Language acquisition and use: learning and applying probabilistic constraints.

Probabilistic models of language processing and acquisition.

Probabilistic methods are providing new explanatory approaches to fundamental cognitive science questions of how humans structure, process and acquire language. This review examines probabilistic models defined over traditional symbolic structures. Language comprehension and production involve probabilistic inference in such models; and acquisition involves choosing the best model, given innate...

Book Review: "Learning Strategy Instruction in the Language Classroom: Issues and Implementation"

Language learning strategies, “the techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge” (Rubin, 1975, p. 43) or more pertinently “complex, dynamic thoughts and actions, selected and used by learners with some degree of consciousness in specific contexts” (Oxford, 2017, p. 48), have been widely researched and discussed for more than forty years since the mid-1970s. Shifting the fo...

Aspects of Culture in Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Learning, J. Arabski & A. Wojtaszek (2011), ISBN 9783642202001

Sentence processing in an artificial language: Learning and using combinatorial constraints.

A study combining artificial grammar and sentence comprehension methods investigated the learning and online use of probabilistic, nonadjacent combinatorial constraints. Participants learned a small artificial language describing cartoon monsters acting on objects. Self-paced reading of sentences in the artificial language revealed comprehenders' sensitivity to nonadjacent combinatorial constra...

Factors Underlying Characteristics of Acquisition of English Language in EFL Classrooms

This study tried to find out what factors underline the characteristics of acquisition of English language in EFL classrooms. To this end, the Characteristics of English Language Acquisition Scale (ELAS) consisting of 41 items was designed by the researchers of this study and administered to 388 pre University Iranian EFL students at various private and public schools in Neyshabour and Zebarkha...