The present study investigated whether and to what extent auditory word priming, which is one mechanism of spoken-word processing and learning, is involved in a second language (L2). The objectives of the study were to determine whether L2 learners use auditory word priming as monolinguals do when they are acquiring an L2, how attentional processing orientation influences the extent to which they do so, and what L2 learners actually “learn” as they use auditory word priming. Results revealed that L2 learners use auditory word priming, that the extent to which they do so depends little on attention to the form of spoken input, and that L2 learners overrely on detailed context-specific information available in spoken input as they use auditory word priming.

This study investigated the development of the mental representation of Chinese disyllabic words. Unlike alphabetical languages, Chinese is a logographic system where character is the basic unit of meaning. Most Chinese words are composed of two characters. Theoretically, Chinese compound word can be read either as a whole unit or as the component character. Subjects were asked to read aloud a list of two-character words, controlled for word and component character frequencies across grades. The correct percentage was analyzed using three two-way analyses of variance. Results indicated that children are able to make use of both levels of reading as early as Grade 1. Lower graders tended to use both the component character level reading processes more, while higher graders tended to read words as whole units more.

To succeed at a university, students need to read expository texts effectively and meaningfully to access and understand information, and internalize it for study purposes. An important component of the comprehension process is the reader's ability to integrate current information with information mentioned earlier in a text. One aspect of this integration process involves anaphoric resolution. This paper reports on findings from a study that investigated anaphoric resolution by first-year English as a second language students during the reading of expository texts. The relationship between skill in anaphoric resolution, academic performance, and language proficiency was examined. Linguistic and textual factors such as type and inference strength of anaphoric tie were also taken into account to examine differential resolution effects. The findings showed that students who were not performing well academically were not skilled at resolving anaphors. Anaphoric resolution was also affected by linguistic and textual differences. Differences in anaphoric resolution diminished as proficiency in English increased. Anaphoric resolution was also affected by the strength of the anaphoric tie; successful anaphoric resolution dropped when the anaphoric tie required greater inferential processing. This was particularly evident among the academically weaker students. The findings suggest that anaphoric resolution in expository texts plays an important role in reading to learn. The implications of these findings are briefly discussed for English as a second language students.

Speakers use different types of referring expressions depending on what the listener knows or is attending to; for example, they use pronouns for objects that are already present in the immediate discourse or perceptual context. In a first study we found that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children are strongly influenced by their interlocutor's knowledge of a referent as expressed in her immediately preceding utterance. Specifically, when they are asked a question about a target object (“Where is the broom?”), they tend to use null references or pronouns to refer to that object (“On the shelf” or “It's on the shelf”); in contrast, when they are asked more general questions (“What do we need?”) or contrast questions (“Do we need a mop?”) that reveal no knowledge of the target object they tend to use lexical nouns (“A broom” or “No, a broom”). In a second study we found that children at around their second birthday are not influenced by immediately preceding utterances in this same way. Finally, in a third study we found that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children's choice of referring expressions is very little influenced by the physical arrangements of objects in the perceptual context, whether it is absent or needs to be distinguished from a close-by alternative, when they request a target object from a silent adult. These results are discussed in terms of children's emerging understanding of the knowledge and attentional states and other persons.

French/English bilingual children (N=40) in French language schools participated in an 8-month longitudinal study of the relation between phonological processing skills and reading in French and English. Participants were administered measures of phonological awareness, working memory, naming speed, and reading in both languages. The results of the concurrent analyses show that phonological awareness skills in both French and English were uniquely predictive of reading performance in both languages after accounting for the influences of cognitive ability, reading ability, working memory, and naming speed. These findings support the hypothesis that phonological awareness is strongly related to beginning word reading skill in an alphabetic orthography. The results of the longitudinal analyses also suggest that orthographic depth influences phonological factors related to reading.

Experiments using the gating paradigm investigated the effects of auditory–visual (AV) and auditory-only perceptual training on second-language spoken-word identification by Japanese and Korean learners of English. Stimuli were familiar bisyllabic words beginning with /p/, /f/, //, /l/, and /s, t, k/ combined with high, low, and rounded vowels. Results support the priming role of visual cues in AV speech processing. Identification was earlier with visual cues and following training, especially for words beginning with // and /l/, which also showed significant effects of adjacent vowel. For the Japanese, the AV advantage in identifying //- and /l/-initial words was accentuated following training. Findings are discussed within a multimodal episodic model of learning.

This study examined the use of nonstandard forms in the language production of typically developing toddlers. Forty-four African American and White children, ages 2.5 and 3.5 years, were assigned to one of four groups based on their chronological age and linguistic background. Language sample analysis and a listener judgment task were used to evaluate nonstandard speech. Results indicated that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old toddlers from African American English backgrounds produced similar amounts of nonstandard speech. However, 2.5-year-old toddlers from standard American English backgrounds produced greater amounts of nonstandard speech than their 3.5-year-old peers.

The present investigation sought to evaluate patterns of article use in a group of monolingual Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). In particular, because of conflicting results reported in previous studies, it was of interest to discern specific types of nontarget responses and how these corresponded to what has been reported in other Spanish-speaking children with SLI. Eleven children with SLI and 11 age-matched peers participated in the study. Three different spontaneous speech samples were gathered from each child. In addition, an experimental task that assessed the children's use of articles with a variety of nouns was also administered to the children. The results of the study for both spontaneous speech and experimental data indicated that the children with SLI performed significantly poorer in their use of Spanish articles than their age-matched peers. Most of the nontarget responses consisted of omission of the target article. In contrast to a previous study by Restrepo and Gutiérrez–Clellen, the children did not present with deficits in noun phrase gender agreement. The gender errors that were observed appeared to be due to difficulties accessing the correct article form and not due to deficits in knowledge of the gender agreement paradigm. Possible theoretical explanations were explored suggesting that both processing and linguistic explanations, in particular optionality of determiners, could explain the observed patterns. Reasons for cross-study differences in error patterns are suggested, including relative phonological skill and language learning environment.

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