Three inter-related assumptions regarding best practice in second/foreign language teaching and bilingual/immersion education continue to dominate classroom instruction. These assumptions are that: (a) the target language (TL) should be used exclusively for instructional purposes without recourse to students' first language (L1); (b) translation…

Each year the Cognitive Science Society honors David Rumelhart by awarding the Rumelhart Prize to an outstanding cognitive scientist whose research makes a significant contribution to the formal analysis of human cognition. Formal models of language, including those of Rumelhart and his associates, are well known to psycholinguists in the…

Presents the resolution of the Conference on College Composition and Communication to support the National Language Policy, a pro-multilingualism response to efforts to make English the official language of the United States. Describes the English Only movement and its shortcomings and delineates other organizations opposed to English Only.…

Discusses the lack of motivation in the United States for learning foreign languages. Suggests that starting second languages earlier will produce more people both proficient in a second language and sensitive to other cultures. (EKN)

Responds to an article by Strubell, "Language, Democracy, and Devolution in Catalonia," explaining differences between various dialects grouped under the Catalan umbrella and focusing on the context of the new language-policy legislation, the impact of the new legislation, tensions arising from the implementation of the language policy,…

Tracing the effects of the "laissez-faire" postcolonial politics of language in the United States, which in fact enabled English to become the dominant language through cultural rather than institutional means, the essay then suggests how the linguistic memory that emerges from decolonization and nation building continues, often in…

Discusses two opposing sociolinguistic theories, the Whorfian hypothesis and diglossia, which in turn help to illustrate the interdisciplinary nature of the sociolinguistic field, a field characterised by varied and ideological differences. One solution suggested for this kind of sectarian behavior is to build methodological diversity into the…

Clahsen and Felser (CF) analyze the performance of monolingual children and adult second language (L2) learners in off-line and on-line tasks and compare their performance with that of adult monolinguals. They conclude that child first language (L1) processing is basically the same as adult L1 processing (the contiguity assumption), with…

Explains the notion of "individual multilingualism." Multilingual behavior and multilingualism are considered as mental states, and questions about whether there are qualitative neuropsychological differences between multi- and mono-linguals are raised. Multilingualism in small children is briefly discussed. A reference list of 44 items is…

In Claire Kramsch's (2004) response to work by Mary Louise Pratt (2002) on multilingualism, identity and language in the U.S., she proposed that the four points made by Pratt be extended to the following: (1) Monolingualism is a handicap, but so is the assumption that one language = one culture = adherence to one cultural community; (2) Heritage…

The possible relationship between metalingual knowledge in form of rules and communicative knowledge of language as demonstrated in second/foreign language production is examined. An emerging psycholinguistic monolingual production model is described. (52 references) (Author/LB)

The performance of multilingual subjects was contrasted to that of bilingual and monolingual subjects on two tasks that involved learning a miniature linguistic system. Results indicate that multilingual subjects have strategies that help them allocate processing resources more efficiently in formulating informal rules of limited scope under…

Central concerns in the movement to make English the official language of the United States are reviewed, publications and activities of two major organizations supporting it are compared, and basic assumptions and directions of the movement are criticized. (21 references) (MSE)

Comments on Lindstromberg's (2001) article that argues that prepositional representation in dictionaries is frequently inadequate. Suggests that Lindstromberg's arguments are not exhaustive, and that he fails to include crucial psycholinguistic studies and to relate his views to current linguistic theories. (Author/VWL)

The United States is the most monolingual of all developed countries. Unstated U.S. policies toward bilingualism and the teaching of foreign languages are detrimental in today's world. Having many citizens who are multilingual is beneficial for individuals and the country; the teaching of languages must be encouraged. (SM)