A central issue in second language acquisition (SLA) research is the relationship between morphosyntactic and lexical-semantic knowledge among L2 learners. It has been proposed that, L2 language acquisition starts with transfer of L1 semantic and morphosyntactic processing strategies; however, it has been observed that, at lower proficiency…

This study examined the second language (L2) acquisition of the Korean plural marker -"tul" by native speakers of English. Seventy-seven learners at four Korean proficiency levels along with 31 native Korean-speaking controls completed five tasks designed to probe for knowledge of particular features and restrictions associated with so-called…

We report findings from psycholinguistic experiments investigating the detailed timing of processing morphologically complex words by proficient adult second (L2) language learners of English in comparison to adult native (L1) speakers of English. The first study employed the masked priming technique to investigate "-ed" forms with a group of…

This study examines novice learners' self-generated input noticing approaches and strategies. It is motivated by previous research on input enhancement which yielded insights that learners are naturally prone to notice certain aspects of L2 input on their own without any external means to channel their attention. Two L1 groups (Japanese and…

This article addresses issues in embodied sentence processing from a "cognitive neural systems" approach that combines analysis of the behavior in question, analysis of the known neurophysiological bases of this behavior, and the synthesis of a neuro-computational model of embodied sentence processing that can be applied to and tested in the…

This paper discusses Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) as a method for the assessment of prior learning. The Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) is a procedure to offer learners an individualized curriculum based on their prior experiences and knowledge. The placement decisions in this process are based on the analysis of student material by domain…

To become successful communicators, children must be sensitive to the clarity/ambiguity of language. Significant gains in children's ability to detect communicative ambiguity occur during the early school-age years. However, little is known about the cognitive abilities that support this development. Relations between cognitive flexibility and…

The article by Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) presents many interesting ideas about first and second language acquisition as well as some experimental data convincingly illustrating the difference between production and comprehension. The article extends the concept of Universal Bilingualism proposed in Roeper (1999) to second…

Pre-service special educators' Malay word structure knowledge was assessed through their analysis of words. A total of 69 participants analysed a vocabulary list based on a set of criteria formulated from the Malay language word structure. Results indicated that they were able to count syllables and phonemes, and identify types of affixations;…

This article provides experimental evidence for the role of lexically specific representations in the processing of passive sentences and considerable education-related differences in comprehension of the passive construction. The experiment measured response time and decision accuracy of participants with high and low academic attainment using an…

Paired associated learning (PAL) is a critical skill for making arbitrary associations among print, pronunciation and meaning in reading development. Extended from past research of PAL, this study investigated whether PAL operated flexibly to linguistic demands of languages, by examining word reading abilities in Chinese-English bilingual…

Although fluency constitutes an essential component of second language (L2) proficiency, there are mixed results and gaps in the literature on how L2 speakers' fluency differs from fluent speech production in a first language (L1). The research reported in this article investigated utterance fluency and cognitive fluency of L1 English…

Background: The literature on input addressed to children with specific language impairment (SLI) has shown contrasting results on the role that parents assume during conversational interactions. Some studies have shown that parents compensate for the child's linguistic limitations. In contrast, other studies have indicated that mothers are…

There is a growing body of work that examines the epistemic beliefs of learners and the role those beliefs play in the development of their critical thinking and other cognitive processes (Hofer, 2001). This study examines the epistemic beliefs of English language learners, a population of learners that is relatively understudied on the topic of…

This article presents the results of experimental data on language production and comprehension. These show that adult learners of Dutch as an additional language, with different language backgrounds, and a L2 proficiency below level A2 (Waystage) of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001), use…