The development of the concept of word is discussed in terms of specific metalinguistic advantages that might be available to bilingual children when compared with their monolingual peers. Three studies are reviewed in which bilingual children show more advanced understanding of some aspects of the concept of word than do monolingual children. The specific advantages demonstrated by these three studies are summarized and related to processes in more general cognitive development.

The background to word association tests is described, their potential relevance to second language research considered, and the history of their use as L2 measuring instruments reviewed. A computer-controlled word association test is described, its reliability established, and its validity as a measure of language proficiency established by means of comparison with other tests.

Our main aim in this paper is to explore the interlanguage pragmatics of learners of Hebrew and English. We focus on the use of pragmatic indicators, both lexical (please/bevaqaŝa; perhaps/ulay) and grammatical (e.g., the difference between could I borrow and could you lend), with particular reference to deviations from native-speaker norms in the speech of non-native speakers. The analysis follows the analytical framework developed for the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP). Data from two sets are analyzed: (a) native and non-native Hebrew, and (b) native and non-native English (with occasional reference to other CCSARP data sets). The results suggest that non-native speakers' misuse of pragmatic indicators can have serious interactional consequences, ranging from inappropriateness to pragmatic failure.

In this paper we examine some aspects of second language referential communication in an experimental setting. The research method employed is an adapted version of a dyadic communication task originally devised by Krauss and Weinheimer (1964) and subsequently used in a long series of first language studies with anglophone children and adults. The task requires subjects, who are visually separated but allowed to converse freely, to reach agreement on the ordering of a set of abstract, non-conventional shapes over a number of trials. The learners appear to behave like native speakers in many ways: They can carry out the task successfully, they shorten references on repeated use, they need less time in subsequent trials, and most importantly, they tend to prefer to describe the shapes from an analogical perspective rather than from a literal one. The differences between learners and anglophone native speakers are mainly quantitative in nature. For instance, the learners need more time and more words for the task. Also, their final references tend to be longer and structurally more complex. However, the same was true for a comparable group of Dutch native speakers. Furthermore, one learner group showed behavior that was aberrant and could not be related to proficiency level.

After an introductory discussion of the concepts of vocabulary knowledge continua and foreign-language learners' mental lexicons, the paper presents the results of a longitudinal pilot study whose aim was to make preliminary insights into vocabulary development as it takes place in an ordinary foreign-language classroom setting involving elementary-level Swedish-speaking learners of English. The results are discussed in terms of vocabulary growth in general, the learners' accessibility to words under time pressure, the relationship between “old,” well-known words and newly learned words, and finally, the stability of the learners' immediate access to words.

This paper focuses on the acquisition of new word formation devices in the target language as an indication of near-native competence at the advanced level of second language acquisition. The study reported here is based on data collected via written questionnaires consisting of three parts: (a) a production task requiring respondents to suggest innovations for nouns that have not been named in the existing lexicon; (b) an evaluation task requiring respondents to select the most appropriate innovation; (c) an interpretation task requiring respondents to interpret innovative blends. The questionnaires were administered to native speakers of Hebrew (the target language) and to two groups of learners, one advanced and the other intermediate. The findings show that the advanced group has reached a level of target language competence that enables them to produce and evaluate innovations in ways that approximate native speakers' responses, whereas the intermediate students deviate considerably from target level competence. The acquisition of word formation devices in the target language is presented as a gradual acquisition process.

This paper investigates what has traditionally been viewed as syntactic acquisition, with the goal of questioning whether what appears to be syntactic acquisition is more appropriately described as lexical or semantic acquisition. Data come from responses to a grammaticality judgment test by learners of English as a second language at two proficiency levels. Four syntactic structures were examined. The sentences tested varied in the verbs used (e.g., John donated/gave Mary a present; John donated/gave a present to Mary). The results suggest that less proficient subjects use syntactic strategies, more proficient learners use more semantic based strategies, and there is more lexical differentiation at the lower levels of proficiency. Thus, as learners gain in proficiency, there is an increased influence of the semantic relatedness of lexical items.