With the increasing consensus that a single effect of bilingualism is unlikely, some scholars shift their focus to elements that may exert an influence on the bilingual brain. One such element that has been garnering attention lately concerns the role of L1-L2 typological distance. In this conceptual analysis, I make the case that the foundations…

This study contributes to the field of pedagogical translation studies. One of the important outcomes is to reveal how some of the Arabic pedagogical translations of Jane Austen's novels are representations and applications of scholastic methods of language teaching that are rooted in the traditional theories of pedagogical translation. This…

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…

This article enters the debate about the complex and dynamical nature of second language acquisition (SLA) by discussing and commenting on Pallotti's critique of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). Pallotti's critique brings to the fore the argument that, due to its anti-reductionist stance, CDST research fails to observe three fundamental…

This article presents a review of research that has investigated ways of measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language (L2), focusing on grammar. It begins by defining implicit and explicit knowledge in terms of a distinguishing set of criteria. Two ways of investigating implicit knowledge are discussed -- through experimental…

Previous papers in these pages have dealt empirically with the child's first words, the child's first imitations, and the use of yes/no and wh-questions with infants. In this study, we touch on all these issues, but attempt to place them in a systemic-functional language framework and a cultural-historical learning one. First, we deal with some of…

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…

Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) argue that all speakers -- regardless of whether monolingual or bilingual -- have multiple grammars in their mental language representations. They further claim that this simple assumption can explain many things: optionality in second language (L2) language behaviour, multilingualism, language…

Strategic text processing was investigated for English as a foreign language learners who processed and recalled a text when they read for expression, for image, and for critique. The results indicated that, although the amount of content recall (i.e., products of comprehension) was similar, the relative contributions of second language (L2)…

For the purposes of this article, the authors define "multilingualism" as a state of general communicative proficiency in more than two languages; that is, a person is multilingual when he or she can fulfill his or her communicative goals in at least three languages. Bilingualism and trilingualism are thus seen as specific subtypes of a…