Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 103p.; also includes graphics. Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Mark A. Pitt, Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-103).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--York University, 2000. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-161). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ59172

As a result of migratory movements in recent decades, an increasing number of children are educated in a language which is not their mother tongue. For these children, learning to read takes place in their second language. This learning context is made unique by two challenges. First, the learning of the written code occurs simultaneously with the learning of the oral language. Second, no reference to the written code of the maternal language is made available to these children. / This particular learning context can lead to inequity between the second language learner and his or her unilingual peers in terms of phonetic encoding and decoding. Furthermore, the limited vocabulary of a beginning language learner can impede the direct lexical access used when learning to read. / Fourteen students were evaluated for their metalinguistical abilities, lexical and phonic knowledge. Following these tests, an analysis was conducted of student reading errors made in a real reading context. / This descriptive study explores the interaction between reading strategies used by second language learners: bottom-up (word comprehension derived from the context of the text) and top-down (text comprehension derived from word recognition). In addition, this study seeks to describe the linguistic and metalinguistic abilities of these second language students in the process of learning to read.

Within the framework of generative grammar, it is assumed that children are endowed with an innate language faculty called Universal Grammar (UG). Children learn their native language on the basis of the interaction of positive evidence in the input with the principles and parameters of UG. In terms of parameter setting, positive evidence consistent with just one value of a parameter causes the preemption of any incorrect settings hypothesized by the child, in accordance with the Uniqueness Principle (Pinker 1984, Wexler and Culicover 1980) which ensures that only one parameter setting can be held at a time in the child's grammar (Berwick 1985). / This thesis investigates the operation of preemption in parameter setting in second language (L2) acquisition in cases where the learner initially adopts the L1 value of a parameter. Focussing on a parametric difference between French and English, namely, the verb movement parameter (Pollock 1989) which relates to (among other things) the placement of adverbs, 58 grade 5 francophone students learning English as a second language in intensive programmes in Quebec schools were exposed over a two week period to a flood of positive evidence on adverb placement in English--input which was consistent with only the English value of the parameter. The results indicate that the subjects did not reset the verb movement parameter to the English value, suggesting that preemption does not function in L2 as in L1 acquisition. Possible explanations for these results and their implications for theories of L2 learnability are developed.

This study primarily examined the use of second language production as a measure of second language text comprehension in 18 first-year nursing students enrolled in French for Nursing courses (nine low-intermediates, nine high-intermediates). / Although few differences were found between the two levels of proficiency with respect to recall and inference, the high-intermediates were more proficient in reading highly variable material and difficult vocabulary in their second language than the low-intermediates as measured by sentence reading times. The within-subjects results indicate a greater amount of propositional recall of the second language text when it was interpreted in the first language than when it was interpreted in the second language.

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In this study, form-to-meaning mapping of the bilingual mental lexicon is investigated. Sixty native speakers of Arabic, divided into intermediate and advanced ESL groups, served as the participants of the study. They performed a semantic relatedness rating task of sixty high frequency semantically related English word pairs on a 6point scale. While thirty word pairs had the same translation (ST) word in Arabic, the other thirty had a different translation (DT) word. Fifteen of the word pairs in each of the two word pair categories were abstract, while the other fifteen were concrete nouns. The vast majority of these word pairs were synonyms. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the word pair ratings between the intermediate and advanced ESL groups. The intermediate group rated all word pairs higher than the advanced learners. Both groups, however, rated the ST word pairs higher than the DT word pairs. Nonetheless, the rating mean difference score between the ST and DT was significantly lower in the advanced group than it was in the intermediate group. In addition, both ESL groups rated the abstract word pairs higher than their concrete counterparts. Overall, the results support the claim that beginning ESL learners map their bilingual lexicon to Ll translation, and as they become advanced move toward mapping form-to-meaning directly. This is particularly evident in the higher rating of ST and the lower rating of DT as well as in the higher rating mean difference score between ST and DT in the intermediate group. / Department of English

Note: / Intensive English programs can be highly motivating for high-ability grade 6 students in Quebec.Following the progression of learning included in the Ministry of Education’s currentcurriculum, four in-class projects were created, focusing on cultural aspects and challenging,authentic tasks to increase students’ motivation and academic achievement. These inquiry-basedprojects emphasize students’ use of communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skillsand promote effective English Second Language learning among grade 6 students in IntensiveEnglish classes of Quebec.