This dissertation explores the relationship between language production processes and recorded typing behaviors among native speakers of English writing in their native language. Typing is quite prevalent in modern societies, as its use is becoming increasingly required in professional and personal settings but it remains largely understudied in…

In the history of psycholinguistics, there are traditional accounts that have been told about language learning and processing. These accounts revolve around the constraints imposed by the age of language learning and by universal principles that are assumed to be natively given. The contribution of Brian MacWhinney and his collaborators has been…

In many domains, learners extract recurring units from continuous sequences. For example, in unknown languages, fluent speech is perceived as a continuous signal. Learners need to extract the underlying words from this continuous signal and then memorize them. One prominent candidate mechanism is statistical learning, whereby learners track how…

Codeswitching is a common feature of bilingual language practices, yet its impact on word learning is poorly understood. Critically, processing costs associated with codeswitching may extend to learning. Moreover, verbs tend to be more difficult to learn than nouns, and the challenges of learning verbs could compound with processing costs…

In two visual priming experiments, we investigated the relation of form-identical word forms with different grammatical functions in L1 and L2 German. Four different grammatical types (inflected verbs, infinitives, deverbal conversion forms, and countable nouns) were used as primes and their influence on the processing of form-identical inflected…

The last two decades have seen a significant amount of interest in bilingual language learning and processing. A number of computational models have also been developed to account for bilingualism, with varying degrees of success. In this article, we first briefly introduce the significance of computational approaches to bilingual language…

In order to better understand the role of syntactic similarity in a code-switched sentence, the current study explored the effect of similar and different syntactic structures on Chinese-English bilinguals' intra-sentential switching costs. L2 proficiency and switching directions as factors that potentially intervene in bilingual performance were…

Previous research has shown that language learners tend to produce fewer and less-natural multi-word sequences (MWSs) compared to native speakers of the same language. In the present study, collocational processing was investigated in a sentence reading task. Specifically, the familiar collocations were predicted to modulate the P3 mean amplitudes…

Linguistic meaning is generated by the mind and can be expressed in multiple languages. One may assume that equivalent texts/utterances in two languages by means of translation generate equivalent meanings in their readers/hearers. This follows if we assume that meaning calculated from the linguistic input is solely objective in nature. However,…

The present study used a repetition priming paradigm to investigate the basic morphological units stored in mental lexicon for Chinese as second language learners (L2) and Chinese native speakers (L1). Meanwhile, the modulation of Chinese morpheme property (bound or free) in lexical processing was examined. The results revealed that for…

Early and late bilinguals both differ in the speed with which they comprehend language or in their processing of sentences compared to monolinguals. This is possibly a result of cross-language interference, differential allocation of cognitive resources, or some other difference in language-dependent processes. This dissertation presents research…

The effect of first language transfer on second language acquisition and learning has been a major theoretical concept in second language research and pedagogy since the 1950s. In order to give a historical perspective, the authors offer a brief presentation of some of the major topics from the broad spectrum of issues that have been examined by…

We investigated the role of cue weighting, second language (L2) proficiency, and L2 daily exposure in L2 learning of suprasegmentals different from the first language (L1), using eye-tracking. Spanish monolinguals, English-Spanish learners, and Mandarin--Spanish learners saw a paroxytone and an oxytone verb (e.g., "FIRma-firMÓ"…

Westergaard's microcue account raises the question of the exact nature of language transfer in the acquisition of languages as well of how L1/Ln input interacts with the principles of universal grammar (UG) during processing. In order to consider in more detail the actual representation building, processing mechanisms that would be involved, her…

Westergaard (2021) presents an updated account of the Linguistic Proximity Model and the micro-cue approach to the parser as an acquisition device. The property-by-property view of transfer inherent in this approach contrasts with other influential models that assume that third language (L3) acquisition involves the creation of a full copy of only…