Through signs and symbols, language serves as a means of expressing ideas and sentiments. These signs and symbols are used to encode and decode the information. The world has many different languages in use. As their first language, a baby learns their mother tongue. From birth, he or she is exposed to this language. Any additional language that…

Conventional metaphors are a fundamental component of everyday communication, yet they are often overlooked in post-secondary German-language programs. This study examines the extent to which vocabulary breadth influences 19 L2 German learners' comprehension of conventional German metaphors, particularly those that exhibit cross-linguistic…

This research consists of an eye-tracking study examining the efficacy of eye gaze indexing (EGIX) in manipulating viewer eye gaze and enhancing second language (L2) fingerspelling comprehension in American Sign Language (ASL) through a controlled laboratory experiment. The study consisted of two groups and two conditions, EGIX+/EGIX- to test the…

This study investigated second language (L2) comprehension across nine episodes of the same TV series and explored whether comprehension improves through regular classroom viewing. 121 intermediate and advanced EFL learners viewed the series under two conditions: captioned and uncaptioned. Significant differences in comprehension across episodes…

Published in "Language Learning" in 1995, Munro and Derwing's* investigation of foreign accent, comprehensibility, and intelligibility in second language (L2) speech instigated significant change in L2 pronunciation research (Levis, 2020). A key finding was that despite the presence of a foreign accent, listeners could indeed comprehend…

This report examines the potential impacts of task and proficiency on listener judgments of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness in L2 Spanish. This study extends Huensch and Nagle ["Language Learning," 71, 626-668, (2021)], who explored the partial independence among the global speech dimensions for speech samples taken…

This longitudinal study used data from the Busan Educational Longitudinal Study (BELS) to identify growth profiles of English class self-efficacy (ECS) over three years and their associations with English class comprehension, engagement, and achievement. A middle school student sample from 2016 to 2018 BELS comprised 3,038 students (1,394 females…

Although current approaches to second language (L2) pronunciation underscore that instruction should concentrate on pronunciation features that help learners be more intelligible (and not necessarily more native like), there is little empirical evidence as to what those features are, especially in languages other than English. To address this gap,…

Switching between languages requires the participation of executive functions (EFs) which comprise both the 'hot' affective aspects (hot EFs) and the 'cool' cognitive aspects (cool EFs). However, the role of these EFs in language switching is not clear. This study employed a word valence categorization task to explore the effects of hot (i.e.…

Using concordancers in English classes is demanding, time-consuming, and challenging to both teachers and learners. On the other hand, research points to the effectiveness of data-driven learning (DDL) in improving second/foreign language learning. The present study proposed a new task type, that is, DDL focus on form (FonF) tasks, as a…

The present study examined the relative effectiveness of bilingual subtitles for L2 viewing comprehension, compared to other subtitling types. Learners' allocation of attention to the image and subtitles/captions in different viewing conditions, as well as the relationship between attention and comprehension, were also investigated. A total of 112…

For decades, the majority of educational research has been preoccupied with understanding as a "product"--as various "learning achievements" and "subject mastery" to be measured and subsequently represented as statistics or test scores. This preoccupation is also observed in the field of second language education,…

This study investigates L2 comprehension of focus-to-accentuation mapping in English sentences with focus particle "only" by advanced learners of English whose L1 was either Cantonese or Dutch. Two experiments were conducted to examine (a) whether L2 learners could map accentuation to focus; and (b) whether they could perceive…

The comprehension of signed language requires linguistic and visual-spatial processing, such as perspective-taking for correctly interpreting the layout of a spatial scene. However, little is known about how adult second-language (L2) learners process visual-spatial constructions in a signed language that they are studying, including which angles…

This study examined putative benefits of testing and production for learning new languages. Undergraduates (N = 156) were exposed to Turkish spoken dialogues under varying learning conditions (retrieval practice, comprehension, verbal repetition) in a computer-assisted language learning session. Participants completed pre- and posttests of number-…