In this study we examined the influence of working memory on the off-line and real-time sentence comprehension/processing of children with specific language impairment (SLI). A total of 12 children with SLI, 12 normally developing children matched for chronological age (CA), and 12 children matched for receptive syntax (RS) completed three tasks. In the working memory task, children recalled as many words as possible under three processing load conditions varying in the number of mental operations (i.e., no load, single load, dual load). In the off-line comprehension task, children listened to linguistically nonredundant and redundant sentences. In the real-time sentence processing task, children monitored sentences for the occurrence of a target word appearing at the beginning, middle, or end of a test sentence and pushed a response pad as quickly as possible upon hearing the target. In the memory task, SLI children recalled fewer words in the dual-load condition relative to CA peers, who showed no condition effect. The SLI and RS groups performed similarly overall; however, both groups recalled fewer words in the dual-load condition than in the other conditions. In the off-line task, the SLI group comprehended fewer sentences of both types relative to the CA controls and fewer redundant sentences relative to themselves and to the RS controls. A significant correlation between working memory and sentence comprehension was found for the SLI group and control groups. For the on-line task, between-group analyses revealed that the SLI group yielded an overall slower word recognition reaction time than the CA and RS groups. Working memory and sentence processing were not correlated for any group. Results were interpreted to suggest that SLI children have a more limited functional working memory capacity than their CA peers. Children with SLI also appear to have greater difficulty managing their working memory resources relative to both age peers and younger children when performing a conventional off-line sentence comprehension task but not a real-time sentence processing task.

The relationship between grammatical knowledge and reading ability in third grade good and poor readers was investigated. Two aspects of grammar – binding and control – were assessed to determine whether poor readers had syntactic deficits. These principles both relate to the interpretation of pronominal elements. Interpretations were assessed through a sentence–picture matching task in which picture depictions of all the possible interpretations of pronominal elements in verbally presented sentences were included. The only sentence type that differentiated the two reading groups was performance on sentences related to one of the binding principles, Principle B. Since obedience to Principle B probably involves pragmatic as well as syntactic principles, this finding suggests another way that good readers may differ from poor readers.

Data are presented on the development of tests of reading skill for primary school pupils in rural Tanzania. Instruction in these schools is in Kiswahili, a regularly spelled language. Using a translation of a standard reading test, children can read aloud all words once they have learned the sound– letter correspondences, regardless of comprehension. In addition, children can pass traditional comprehension tasks by decoding only some of the words. Three graded tests were developed to test children who had only some letter knowledge, could read single words, or were proficient readers. The tests required children both to decode and to understand the reading material in order to achieve high scores. The tests correlated well with scores on other educational achievement tests and showed age and school grade differences. It is suggested that these tests are useful measures of reading development in a regularly spelled language. Their adaptation to English and validation against standardized instruments are planned.

Native Spanish early and late acquirers of English as well as native Vietnamese early and child acquirers of English made grammaticality judgments of sentences in their second language. Native Spanish early acquirers were not distinguishable from native English speakers, whereas native Spanish late acquirers had difficulty with all aspects of the grammar tested except word order. Native Vietnamese early acquirers had difficulty with those aspects of English that differ markedly from Vietnamese. Native Vietnamese child acquirers had more generalized problems, similar to those of native Spanish late acquirers. Thus, native language appeared to make a difference for early acquirers, whereas a later age of acquisition caused a more general problem. A processing-based model focusing on the difficulty non-native language learners have in rapidly decoding surface form is offered as a possible explanation for both effects.

This book by Carson Schütze poses an important question. Are grammaticality judgments a reliable source of data for linguistic theories? Grammaticality judgments, reliable or not, have been the main, and most often the only, source of data in linguistic theory for many years. “‘Because many of the relevant structures are fairly complex and simply might not arise in the normal course of conversation, or during observation by an experimenter' (White, 1989, p. 58), UG [Universal Grammar] researchers have generally relied on some form of grammaticality judgment (GJ) task” (Katrien & Lantolf, 1992, p. 32). Katrien and Lantolf (1992) pointed out that with this task linguists try to draw on speakers' intuitions about their competence. Grammaticality judgments consist of questions about whether a sentence is grammatical according to native speakers. Most often, the native speaker is the linguist her- or himself as the only subject. Not only can bias exist when linguists are the source of data for her or his own theories, but also relying on the intuitions of only one speaker limits the credibility of the theory. When more than one speaker is queried, it has been shown that consistency is not always guaranteed: variation among and within speakers is a common feature in judgments (Mohan, 1977; Snow & Meijer, 1977). Idiosyncrasies of the subjects, presentation of the material, and experimenter's procedure are among the factors that contribute to this variation in judgments. An underlying problem in linguistic theorizing comes from the fact that linguists are normally not “trained in methods for getting reliable data” (p. 4). All this results in theories that are not adequately supported. Nonetheless, they are used as a springboard for new theories. Schütze provides linguists with answers to the following questions. What information about language can grammaticality judgments offer? What factors affect the form of these judgments? What can be done to make the best use of these judgments?

Vygotsky's social psycholinguist approach is not incompatible with computational approaches to the study of mind. In this way William Frawley sets the stage for a Vygoskyan cognitive science. Socioculturalists' theorizing on the work of the human mind has long maintained boundaries against cognitive science's information processing approaches and language, and vice versa. Frawley argues that no such division is entirely necessary and offers powerful ways of linking the two ways of thinking. Frawley's background in both Vygotskyan and other sociocultural theories, as well as in cognitive science and computational theories, places him in an important position to make these links.

The book was, in the first instance, written for the author's own undergraduate students at Florida Atlantic University, where she is a professor of psychology. In the opening chapter she persuades the reader that the study of language development is worthwhile by showing how students from a variety of disciplines benefit from it and by explaining its practical applications. In my own experience this topic is very popular with undergraduates anyway, and so I was slightly surprised that it needed any advertising. However, her message extends beyond trying to instill enthusiasm in her students as it also emphasizes the need for a multidisciplinary approach to the topic.

Of the cognitive neuroscience handbooks recently published, this, to my knowledge, is the only one that is entirely devoted to the neurology of language. In the editors' words, it is “intended as a state-of-the-art reference and resource book describing current research and theory in the many subfields of neurolinguistics and their clinical applications.” It is intended for “the newcomer to the field, as well as the expert.”

What could possibly be innate? John Morton asked this question in a symposium on psycholinguistics in 1969 (Morton, 1970), and, as this book makes clear, he was certainly not the last to ask it. The Inheritance and Innateness of Grammars is one of the most recent manifestations of our fascination with the question of just what it is that makes it possible for humans – and only humans – to learn language as we know it. The book is the product of a conference that was held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in 1993. Nine chapters present work by authors whose expertise includes such topics as speech perception, neurobiology, sign language, language impairment, and, of course, developmental psycholinguistics. Although the word “inheritance” in the title can be understood to refer to genetics, it would have been helpful if the authors had provided their definitions of the term “innateness.” In its primary sense, innate means inborn or present at birth, but clearly no one is arguing that language itself is present at birth, although most would agree that some capacities that may underlie language can be demonstrated in very young infants. Eric Lenneberg provided one definition of innateness in his book, Biological Foundations of Language (1967), which may be what some authors have in mind since his work is frequently referenced: Animals may be thought of as functioning like machines. Their inner structure is not the result of accidental circumstances. The machine unfolds during development, and the internal structure is programmed onto the ontogenetic process. Let us call the internal structure innate mechanisms and the modes of operation that are determined by these mechanisms innate behavior. (p. 220)

In the early 1990s, Lynn Cherny spent much of her time in the MUD – not mired in wet earth, but actively exploring “Multi-User Dungeons.” These “fictional universes with a focus on role-playing,” as they are defined in the Introduction, enable groups of Internet-connected individuals to assemble in cyberspace, communicating by way of sequentially typed text. Later, as a doctoral student in linguistics at Stanford, Cherny decided to study ethnographically – that is, from the perspective of one methodically and dispassionately observing a different race – the expressive practices of those habitually using this strange new modality.

I believe that I do not worry unduly about the animal in me, nor fear that what little humanity I possess will be lost if I try to understand other animals better. (Stokoe, 1983)

Given the small number of introductory psycholinguistics books currently available, it is not only refreshing to find a new one but also delightful to find one as accessible to general audiences as Altmann's The Ascent of Babel. Altmann, a professor at the University of York and an established psycholinguistics researcher, aimed to write a book that anyone could understand and enjoy. Indeed, he has succeeded. The result is not just another run-of-the-mill textbook. The prose reads like the transcription from a semester of lectures or from a very long conversation carried out between mentor and student. The prose reads as smoothly as it does, in part, because there are no references cited within the text. They have been included at the end of the book in a chapter-by-chapter format. In addition, very few researchers are mentioned by name, which serves to speed readers along, allowing them to focus on findings rather than individuals. The names that are mentioned are of those at the top of the field who should become known to every student of psycholinguistics.

As we journey into the new millennium, few among us would bother to argue against the importance of English as a world language, especially considering its role in technology, industry, and politics. Many people of the world are introduced to English as a modern version of a contact language, since the need to know it occurs simultaneously with the need for specific knowledge (to negotiate borders and so on). Of course, there is much to the story of language contact. As Mary Louise Pratt (1992) observed, contact situations are often catastrophic events involving power relations that include conquerors and the conquered, intermediaries, onlookers, and more. The position of English as a national language in many countries and its worldwide influence have occurred within the context of civil wars, political negotiation, constant transmigration, globalization, and the formulation and reconstruction of nationalist ideologies and identities. Though the nature of today's contact may seem benign, its result may still be catastrophic and have far-reaching consequences, as the ideology and practices that accompany English may not complement all societies and situations. Today, the United States often represents the global influence of English, and as America becomes the symbol of border and civil war negotiation and policing, technology, art, conflict and power, so too does English. Predictably, the people and polities throughout the world wrestle with America's ideological influence by participating in the invigoration and transformation of English to suit their needs.

Steven Pinker has written a very lengthy new book that, as the dust cover informs the reader, attempts to do for the rest of the mind what he did for language in his 1994 bestseller, The Language Instinct. What The Language Instinct did was to expand on Pinker and Bloom's (1990) thesis that language is an evolved system, an intricately designed set of mechanisms that must have been shaped by natural selection. What The Language Instinct did not do was provide a specific thesis about how language actually evolved. That Pinker did not provide a theory of actual language origins in his 1994 book is not a weakness. Indeed, Pinker's work has provided a useful rubric for subsequent linguistic theorizing (cf. Hurford, Studdert-Kennedy, & Knight, 1998). It is this directional strategy that also appears to be at the heart of “how the mind works.” Critically, Pinker wants the reader to think about three main ideas (see the interview with Pinker in The Evolutionist): (1) computation; (2) evolution; and (3) specialization.

Guadalupe Valdes and Richard Figueroa carefully and clearly craft an argument for why bilingualism and testing constitute a special case of bias that continues to have serious consequences for today's school-age minority population in the United States. This argument could not be more timely, given the drive in the United States for standards and a rising wave of state-mandated standardized testing programs for all students, including bilinguals. Perhaps a summary of this book should be on the desk of every educational leader and policymaker charged with the mandate of administering standardized tests to bilingual students and comparing their scores with those of monolingual groups for the purpose of special education and vocational placements.