This study examined how Chinese native speakers (NSs) and second language (L2) learners process compound words. The findings showed that they used the hybrid model of coexistence for whole word and morphemes; and were influenced by word frequency, semantic transparency, and word structure. The results revealed that two groups of participants used…

The lexical representation of compound words in speech production is still under debate. While most studies with healthy adult speakers suggest that a single lemma representation is active during compound production, data from neuropsychological studies point toward multiple representations, with activation of the compound's constituent lemmas in…

Semantic and phonological similarity effects provide critical constraints on the mechanisms underlying language production. In the present study, we jointly investigated effects of semantic and phonological similarity using the continuous naming task. In the semantic condition, Chinese Mandarin speakers named a list of pictures composed of 12…

This study examines whether second language (L2) learners predict upcoming language prior to the verb in Japanese. Taking the dependency involving negative polarity adverbs -- "zenzen" 'at all' and "amari" '(not) very' -- as a test case, this study examined whether Japanese native speakers and L2 learners of Japanese, aided by…

This study investigates the hypothesis that non-isomorphic syntax-semantics mappings pose a greater challenge for non-native (L2) than for native (L1) speakers, focusing on a previously understudied phenomenon. We carried out an antecedent judgment task with L1 German and L1 Russian-speaking, proficient L2 learners of German to examine Condition C…

This study aims to investigate the differences in the realization of request speech act between the IEL (Indonesian English Learners) and the AES (Australian English-Native Speakers), as well as explain the factors influencing these distinctions. The descriptive-qualitative method and discourse completion task (DCT) were used to obtain data in…

This study tests the Competing Systems Hypothesis (CSH) as applied to adult second language acquisition of aspect in Spanish. The CSH purports that differences among tutored and untutored learners result from competition between one system of underlying grammatical knowledge and another of learned metalinguistic knowledge in tutored learners…

This study builds on prior research on second language (L2) Spanish psych verbs, which has centered on morphosyntactic properties, by examining their syntactic distribution, which relies on lexical semantic knowledge. The fact that certain forms are licensed for some verbs, but not others, is the result of an underlying lexical semantic difference…

The Spanish mood contrast is a good test case for research on acquiring form-meaning connections in contexts where input is variable and multiple areas of the grammar are implicated (e.g., syntax, semantics, pragmatics). Nevertheless, research on interpretation of this contrast lags and little is known about how individual lexical items and…

This paper investigates the effects of meaning dominance in the time-course of activation for ambiguous words out of context in a second language (L2) based on two models: the ordered access model, where the most frequent dominant meaning is always accessed first, and the multiple access model, where dominant and subordinate meanings are…

On the evidence of four lexical-decision tasks in German, we examine speakers' sensitivity to internal morphological composition and abstract morphological rules during the processing of derived words, real and novel. In a lexical-decision task with delayed priming, speakers were presented with two-step derived nouns such as "Heilung…

In this study, we conducted a lexical decision test using masked priming paradigm to examine the morphological and orthographic priming effects in word recognition. Morphologically related word pairs can be derivational, sharing the same root or not (pseudo derivational). However, the orthographically related pairs share the same letters in…

This study examines the role of explicit instruction in article semantics to L2 learners of English. Two types of generic sentences, expressed by different articles, were tested over time. An instruction group (n = 21), a control group (n = 16) and a native English speaker control group (n = 9) participated in the study. The instruction group…

Refusing is a common speech act; nonetheless people from different cultural backgrounds employ different refusal strategies. The present study compares refusal strategies used between native speakers of Javanese in Indonesia and native speakers of British English in the United Kingdom. Empirical data were elicited by means of discourse completion…

Cognitive factors have been recognised as important in the interpreting process, but whether they could serve as valid components of interpreting aptitude still awaits further investigation. This study explores the predictive value of cognitive fluency in the simultaneous interpreting (SI) performance of trainee interpreters. Cognitive fluency…