Communication with users: insights from second language acquisition

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of how an English language user interface will be understood by users from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and provides some answers from the study of second language acquisition and the practice of language teaching and learning. The paper categorises language-related problems, gives examples in each category, and provides a set of guidelines for interface developers. The conclusion reached is that making word collocations and co-occurrences visible and available is the key to building in sufficient verbal context for understanding