Recent studies have uncovered substantial individual differences in first language (L1) language attainment across the lifespan and across multiple components of language. The existence of such variability raises the question of its role in second language (L2) learning. The existing body of research on L1-L2 relationships has primarily targeted…

The present study contributes to our understanding of the effects of age and type of linguistic input in the acquisition of Spanish as a second language in adulthood. I examine the Spanish syntax (word order) of three groups of speakers, monolingual Spanish speakers from Mexico and two bilingual English-Spanish speakers born and raised in the…

For more than a decade, research on heritage speakers' (HSs') mood selection has documented a high degree of variability in their interpretation and use of mood morphology in variable contexts. Most of the previous literature, however, has focused on late-acquired alternations, and often limited analyses to one form (i.e., subjunctive), making it…

In the present study, we used a scanpath approach to investigate reading processes and factors that can shape them in monolingual Russian-speaking adults, 8-year-old children, and bilingual Russian-speaking readers. We found that monolingual adults' eye movement patterns exhibited a fluent scanpath reading process, representing effortless…

Internationalization of education has made it even more important to have a good command of English, a global language. Concurrently, a similar trend recently surfaced in research, rivalling English, i.e., Languages other than English (LOTE). Review of the existing literature reveals prolific literature on the roles and functions of first, second,…

Purpose: The present study aimed to systemically summarize the structural relationships among correlated components of second language (L2) reading comprehension to investigate the extent to which the two major components -- language comprehension abilities and decoding skills -- could account for reading comprehension in L2 contexts in accordance…

We investigated how native and fluent users of English segment continuous speech and to what extent they use sound-related and structure-related cues. As suggested by the notion of multi-competence, L1 users are not seen as ideal models with perfect command of English, and L2 users not as lacking in competence. We wanted to see how language…

The aim of this project was to identify factors contributing to cross-language semantic preview benefits. In Experiment 1, Russian-English bilinguals read English sentences with Russian words presented as parafoveal previews. The gaze-contingent boundary paradigm was used to present sentences. Critical previews were cognate translations of the…

Purpose: Bilingual children often demonstrate a high rate of disfluencies, which might impact the diagnostic evaluation of fluency disorders; however, research on the rates and types of disfluencies in bilinguals' two languages is limited. The purpose of this research is to profile disfluencies of two types, stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) and…

Millions of public-school students in the United States are identified as English language learners (ELLs), whose academic success is tied to their second language (L2) English education. Previous research in adult populations indicates that L2 proficiency is related to the contextual variable of the prevalence of one's first language (L1) among…

This article focuses on the effects of a 21-hour Romance Intercomprehension (RIC) module on the plurilingual competence in Romance languages of no prior knowledge and EFL reading comprehension skills of a group of Italian schoolchildren aged 10-11. Data were collected pre- and post-training through a simple language identification and…

Despite the extensive research on bilingual development, our understanding of how lexical competition unfolds in the bilingual mind remains limited. Previous studies have predominantly focused on crosslinguistic competition, neglecting the examination of the competition process within each language and the influence of diverse bilingual…

We investigated the effectiveness of two different teaching methods based on two different theoretical views of how languages are learned in oral proficiency after three years of L2 French instruction. The first method is commonly used in the Netherlands and is in line with structure-based (SB) principles, viewing language as a set of grammar…

This research aims to examine students' perceptions of the benefits and constraints of using Virtual Interpreting Practice (VIP), a mobile-based virtual reality application for bi-directional English/Chinese consecutive and sight interpreting learning that was developed within the project. Thirty-one Chinese university students participated in an…

In this study the author combines translingualism and raciolinguistic perspectives to analyze the language ideologies and idealized listening/reading subject positions that undergird discourses on English language teaching in Pakistan. Drawing on data from national policy documents, the national curriculum for English, and English proficiency…