In the current study, we examined the role of first-language (L1) influence on the additional-language development of grammatical gender marking in Spanish. The participants were L1 speakers of English or French (N = 215), who were learning Spanish and who were at three instructional levels. The data came from their use of gender marking in…

The present study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine nonlocal agreement processing between native (L1) English speakers and Chinese-English second language (L2) learners, whose L1 lacks number agreement. We manipulated number marking with determiners ("the" vs. "that"/"these") to see how…

Learners must develop the ability to vary language according to linguistic and situational factors to produce context-appropriate utterances. Likewise, interpreting the additional meaning conveyed through language variation is essential for successful communication. Nevertheless, research on the interpretation of the variable copulas in Spanish is…

Sleep plays a role in the consolidation of various aspects of language learning. In this study, we investigated the extent to which sleep-dependent memory consolidation contributes to second language (L2) rule generalization and enhancement of L2 explicit knowledge. One hundred native English speakers were engaged in a meaning-focused training of…

This study examined the linguistic dimensions of comprehensibility and perceived fluency in the context of L2 argumentative speech elicited from 40 Japanese-speaking learners of English. Their speaking performance was judged by 10 inexperienced native speakers of English for comprehensibility and perceived fluency, and was also objectively…

This study is the first to compare objective and subjective measures of explicit and implicit knowledge under learning from incidental exposure. An experiment was conducted, during which L1 English speakers were trained on a semiartificial language, "Japlish." A measure of explicit knowledge and a recently proposed measure of implicit…

Language-analytic ability, or the ability to treat language as an object of analysis and arrive at linguistic generalizations, is at the core of the constructs of language learning aptitude and metalinguistic awareness, which are implicated in our ability to learn explicitly. In the context of child second language (L2) learning, it has been…

We revisit morpheme studies to evaluate the long-standing claim for a universal order of acquisition. We investigate the L2 acquisition order of six English grammatical morphemes by learners from seven L1 groups across five proficiency levels. Data are drawn from approximately 10,000 written exam scripts from the Cambridge Learner Corpus. The…

This study investigates the degree to which native-English-speaking learners of Spanish can generate expectations for information likely to occur in upcoming portions of an unfolding linguistic signal. We examine Spanish clitic left dislocation, a long-distance dependency between a topicalized object and an agreeing clitic, whose felicity depends…

There is presently a lively debate in second language (L2) acquisition research as to whether (adult) learners can acquire linguistic phenomena located at the interface between syntax and other modules, such as semantics, pragmatics, and lexical semantics, in contrast to phenomena that are purely syntactic in nature. For some researchers, the…

Numerous studies have demonstrated that native Mandarin speakers have pervasive difficulties processing L2 English agreement morphology. However, less is known about the lexical and morphological cues that may modulate Mandarin speakers' sensitivity to English number agreement. To investigate this, we examined subject-verb agreement processing in…

Little is known about older adult language learners and effects of aging on L2 learning. This study investigated learning in older age through interactions of learner-internal and -external variables; specifically, late-learned L2 (bilingualism) and provision of grammar explanation (explicit instruction, EI). Forty-three older adults (age 60+) who…

Eye-tracking was used to investigate the attentional processes whereby different types of focus on form (FonF) instruction assist learners in overcoming learned attention and blocking effects in their online processing of second language input. English native speakers viewed Latin utterances combining lexical and morphological cues to temporality…

Second language learning outcomes are highly variable, due to a variety of factors, including individual differences, exposure conditions, and linguistic complexity. However, exactly how these factors interact to influence language learning is unknown. This article examines the relationship between these three variables in language learners.…

This study investigated whether the role of working memory capacity varies over the course of second language (L2) morphosyntactic development. Eighty-seven beginning, intermediate, and advanced university L2 Spanish learners completed two nonverbal tasks measuring executive function (EF) and phonological working memory (PWM) in their native…