Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of three types of elaboration—marked paraphrase, unmarked paraphrase, and unnecessary detail—on NNS listening comprehension. Participants (both NSs and NNSs) were asked to listen to instructions and then draw or alter drawings on a page in front of them. The instructions were heard in one of four conditions, the basic set or one of the three elaboration conditions. Subsequent analyses of the participants' comprehension indicated that all listeners had significantly more difficulty following instructions in the unnecessary detail condition than in any other. Marked paraphrase was found to facilitate comprehension in some cases. It was concluded that the quality of elaboration has implications for listening comprehension, in both the classroom and the workplace.

Interlanguage pragmatics—the study of nonnative speakers' use and acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge—has hovered on the fringes of SLA research thus far. In theories of 12 acquisition, pragmatics may figure as a constraint on syntactic knowledge, for instance, but pragmatics is not usually recognized as a knowledge component whose development deserves theoretical consideration in its own right. There is thus a tension between SLA as a theoretical (in the sense of “nonapplied”) discipline and the theory and practice of second or foreign language pedagogy. In theories of communicative competence in L2 teaching and testing, pragmatic competence figures prominently (e.g., Bachman, 1990). Curricula and materials for L2 teaching developed in recent years include strong pragmatic components or even adopt a pragmatic approach as their organizing principle.

Recent research on pragmatic and syntactic development in bilingual 2-year-olds has shown that these children have differentiated language systems. However, it remains to be shown whether their grammars develop autonomously or interdependently from 2 years onward. The present study investigates the potential interference between the grammars of French-English bilingual children, aged 2–3 years. We examined their acquisition of functional categories, specifically the properties of INFL (finiteness and agreement) and negation, as these grammatical properties differ in both adult French and English and child French and English. Our results indicate that the bilingual children show no evidence of transfer, acceleration, or delay in acquisition, and support the hypothesis that their grammars are acquired autonomously. Some implications of these findings for the debate on continuity in the emergence of functional categories are discussed.

This study examines the generalizability of claims by Reber (1989, 1993) about the implicit learning of artificial grammars to the context of adult second language acquisition (SLA). In the field of SLA Krashen (1981, 1982, 1985, 1994) has made claims parallel to those of Reber regarding the differential effectiveness of conscious learning of rules and unconscious incidental acquisition of rules. Specifically addressed are Reber's and Krashen's claims that (a) implicit learning is more effective than explicit learning when the stimulus domain is complex, and (b) explicit learning of simple and complex stimulus domains is possible if the underlying rules are made salient. One hundred four adult learners of English as a second language were randomly assigned to implicit, incidental, rule-search, or instructed computerized training conditions. Speed and accuracy of judgments of novel tokens of easy and hard rule sentence types presented during training were used as dependent measures. Results do not support the first of Reber's and Krashen's claims but do support the second. Implicit learners do not outperform other learners on complex rules, but instructed learners outperform all others in learning simple rules. Analyses of the effect of sentence type and grammaticality on learning suggest a transfer-appropriate processing account of the relationship among consciousness, rule awareness, training, and transfer task performance.

This study focuses on the impact of different variables on the nature of language performance in the context of task-based instruction. Characteristics of tasks are discussed, and then a framework is offered that can organize the nature of task-based instruction and relevant research. The framework is used to generate predictions regarding the effects of three different tasks (Personal Information Exchange, Narrative, and Decision-Making) and three different implementation conditions for each task (unplanned, planned but without detail, detailed planning) on the variables of fluency, complexity, and accuracy. The study reports strong effects of planning on fluency and clear effects also on complexity, with a linear relationship between degree of planning and degree of complexity. However, a more complex relationship was discovered between planning and accuracy, with the most accurate performance produced by the less detailed planners. In addition, interactions were found between task type and planning conditions, such that the effects of planning were greater with the Narrative and Decision-Making tasks than with the Personal Information Exchange task. The results are discussed in terms of an attentional model of learning and performance and highlight the importance of tradeoff effects between the goals of complexity and accuracy in the context of the use of limited capacity attentional resources. The study contributes to the development of cognitive models of second language performance and addresses a number of pedagogic issues.

This paper examines the effects of a first language (L1 ) orthographic system on second language (L2) word recognition strategies. Lexical judgment tests using Japanese kana (a syllabic script consisting of hiragana and katakana) were given to native English and native Chinese learners of Japanese. The visual familiarity and length in test words were controlled to examine the involvement of phonological or visual coding in word recognition strategies. The responses of the English and Chinese subjects were compared on the basis of observed reaction time. The results indicated that (a) Chinese subjects relied more on the visual information in L2 Japanese kana words than did English subjects and (b) English subjects utilized the phonological information in Japanese kana words more than did Chinese subjects. Accordingly, these findings demonstrate that native speakers of English and Chinese utilize different word recognition strategies due to L1 orthographic characteristics, and such L1 word recognition strategies are transferred into L2 Japanese kana word recognition.

Unlike other areas of second language study, which are primarily concerned with acquisitional patterns of interlanguage knowledge over time, most studies in interlanguage pragmatics have focused on second language use rather than second language learning. The aim of this paper is to profile interlanguage pragmatics as an area of inquiry in second language acquisition research, by reviewing existing studies with a focus on learning, examining research findings in interlanguage pragmatics that shed light on some basic questions in SLA, exploring cognitive and social-psychological theories that might offer explanations of different aspects of pragmatic development, and proposing a research agenda for the study of interlanguage pragmatics with a developmental perspective that will tie it more closely to other areas of SLA.

This paper investigates the nature of input available to learners in the institutional setting of the academic advising session. The advisory session, an unequal status encounter that by nature is a private speech event and cannot be observed by other learners, provides a starting point for the investigation of real and perceived availability of input. Evidence for the realization of speech acts as well as appropriate content and form, positive evidence from peers and status unequals, the effect of stereotypes, and limitations of a learner's pragmatic and grammatical competence are factors that may influence the course of development of interlanguage pragmatics in the institutional setting.

This paper argues that the study of second language acquisition theory and pedagogy can be enhanced through the use of time-series research designs. As quasi-experiments, time-series designs have features that improve internal validity. In addition, because these designs only require a small number of subjects, they are very practical, encouraging a greater number of empirical investigations of the many claims within the field and permitting the use of authentic measures that have high construct validity. The longitudinal nature of the designs also enhances construct validity, potentially yielding new insights into the effects of instruction on SLA. The designs utilized in two time-series studies (Kennedy, E., 1988, The Oral Interaction of Native Speakers and Non-Native Speakers in a Multicultural Preschool: A Comparison between Freeplay and Contrived NS/NSS Dyads, unpublished master's thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver; Mellow, J. D., 1996, April, A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Instruction on the Development of Article Use by Adult Japanese ESL Learners, unpublished manuscript, University of British Columbia, Vancouver) are reviewed in order to illustrate the design features, the questions that may be investigated, and the issues that are raised in interpreting data.

This study of five native speakers of Korean investigates the role of universals in their acquisition of English obstruent voicing contrasts. The data were gathered from a passage and a word list containing voiced and voiceless obstruents in initial, medial, and final word positions. Results reflected principles of markedness universals of L1 acquisition and adult natural languages, suggesting that interlanguage systems behave according to universals of natural languages.

The study reported in this paper examined four groups of readers (L2-Intermediate, L2-Advanced, L1-Japanese, and L1-English) when they processed and recalled two passages that varied in degree of causal coherence (Trabasso & van den Broek, 1985). Concurrent verbal reports and recall data were collected. It was found that L1 readers used much of their attention for higher level processes such as the generation of inferences and general knowledge associations. They processed the high- and low-coherence texts differently, generating more elaborations for low-coherence texts than for high-coherence texts. Furthermore, L1 readers generated backward inferences according to the text's causal structure and recalled events with many causal connections more frequently than events with few connections. These findings confirm L1 research findings (Fletcher & Bloom, 1988; Goldman & Varnhargen, 1986; Graesser & Clark, 1985; Singer, 1995; Trabasso & van den Broek, 1985; van den Broek, 1994). On the other hand, L2 readers paid more attention to lower level processes and did not process differently between the high- and low-coherence texts. L2-Advanced readers generated both backward and forward inferences during reading, whereas L2-lntermediate readers did not. Although L2-Advanced readers' generation of backward inferences did not correspond to the text's causal structure, their second recall indicated they were sensitive to it. A closer look at the data suggests that there were some delays in lower level processes such as understanding words and sentences, as well as resolution of anaphoric relations by these readers.

An area of keen interest in applying Chomsky's UG parameter-setting model to SLA has been the Pro-Drop or Null Subject Parameter (Cyrino, 1986; Hilles, 1986; Phinney, 1987; White, 1985, 1986). However, the nature of this parameter changes dramatically from the Jaeggli (1982) and Rizzi (1982) conception with Jaeggli and Safir's (1989) proposal linking uniform morphological agreement paradigms with null subjects. Data reported here show a number of L2 learners exhibit knowledge that English is morphologically nonuniform yet still accept English null subject sentences. This is inconsistent with the predictions of the Morphological Uniformity Hypothesis and renders uncertain its applicability to SLA. The results are considered in light of a number of possible positions that can be adopted when faced with data that disconfirm a hypothesis within the UG SLA research program; it is concluded that the Morphological Uniformity Hypothesis is disconfirmed and that any reformulation of the Null Subject Parameter must take these results into consideration.

This study examines the transferability of five Japanese indirect request strategies to corresponding English request contexts. Pragmatic transferability was operationally defined as transferability rate. This rate was established through the summation of the perceived contextual appropriateness of a Japanese request and the perceived similarity in contextual appropriateness between a Japanese request and its English equivalent. The Japanese request strategies were found to be differentially transferable. The learners' transferability perception was influenced by their L2 proficiency; however, there was no definite tendency for a positive correlation nor for a negative correlation between L1 transfer and proficiency. Furthermore, the transferability of each L1 request strategy seemed to be determined by the interaction between the politeness and conventionality encoded in each strategy and the degree of mitigation required in each imposition context.

This paper provides an overview of sequencing in SLA. It contends that much of language acquisition is in fact sequence learning (for vocabulary, the phonological units of language and their phonotactic sequences: for discourse, the lexical units of language and their sequences in clauses and collocations). It argues that the resultant long-term knowledge base of language sequences serves as the database for the acquisition of language grammar. It next demonstrates that SLA of lexis, idiom, collocation, and grammar are all determined by individual differences in learners' ability to remember simple verbal strings in order. It outlines how interactions between short-term and long-term phonological memory systems allow chunking and the tuning of language systems better to represent structural information for particular languages. It proposes mechanisms for the analysis of sequence information that result in knowledge of underlying grammar. Finally, it considers the relations between this empiricist approach and that of generative grammar.

This study replicates VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) in an attempt to determine whether or not explicit information given to learners receiving processing instruction is responsible for the beneficial effects of instruction. Fifty-nine subjects were divided into three groups: (1) one receiving processing instruction in object pronouns and word order in Spanish as in VanPatten and Cadierno (1993), (2) another receiving explanation only with no activities or practice, (3) and another receiving only the structured input activities with no explanation. A pretest/post-test assessment was used involving two tests, an interpretation test and a sentence-level production test. Results showed that the beneficial effects of instruction were due to the structured input activities and not to the explicit information (explanation) provided to learners.

This study explores whether pragmatic fluency can best be acquired in the classroom by provision of input and opportunity for communicative practice alone, or whether learners profit more when additional explicit instruction in the use of conversational routines is provided. It is hypothesized that such instruction raises learners' awareness of the functions and contextual distributions of routines, enabling them to become more pragmatically fluent.

Two versions of a communication course taught to advanced German learners of English for 14 weeks are examined, one version providing explicit metapragmatic information, the other withholding it. Samples of tape-recorded conversations at various stages of the courses are used to assess how students' pragmatic fluency developed and whether and how the development of fluency benefits from metapragmatic awareness.