This dissertation features a relative clause island, whose status has been known to differ significantly across languages and extraction types. By conducting a series of acceptability judgment experiments with human participants, as well as measuring token-by-token surprisal values among large language models, I demonstrate the following: First,…

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…

The present study investigates L1 and L2 English speakers' knowledge of the "wh"-clausal construction along the parameters of (a) conventionality, distinguishing between high-frequency conventional and low-frequency unconventional formulations ("I asked him why they agreed/why did they agree"), and (b) proposition type,…

Formulaic expressions (FEs), such as conventional collocations (e.g., fresh air) and phrases (e.g., take a break), constitute a significant part of language use in our daily lives (Erman & Warren, 2000). FEs are defined as multiword units that holistically represent a single meaning, and they are likely stored and retrieved as unanalyzed…

This brief report presents the results of a re-analysis of data by Yi, Man, and Maie (2023), who investigated L1 and L2 intuitive knowledge of phrasal frequency and collocation strength in multiword sequences. We utilized an individual-differences approach and examined which participant variables (age of onset, length of residence, language use,…

Evidence from the contemporary translation services market and many centuries of translation practice demonstrate that translation into a non-native language (L2 translation) can be performed effectively, despite the once-strong resistance to it on the grounds of it being perceived as unprofessional and inherently deficient. L2 translation is in…

We examine the second language (L2) acquisition of variable Spanish word order by first language (L1) speakers of English via the acquisition of unaccusative and transitive predicates in various focus-related contexts. We employ two bimodal linguistic tasks: (1) acceptability judgment task (B-AJT) and (2) appropriateness preference task (B-APT).…

Although the Japanese reflexive "zibun" can be bound both locally and across clause boundaries, the third-person pronoun "kare" cannot take a local antecedent. These are properties that children need to learn about their language, but we show that the direct evidence of the binding possibilities of "zibun" is sparse…

The present investigation focuses on first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers' sensitivity to lexical fixedness and compositionality of Italian word combinations. Two studies explored language users' intuitions about three types of word combinations: free combinations, collocations, and idioms. In Study 1, Italian Verb+Noun…

Corpora have given rise to a wide range of lexicographic resources aimed at helping novice users of academic English with their writing. This includes academic vocabulary lists, a variety of textbooks, and even a bespoke academic English dictionary. However, writers may not be familiar with these resources or may not be sufficiently aware of the…

With increasingly rapid advances in machine translation (MT) technology, such as Google Translate, MT has become an indispensable learning resource for second or additional language learners. Many studies indicate that MT or postediting of MT (PEMT) can be an effective tool for L2 learning and teaching. Nevertheless, little research illustrates…

The present research investigates how translators deal with the challenges of translating culture-specific words from Thai into English within a digital environment. Using strategies suggested by Baker (2018), the study collected data from surveys, written sources and observations to examine which approaches are used by translators. It also…

This study compares monolinguals and different kinds of bilinguals with respect to their knowledge of the type of lexical phenomenon known as collocation. Collocations are word combinations that speakers use recurrently, forming the basis of conventionalized lexical patterns that are shared by a linguistic community. Examples of collocations…

The present study investigates whether two types of word combinations (free combinations and collocations) differ in terms of processing by testing Howarth's Continuum Model based on word combination typologies from a phraseological tradition. A visual semantic judgment task was administered to advanced Swedish learners of English (n = 27) and…