How could individual differences in processing non-speech acoustic signals influence their cue weighting strategies for L2 speech contrasts? The present study investigated this question by testing forty L1 Chinese-L2 English listeners with two tasks: one for testing the listeners' sensitivity to pitch and temporal information of non-speech…

Previous literature has shown that voicing contrast is a difficult feature for Chinese-English emergent bilingual learners of L3 Spanish (Bravo Diaz, 2020; Chen, 2007; Zhang, 2022). The production of voicing contrast in stops has been broadly investigated in second and third language studies (e.g., Zampini, 1998; Llama, 2010; Wrembel, 2014), but…

Purpose: Children come to understand many words by the end of their 1st year of life, and yet, generally by 12 months, only a few words are said. In this study, we investigated which linguistic factors contribute to this comprehension-expression gap the most. Specifically, we asked the following: Are phonological neighborhood density, semantic…

In this study, we examined the effects of word and character frequency across three commonly used word-identification tasks (lexical decision, naming, and sentence reading) using the same set of two-character target words (N = 60) and participants (N = 82). Facilitatory effects of word frequency were observed across all three tasks. The…

Over the last two decades, there has been an increasing interest in third language (L3) phonology (Cabrelli Amaro, 2012; Cabrelli Amaro & Wrembel, 2016). However, research so far has been primarily directed at specific stages of learning and has independently explored either production (e.g., Llama, Cardoso, & Collins, 2010; Llama &…

The sentence repetition (SR) test is considered as a promising diagnostic tool for detecting language proficiency in monolingual learners, but less is known about its potential to identify dual language learners' (DLLs) linguistic proficiency. Considering that challenges with language learning, such as developmental language disorders (DLDs), is…

We examined the unique contributions of prosodic awareness and morphological awareness to school-aged children's word reading and reading comprehension. A total of 110 elementary-age children from Grades 4 and 5 participated in the current study. To measure prosodic awareness, children were asked to listen to and reflect on the stress patterns of…

According to contemporary accounts, linguistic behavior reflects the interaction of distinct representations supporting word meaning and phonology. However, there is controversy about the extent to which this interaction occurs within task-specific systems, specialized for reading and short-term memory (STM), as opposed to between components that…

In this dissertation, I investigated how cognitive resources as well as formal, and informal language experience impact language learning in two studies. In the first study (Chapter 2), I examined the learning of Spanish grammatical gender by Chinese international students who were studying abroad in the US. The goal of that study was to uncover…

Purpose: This study examined individual differences in English language learners' (ELLs) nonword repetition (NWR) accuracy, focusing on the effects of age, English vocabulary size, length of exposure to English, and first-language (L1) phonology. Method: Participants were 75 typically developing ELLs (mean age 5;8 [years;months]) whose exposure to…

Purpose: We investigated whether impaired acoustic processing is a factor in developmental language disorders. The amplitude envelope of the speech signal is known to be important in language processing. We examined whether impaired perception of amplitude envelope rise time is related to impaired perception of lexical and phrasal stress in…

Purpose: Background noise can interfere with our ability to understand speech. Working memory capacity (WMC) has been shown to contribute to the perception of speech in modulated noise maskers. WMC has been assessed with a variety of auditory and visual tests, often pertaining to different components of working memory. This study assessed the…

This study examines the interactions between three vocalic subsystems of multilingual speakers and explores the role language status might play in explaining variability across them. Eight 14-year-olds raised in Germany, who had learnt English at school for 6 years and Polish for 1 year, participated in the study. They were divided into three…

Successful spoken language comprehension depends upon both sensory and cognitive processing. Since older adults often experience declines in one or both of these domains, and perform worse on some language processing tasks than younger listeners, an important question is how declines to both auditory perception and cognitive abilities affect…

This book presents original, empirical data from quantitative and qualitative research studies in the field of language learning aptitude, ability, and individual differences. It does so from the perspectives of Second Language Acquisition, psychology, neuroscience and sociolinguistics. All studies included in the book use a similar and uniform…