This narrative review discusses quantitative indices measuring differences between alphabetic languages that are related to the process of word recognition. The specific orthography that a child is acquiring has been identified as a central element influencing reading acquisition and dyslexia. However, the development of reliable metrics to…

Research with native speakers indicates that, during word recognition, regularly inflected words undergo parsing that segments them into stems and affixes. In contrast, studies with learners suggest that this parsing may not take place in L2. This study's research questions are: Do L2 Spanish learners store and process regularly inflected,…

Semantic memory is relatively stable across the lifespan (LaBarge, Edwards, & Knesevich, 1986). However, most research has been conducted at the single concept level (LaBarge et al., 1986, Spaniol et al., 2006). Few researchers have examined how semantic knowledge is used in discourse. The purpose of the study, then, was to determine the…

The current work uses memory errors to examine the mental representation of verb-particle constructions (VPCs; e.g., "make up" the story, "cut up the meat"). Some evidence suggests that VPCs are represented by a cline in which the relationship between the VPC and its component elements ranges from highly transparent ("cut…

Purpose: The first aim of this study was to investigate if Swedish-speaking school-age children with language impairment (LI) show specific morphosyntactic vulnerabilities in error detection. The second aim was to investigate the effects of lexical frequency on error detection, an overlooked aspect of previous error detection studies. Method:…

Background: Pedagogical agents are computerized talking heads or embodied animated avatars that help students learn by performing actions and holding conversations with the students in natural language. Dialogues occur between a tutor agent and the student in the case of AutoTutor and other intelligent tutoring systems with natural language…

Purpose: The goal of this study was to examine online and off-line sentence processing using Korean language relative clause sentences between children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical development (TD). Method: Twenty-four children with TD and 19 children with SLI participated in this study. Children completed…

We examine the stylistic aspects of L2 translations using a set of quantifiable descriptors. The sample includes 40 translations of a promotional text from Czech into English and French produced by novices and professional translators. The general stylistic competence is slightly higher in the group of professionals, although the overall quality…

Purpose: Recent behavioral studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of implementing retrieval practice into learning tasks for children. Such approaches have revealed that repeated spaced retrieval (RSR) is particularly effective in promoting children's learning of word form and meaning information. This study further examines how retrieval…

According to previous research, speakers of European languages parse regularly-inflected, morphologically-complex words into stems and grammatical affixes during word recognition. In contrast, some studies suggest that late second language (L2) learners do not. We ask how these types of words are processed in Arabic, a language whose primary…

The aims of the present study are: (1) to examine the methodological issues on the development of context-dependent and context-independent task development process in investigating the cognitive verb complementation patterns in English; and (2) to design and administer task items to analyze the learners' recognition and production levels in the…

One core question in studies of language processing is the extent to which interlocutors engage in real-time communicative perspective-taking. Current evidence suggests that both children and young adult listeners are able to draw on common ground (shared knowledge) to guide referential interpretation. However, less is known about older listeners,…

Research on inner speech is still in a nascent stage. The present paper investigates consecutive multilinguals' self-reported language use for inner speech with a focus on the L1 (first language) and L2 (second language). Its aim is to identify influential variables in these processes and to investigate if findings from previous studies are…

The role of students' first language(s) in foreign language classrooms has been hotly debated in the last decades. Although this line of research has advanced our understanding of language choice in the L2 classroom, it has mostly dealt with adolescent and adult learners. From a contextual perspective, then, more micro-analytic research that…

This study aimed to investigate the effect of written cues on the second- language (L2) language perception, processing, and word learning, especially when the person's first language (L1) belongs to a different rhythmic type of language than L2. The first objective was to examine whether late bilinguals as L2 learners can benefit more from…