lateralization n
see cerebral dominance
lateral plosion n
another term for lateral release
lateral release n
the release of a plosive by lowering the sides of the tongue, as at the end of
the word saddle.
latin alphabet n
another term for Roman alphabet
lax vowel n
see tense/lax
L-colouring n
a type of assimilationthat occurs when a front vowel preceding the con-
sonant /l/ is pulled further back in the mouth and has a more centralized
quality than the counterpart front vowel not preceding / l/. For example, the
vowel of feel glides to a noticeably more centralized position than the vowel
of fee.
LCTLn
an abbreviation for less commonly-taught language
lead-in activity n
an activity or activities that prepares learners to work on a topic, text or
task. It often includes an introduction to the topic of the text or task, and
activities that activate background knowledge or pre-teach key words or
other language that might be needed to complete the task.
learnability n
a criterion for linguistic theory. An adequate theory must explain how
children are able to learn the grammar of their native language and must
therefore provide for grammars of languages that are easily learnable.
learnability hypothesisn
the idea, attributed to Manfred Pienemann, that a second or foreign language
learner’s acquisition of linguistic structures depends on how complex these
learnability hypothesis