (Author/VWL)

A review of the significant advances made in the study of Spanish language history during the 1980s describes recent developments in introductory textbooks, manuals, external histories, phonological research, morphological research, syntactic research, semantic research, dictionaries, learned vocabularies, bibliographies, and literary research.…

An assessment of the substantive progress made regarding the study of language contact and bilingualism in the Hispanic world explores research concerning language contact and grammars, the bilingual speech community and linguistic structure, and bilingual discourse. (45 references) (CB)