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Adventures in Japanese Level 1 is the first student textbook in this series for students of Japanese as a foreign language. It introduces basic Japanese through a series of everyday situations with which students are familiar, such as introductions, taking class attendance, and inviting a friend over. Hiragana and katakana are introduced gradually, and 17 basic kanji are also taught. Widely adopted at junior and senior high schools across the U.S. because of its effectiveness, Adventures in Japanese is a user-friendly but comprehensive course that incorporates textbooks, student workbooks, kana workbooks and flashcards, teacher’s handbooks and audio CDs for a complete and enjoyable introduction to the Japanese language. The title of the series implies fun, and the books’ lively illustrations and vivid explanations make language learning enjoyable for students. Speaking, listening, reading and writing are equally stressed throughout, and Cultural Notes make important points about Japanese culture and language use. A Fun Corner--with various culturally related activities from making onigiri (riceballs) to learning Japanese songs--increases the sense of exploration and adventure, and a Japanese Culture Corner feature provides cultural topics for students to explore in depth and compare with their own culture.

This authoritative textbook is an overview and analysis of current second language acquisition research, conducted within the generative linguistic framework. It argues for a role for Universal Grammar in second language acquisition. Theories as to the role of Universal Grammar and the extent of language transfer are presented along with relevant empirical research. Properties of early developmental stage grammars are examined, as well as the nature of the final outcome of the acquisition process.

Word grammar is a theory of language structure and is based on the assumption that language, and indeed the whole of knowledge, is a network, and that virtually all of knowledge is learned. It combines the psychological insights of cognitive linguistics with the rigour of more formal theories. This textbook spans a broad range of topics from prototypes, activation and default inheritance to the details of syntactic, morphological and semantic structure. It introduces elementary ideas from cognitive science and uses them to explain the structure of language including a survey of English grammar.

When using language, many aspects of our messages are left implicit in what we say. While grammar is responsible for what we express explicitly, pragmatics explains how we infer additional meanings. The problem is that it is not always a trivial matter to decide which of the meanings conveyed is explicit (grammatical) and which implicit (pragmatic). Pragmatics and Grammar lays out a methodology for students and scholars to distinguish between the two. It explains how and why grammar and pragmatics combine together in natural discourse, and how pragmatic uses become grammatical in time.

The first advanced Korean reading text for non-native speakers, Selected Readings in Korean consists of eighteen lessons on diverse, stimulating topics such as Korean traditions, culture, and society. It is designed for use by students who have completed the fourth-year-level in Korean (approximately five hundred class hours) or the equivalent. Each lesson consists of six sections: pre-reading group activities, which not only serve as a schema for efficient comprehension of the reading text to follow, but also help students broaden their relevant knowledge; an authentic main reading text on an informative and interesting topic; explanations in Korean and English of words that may be unfamiliar to students, including words indicating abstract or culture-specific concepts; explanations of idiomatic expressions; extensive exercises intended to help students master the contents of the text, new vocabulary, and grammar while improving their composition and oral presentation skills; and post-reading activities designed to further thinking and group discussion on subjects related to the main topic of the lesson. Appended are translations of the main reading texts of all eighteen lessons and a Korean-English glossary. Overall, special effort has been made to render the volume learner-centered and learner-friendly.