MAKING LINGUISTIC DECISIONS IN PROBLEM-SOLVING DOMAIN: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it posits a link between metalinguistic awareness(MLA) and students‟ performance in linguistic problems. Second, it reports on the outcomes of an experimenton some foreign language learners. The subjects of the present study (N=80) were in their fourth year ofacademic study in the Department of English, Menufia University, Egypt. Two tasks were used: (1) “SentenceCompletion” task, and (2) “Error Recognition and Correction” task. In the first task, a list of 15 incompletesentences was given to the subjects who were asked to choose the word or phrase that best complete thesentence. In the second task, students were asked to detect the word or phrase that must be changed in order forthe sentence to be correct. A list of 25 sentences with four words underlined, and marked (A), (B), (C), and (D)was given to the subjects. Finally, students were individually interviewed to explain and comment on theirperformance in the previous tasks. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Results wereobtained and conclusions were made.

Keywords: Metalinguistic awareness; Grammaticality Judgments, Linguistic Knowledge.