Research suggests new foreign language (FL) words are learned more easily if their phonology follows the phonotactic rules of the native language. Very little is known, however, about the impact of orthography on FL learning. This study investigated the cognitive mechanisms supporting the learning of words with familiar and unfamiliar…

The current study examined the phonolexical processing of Mandarin segments and tones by English speakers at different Mandarin proficiency levels. Eleven English speakers naive to Mandarin, 15 intermediate and 9 advanced second language (L2) learners participated in a word-learning experiment. After learning the sound and meaning of 16 Mandarin…

Some listeners exhibit higher sensitivity to subphonemic acoustic differences (i.e., higher speech gradiency). Here, we asked whether higher gradiency in a listener's first language (L1) facilitates foreign language learning and explored the possible sources of individual differences in L1 gradiency. To address these questions, we tested 164…

Background: Several studies have revealed that prosody contributes to reading acquisition. However, the relation between awareness of prosodic patterns and different facets of language ability (e.g., vocabulary knowledge) in school-age children remains unclear. This study measured awareness of prosodic patterns using non-speech and speech stimuli.…

The question of whether second languages (L2s) are best learned implicitly or explicitly has been a topic of much empirical discourse, with the majority of studies pointing to the benefits of explicit instruction when learning L2 grammar rules. However, given the focus on grammar, it is unclear how generalizable these findings are to other…

This dissertation presents three studies that examined issues related to the production and the perception of pitch in a tone language. The first study examined linguistic contexts that may modulate consonant-induced pitch perturbations (CF0) in a tone language. Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding the role of linguistic…

Previous research has shown that an increased second language (L2) vocabulary size leads to better attunement to the cues required to distinguish L2 contrastive phones. This has been the central tenet of the vocabulary-tuning model (vocab) on the basis of evidence by Japanese learners of English in Australia. We aim to test the validity of the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare masked English speech recognition thresholds between Spanish-English bilingual and English monolingual children and to evaluate effects of age, maternal education, and English receptive language abilities on individual differences in masked speech recognition. Method: Forty-three Spanish-English…

It is well documented in the cognitive literature that visual stimuli create strong memory connections (Shapiro & Waters, 2005). In L2 research, mnemonic devices have been found to be a relevant factor in the development of vocabulary learning (Sagarra & Alba, 2006). However, the extent to which visual cues are needed in the association of…

Research Findings: The present study compared effects of explicit instruction on and practice with the phonological form of words (form-focused instruction) versus explicit instruction on and practice with the meaning of words (meaning-focused instruction). Instruction was given via interactive storybook reading in the kindergarten classroom of…

Speech production and perception are inextricably linked systems. Speakers modify their speech in response to listener characteristics, such as age, hearing ability, and language background. Listener-oriented modifications in speech production, commonly referred to as clear speech, have also been found to affect speech perception by enhancing…

Previous studies (Barcroft & Sommers, 2005; Sommers & Barcroft, 2007) have demonstrated that variability in talker, speaking style, and speaking rate positively affect second language vocabulary learning, whereas variability in overall amplitude and fundamental frequency (F0) do not, at least for native English speakers. Sommers and…

Children who start formal education in a second language may experience slower vocabulary growth in that language and subsequently experience disadvantages in literacy acquisition. The current study asked whether lexical specificity training can stimulate bilingual children's phonological awareness, which is considered to be a precursor to…

Second language (L2) learners of tone languages do not perceive and produce the different tones of the target language with equal ease. The most common explanation for these asymmetries is that acoustically salient tones are the easiest to learn. An alternative explanation is that tones are easiest to learn when they are highly frequent in the…

Every language has its own rhythm. Unlike many other languages in the world, English depends on the correct pronunciation of stressed and unstressed or weakened syllables recurring in the same phrase or sentence. Mastering the rhythm of English makes speaking more effective. Experiments have shown that we tend to hear speech as more rhythmical…