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This study replicates VanPatten's research (1990) in order to determine whether learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) can simultaneously attend to meaning and form when processing input. My research furthers VanPatten's work through an investigation of more advanced students of Spanish L2. / The participants for this study were 60 advanced Spanish L2 students at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. To investigate whether advanced L2 learners can focus on form while listening for meaning, participants were randomly assigned to complete one of four listening tasks: Task I (control task): listening to the passage for content only, Task II: listening to the passage for content and simultaneously noting the key lexical item, inflacion, Task III: listening to the passage for content and simultaneously noting the article la, and Task IV: listening for content and simultaneously noting the verb morpheme -n. Comprehension of the passage was assessed by a written recall protocol. / Results revealed that comprehension scores were higher among learners listening only for meaning than those of learners attending to meaning and one of the formal features. The findings of the present study are in agreement with VanPatten (1990). Learners' attention to form while listening for meaning appears to affect comprehension.

Several current studies in language acquisition have focussed on the emergence of functional categories in first and second languages. The properties of functional categories can be exhibited through movement, inflections, case marking and the use of functional elements such as determiners and complementizers. / This pilot study investigated the English second language of two groups of Inuktitut speaking schoolchildren at the beginning of the school year to see whether the properties of functional categories in English emerged in the same way as they do for first language speakers. While some of the Kindergarten children showed no access to these properties, others showed partial or complete access to them. Those children who had been in school one year demonstrated access to all of the properties under investigation. The results are discussed with respect to future research methodologies and studies of acquisition.

This thesis studies the L2 acquisition of transitivity alternations in English, Spanish and Turkish within the Generative framework. in particular, it sets out to investigate the interaction of universal principles and L1 knowledge in interlanguage grammars, as well as whether similar patterns of development are observed across typologically different languages. The focus is on verbs that participate in the causative/inchoative alternation, verbs whose lexico-semantic composition---[x CAUSE [ y BECOME predicate]]---is not matched by morphological derivation uniformly across, and even within, languages. / The thesis adopts a templatic account to verb classes. Verbs are decomposed into primitive semantic predicates (CAUSE, BECOME, BE) which map onto an X-bar configuration as the heads of light verbs. Thematic roles like Agent and Theme occupy the specifiers. Different verb classes---alternating, transitive non-alternating, unaccusative and unergative verbs---derive from the interaction of semantic subpredicates and thematic roles. Transitivity alternations are determined by other narrower aspects of meaning: namely, the nature of the Agent role and the CAUSE subevent. Causative and anticausative morphology is the overt manifestation of the CAUSE and BECOME subpredicates. / Causative errors in L1 acquisition have been attributed to the overgeneralization of the causative/inchoative alternation to unergative and unaccusative verbs. This study proposes that these errors result when children incorrectly map non-alternating transitive and intransitive verbs onto a default transitive template. By extending this proposal to the L2 acquisition situation, it is hypothesized that L2 learners of Turkish, Spanish and English of different language backgrounds and at lower proficiency levels also rely on this universal mechanism when learning transitivity alternations; L1 influence only plays a role with the overt/non-overt morphology of alternating verbs in these languages. / Three independent but methodologically identical experimental studies on English, Spanish and Turkish as second languages are presented. Overall, results of a Picture Judgment Task confirm the hypotheses in the three studies. This work argues against the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz & Sprouse 1996) as a theory of L2 competence and advances a modular view of Transfer which proposes that L1 influence does not affect all linguistic domains in the same way.

The studies included in this thesis had as aim to elucidate how individual differences in phonetic learning abilities might be related to differences in more general, psychoacoustic learning abilities, and in how they might be related to differences in brain function and brain morphology. / We tested and trained English speaking volunteers to perceive the Hindi dental-retroflex phonetic contrast. We found evidence suggesting that the ability to accurately perceive "difficult" non-native contrasts is not permanently lost during development. We also tested and trained subjects to perceive the difference between non-linguistic rapidly changing and steady-state tonal sounds, and found evidence supporting the hypothesis that successful phonetic learning is in part a function of a more general psychoacoustic ability to process rapidly changing sounds. / The aim of the second study was to determine how the pattern of brain activity may change as a result of training with non-native speech sounds, and in whether it is possible to differentiate "learners" from "non-learners" on the basis of neural activation patterns. Results of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigation suggested that successful learning of a non-native contrast results in the recruitment of the same areas that are involved in the processing of native contrasts; but the degree of success in learning is accompanied by more efficient neural processing in classical frontal speech regions, while making greater processing demands in left parieto-temporal speech regions. / In the final study, we correlated phonetic learning measures with brain morphology throughout the whole brain volume. We found evidence for overall larger parietal volumes in the left relative to the right hemisphere, and for more white relative to gray matter in the left hemisphere in the learners and not in the nonlearners. This finding is consistent with findings by other investigators suggesting that left-hemispheric dominance for speech may be in part accounted for by hemispheric differences in white matter connectivity, which may allow faster intra- and inter-hemispheric neural transmission. This latter feature may be critical for the processing of consonant speech sounds, which depends on the ability to process sounds that change on the time scale of 30--50 milliseconds.

This research project explored how modern media and the theme of Bedroom Culture could be used to enhance second language learning of preadolescent girls. Most of the girls who participated in this project are first language English speakers. Therefore it is a challenge for them to learn isiZulu. Thus, to kindle an interest an obvious entry point to working with these pre-adolescent girls in a participatory way in terms of language learning, was to capitalize on their interest and expertise. The theme ‘My Bedroom’ was used because girls spend much of their out-of-school time in their bedroom and this is considered a critical interest space for them. This approach focused on using photographs taken by the girls themselves, on digital cameras, of various aspects and spaces in their bedroom. Thereafter a Power Point presentation was created by each girl, using these photographs. The presentations were then carried out by the girls in front of the class and the teacher. Making use of modern technologies and media, and what is familiar to them allowed the girls to work with different modes from the purely written/verbal linguistic mode which has dominated language learning and teaching for some time. These modes of meaning included the visual, audio and gestural. Incorporated into the research were the Multimodal approach together with the idea of Multiliteracies. These Multiliteracies include the understanding and control of meaning-making forms, which are becoming increasingly important in the communications environment, and which lead to a new direction in language learning during the second language lessons. The approach of this work builds on the popular Communicative/Task-Based Approach in language learning. This research showed that allowing the girls to use photographs of their bedrooms, empowered them to take ownership of their project, enabling them to confidently carry out the presentation using modern technology with which they are familiar as well as, using a subject with which they are familiar. At the same time they were able to extend their own knowledge to learn isiZulu. It also revealed much about their Bedroom Culture, Girlhood Studies, Children as Cultural Producers and Children and Visual Studies. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

Through the implementation of a closed and open-item questionnaire, parents’ (N=40) perceptions of and attitudes toward native and non-native French-speaking teachers (NFSTs and Non-NFSTs) of French as a Second Language in the Greater Toronto Area were investigated. Participants defined the native French speaker predominantly as someone who learned French as a first language and who learned French in informal environments – namely home and community. Descriptive statistics of 24 Likert-scale items revealed preference for NFSTs to teach oral-aural aspects, the written system of French and form better student relationships. Non-NFSTs were preferred to teach reading, vocabulary, learning strategies and make connections between English and French more salient. Parents stated a variety of strengths and areas needing improvement for both NFSTs and Non-NFSTs, which suggested complimentary and complementary views of these teachers.