This study investigates the manner in which syntax, prosody, and context interact when second- and fourth-semester college-level English-French learners process relative clause (RC) attachment to either the first noun phrase (NP1) or the second noun phrase (NP2) in complex nominal expressions such as le secrétaire du psychologue qui se promène (au centre ville) “the secretary of the psychologist who takes a walk (downtown).” Learners' interpretations were affected by the length of the RC, specifically its phonological weight. Effects of intonation contour were found only in a subset of learners. In a response time (RT) experiment that manipulated contexts, fourth-semester learners showed a final bias for NP1 attachment in interpretation but an initial RT bias for NP2 attachment. Second-semester learners also produced a NP2 attachment bias in RTs, but no asymmetry in interpretation was found. We argue that the processing of RC attachment by English-French learners requires a task-specific algorithm that implicates autonomous syntactic and prosodic computations and specific interactions among them.

This article investigates the information structure of verb-second (V2) declaratives in Swedish, German, and nonnative German. Even though almost any type of element can occur in the so-called prefield, the clause-initial preverbal position of V2 declaratives, we have found language-specific patterns in native-speaker corpora: The frequencies of prefield constituent types differ substantially between German and Swedish, and Swedish postpones new (rhematic) information and instead fills the prefield with given (thematic) elements and elements of no or low informational value (e.g., expletives) to a far greater extent than German. We compare Swedish learners of German to native controls matched for age and genre (Bohnacker, 2005, 2006; Rosén, 2006). These learners master the syntactic properties of V2 but start their sentences in nonnative ways. They overapply the Swedish principle of rheme later in their second language German, indicating first language (L1) transfer at the interface of syntax and information structure, especially for structures that are frequent in the L1.

Although fluency is an important subconstruct of language proficiency, it has not received as much attention in L2 writing research as complexity and accuracy have, in part due to the lack of methodological approaches for the analysis of large datasets of writing-process data. This article presents a method of time-aligned keystroke logging and eye-tracking and reports an empirical study investigating L2 writing fluency through this method. Twenty-four undergraduate students at a private university in Turkey performed two writing tasks delivered through a web text editor with embedded keystroke logging and eye-tracking capabilities. Linear mixed-effects models were fit to predict indices of pausing and reading behaviors based on language status (L1 vs. L2) and linguistic context factors. Findings revealed differences between pausing and eye-fixation behavior in L1 and L2 writing processes. The article concludes by discussing the affordances of the proposed method from the theoretical and practical standpoints.

Subject-matter lessons taught to English as a second language learners in several school levels were transcribed and analyzed. Characteristics of the teachers' speech when elaborating vocabulary were isolated and described, with a view to determining which characteristics would be helpful and which harmful to the students' comprehension and acquisition of vocabulary. It is seen that a major problem for the student may lie in the teacher's overelab-oration of vocabulary meanings through increased redundancy; the non-native listener may find it difficult to decode the exact message, because he cannot discern whether the same information has been provided redundantly or whether new information has been supplied.

This paper is intended as a programmatic contribution to the work of a number of scholars in second language acquisition (SLA) who are attempting to explain various facts about SLA in terms of an interaction between native-language transfer and language universals (Gass & Selinker, 1983). In the present paper, some of the theoretical assumptions and consequences of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) (Eckman, 1977) are discussed in comparison with the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Crucial differences between the two hypotheses are presented, and empirical evidence in favor of the MDH is reviewed. Pedagogical implications of the MDH are then taken up, and a strategy for interlanguage-intervention is discussed in light of an empirical study. Finally, several problems for the MDH which have been proposed in the literature are considered.

The effects of age of acquisition and native language prosody on the acquisition of English stress patterns were investigated with early and late Korean-English bilinguals (n = 20). Distributional patterns of stress placement based on syllabic structure, distributional patterns of stress placement based on lexical class, and stress patterns of phonologically similar words were investigated for their effect on the placement of stress in English nonwords. Both bilingual groups—like the native English controls—showed extension of stress patterns from phonologically similar real words. The effect of syllabic structure for early bilinguals was slightly different from that of native speakers, and late bilinguals showed more reduced effects. Unlike previous work with Spanish-English bilinguals, Korean-English bilinguals demonstrated a nonnativelike effect of lexical class, most pronounced in the late bilinguals. This difference might be due to Koreans' low sensitivity to word-level statistical distributions because of early exposure to a phrase-level prosodic system.This research was supported by a grant (DC05132) from the National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders). Thanks are extended to J. J. Clark for her help in administering the experiments and to Kyoung-Ho Kang for help locating participants. I would also like to thank the four anonymous SSLA reviewers, Jonathan Loftin, and Lisa Redford for valuable comments on an earlier version of this article.

This study assessed global foreign accent in sentences and the production of two English consonants, /[upside-down r]/ and /l/, by 11 Japanese college students during their freshman and senior years (T1, T2). In Experiment 1, native English-speaking listeners rated five sentences spoken by the Japanese speakers and five native English control speakers. Experiments 2 and 3 examined 25 word onsets containing /[upside-down r]/ and /l/. Auditory evaluations by native English-speaking listeners were used to determine: (a) to what extent the consonants produced could be identified as intended at T1 and T2; and (b) whether /[upside-down r]/ and /l/ were produced more accurately at T2 than at T1. The results provided little support for a markedness hypothesis based on statistical frequencies and mixed support for a hypothesis based on perception studies. Some speakers made significant improvement, however, in both global foreign accent and liquid identifiability and accuracy.

Previous studies have shown that it is particularly difficult for second language (L2) learners to overcome the effects of transfer when they need to unlearn specific aspects of the native language in the absence of explicit input that indicates which properties of the first language (L1) are ruled out by the L2 grammar (Inagaki, 2001; Westergaard, 2003; White, 1991a, 1991b). The present study focuses on the effects of transfer in the domain of aspectual semantics through an investigation of the interpretation of the present progressive in L2 English and the imperfective marker te-iru in L2 Japanese and examines whether L2 learners can rule out interpretations available in the L1 but not in the L2. Japanese learners of English (n = 101), English native-speaker controls (n = 23), English learners of Japanese (n = 31), and Japanese native-speaker controls (n = 33) completed an interpretation task in English or Japanese. The results show that the L2 Japanese learners were more successful than the L2 English learners in both acquiring the semantics of the imperfective in the L2 and ruling out interpretations available only in the L1. It is proposed that successful unlearning depends on both the grammatical complexity of the semantic target in the L2 and the transparency of the input cues available to the learner.

The present study examines the processing of Spanish future tense morphology incidentally while reading in a second language. Previous L1 and L2 reading research has demonstrated that readers can acquire new vocabulary as a result of reading, but can they also acquire formal properties of the second language grammatical system? The participants in the present study had no previous knowledge of future tense morphology such that, as they read the passage used in the study, they encountered the target form for the first time, which is an accented á on the end of an infinitive—for example, dependerá “he, she, or it will depend.” Several variables were manipulated: (a) the frequency with which the target form appeared in the input passages (6, 10, or 16 exposures); (b) the learner-readers' orientation to the task (neutral, meaning oriented, or form oriented); and (c) cues to meaning (the presence or absence of future-oriented adverbials). The effects of these variables were measured on both comprehension and input processing immediately after reading, 2 weeks later, and 1 month later. Comprehension was measured with a free-written recall and a multiple-choice comprehension test. Input processing was measured with a multiple-choice form recognition test and a modified cloze-form production test. The results indicate that all three variables have some effect on comprehension and input processing.

This study investigates some instances of linguistic development in the acquisition of a second language that might be subsumed under the issue of grammaticalization. First, the notion of grammaticalization is discussed with reference to the current linguistic debate and its applicability to the domain of language acquisition is evaluated. Then, some cases are examined drawing on data on the acquisition of Italian collected during several years at the University of Pavia. With respect to temporality and modality, learners are shown to move from lexical means or context-dependent strategies to a gradual acquisition of the morphological devices required by the target language. The results of the analyses are discussed in terms of their implications for both general linguistic theory and language acquisition research.

This paper examines the expression of temporality in the basilang speech (the earliest stage of second language development) of five subjects. Temporality is studied from three perspectives: morphology, semantics, and pragmatics. The first analysis determined the subjects' degree of target-like use of English morphology and demonstrated that these basilang speakers generally lack verb phrase morphology and do not have a tense system. The second analysis examined the subjects' utterances in terms of sentence-level semantics, classifying utterances according to (universal) categories such as completive versus non-completive action, habitual versus continuous action, and action versus states. The analysis showed that none of the subjects studied made tense or aspectual distinctions and that temporal marking was not accomplished by the form of the verb. The third analysis examined how temporal reference was made by the adverbials (now, tomorrow, always, prepositional phrases), serialization (the fixing of a temporal reference point and allowing the sequence of utterances to reflect the actual temporal order of reported events), calendric reference (dates, days of the week, months, and numbers), and implicit reference (temporal reference inferred from a particular context or situation). This taxonomy captured the expression of time at the basilang level of interlanguage development much better than the previous two analyses.

Despite the frequency with which verbal reports are used in SLA to gather data on learners' cognitive processes (e.g., Bowles, 2003, 2004; Mackey, Gass, & McDonough, 2000; Rosa & Leow, 2004a, 2004b), only two studies (Bowles & Leow, 2005; Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004) have investigated verbal reports' reactivity (i.e., whether they alter cognitive processes) during second language (L2) reading. This is the first study to investigate the reactivity of verbal reports on a L2 problem-solving task. First-semester learners of Spanish were assigned to one of six experimental conditions, which differed in terms of the type of verbalization (i.e., metalinguistic, nonmetalinguistic, or silent) and the type of feedback (i.e., implicit vs. explicit). Results show that metalinguistic verbalization significantly increased time on task and also hindered participants' ability to produce exemplars of the target structure seen during the experimental task. However, neither type of verbalization significantly affected participants' ability to produce novel exemplars of the target structure, and there was no interaction between verbalization and feedback.

The amount of influence that a learner's native language has on the acquisition of a second language is an issue which has received considerable attention in research on second language acquisition. The thesis of this paper is that, within the context of the Interlanguage Hypothesis (Selinker 1972) and the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (Eckman 1977), some important properties of a learner's interlanguage (IL) can be predicted.

More specifically, it is shown that speakers of Cantonese and Japanese internalize different IL rules in attempting to deal with English word-final voice contrasts. Whereas speakers of Cantonese devoice word-final obstruents in the target language, Japanese speakers insert a word-final schwa after the voiced obstruent. However, each of these rules can be correlated with facts about the phonology of the native language, supporting the conclusion that some important aspects of ILs can be predicted on the basis of a comparison of the native and target languages.

Previous studies of variation in interlanguage morphology have led to conflicting and contradictory claims concerning the relation between interlanguage forms and the contexts in which they occur. The present study suggests that such contradictions are due to the descriptively inadequate model of variation used in earlier studies. A multivariate model is proposed and applied to the analysis of variation in the acquisition of the English (s) pluralizaron rule by native speakers of Chinese. Three major groups of factors are shown to influence variation: stage of acquisition, linguistic environment, and communicative redundancy. Findings confirm the hypothesis that there exists a degree of systematicity in interlanguage, but suggest that the interlanguage system is best described in terms of probabilistic rules.

Over the last 40 years, there have been successive attempts to define or refine a set of key concepts intended to guide theory and experimentation in SLA. These include input, intake, and consciousness. This article tries to take these attempts a stage further by integrating the conceptualization of these notions into a larger interdisciplinary framework called Modular Online Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL). Past work, which is problematic both in terms of the theoretical development itself and in terms of the way the resulting ideas have been applied, is critically reviewed. A reinterpretation of key concepts in MOGUL terms is presented, in hopes that this reformulation will provide a clearer theoretical understanding and serve as an improved foundation for future research.

This study investigates whether conceptualizable agents in the discourse play a role in English L2 overpassivization errors (nontargetlike passivization of unaccusative verbs, a subclass of intransitives). It hypothesizes that learners are more likely to make overpassivization errors in externally caused events (in which an agent or cause may form part of the speaker's mental representation) than in internally caused events (in which the cause or causer of the event is not clear). Advanced Chinese learners of English were asked to choose the more grammatical form (active or passive) in target sentences with unaccusative verbs. Each target sentence was embedded in two different contexts expressing external and internal causation. A significant difference in error rates was found between the two different contexts: Learners accepted passivized unaccusative verbs more frequently when an agent or cause was available than when it was not. This finding is taken as an indication that learners transitivize unaccusative verbs before they passivize them and that the degree of transitivization varies depending on the presence of conceptualizable agents in the discourse. Thus this paper argues against a purely syntactic analysis of interlanguage errors such as overpassivization and in favor of an approach that takes cognitive factors into account.

This study investigates the relationship between foreign language aptitude and the learning of two English structures defined as easy or difficult to learn. Using a quasiexperimental design, 66 secondary-level learners of English as a foreign language from three intact classes were provided with four hours of instruction on the passive (a difficult structure) and the past progressive (an easy structure). Language aptitude was measured using the LLAMA Aptitude Test (Meara, 2005). Language outcomes were measured with a written grammaticality judgment and an oral production task. The results revealed that one of the aptitude components, grammatical inferencing, contributed to learners’ gains on the passive but not the past progressive on the written measure. Another component of aptitude, associative memory, contributed to learners’ gains on the past progressive on the oral measure. The results provide support for the claim that different components of aptitude contribute to the learning of difficult and easy L2 structures in different ways. There is also support for the proposal that different components of aptitude may be involved at different stages of language acquisition (Skehan, 2002).

In English, manner-of-motion verbs (walk, run) and directed motion verbs (go) can appear with a prepositional phrase that expresses a goal (goal PP) as in John walked (ran, went) to school. In contrast, Japanese allows only directed motion verbs to occur with a goal PP. Thus, English allows a wider range of motion verbs to occur with goal PPs than Japanese does. Learnability considerations, then, lead me to hypothesize that Japanese learners will learn manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs in English from positive evidence, whereas English learners will have difficulty learning that manner-of-motion verbs with goal PPs are impossible in Japanese because nothing in the input will tell them so. Forty-two intermediate Japanese learners of English and 21 advanced English learners of Japanese were tested using a grammaticality judgment task with pictures. Results support this prediction and provide a new piece of evidence for the previous findings indicating that L1 influence persists when an argument structure in the L2 constitutes a subset of its counterpart in the L1.

This paper investigates the effects of input and interaction as separate entities and in combination. We further investigate these effects as a function of different language areas. One hundred two learners of L2 Spanish were provided with input on (a) Spanish gender agreement (noun + adjective), (b) estar + location, and (c) seven vocabulary items. There were four conditions: (a) material focused solely on input, (b) material focused solely on interaction, (c) input-focused material followed by interaction, and (d) interaction-focused material followed by input. A control group completed a pretest and posttest. In general, greatest improvement from pretest to posttest for all conditions was noted for vocabulary. Learners exposed to input and interaction in combination showed greater improvement than those in conditions with only input or only interaction. In the two grammatical areas (gender agreement and estar + location), learners who received interaction followed by input showed greatest improvement. We consider issues such as complexity and abstractness to account for the findings of differential effects on language areas.Funding for this project was provided by a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the Center for Language Education and Research at Michigan State University (P229A990012 and P229A020001). We would like to thank George Sirbu and Pingping Ni for help with the statistics of this study. We are also grateful to the anonymous SSLA reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. All errors remain our own.

It has been known since at least the 1960s that small changes in pupil diameter in response to a mental task are indicative of processing effort associated with this task. More recently, with the advent of modern eye-trackers, which also measure the pupil diameter, pupillometry has been “rediscovered” by language researchers and the method has since been used in many different subdisciplines of linguistics. This article gives a nonexhaustive overview about recent linguistic research with the purpose of introducing researchers in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) to pupillometry. In addition, the article discusses things to consider when designing an experiment and how pupil data can be analyzed. The range of possibilities in which pupillometry can be used in experimental SLA research makes it a welcome addition to other online methods such as eye-tracking and event-related potentials.