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Individual differences and retrieval interference in L2 Processing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2016

SILVINA MONTRUL  and
DARREN S. TANNER
SILVINA MONTRUL*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics and Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
DARREN S. TANNER
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
*
Address for correspondence: Silvina Montrul, Department of Linguistics and Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 4080 Foreign Languages Building, MC-176 707 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, USA[email protected]
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Extract

Cunnings’ keynote article outlines a novel approach to native/non-native differences in on-line language comprehension by proposing that L2 speakers are more susceptible to cue-based retrieval interference than natives. Cue-based, parallel access approaches to processing have been prominent in monolingual studies for around 15 years now, but have barely been applied to L2/bilingual processing. We are particularly excited about the possibilities that this approach offers for understanding L1, L2 and bilingual processing, as well as individual differences. In this commentary, we focus on two issues: 1) whether the existing evidence for cue-based retrial mechanisms in L2 processing support a deficit model, as Cunnings seems to claim, and 2) how individual differences may explain both similarities and differences in L1 and L2 processing.

Type
Peer Commentaries
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , August 2017 , pp. 704 - 705
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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