Dative alternation between prepositional and double object datives has been a popular topic in second language (L2) acquisition, but only few studies deal with discourse constraints such as the "given-before-new" principle, or given-new (GN) ordering, which describes the tendency to place given information before new information. The…

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,…

This study aims to provide a comprehensive profile of collocational competence, a key component of one's overall linguistic competence. For the maximum of ecological validity, we elicited naturalistic oral/written production data from 84 Chinese intermediate EFL learners and performed a 2×2 fashion of analysis on their performance in each of the…

This study investigates the use of metacognitive strategies by young emergent multilingual students in a translanguaging pedagogy scenario. From a multilingual perspective, we understand metacognition as a broader concept that refers to the learning or thinking processes that encapsulate metalinguistic and crosslinguistic awareness. We focus on…

The present study investigated six experienced English as a second language (ESL) teachers' metalinguistic knowledge of the English intonation system through analysis of their metalanguage. Participants' metalanguage related to intonation was collected while completing three tasks: (1) a semi-structured interview, (2) a simulated teaching…

This study investigates the relationships among working memory (WM), syntactic parsing ability (SP), and L2 reading performance across varying proficiency levels. A cohort of 120 L1-Persian EFL learners was categorized into beginner, intermediate, and advanced proficiency groups based on their IELTS scores. Participants completed a reading span…

In a highly multilingual country like India, challenges and opportunities arise in education and language policy. Although multilingualism is often associated with developmental advantages, Indian primary school children generally show low learning outcomes, specifically on literacy. Here we examine the influence of mother tongue education and…

Although research shows that second language (L2) learners have major difficulties in developing their productive vocabulary skills, little research has been conducted on how to facilitate productive mastery of learned words. With this in mind, this study investigated the effects of task type and repetition frequency on improving receptive word…

This study investigated three key issues in heritage language (HL) research. Previous research shows HL speakers have an advantage on oral production tasks compared to L2 speakers who instead perform better on written tasks. Furthermore, both L2 and HL speakers are claimed to have a "yes-bias" towards retaining ungrammaticality in GJTs.…

University classrooms are increasingly populated by students with diverse nationalities and native languages (L1). The growing number of students in English-led classrooms who speak English as a second or lower language (L2) may face added difficulties in understanding the specific task objectives or directions, as explained by native-…

There has been much debate in assessment research about the inclusion of Global English accents in high-stakes listening tests. This study explored test-takers' attitudes toward the inclusion of different English accents in the Duolingo English Test (DET) 2021 test version and their associations with listening test scores. One hundred sixty…

Despite the worldwide prevalence of multilingualism, the knowledge of the relationship between domain-general cognitive control and multilingual language control remains scant. Here we provide new insights into this issue by examining systematically how different components of inhibitory control (i.e., response inhibition and interference…

This study explored second language (L2) competence in discontinuous discursive formulaic sequences, namely Chinese correlative connectives (CCCs; e.g. yinwei . . . suy 'because . . . so'), in relation to the determinants of formulaic sequence acquisition by scrutinizing L2 Chinese learners' performance on two controlled tasks. Mixed-effects…

Within the same learning context, learners' outcomes in terms of oral fluency vary greatly. This study tracked the relative contributions that first language (L1) and initial second language (L2) fluency skill and working memory (WM) made to L2 fluency development. We assessed the performance of French-speaking Grade 6 learners' (n = 47, mean age:…

The present study investigated how Cantonese speakers learning English as a second language (L2) would comprehend English irony and whether their L2 proficiency and use would moderate their irony processing. Thirty Cantonese speakers with differing English proficiency (intermediate vs advanced) were asked to complete an irony comprehension task in…