LINGUIST List 14.305

Wed Jan 29 2003

Qs: 2nd Lang. Acquisition, Translation Software

Editor for this issue: Naomi Fox <foxlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Liang Chen, causal relations and tense/aspect in L2 reading comprehension
2. Kurt S. Godden, Arabic-English Translation Software

Dear linguists,

I am conducting some research on the role of tense/aspect acquisition
on L2 reading comprehension. The basic idea is something as the
following.

Causal relations have shown to be crucial in text comprehension, and
they are first and foremost temporal relations. For example, if one
event came after another, it cannot have been the cause of the other
event. Also, if there is a causal connection between the two events,
they must be temporally related; the cause must have come before the
effect. Typically, temporal relations are made explicit by
tense/aspect markers as well as temporal adverbial phrases. It may
then be hypothesized that if L2 language learners have difficulty with
the acquisition of tense/aspect markers, they will also have
difficulty in sorting out the temporal relations (and indirectly
causal relations) in L2 reading comprehension tasks. As a result, they
will also suffer from relatively poor reading performance, if
everything else is assumed to be held equal.

I would be interested in any comments on this topic. References on
related researches are especially welcome. If there is enough
interest, I will certainly post a summary.

Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Liang Chen

Liang Chen
Department of Communicative Disorders
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
P. O. Box 40478
Lafayette, LA 70504-0478

Does anyone have experience with any Arabic-English MT software? I'm
looking for an industrial-strength package, not a travelers phrase
book. Thanks in advance.

-Kurt Godden
 kgoddenatl.lmco.com