This study explored appropriate speaking activities for speakers of different proficiency levels by measuring the changes in their brain blood flow with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Fifty adult speakers and learners of English of various proficiency levels participated in the study by undertaking four types of task: a single-speaker picture…

Efficient Chinese character reading requires rapid access to orthographic representations of radical form and position. This study identified the temporal sequence of radical form, radical position and lexicality processing in adult first language (L1) and intermediate second language (L2) Chinese readers. Event-related potential responses in a…

Purpose: This study aimed to examine whether abstract knowledge of word-level linguistic prosody is independent of or integrated with phonetic knowledge. Method: Event-related potential (ERP) responses were measured from 18 adult listeners while they listened to native and nonnative word-level prosody in speech and in nonspeech. The prosodic…

The present study examines both properties of the language and properties of the learner to better understand variability at the earliest stages of second language (L2) acquisition. We used event-related potentials, an oral production task, and a battery of individual differences measures to examine the processing of number and gender agreement in…

The views that gender and language are related each other has been reviewed from at least two different disciplines: sociolinguistics and psychology. From the first discipline, it has been concluded that gender and language has no natural relationship for it is cultural values that shape genderlect. From the second discipline, it has been…

We examined sources of morphological variability in second language (L2) learners of Spanish whose native language (L1) is English, with a focus on L1-L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event-related potentials to examine noun-adjective number (present in L1) and gender…

It remains unclear whether adult-learned second language (L2) depends on similar or different neurocognitive mechanisms as those involved in first language (L1). We examined whether English past tense forms are computed similarly or differently by L1 and L2 English speakers, and what factors might affect this: regularity (regular vs. irregular…

This study investigated bilingual advantages at additional languages learning by comparing early, highly proficient bilinguals to monolinguals' learning of an additional language in adulthood. The study used both behavioral and neurocognitive measures (event-related potentials) and tested subjects along the trajectory of learning from low to high…

Learning new languages, being physically active, playing a musical instrument or listening to music favour a good attitude towards life and activate both the brain and the body. The purpose of this study is twofold: 1) to present the findings of a small scale study of third age participants and 2) to review the literature of the…

This article explores the cerebral mechanism of reading aloud activities in L2 learners. These activities have been widely used in L2 learning and teaching, and its effect has been reported in various Asian L2 learning contexts. However, the reasons for its effectiveness have not been examined. In order to fill in this gap, two studies using a…

Previous studies have examined cross-serial and embedded complement clauses in West Germanic in order to distinguish between different types of working memory models of human sentence processing, as well as different formal language models. Here, adult plasticity in the use of these constructions is investigated by examining the response of…

Recent research in psychology and neuroscience has demonstrated that co-speech gestures are semantically integrated with speech during language comprehension and development. The present study explored whether gestures also play a role in language learning in adults. In Experiment 1, we exposed adults to a brief training session presenting novel…

Presents a neurobiologically inspired model of one aspect of adult second language acquisition: procedural linguistic skill acquisition. Notes that the proposed model crucially involves the neural circuitry of the neocerebellum, a brain structure implicated in higher cognitive and, potentially, linguistic functions. (69 references) (Author/CK)

The report of the Interagency Language Roundtable's invitational symposium on language aptitude testing consists of a description of the project and appendixes which include the following: (1) the symposium program and abstracts of papers; (2) a list of participants; and (3) summaries of the discussions of three working groups (on applications,…