Speakers display considerable variability in language use and representations: they may have different pronunciations of the same word, different intended meanings for the same phrases, and different sets of syntactic constraints in their internalized grammars. Comprehenders adapt to such variability by constantly updating their expectations for…

This project explores how the variation in language experiences and attitudes that Mexican American Spanish heritage speaker bilinguals in the United States have affects their speech perception in both their languages. Heritage language bilinguals speak as a first language a minority language that they have cultural ties to (e.g., Spanish in the…

In this paper, the researcher aims at investigating and revisiting the impact of Krashen's input hypothesis on L2 output. Based on Krashen's theories, the researcher proposes the homogeneity hypothesis as an extension to the input hypothesis. Homogeneity hypothesis states that the linguistic input given to L2 learners should be not only…

Input variability is key in many aspects of linguistic learning, yet variability increases input complexity, which may cause difficulty in some learning contexts. The current work investigates this trade-off by comparing speaker variability effects on L2 vocabulary learning in different age groups. Existing literature suggests that speaker…

Language exposure plays a large role in language acquisition, and bilingual children must acquire both of their languages in environments that typically include abundant speech variability. The specific goals of this dissertation were to examine how speech exposure affected phonological retuning and lexical access in bilingual children's second…

The phenomenon of regularization -- learners imposing systematicity on inconsistent variation in language input -- is complex. Studies show that children are more likely to regularize than adults, but adults will also regularize under certain circumstances. Exactly why we see the pattern of behaviour that we do is not well understood, however.…

This thesis examines whether native, heritage, and L2 speakers of Spanish engage a morphological layer of representation in the processing of inflected words, and whether they do so with both regularly- and irregularly-inflected words. Also examined is whether this tendency towards compositional (i.e. morphological rule-based) processing is…

How does phonological development differ in children exposed to one versus two variants of a single language? If children receive mixed evidence for a phonological contrast (i.e., one language variant in the environment maintains a contrast while another neutralizes it), will they treat this contrast as noncontrastive (i.e., as allophonic)? Or…

A well-known challenge for language learners is that the input is typically produced by a variety of speakers, each with distinct vocal characteristics (Liberman, Harris, Hoffman, & Griffith, 1957). Accordingly, many studies have indicated that talker variability leads to processing costs for learners across the lifespan (Jusczyk & Pisoni,…

This paper presents an experimental study of the rarely explored question of how input through instruction interacts with L2 acquisition at the level of modular linguistic knowledge. The investigation focuses on L2 knowledge of the English polarity item "any," whose properties are only partially covered by typical language-teaching…

The recognition of familiar words was evaluated in 20-month-old children raised in a rhotic accent environment to parents that had either rhotic or non-rhotic accents. Using an Intermodal Preferential Looking task children were presented with familiar objects (e.g. "bird") named in their rhotic or non-rhotic form. Children were only able to…

Learners frequently experience phonologically inconsistent input, such as exposure to multiple accents. Yet, little is known about the consequences of phonological inconsistency for language learning. The current study examines vocabulary acquisition with different degrees of phonological inconsistency, ranging from no inconsistency (e.g., both…

The theory of Analogical and Exemplar Modeling (AEM) suggests renewed discussion of the formalization of analogy and its possible incorporation in linguistic theory. AEM is a usage-based model founded upon Exemplar Modeling (Bybee 2007, Pierrehumbert 2001) that utilizes several principles of the Analogical Modeling of Language (Skousen 1992, 1995,…

This dissertation explores the hypothesis that language processing proceeds in "windows" that correspond to representational units, where sensory signals are integrated according to time-scales that correspond to the rate of the input. To investigate universal mechanisms, a comparison of signed and spoken languages is necessary. Underlying the…

Examined how acoustic variation affects second language (L2) lexical acquisition in consideration of four hypotheses: degraded input, elaborate processing, independent modulation, and robust versus strong connectivity. Beginners of L2 Spanish attempted to learn 24 Spanish words presented in 1 of 3 degrees of acoustic variation. Immediate and…