In this study of more than 1,000 typical and at-risk elementary Arabic-speaking students in Oman, we explore relationships between pragmatic (and other) language skills, literacy, cognition, and behavior and the degree to which demography impacts performance on associated tasks. We found, in most cases, that females performed better than males,…

Organized under the auspices of the "Language Learning" Roundtable Conference Grant (2012), this seminar aimed to provide an interactive forum for a group of second language acquisition (SLA) researchers with particular interests in cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics to discuss key theoretical and methodological issues in the…

Previous studies show that second language (L2) learners with large phonological memory spans outperform learners with smaller memory spans on tests of L2 grammar. The current study investigated the relationship between phonological memory and L2 grammar in more detail than has been done earlier. Specifically, we asked how phonological memory…

Representation of languages in a bilingual mind in general and the way bilinguals restore words from their mental lexicon, and the way they retrieve words have been explored by many researchers resulting in varied findings. The more information regarding bilingual memory is obtained, the better image would be constructed about this knowledge…

This is the first collection of research studies to explore the potential for mixed methods to shed light on foreign or second language learning by young learners in instructed contexts. It brings together recent studies undertaken in Cameroon, China, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania and…

This study examines the frequency effect of two-word collocations involving "para" "to," "for" (e.g. "fui para," "para que") on the reduction of "para" to "pa" (in Spanish) and "pra" (in Portuguese). Collocation frequency effects demonstrate that language speakers…

This article investigates whether and how L2 sentence processing is affected by memory constraints that force serial parsing. Monitoring eye movements, we test effects of working memory on L2 relative-clause attachment preferences in a sample of 75 late-adult German learners of English and 25 native English controls. Mixed linear regression…

In an event-related potential (ERP) study we investigated the role of age of acquisition (AoA) on the use of second language rhythmic properties during syntactic ambiguity resolution. Syntactically ambiguous sentences embedded in rhythmically regular and irregular contexts were presented to Turkish early and late second language (L2) learners of…

Due to the lack of span test for the use in language-specific and cross-language studies, this study provides L1 and L2 researchers with a reliable language-independent span test (math span test) for the measurement of working memory capacity. It also describes the development, validation, and scoring method of this test. This test included 70…

This study investigated three of the issues recently raised in connection with the traditional concept of foreign language aptitude: the relationship between foreign language aptitude and working memory and phonological short-term memory capacity, the role of foreign language aptitude in predicting success in the framework of focus-on-form foreign…

Reports cross-linguistic differences in forward digit span among four-, five-, and six-year-old Chinese and American children. Examines several explanations for the superior performance of Chinese children, and finds that only a temporally limited store hypothesis was supported. (SKC)

Presents results of an experiment seeking relationships between motor activities and more central language production processes. Concludes that the same motor program was used for occurrences of repeated morphemes in the experiment. Reports that nonrepeated morphemes were recovered from verbal memory while the preceding repeated morpheme was being…

Recent research on Chinese orthography is reviewed in a discussion of the relationship between orthographic symbols and reading processes. Specifically, these issues are addressed with relation to research findings: the difficulty of learning Chinese logographs, particularly with regard to learning disabilities and biliteracy; whether reading in…

In a replication of a similar study with American children, 56 normal native Israeli children (5-years-old) were studied to determine the universality of self-generated verbal mediators as a means of enhancing memory processes. Eight Ss, randomly selected, were assigned in each of the following conditions: labeling, sentence generation, listening…

A study was conducted at the International University of Japan to see if second language (L2) working capacity correlates with L2 reading ability in advanced English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners. The study consisted of a set of memory tests (Simple Digit, Simple Word, and Complex Span Test) and a set of measures of reading skills given to…