Remote association, the ability to form new relations between independent elements, was assessed using the Remote Associates Test (RAT). The Chinese RAT (CRAT) includes the Chinese radical RAT (CRRAT), Chinese word RAT (CWRAT), and Chinese compound RAT (CCRAT). Behavioral research indicates that an individual's performance on the CRAT reflects…

Social network analysis (SNA) examines the relationships that an individual speaker creates and maintains with others in order to explain and predict language behavior. Over the past 20 years, SNA has been used by a growing number of researchers to better understand the language learner and the language learning process, especially in the context…

Previous event-related potentials (ERP) research has investigated how foreign accent modulates listeners' neural responses to lexical-semantic and morphosyntactic errors. We extended this line of research to consider whether pronunciation errors in Mandarin Chinese are processed differently when a foreign-accented speaker makes them relative to…

There are numerous studies showing processing advantages for collocations, but none of them so far takes into account the fact that the morphological form of a collocation varies to fit the context. Questions whether collocations retain their processing advantage when their morphological form changes and how or if different morphological forms of…

This study aimed to advance research on first and second language future-time expression in Spanish and to demonstrate the strengths of combining functionalist, concept-oriented approaches (e.g., Andersen, 1984; Bardovi-Harlig, 2000; Shirai, 1995; von Stutterheim & Klein, 1987) with variationist approaches. The study targeted 140 participants…

This paper reports a study employing stimulated recall protocols to investigate how L1 English-speaking learners of L2 German use their metalinguistic knowledge during the resolution of selected form-focused tasks. Verbal report data from 10 university level learners were analysed to gain insight into explicit knowledge in action during controlled…

A study analyzed the opening and closing sequences of 11 dyads of native Spanish-speakers in natural telephone conversations conducted in Spanish. The objective was to determine how closely Hispanic cultural patterns of conduct for telephone conversations follow the sequences outlined in previous research. It is concluded that Spanish…

Acquiring proficiency in different discourse genres involves an awareness of which syntactic structures are the most appropriate to the communicative context and purpose. This article examines two scientific research genres--conference proceedings articles and conference presentations--and compares the syntactic behaviour of a group of native…

This study analyzed complimenting behavior in French between French native speakers and American advanced French learners in seven dinner party conversations. Data are found to provide a rich source of lessons in politeness for both sociolinguistic and pedagogic descriptions of French speech acts. (Author/MSE)