''Markedness and Interlanguage Phonology" . Dr.  Mehmet Yavaş, Linguistics / FIU. September 22, 2005.

A structure X is more marked than another structure Y if cross-linguistically the presence of X implies the presence of Y, but not vice versa. Accordingly, more marked structures are predicted to present more difficulties to learners in L2 acquisition. This presentation  discussed some phonetic features that can further refine the relative markedness of certain structures, and their possible implications for L2 teaching. 

"(S)expletives; Female Speech, Male Speech and Use of Expletives." Filiz KUNUROGLU, Linguistics, FIU. October 17, 2005.

Women's speech and how it differs from the men's speech has been the concern of the many linguists over the past decades. In this talk, an experimental study which re examines both the similarities and the differences between female and male speech in terms of expletives was presented. The results were discussed as to whether sex and gender can be taken as the basis of these differences.

"The Cross-Linguistic Behavior of Spontaneous Speech." Dr. Ellen Thompson, Linguistics, FIU. November  21, 2005.

This talk investigates morphosyntactic spontaneous speech errors from a cross-linguistic perspective. I argue that differences in the structural representation of inflectional morphology predict the distribution of spontaneous speech errors that we observe in English, Spanish, and German Sign Language. English shows contrasting behavior of main versus auxiliary verbs with respect to separation errors, whereas Spanish allows separation errors with both main and auxiliary verbs, and German Sign Language does not exhibit separation errors with either main or auxiliary verbs. The different patterning of errors may be explained if we assume that main verbs in English are derivationally constructed out of syntactically separate stem and affix, while (inflected) auxiliary verbs form a single lexical unit (Lasnik 1995, Chomsky 1957). Spanish, on the other hand, exhibits a unitary system, with both main and auxiliaries being syntactically derived, a claim which is supported by the predicate cleft construction of this language. German Sign Language has a unitary system with main and auxiliary verbs being formed in the lexicon, which is supported by the general behavior of speech errors in this language.