Language Learning最新文献

Native language (L1) attrition is ubiquitous in modern globalized society, but its cognitive/psycholinguistic mechanisms are poorly understood. We investigated lexico-semantic L1 attrition in L1 Russian immigrants in Israel, who predominantly use their second language (L2), Hebrew, in daily life. We included Russian monolinguals as a control group. We tested two potential causal mechanisms of attrition: L2 interference versus L1 disuse. Participants completed a fill-the-gap task in two conditions: accuracy (producing one exactly matching word) and scope (providing as many synonyms as possible). We expected L2 interference and L1 disuse to lead to the differential reduction of accuracy and scope features, respectively. Lower scores for attriters emerged in the accuracy but not in the scope condition. Moreover, attitude towards L1 influenced attriters’ accuracy—but not scope—performance, with higher L1 preference predicting higher accuracy. We provide evidence for lexico-semantic attrition in adult immigrants, pointing to L2 interference as the primary cause of impaired lexical retrieval.

We explore how general principles of learning apply to and combine with usage-based approaches to language learning and teaching, with a focus on the effects of order of exposure to new information in second language (L2) instruction. Although the effects of input spacing and timing on memory and learning have been previously explored (see Rogers, 2020; Shintani, 2017, for an overview), the effects of order of exposure to the input remain understudied. In this study, we tested whether order of exposure to information in the L2 plays a role in L2 learning and whether an optimal order where the most reliable cues are introduced first ensures that foreign language learners are better equipped to form representations that allow flexible, yet accurate generalisations. We analysed data collected through a training study that teaches the English article system to first language (L1) speakers whose language does not have markers of definiteness.

Second language (L2) grammar learning is difficult. Two frameworks—the psycholinguistic lexical bottleneck hypothesis and the neurocognitive declarative/procedural model—predict that faster L2 lexical processing should facilitate L2 incidental grammar learning. We tested these predictions in a pretest–posttest syntactic adaptation study of English relative-clause attachment preferences. First-language German speakers listened to relative clauses disambiguated to the English low-attachment preference (secretaries of the professor who is/naps at home)—via either a copula (e.g., is), which should be processed rapidly (copula group; n = 48), or a lexical verb (e.g., naps), which should be processed more slowly (lexical group; n = 48). Only the copula group showed significant pretest-to-posttest learning. Moreover, the amount of learning was predicted by procedural learning abilities in the copula group, but by vocabulary size in the lexical group. The results, which are consistent with both frameworks, show that the L2 lexicon impacts L2 grammar learning, and reveal moderating psycholinguistic and neurocognitive variables.

Recent research on second or additional language (L2) pragmatics instruction in study abroad has incorporated the technique of encouraging students to gather data about pragmatics, for example, by asking members of the host country to complete questionnaires, practice using pragmatic features, or answer questions about pragmatics (e.g., Hernández, 2021; Mir, 2021). Such studies have reported positive learning outcomes of pedagogical interventions involving this technique but have not closely examined the nature of the talk about pragmatics among students and local people. The goal of this study is to examine talk about irony in Spanish elicited through an instructional activity carried out by study-abroad students in Mexico and their Mexican interlocutors, focusing on the information that the latter provide. The findings revealed that Mexican interlocutors provided examples of irony, metapragmatic explanations, and corrective feedback but that there was considerable individual variation.

A strong predictor of children's language is performance on non-word repetition (NWR) tasks. However, the basis of this relationship remains unknown. Some suggest that NWR tasks measure phonological working memory, which then affects language growth. Others argue that children's knowledge of language/language experience affects NWR performance. A complicating factor is that most studies focus on school-aged children, who have already mastered key language skills. Here, we present a new NWR task for English-learning 2-year-olds, use it to assess the effect of NWR performance on concurrent and later vocabulary development, and compare the children's performance with that of an experience-based computational model (CLASSIC). The new NWR task produced reliable results; replicating wordlikeness effects, word-length effects, and the relationship with concurrent and later language ability we see in older children. The model also simulated all effects, suggesting that the relationship between vocabulary and NWR performance can be explained by language experience-/knowledge-based theories.

In this Methods Showcase Article, we illustrate mixed-effects modeling with a multinomial dependent variable as a means of explaining complexities in language. We model data on future-time reference in second language Spanish, which consists of a nominal dependent variable that has three levels, measured over 73 participants. We offer step-by-step procedures for multinomial logistic regression with fixed and random effects, and we discuss the interpretation of the model and its advantages and limitations.

This study revisits the roles of different aspects of phonological vocabulary knowledge in second language (L2) listening. Japanese learners of English (n = 114) completed the TOEIC Listening test and three phonological vocabulary tests assessing (a) ability to recognize the meanings of aural forms (meaning recognition), (b) ability to recall the meanings of aural forms (meaning recall), and (c) ability to spontaneously judge the appropriate use of word meanings in sentential contexts (lexicosemantic judgment task [LJT]). Among the three measures, the LJT best predicted the participants’ ability to access the target words during real-life L2 listening comprehension of monologues and conversations (measured via TOEIC). Structural equation modeling demonstrated that the LJT was distinct from both meaning recognition and recall and revealed their different associations with listening comprehension scores. In line with the skill acquisition theory, we propose that the LJT reflects automatized knowledge, whereas meaning recognition and recall represent declarative knowledge.

This article presents a theoretical review of and methodological guidelines for the study of two key notions in second language acquisition research, complexity and difficulty. The term complexity has gained considerable currency over the past decades and has taken on a wide range of meanings. We argue for a more restricted interpretation, focusing exclusively on formal, structural properties of linguistic items. The less employed term difficulty in our account refers to the cognitive costs associated with learning and using such items. On the basis of our theoretical definitions, we critically review measures operationalizing these constructs and discuss their strengths, limitations, and potential applicability to second language research, in order to establish a small set of measures to be used routinely in the interest of replicability and knowledge accumulation in the field. In addition, we discuss the relationship between complexity and difficulty and the associated notions of proficiency and development.

In this paper, we report a longitudinal study of the effects of procedural task repetition on learners’ task performance (i.e., syntactic complexity in relation to lexical complexity). We investigated how task repetition results in differences at the group and individual level across each task interval (T = 7). Intermediate-level Saudi learners of English (N = 93) performed a written task biweekly over the course of a whole semester. To control for text type, mode and tenor were fixed at each data elicitation moment, but field was varied in these writing tasks to keep learners engaged. Using Bayesian generalized additive mixed models and mixed location-scale models, we analyzed specific ways that groups and individuals changed across time over the course of each task iteration and in relation to previous points. Our results showed that learners’ task performance demonstrated nonlinearity, stability, and variability with meaningfully different effects on individual and group-level development over time.

Eye tracking has taken hold in second language acquisition (SLA) and bilingualism as a valuable technique for researching cognitive processes, yet a comprehensive picture of reporting practices is still lacking. Our systematic review addressed this gap. We synthesized 145 empirical eye-tracking studies, coding for 58 reporting features and applying a gap analysis to the codings. Although certain aspects of reporting, such as descriptions of auxiliary assumptions, equipment, and setup, were consistently implemented, we found significant variation and sometimes complete omission of crucial details surrounding aspects of data quality and of data preprocessing and cleaning. This lack of information hinders the evaluation of methodological rigor and overall study quality of eye-tracking research. We propose a set of field-specific reporting guidelines in the form of a checklist to improve the quality of data collected and contribute to the larger goal of advancing the replication and reproducibility of eye-tracking research in SLA and bilingualism.