According to the speech learning model [Flege, J. E. (1995). Second language speech learning: Theory, findings, and problems. In W. Strange (Ed.), "Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research" (pp. 233-277). York Press], learners whose first language (L1) is a tonal language (e.g. Cantonese) can be…

Contrastive focus, conveyed by prosodic cues, marks important information. Studies have shown that 6-year-olds learning English and Japanese can use contrastive focus during online sentence comprehension: focus used in a "contrastive context" facilitates the identification of a target referent (speeding up processing), whereas focus used…

Sentence repetition (SR) tasks have been used to measure children's expressive language skills in normal and abnormal language development, and to examine the development of the speaking skills in second language acquisition, as well as to survey the proficiency of bilingual language development. Recently, SR tasks have been recognized as a…