The aim of grammar teaching in foreign language learning process is to teach the foreign language itself rather than the formal features of the language by ensuring the use of target language. However, German grammar courses in Turkey provide intensive training on grammar subjects. The textbooks also contain a very detailed list of grammatical…

Based on writing produced by second language learners at different proficiency levels (CEFR A1 to C1), we adopted a usage-based approach (Ellis, Römer, & O'Donnell, 2016; Tyler & Ortega, 2018) to investigate how German and Spanish learner knowledge of 19 English verb-argument constructions (VACs; e.g., "V with n," illustrated by…

Acquisitionists generally assume a relation between code-mixing in young bilingual and trilingual children and language dominance. In our cross-sectional study we investigated the possible relation between code-mixing and language dominance in 122 children raised in Spain or Germany. They were bilingual, trilingual or multilingual, the latter…

Conference interpreters form a special case of language users because the simultaneous interpretation practice requires very specific lexical processing. Word comprehension and production in respective languages is performed under strict time constraints and requires constant activation of the involved languages. The present experiment aimed at…

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 2014 International Conference of Pragmatics and Language Learning at Indiana University. It includes fourteen papers on a variety of topics, with a diversity of first and second languages, and a wide range of methods used to collect pragmatic data in L2 and FL settings. This volume is…

Analyzes the circumstrances in which a German verb complex in a sentence can be separated by inserting various syntactic elements. Examples are provided. (Text is in German.) (DS)

Discusses the benefits of short answers and how they differ in German and English. Provides hints on how to teach students to produce reduced answers that are grammatically acceptable in spoken German. (EKN)

Lexical differences between English and German in "there" constructions are examined. Contrastive evidence is also examined to propose analyses for certain troublesome types of "there" constructions in English. The descriptive approach attempts to show that the structuring of information in "there" sentences is dependent on lexical features of the…

The property that determines which present infinitives can occur with subjectively used modals in German is identified. It is suggested that students be told to use modals subjectively with present infinitives only if the corresponding English sentence does not require the main verb to be progressive. (SW)

Discusses the semantics and structure of sentence adverbs, with particular reference to negation of the declarative sentence. "Nicht" is found to be not properly reckoned with sentence adverbs. By means of examples, suggestions are given about teaching foreigners the use of German adverbs. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)