Frequency and proficiency have been found to play an important role in second language (L2) phrasal processing. However, existing research has largely focused on English and other European languages, with other commonly used languages, such as Chinese, being largely disregarded. To fill this gap, we carried out two experiments to investigate how…

This study investigated the effects of semantic transparency of Chinese suon Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners' incidental learning of word meanings in sentence-level reading and passage-level reading. The accuracy of the learners' lexical inferencing was compared among various types of words (transparent, semi-transparent, and opaque…

The present study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine nonlocal agreement processing between native (L1) English speakers and Chinese-English second language (L2) learners, whose L1 lacks number agreement. We manipulated number marking with determiners ("the" vs. "that"/"these") to see how…

Lexical tones are widely believed to be a formidable learning challenge for adult speakers of nontonal languages. While difficulties--as well as rapid improvements--are well documented for beginning second language (L2) learners, research with more advanced learners is needed to understand how tone perception difficulties impact word recognition…

This study investigates how speakers of Mandarin interpret negative sentences with the conjunction ("he" 'and'). Our experiments test three predictions that follow from the proposal that the Mandarin conjunction is a positive polarity item (PPI) for both children and adults. On this account, the Mandarin conjunction should be interpreted…

This study used eye-tracking to investigate the real-time processing of phonetic and semantic radicals (components of Chinese characters that give clues to their pronunciation and meaning) by intermediate-level university Chinese foreign language (CFL) learners. Additionally, the study examined how knowledge and awareness of radicals affect…

Word-initial stops in Mandarin and English show a distinctive phonological categorization but a similar phonetic realization along the VOT (Voice Onset Time) continuum. Previous research reported that native Mandarin adults produce measurably longer long-lag VOTs than native English adults. The present study examined whether and how the difference…

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…

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…

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"…

The current replication study aims to examine the effects of learners' attention to lexical and grammatical forms on meaning comprehension while listening to a passage in Spanish. The registered protocol and materials in the aural mode from Morgan-Short et al.'s (2018) multisite replication study were used, with first language (L1) Chinese-second…

Previous studies have shown that Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers exhibit different patterns of cross-modal congruence for the lexical tones of Mandarin Chinese, depending on which features of the pitch they attend to. But is this pattern of language-specific listening a conscious cultural strategy or an automatic processing effect? If…

Some scientists believe that speaking a second language could confer lasting cognitive advantages in aging and stave off the onset of dementia (Bialystok et al., 2007; Craik et al., 2010; Abutalebi & Rietbergen, 2014; Grant et al., 2014; Woumans et al., 2015; Klein et al., 2016; Abutalebi & Green, 2016; Smirnov et al., 2019). However, this…

The relationship between language switching and task switching has been well studied in bilingualism literature. This study employs novel experiments involving magnitude-parity switching and transparency-orientation switching and compares the costs associated with these two types of task switching with language switching. Switching costs and the…