Frequency and contingency (i.e., co-occurrence probability of words in multiword sequences [MWS]) are two driving forces of language acquisition and processing. Previous research has demonstrated that L1 and advanced L2 speakers are sensitive to phrasal frequency and contingency when processing larger-than-word units. However, it remains unclear whether such statistical sensitivity is robust across tasks and among subcategories of MWS. In addition, little is known about whether cognitive aptitudes can moderate such sensitivity. This study examined L1 and advanced L2 speakers’ statistical sensitivity to phrasal frequency and contingency as well as cognitive aptitudes’ moderating effects on such sensitivity when processing English adjective-noun collocations. Participants performed a phrasal acceptability judgment task (PJT). Meanwhile, their aptitude profiles were measured by six aptitude tests, which loaded separately onto implicit language aptitude, explicit language aptitude, and working memory capacity. Linear mixed-effects modeling revealed that both L1 and L2 English speakers were sensitive to phrasal frequency and contingency of collocations, although L2 speakers’ sensitivity was much stronger than that of L1 speakers. None of the aptitudes was found to moderate language users’ statistical sensitivity to either collocation frequency or contingency. Interestingly, disassociation patterns between the PJT performance and the involvement of implicit or explicit language aptitude among the L1 and L2 speakers were found. It was concluded that L1 and L2 speakers differed in terms of the way they processed the collocations, as well as the nature of their collocational knowledge.

The present study examines potential age and microparametric effects in childhood bilinguals (currently adults) in an understudied language pairing, Polish-Spanish. Specifically, a Spanish group (N = 28) and a Sequential child bilingual (N = 22) and a Simultaneous bilingual (N = 8) group living in Misiones, Argentina, completed three experimental tasks assessing their knowledge of the syntactic and syntax-semantic distribution of adjectives. Results show that, despite several semantic differences related to adjective position, both experimental groups demonstrate knowledge of interpretive constraints that fall out from underlying Spanish syntax. Differences predicted as a result of crosslinguistic influence were not evidenced, yet, contrary to Polish and Spanish, the experimental groups accepted ungrammatical postnominal intensional adjectives significantly more than Spanish speakers.

The literature exploring the executive function correlates of bilingualism is vast, but to date, few studies have concentrated on children, for whom the bilingual advantage appears even more inconsistent than for adults. We investigate a highly heterogeneous group of children (in terms of bilingual experience and socioeconomic status) and identify the critical threshold of bilingual experience from which an advantage can be observed at group level. The modeling methods adopted allow the use of fine-grained, continuous factors for age and socioeconomic status, thereby effectively controlling for their effect and isolating the specific effect of bilingual experience. We pioneer the use of Cox Proportional Hazard regression to analyze performance in the Simon task. This allows the modeling of all data points without transformation or outlier removal, and captures both accuracy and reaction time within the same analysis, while being able to handle multiple predictor variables.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations between emotions, classroom environment, and willingness to communicate (WTC) using the advanced quantitative methodological procedure of doubly latent multilevel analysis. To this end, 1528 secondary school students from 65 different classrooms in Iran participated in the study. Results of the doubly latent multilevel analysis showed that a positive classroom environment is related to fostering WTC and enjoyment, while it reduces anxiety among students. Moreover, enjoyment was found as an important factor in increasing WTC at both student and classroom level, while anxiety reduced WTC only at the student level. Finally, the results of the study are discussed and pedagogical implications are provided for language teachers.

This study investigated the effects of word frequency, collocational frequency, L1 congruency, and L2 proficiency, on L2 collocational processing. Two groups of L1 Japanese speakers of English (intermediate and advanced) and one group of English native speakers (NSs) performed an online acceptability judgment task on four types of adjective-noun constructions: (1) congruent collocations, (2) English-only collocations, (3) Japanese-only collocations, and (4) baseline items. Response times were analyzed using mixed-effects modeling and correlations. In contrast to NSs, nonnative speakers (NNSs) processed congruent collocations significantly faster than English-only collocations. As for frequency, all three groups demonstrated sensitivity to both word-level and collocation-level frequency. However, the distributions differed across the three groups. We concluded that age/order of acquisition effects (Carroll & White, 1973) provided the best explanation for the congruency results. Regarding the frequency results, we concluded that the findings conflict with claims that NNSs may process formulaic sequences differently than NSs (e.g., Wray, 2002, 2008).

Artificial linguistic systems (ALSs) offer many potential benefits for second language acquisition (SLA) research. Nonetheless, their use in experiments with posttest-only designs can give rise to internal validity problems depending on the baseline that is employed to establish evidence of learning. Researchers in this area often compare experimental groups’ performance against (a) statistical chance, (b) untrained control groups’ performance, and/or (c) trained control groups’ performance. However, each of these methods can involve unwarranted tacit assumptions, limitations, and challenges from a variety of sources (e.g., preexisting perceptual biases, participants’ fabrication of rules, knowledge gained during the test), any of which might produce systematic response patterns that overlap with the linguistic target even in the absence of learning during training. After illustrating these challenges, we offer some brief recommendations regarding how triangulation and more sophisticated statistical approaches may help researchers to draw more appropriate conclusions going forward.

The present study examined second language (L2) development in the perceptual identification of a dialectal sound of the target language, through an investigation of the role of individual learner experiences in L2 phonological development. A total of 213 English-speaking learners of Spanish across five levels of study and with varying dialect contact experiences completed an identification task, which tested perceptual categorization of Spanish dialectal aspirated-s (e.g., siesta [ˈsi̯eh-ta]). In accordance with postulates of L2 speech perception models (PAM-L2, SLM, L2LP), findings revealed influence of the first language phonology on categorization at early levels shifting toward nativelike, dialect-specific categorizations of aspirated-s for more experienced learners. Dialect contact factors of prior study abroad location, native speaker social contacts, and metalinguistic training were found to be predictors of the dialectal perceptual targets toward which the L2 learners developed—for those learners past intermediate-level language courses—highlighting how individual experiences shape L2 perceptual abilities.

Definite discourse-new bridging reference (e.g., a school … the teacher; Clark, 1975) is a complex syntax-pragmatic component of referential movement, one that is subject to relatively opaque form-function contingency compared with forms used for discourse-old reference, and one that is especially prone to crosslinguistic influence. Research shows Asian second language (L2) learners of English struggle to produce bridging reference appropriately, yet little research has been done on the L2 production of bridging in Asian languages. We collected oral picture sequence narrative data from 80 lower-intermediate L2 Mandarin learners from first language (L1) English (+ article, n = 23) and L1 Korean and Japanese (- article, n = 57) backgrounds, alongside equivalent L1 data. Speakers of article-L1s were more likely than those from article-less L1s to use numeral + classifier noun phrases (NPs) for nonbridging referents and demonstrative + classifier NPs when introducing bridging referents, essentially (and infelicitously) using these constructions as de facto English-like indefinite/definite articles in their L2 Mandarin production. Speakers of article-less languages infelicitously marked bridging relations with nonbridging forms. These findings confirm substantial crosslinguistic difficulties for the L2 marking of this complex syntax-pragmatic phenomenon across relatively underexplored L1/L2 pairs.

This article investigates how lexical and syntactic differences in L1 and L2 grammatical gender affect L2 predictive gender processing. In a visual-world eye-tracking experiment, 24 L1 Russian adult learners and 15 native speakers of German were tested. Both Russian and German have three gender classes. Yet, they differ in lexical congruency, that is, whether a noun (“house”) is assigned to the same or a different gender class. Further, gender is syntactically realized on postnominal suffixes in Russian but on prenominal articles in German. For adjectives, both Russian and German mark gender on suffixes. In predictive gender processing, we find interactions of proficiency and congruency for gender-marked articles. Advanced L2 learners show nativelike gender prediction throughout. High-intermediate learners display asymmetries according to syntactic and lexical congruency. Predictive gender processing obtains for all nouns in the (syntactically congruent) adjective condition, yet only for lexically congruent nouns in the (syntactically incongruent) article condition.

This study explored the roles of exposure frequency, aural enhancement (AE) of input, and individual differences in working memory (WM) during L2 incidental vocabulary learning while reading. Eighty intermediate-level English learners were divided into four treatment groups, and given reading tasks with target words embedded two or four times. Listening while reading was controlled, as well as duration of exposure to new words through timed reading tasks, and comprehension questions helped to ensure a focus on meaning. Surprise posttests assessed initial form recognition and form-meaning connections. Proficiency and WM measures were administered, with English proficiency used as a covariate. Results indicated that measurable learning occurred at the two-exposure level for new words, both in form recognition and form-meaning connections. Frequency effects held from two to four exposures across AE and non-AE conditions, but were influenced by AE on the form-meaning outcome. This indicated support for simultaneous input modalities facilitating deeper processing and better learning outcomes. WM outcomes correlated with vocabulary outcomes for form recognition, and an aptitude by treatment interaction was found for form recognition.

A reading experiment combining online and offline data evaluates the effect on second language learners’ reading behaviors and lexical uptake of three gloss types designed to clarify word meaning. These are (a) textual definition, (b) textual definition accompanied by picture, and (c) picture only. We recorded eye movements while intermediate learners of English read a story presented on-screen and containing six glossed pseudowords repeated three times each. Cumulative fixation counts and time spent on the pseudowords predicted posttest performance for form recall and meaning recognition, confirming findings of previous eye-tracking studies of vocabulary acquisition from reading. However, the total visual attention given to pseudowords and glosses was smallest in the condition with picture-only glosses, and yet this condition promoted best retention of word meaning. This suggests that gloss types differentially influence learners’ processing of novel words in ways that may elude the quantitative measures of attention captured by eye-tracking.

This article has two main goals. The first is to summarize and comment on the current state of affairs of generative approaches to SLA (GenSLA), 35 years into its history. This discussion brings the readership of SSLA up to date on the questions driving GenSLA agendas and clears up misconceptions about what GenSLA does and does not endeavor to explain. We engage key questions, debates, and shifts within GenSLA such as focusing on the deterministic role of input in language acquisition, as well as expanding the inquiry to new populations and empirical methodologies and technologies used. The second goal is to highlight the place of GenSLA in the broader field of SLA. We argue that various theories of SLA are needed, showing that many existing SLA paradigms are much less mutually exclusive than commonly believed (cf. Rothman & VanPatten, 2013; Slabakova, Leal, & Liskin-Gasparro, 2014, 2015; VanPatten & Rothman, 2014)—especially considering their different foci and research questions.

This exploratory study aimed to examine whether early exposure to Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) provides facilitation in word-knowledge development in collegiate CHL learners by comparing word-level subskills, including oral vocabulary knowledge, print vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, and lexical inferencing ability, between CHL learners and non-CHL learners. Sixty-two collegiate intermediate-level Chinese learners including 37 CHL learners and 25 non-CHL learners participated in this study. Drawing on multivariate analyses, the study found that CHL learners outperformed non-CHL learners on oral vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, and lexical inferencing ability, but not on print vocabulary knowledge. In both groups of learners, print vocabulary knowledge was the strongest predictor of lexical inferencing ability. While oral vocabulary knowledge and print vocabulary knowledge were highly correlated in non-CHL learners, they were more distinct constructs in CHL learners. These findings seem to suggest that early exposure to spoken Chinese enhances the development of oral vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness in CHL learners. Importantly, the latter appears to enhance the formation of the connection between oral vocabulary knowledge and print knowledge.

This study critically examined the previously reported partial independence between second language (L2) accentedness (degree to which L2 speech differs from the target variety) and comprehensibility (ease of understanding). In prior work, comprehensibility was linked to multiple linguistic dimensions of L2 speech (phonology, fluency, lexis, grammar) whereas accentedness was narrowly associated with L2 phonology. However, these findings stemmed from a single task (picture narrative), suggesting that task type could affect the particular linguistic measures distinguishing comprehensibility from accentedness. To address this limitation, speech ratings of 10 native listeners assessing 60 speakers of L2 English in three tasks (picture narrative, IELTS, TOEFL) were analyzed, targeting two global ratings (accentedness, comprehensibility) and 10 linguistic measures (segmental and word stress accuracy, intonation, rhythm, speech rate, grammatical accuracy and complexity, lexical richness and complexity, discourse richness). Linguistic distinctions between accentedness and comprehensibility were less pronounced in the cognitively complex task (TOEFL), with overlapping sets of phonology, lexis, and grammar variables contributing to listener ratings of accentedness and comprehensibility. This finding points to multifaceted, task-specific relationships between these two constructs.

This study uses a sentence completion task with Swedish and Chinese L2 English speakers to investigate how L1 morphosyntax and L2 proficiency influence L2 English subject-verb agreement production. Chinese has limited nominal and verbal number morphology, while Swedish has robust noun phrase (NP) morphology but does not number-mark verbs. Results showed that like L1 English speakers, both L2 groups used grammatical and conceptual number to produce subject-verb agreement. However, only L1 Chinese speakers—and less-proficient speakers in both L2 groups—were similarly influenced by grammatical and conceptual number when producing the subject NP. These findings demonstrate how L2 proficiency, perhaps combined with cross-linguistic differences, influence L2 production and underscore that encoding of noun and verb number are not independent.

This study investigates whether repeating a prime sentence aloud strengthens short-term and longer-term priming of adverb-first word order among adult intermediate L1 English-German L2 learners (N = 30). Compared to an earlier study (Jackson & Ruf, 2017), in which similarly proficient L1 English-German L2 learners heard, but did not repeat, prime sentences, participants in the present study exhibited greater short-term priming for adverb-first word order during the priming phase and significant longer-term priming in a posttest phase immediately following the priming phase. However, additional analyses revealed that only those participants who exhibited stronger short-term priming without lexical overlap during the priming phase continued to produce adverb-first sentences in the posttest phase, highlighting that even prime repetition may not support longer-term priming among intermediate L2 learners more generally.

This study partially replicates McManus and Marsden (2017), who found that providing L1 explicit information (EI) plus task-essential practice led L2 learners to make more accurate and faster interpretations of French morphosyntax. The current study removed the original study’s L1 EI component to examine the role of the L1 practice. This design tested whether providing L1 task-essential practice only (alongside a core treatment of L2 EI plus L2 practice) resulted in similar online and offline learning gains compared to the original study’s L1 EI plus L1 practice. We used the same online and offline tests, with a similar population of English-speaking learners of L2 French (n = 19). For accuracy and speed of online and offline L2 processing, the findings suggest that additional L1 practice without L1 EI was no more beneficial than L2 EI plus L2 practice alone, indicating that the original study’s combination of additional L1 EI with L1 practice appeared to contribute to previously observed learning benefits.

This paper reports on the reanalysis of Suzuki’s (2017) experiment and investigated the extent to which learning schedules influence automatization of second language (L2) morphology. Sixty participants were separated into two groups, which studied morphological rules for oral production under short-spacing (3.3-day intervals) and long-spacing learning conditions (7-day intervals). Their oral production test performance resulted in two measures of automatization: reaction time (RT) as an index of speedup and coefficient of variance (CV) as an index of stability/restructuring. The results showed that, while RT of both groups declined significantly after the training, the 3.3-day group exhibited greater propensity for restructuring than the 7-day group. Furthermore, procedural learning ability measured by the Tower of London task was significantly associated with RT, but not with CV, in the 3.3-day group only. These findings suggest that learning schedules and procedural learning ability influence different stages of automatization of L2 morphological learning.

Since the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (SSH) was first put forward in 2006, it has inspired a growing body of research on grammatical processing in nonnative (L2) speakers. More than 10 years later, we think it is time for the SSH to be reconsidered in the light of new empirical findings and current theoretical assumptions about human language processing. The purpose of our critical commentary is twofold: to clarify some issues regarding the SSH and to sketch possible ways in which this hypothesis might be refined and improved to better account for L1 and L2 speakers’ performance patterns.

Response time variability and its changes over time have been interpreted as indicative of levels of knowledge automatization. Predominantly, only declines in variability have been examined over the course of practice and growing second language proficiency. We discuss possible scenarios that may involve increasing, rather than declining variability, such as the establishment of new memory representations. We present repeated-measures lexical decision data on novel words encountered incidentally in a lexical decision task, which show increased variability as familiarity increases. Similar patterns were observed in our reanalyses of data from other novel word learning experiments with task demands different from ours: auditory presentation and a posttest after seven days (Brown & Gaskell, 2014), as well as picture-matching and production tests (Bartolotti & Marian, 2014). Jointly, these results suggest that when no prior representation of a word exists, increased variability may index learning during its initial stages.