Although several studies have focused on novel word learning and lexicalization in (presumably) monolingual speakers, less is known about how bilinguals add novel words to their mental lexicon. In this study we trained 33 English-French bilinguals on novel word-forms that were neighbors to English words with no existing neighbors. The number of…

This state-of-the art paper focuses on the issue of linguistic giftedness, somewhat neglected in the second language acquisition (SLA) literature, attempting to reconceptualize, expand and update this concept in response to latest developments in the fields of psychology, linguistics and neurology. It first discusses contemporary perspectives on…

Reference set computation -- the construction of a (global) comparison set to determine whether a given derivation is appropriate in context -- comes with a processing cost. I argue that this cost is directly visible at the acquisition stage: In those linguistic areas in which it has been independently established that such computation is indeed…

A total of 240, 7- and 10-year-olds were tested on memory and sex-role preference tasks. The memory task was the Wickens release from proactive inhibition paradigm in which short-term recall of words is tested on successive trials. On trials 1-4 words were selected from 1 of 2 categories, either words with masculine or feminine connotations. On…

Background: The population of children with specific language impairments (SLI) is heterogeneous. The present study was conducted to examine this heterogeneity more closely, by identifying and describing subgroups within the population of children with SLI in the Netherlands. Method: A broad battery of language tests and language-related cognitive…

With a Finnish-speaking majority and a Swedish-speaking minority, Finland offers a striking contrast in the kinds of cross-linguistic influence that can occur in the acquisition of English in a multilingual setting. While much previous research has looked at the differences between Finnish and Swedish influences, our study compares Swedish…