The global prevalence of English as a lingua franca (ELF) across diverse linguacultural communities within the three circles invites an in-depth analysis of its phonological and lexicogrammatical features, especially among non-native English speakers. This qualitative study investigated these features among 30 Thai students from English and…

During the last years there has been an increasing interest in examining the brain responses to word order variations. In one ERP study conducted in Spanish, Casado, Martin-Loeches, Munoz, and Fernandez-Frias (2005) had participants read Spanish transitive sentences with either an SVO (subject-verb-object) or an OVS order. The word order of a…

In recent years, many European countries have witnessed a rapid implementation of the CLIL approach at tertiary level. In Spain, although English has been introduced as the language of instruction in some master and doctoral courses, the application of the CLIL approach is still isolated. Similarly, little research has been done into CLIL…

Examined the extent to which cross-linguistic differences in sentence interpretation would generalize to complex sentences with an embedded clause. College students who were native speakers of English or Italian completed four experiments. Results indicated that cross-linguistic differences were maintained when students interpreted complex…

A study analyzed development of French aspectual markers in 39 college students of French as a second language and 30 native French-speaking students. Results indicate classroom instruction may increase the rate at which learners develop this knowledge, and that lack of access to second-language discursive-pragmatic conditions may prevent learning…

Investigated how Chinese-speaking English-as-a-Second-Language (L2) learners developed second language (L2) knowledge of conflation classes of verbs in the formation of prenominal adjectival participles. Groups of L2 learners and native English speakers judged the acceptability of prenominal adjectival participles placed in four linguistic…

A study investigated differential processing of adjectival and verbal passives in English, and the implications for linguistic theory. The subjects, 30 native-English-speaking college students, were presented with word triples in which one member was an adjective, one an adjectival passive, and one a verbal passive, and with three two-sentence…

Investigates the cause of avoidance in learning negation in a Korean as a second-language (KSL) situation. Because Korean has two types of negatives--preverbal and postverbal--examination focused on whether students of KSL avoid a certain negative form, and if so, why. (Author/VWL)

Three experiments investigated whether word order and case markers play a role in the native speaker's comprehension of Japanese. In Japanese, verbs are at the clause-final position and the order of words other than the verb appear to be flexible. The fact that verb information does not become available until the end of a clause suggests that…

Points out that earlier research (1991) indicates that adult second language (L2) learners have difficulties determining the relationship between obligatory verb-raising and verbal inflection. Results of the experiments reported here indicate that L2 competence includes a deficit affecting only the lexical or morphosyntactic mechanisms involved in…

Reports on follow-up analyses of Sasaki's (in press) competition experiment study of Japanese sentence comprehension strategies conducted to investigate the double-object active and transitive causative sentence processing strategies by English-speaking learners of Japanese and how immediate error feedback affects them. The article contrasts…

Investigated the acquisition of narrow-range rules governing the dative alternation by adult learners of English as a Second Language, native English speakers, and Japanese and Chinese speakers. Suggests that the Japanese and Chinese learners' acquisition of the dative alternation in English is governed by the properties of an equivalent structure…