Construction IDENTIFIERS Americans (United States); Japanese People; Requests

Five papers in diverse areas of linguistics in education are presented. "Second Language Learning through Interaction: Multiple Perspectives " (Teresa Pica) looks at the variety of theoretical approaches to interaction in second-language learning, and how an interactionist perspective lends weight to a number of theories. "Acquaintance or Fiancee: Pragmatic Differences in Requests between Japanese and Americans " (Mitsuo Kubota) contrasts culture-based speech styles and strategies for making requests. In "Investigating the Structure of Discourse Completion Tests " (Manka Varghese, Kristine Billmyer), the effect of systematic modification to discourse completion tests ' situational prompts on learners' response is investigated. "Dictogloss: Is It an Effective Language Learning Task? " (Toshiyo Nabei) examines learners ' interaction in one stage of dictogloss testing and how it may affect second languag