Embedded questions (EQs) are islands for filler--gap dependency formation in English, but not in Norwegian. Kush and Dahl (2022) found that first language (L1) Norwegian participants often accepted filler-gap dependencies into EQs in second language (L2) English, and proposed that this reflected persistent transfer from Norwegian of the functional…

This article focuses on the acquisition of mood in early complement clauses of European Portuguese (EP). Two semantic features are involved in the EP mood system--epistemicity and veridicality. An elicited production task administered to 80 children aged 4 to 9 showed that, even though children use the subjunctive in [-- epistemic] contexts, the…

This study investigates relations between second language (L2) lexical input and output in terms of word information properties (i.e., lexical salience; Ellis, 2006a). The data for this study come from a longitudinal corpus of naturalistic spoken data between L2 learners and first language (L1) interlocutors collected over a year's time. The…

This study investigates whether practice with computer-administered feedback in the absence of meaning-focused interaction can help second language learners notice the corrective intent of recasts and develop linguistic accuracy. A group of 218 beginning Anglophone learners of Spanish received 1 of 4 types of automated feedback (no feedback,…

This study investigated the effects of processing instruction (PI) and structured input (SI) on the acquisition of the subjunctive in adjectival clauses by 92 second-semester distance learners of Spanish. Computerized visual input enhancement (VIE) was combined with PI and SI in an attempt to increase the salience of the targeted grammatical form…

A promising source of insights into heritage language learning comes from the broader study of the role of input in language acquisition. We concentrate here on the possibility that qualitative differences in the proficiency of heritage and monolingual language learners can be traced to a qualitative difference in the input available to each…

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of three types of input-based approaches for teaching English polite request forms to sixty Japanese learners of English: (a) structured input tasks with explicit information; (b) problem-solving tasks; and (c) structured input tasks without explicit information. Treatment group performance…

This study was intended to compare processing instruction (VanPatten, 1993, 1996, 2000), an input-based focus on form technique, to dictogloss tasks, an output-oriented focus-on-form type of instruction to assess their effects in helping beginning-EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners acquire the simple English passive voice. Two intact…

This study examined whether a younger starting age is advantageous in a situation of minimal exposure to an instructed foreign language ([less than or equal] 4 hours classroom contact per week). Previous theoretical and empirical studies indicated there should be no advantage for an earlier start. Japanese college students who started studying…

This study explored the effect on vocabulary retention of vocalizations involving three cognitive processing depths ("repetition," "manipulation," and "generation"). Eight participants in an English for academic purposes (EAP) context encountered five unknown words when working alone and five different words when working in pairs. In each…

This study compared the narratives of three groups of advanced speakers of Spanish with different learning backgrounds. The first group was made up of heritage speakers; the second group was composed of missionaries that had recently returned from a two-year sojourn in a Spanish-speaking country; and the third group comprised students who had…