The revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r) postulates that learners with more precisely defined categories in their native language (L1) exhibit greater proficiency in acquiring sounds in a second language (L2). Despite its recent emergence, empirical studies validating this hypothesis remain scarce. This study aims to investigate the predictive…

The present study examines grammatical gender knowledge in offline production (gender marking on indefinite articles) and online gender processing (visual world paradigm) in adult second language (L2) learners of Norwegian with three different first languages (L1s): Greek, Russian, and Turkish. In particular, it investigates the role of the…

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been shown to be a strong correlate of reading abilities. RAN also predicts future reading across different ages, ability levels, and languages, and is often used in literacy screening. Thus, understanding the specific relations between early RAN and later reading difficulties is important, particularly for…

Infants undergo fundamental shifts in perception that are reported to be critical for language acquisition. In particular, infants' perception of native and non-native sounds begins to align with the properties of their native sound system. Thus far, empirical evidence for this transition--perceptual narrowing--has drawn from socio-economically…

The deep cloze test was developed by Jensen and Elbro (Read Writ Interdiscip J 35(5):1221-1237, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10230-w) to assess reading comprehension at the level of global situational understanding. In two independent studies, we examined potential contributors to students' scores on the deep cloze reading…

In the present study, we aimed to compare reading-writing relations between first-grade Native English Speakers (NESs) and English Language Learners (ELLs). Thirty-four ELLs and 35 NESs completed measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary, lexical-level reading (word reading) and writing (spelling), and discourse-level reading (reading…

This study examined whether the linguistic distance between the first (L1) and second (L2) language is a significant determinant of L2 writing skills of 292 adult immigrants from 39 different source countries, who were beginner learners of Spanish L2. Gender, age, length of residence in Spain, education level as a proxy for literacy skills in L1,…

Previous research has shown that bilinguals respond differently to moral dilemmas posed in each of their languages, tending to make deontologically-based decisions (based on right or wrong) in their first language and utilitarian decisions (bringing about the most good) in their second language. In the present study, we tested several predictors…

Connectives such as "because" and "but" are crucial for signaling coherence relations in discourse. They contribute to a better reading comprehension and, thus, academic performance. The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of connective development during teenage years by studying individual differences in…

This study takes a mixed-methods approach to explore the influence of emotion-laden (positive vs. negative vs. neutral) texts and words on vocabulary learning for Spanish heritage and foreign language learners. Participants (N = 121) were tasked with learning emotion-laden pseudowords embedded in three emotion-laden texts centered around themes of…

This study investigated the relative contributions of English morphological and vocabulary knowledge to second language (L2) reading comprehension among 100 adult Japanese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The study also investigated the extent to which the roles of morphological and vocabulary knowledge in L2 reading comprehension…

In second language (L2) research, the lexical unit is often defined as a base word plus inflectional and derivational forms through Level 6 of Bauer and Nation's framework (WF6). WF6 use has been justified by the assumption that once a form is known, recognition of other WF6 members requires little extra effort. A more lenient view holds that an…

Most common words in English have multiple different meanings, but relatively little is known about why children grasp some meanings better than others. This study aimed to examine how variables at the child-level, wordform-level, and meaning-level impact knowledge of words with multiple meanings. In this study, 174 children aged 5- to 9-years-old…

This study explored the interaction between learning conditions, linguistic complexity, and first language (L1) syntactic transfer in semiartificial grammar learning by conceptually replicating and extending Tagarelli et al. (2016). We changed the L1 background, elicited production data during debriefing, and added a binary mixed-effects logistic…

This study examined how Papiamento and Dutch attitude and home literacy environment of 168 children in fourth grade of the post-colonial Dutch Caribbean, predicted L1 and L2 reading literacy in sixth grade. Overall, children had higher scores for reading literacy in L1 Papiamento as compared with L2 Dutch. They showed more positive attitudes…