Study abroad is typically viewed as a catalyst for pronunciation learning because it affords learners both massive amounts of L2 input and abundant opportunities for meaningful L2 use. Yet, even in such an environment, there is substantial variability in learning trajectories and outcomes. The nature of the target structure is also a powerful determinant of learning; some structures seem to develop effortlessly, whereas others do not improve much at all. Additionally, study abroad research brings to light the important issue of speaker identity, as learners often make decisions about how they want to sound and what pronunciation features they will adopt. This chapter examines developmental time frames, trajectories, and turning points in the phonetics and phonology of L2 learners in a study abroad context. We also describe how learners acquire the regional pronunciation variants of their host communities considering the phonetics of the target feature and learners’ attitudes and beliefs. We argue that study abroad should be situated within a dynamic, longitudinal, and context-dependent view of phonetic and phonological learning.

This chapter presents an overview of what is currently known about phonetic and phonological first language (L1) attrition and drift in bilingual speech and introduces a new theory of bilingual speech, Attrition & Drift in Access, Production, and Perception Theory (ADAPPT). Attrition and drift are defined and differentiated along several dimensions, including duration of change, source in second language (L2) experience, consciousness, agency, and scope. We address why findings of attrition and drift are important for our overall understanding of bilingual speech and draw links between ADAPPT and well-known theories of L2 speech, such as the revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r), the Perceptual Assimilation Model-L2 (PAM-L2), and the Second Language Linguistic Perception model (L2LP). The significance of findings revealing attrition and drift is discussed in relation to different linguistic subfields. The chapter raises the question of how attrition and drift potentially interact to influence speech production and perception in the bilingual’s L1 over the life span; additional directions for future research are pointed out as well.

This chapter examines the acquisition of vowels and consonants in perception and production during typical second language (L2) acquisition by sequential, dominant bilinguals. The acoustic and articulatory studies reviewed serve to illustrate general patterns of L2 segmental learning with a focus on four principal themes, each structured around one or two main research questions: 1) cross-linguistic influence (How does a sequential, dominant bilingual’s first language shape L2 segmental perception and production?); 2) development (Are there universal patterns to L2 segmental speech development? Are certain vocalic and consonantal phenomena acquired more easily?); 3) inter- and intralearner variability (What are the sources of differences in perception and/or production between learners and for the same learner over time and in different communicative contexts?); and 4) training effects (What are the effects of training on learning? How do variables such as task and stimuli type condition effectiveness?).

Adults undertaking the endeavor of learning a new language can attest to the difficulty involved with producing the sounds and prosody of the target language. A principal aim of research on adult speech production is to comprehend the mechanisms and processes that differentiate adult bilingual speech development from bilingual speech that develops earlier in life. It is clear that individuals who learn an additional language in adulthood typically encounter some difficulties that early learners do not. In particular, these difficulties arise at the segmental level when acquiring novel sound categories and novel sound contrasts, as well as at the suprasegmental level when learning to produce non-native prosodic structures related to intonation, stress, rhythm, tone, and tempo. The present chapter provides a selective overview of the current state-of-the-art in adult bilingual speech production. Furthermore, this chapter considers theoretical and methodological areas for improvement, as well as avenues for future research.

We have seen rapid development of various brain training methods in the past few decades that quickly became popular among educators, despite the lack of evidence about these products’ effectiveness. Some negative outcomes prompted researchers from both neuroscience and education to develop collaboratively neuroscience-based approaches to educational and clinical practices. This chapter discusses fundamental training-related questions, such as neuroplasticity, transfer, and individual differences and provides a detailed examination of one domain-specific method (i.e., working memory training) and a multi-domain approach (i.e., music training). Based on the findings, we point out how critical it is to determine the specific cognitive or linguistic skills that researchers intend to target with a given training method prior to the beginning of the training process. Further, it is essential to identify the overlapping processing components and underlying neural regions between the training tasks and the post-training measures to achieve transfer to untrained tasks.

The Introduction provides a brief review of the overall aims and conceptual and methodological approaches of the book, with a focus on the dynamic interactions between cognitive control and language. It highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the discussions and the integration of behavioral and neurophysiological outcomes throughout the chapters. A further goal is to point to the need for a connection between theoretical models and educational/clinical practices and to facilitate a discussion between researchers and educators/clinicians. The Introduction also includes a short summary of each chapter by presenting the main ideas and critical issues about the development of cognitive control in children with various language skills (e.g., children with language talent, children with bilingualism as their first language, children with developmental language disorder, emerging bilingual speakers).

This chapter is a synthesis of the findings about the relationship between cognitive control and language. It provides a more holistic picture about this relationship with particular attention to the heterogeneity of the participants and the shortage of sufficiently sensitive, valid tasks. The discussion is centered around the need for more studies using an individual-differences approach and the ways this approach may be combined with experimental designs to provide a method within which variability in performance is viewed as key information. The findings suggest that we must broaden the language spectrum in our studies to include speakers of various languages at a variety of proficiency and ability levels. Additional focus is placed on the need for interprofessional collaborations among researchers across disciplines, as well as between researchers and practitioners and educators, in order to enhance our diagnostic and classification accuracy and to decrease the inconsistencies in findings across studies.

Language use is a skill that requires exposure to language, feedback on usage, and practice. So children need exposure from expert speakers, feedback on the language being acquired, and on any errors children produce, and practice along the way. Languages differ, so the paths children follow within and across languages may vary, and some constructions may be harder to acquire in one language, easier in another. The goal is to learn to use language for communication. Language is essentially social, relying on common ground. Part I (Chapters 2-6) focusses on how adults talk with children; children’s analysis of the speech stream; their first production of words; and how they assign meanings to words. Part II (Chapters 7-11) focusses on children’s acquisition of structure: elaborations of information inside clauses, and combinations of clauses. They also rely on structure when coining new words. Part III (Chapters 12-14) looks at turn-taking, learning to be polite, persuasive, and informative, and how to tell stories. Children who hear two languages have two such systems to learn. Part IV (Chapters 15-16) summarizes evidence for biological specialization for language and considers how continuity and change are reflected in language processing.

Radicalization is most often seen as a gradual process that may or may not lead to radical or extreme behaviors such as terrorism. Theories on the radicalization process often highlight the potential role of social exclusion in the propensity for radicalization. We here present some of the major radicalization theories and discuss exclusion as a common denominator that could trigger a radicalization process. We then describe the research on personality and individual differences in relation to radicalization briefly, before discussing individual differences that are connected to exclusion in more depth. We go through the available empirical evidence supporting the notion that some individual level differences, such as rejection sensitivity, could moderate the effect of exclusion on radicalization. We further discuss other potential individual differences that relate to exclusion such as need to belong and entitlement.

Although insight experiences are recognized to be cognitively, physiologically, and neurologically distinct from other forms of reasoning and problem solving, it also appears that the experience of insight is not the same for all types of individuals or in all circumstances. Researchers in our lab and others have begun to examine the individual differences associated with the insight experience: what makes certain individuals more likely to report solving problems insightfully, and how might the subjective experience of insight differ among people according to their underlying psychological and neurobiological characteristics? Research demonstrates that the tendency to experience insight during problem-solving varies among individuals as a function of transient differences in one’s psychological state as well as stable, trait-like differences in neurocognitive dynamics. We argue that an individual differences approach can further disambiguate the components of insight on the behavioral and neural levels and help us understand when, and for whom, such experiences are most likely to occur, and how they may affect us depending on our individual motivations, goals, and underlying neurobiology.

In this chapter, we discuss the way people read, remember and understand discourse, depending on the type of relations that link discourse segments together. We also illustrate the role of connectives and other discourse signals as elements guiding readers’ interpretation. Throughout the chapter, we review empirical evidence from experiments that involve various methodologies such as offline comprehension tasks, self-paced reading, eye-tracking and event related potentials. One of the major findings is that not all relations are processed and remembered in the same way. It seems that causal relations play a special role for creating coherence in discourse, as they are processed more quickly and remembered better. Conversely, because they are highly expected, causal relations benefit less from the presence of connectives compared to discontinuous relations like concession and confirmation. Finally, research shows that in their native language, speakers are able to take advantage of all sorts of connectives for discourse processing, even those restricted to the written mode, and those that are ambiguous.

In this chapter, we present an overview of current knowledge about learners’ use and understanding of connectives. In the first part of the chapter, we will see that connectives are notoriously difficult to master for second language learners, because they require an array of complex competences. Learners must know how to use them appropriately in various genres and registers, have a fine-grained understanding of the meaning differences between connectives used to convey similar coherence relations, and also automatize this knowledge so that it is activated automatically during discourse processing, and not only when they consciously elicit usage rules. In the second part of the chapter, we review the important body of studies that have empirically assessed the causes for learners’ difficulties with connectives, and conclude with some recommendations for teaching. We conclude that research on the second language acquisition of connectives contributes to answering important questions, such as what makes connectives difficult to master, and how they are they used across languages.

This chapter takes an individual-differences perspective on the dual sound systems of American heritage speakers (HSs) of Mandarin Chinese. Based on detailed socio-demographic data and production data on segmentals and suprasegmentals, we build holistic demographic and phonetic profiles for HSs, as well as native speakers and late learners, to explore how different aspects of their two languages (i.e., Mandarin, English) may develop in relation to each other and how individual variation in production may be related to socio-demographic factors. Using multiple factor analysis (MFA), we describe the range of these profiles, identify clusters of variation defined by different socio-demographic factors, and argue that some factors (e.g., age of arrival, language(s) spoken at home) have more predictive power for phonetic profiles than others. Overall, our results suggest a significant, if limited, link between socio-demographic factors and production, but only in Mandarin. We conclude by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of group-based and individual-centered approaches.