The Interface Hypothesis proposes that the pragmatic-discursive interface with syntax is more vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence than the syntactic-semantic interface [Tsimpli, Ianthi, and Antonella Sorace. 2006. "Differentiating Interfaces: L2 Performance in Syntax- Semantics and Syntax-Discourse Phenomena." In Proceedings of the…

A main objective in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) is to enable students to communicate effectively in many situations and contexts. This involves being able to control a wide range of language functions, which are how speakers use language for requesting, congratulating, apologizing, complaining, consoling, and promising, among many…

Presents results of a response latency (RL) experiment with English-speaking learners of German that investigated to what extent if any two different groups of second language learners permit raising of the thematic verb. Results show that learners respond in different ways to stimulus sentences with raised and unraised verbs depending on the…

The general objective of this study is the investigation of some of the cognitive processes underlying adult second language acquisition through the analysis of the development of morphological markers of temporality in the acquisition of Spanish as a second language (L2) among native English speakers. It is argued that analysis of data on the…

This paper begins with a literature review of research on syntactic maturity, defined as the developmental stages from one- and two-word utterances to the hierarchical structures of adult speech, and seeks to answer questions in the context of past and current research in this area. It attempts to study some of the ramifications of the movement…

A study undertaken in Ireland investigated the effectiveness of a second language teaching strategy that focused on grammatical problem-solving. In this approach, the problems are located within the target language system, and the problem-solving involves induction of grammatical rules and use of those rules. Learners are confronted with instances…