Differences in comprehension processes (was Elicited imitation (Was: Article)

[Ronald Sheen]

In response to Greg's "flushed down the toilet" remark (expressed somewhat
more felicitously by Gillian Brown's "rapidly sloughing off" metaphor),

Charles aptly raises the relevance of individual differences in saying:

>I think this needs to be softened even more. Greg's "formal details can be
>and are remember" should possibly be changed to something like "some formal
>details are remembered by some people".

which raises the spectre of further complications implied in the
possibility discussed by O'Malley, Chamot and Kupper (1989) of "effective"
and "ineffective" second language listeners having different processing
strategies.

And as this inadvertent thread may prove to have legs, would Greg clarify
(which he probably has already done elsewhere) if he is basing whatever he
says on the same assumption as that of, say, Sharwood Smith and Faerch &
Kasper which contend that the processes involved in comprehension in the L1
and L2 are fundamentally different.

And just to bring Ania into this, what connection, if any, does she see
between her "facts of language" generating comprehension and the models
proposed by various applied linguists to account for success and failure in
L2 comprehension?

Ron Sheen U of Quebec in Trois Rivieres, Canada.