The acquisition of communicative competence in second and foreign languages requires the incorporation of verbal and non-verbal elements. Notwithstanding, few studies have performed empirical research into the acquisition of non-verbal signs. This research studies the learning of emblematic gestures for students of Spanish in the USA using an…

We examined the influence of language and socioeconomic factors on academic achievement in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC): a multilingual society with a recent history of language revitalisation. We analysed scores obtained by Grade 4 and Grade 10 students on a diagnostic mathematics test administered in either Basque or Spanish in the BAC.…

This mixed methods study draws upon theoretical perspectives from usage-based linguistics (UBL) and variationist sociolinguistics to explore four learners' use of second language (L2) Spanish present tense indicative verbal inflectional morphology (i.e., simple present conjugations). The study compares the frequency and distribution of students'…

Language teachers cannot help their students develop high levels of metalinguistic knowledge and language aptitude if they themselves are found lacking in these abilities. This article reports on a study that utilised a descriptive correlational mixed-methods research design to gather data from 89 multilingual teachers of English, Chinese, French,…

This study explores the experiences of second-generation Latine adolescents by examining the impact of bilingualism on self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Drawing on Suarez-Orozco and colleagues' (2018) model, this study shows the multifaceted acculturation process, emphasizing linguistic acculturation as crucial for navigating two cultures. The…

Verbal morphology has been identified as a particularly vulnerable domain for adult heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish, especially when it involves the selection of subjunctive mood. A minimal amount is known, however, about the potential effects of the variability associated with these forms on the acquisition of related epiphenomena, such as the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to characterize the local (utterance-level) temporal regularities of child-directed speech (CDS) that might facilitate phonological development in Spanish, classically termed a syllable-timed language. Method: Eighteen female adults addressed their 4-year-old children versus other adults spontaneously and also…

This study aimed to explore emotional regulation, alexithymia, and interpersonal relations in a Spanish sample of 146 adult deaf participants and 146 typical hearing participants. For the deaf sample, the associations between type of language used and the above variables were also analyzed. Results showed that deaf participants scored higher on…

Experience with a visual-spatial language may influence certain cognitive processes (Keehner and Gathercole 2007). Spatial ability is an important cognitive skill (Linn and Petersen 1985). Some research has found that deaf signers outperform hearing nonsigners on certain spatial tasks (e.g., Emmorey, Kosslyn, and Bellugi 1993) and that hearing…

Despite the extensive research on bilingual development, our understanding of how lexical competition unfolds in the bilingual mind remains limited. Previous studies have predominantly focused on crosslinguistic competition, neglecting the examination of the competition process within each language and the influence of diverse bilingual…

This study discusses the impact of interactionist output-oriented approaches, specifically, the effects of collaborative text reconstruction on subjunctive recognition and production in the written modality by English-dominant Spanish second-language learners. It also examines whether students' text length and text complexity increase after…

Language can alter our mental conceptions of space, time, and categories. While there is compelling evidence that thought can be shaped by syntactic, morphological, and lexical features of a language, less is known about the impact of phonology on thought. This dissertation uses novel objects (alien cartoon figures) and pseudoword names in three…

This paper investigates the attitudes towards English of autochthonous and immigrant students in Catalonia (Spain) by focusing on their region of origin and their language competence. The research examines the individual and the joint effect of both variables in the development of language attitudes. A questionnaire was administered to 954…

This article reports a study about the behavior and functions of term variation in research articles (RAs) in Geology and Psychology. The aim of the study was twofold: first, to investigate the role of intra-textual term variation as a device for the representation and transfer of specialized knowledge; second, to explore whether there are…

This project examines whether second-language (L2) learners can converge on a native-like pattern at the interface between syntax and discourse under low and high processing pressure, using Spanish clitic-doubled left dislocation (CLLD) as a test case. The original version of the Interface Hypothesis (IH) predicts that L2 competence on…