One of the most enduring questions in the field of bilingualism is whether bilingual infants and children initially have one language system or two. Research with adults indicates that, while bilinguals do not represent their languages in two fully encapsulated language systems, they are able to functionally differentiate their languages. This…

Over the past several decades, researchers have discovered a great deal of information about the processes underlying language acquisition. From as early as they can be studied, infants are sensitive to the nuances of native-language sound structure. Similarly, infants are attuned to the visual and conceptual structure of their environments…

In order to comprehend speech, listeners have to combine low-level phonetic information about the incoming auditory signal with higher-order contextual information to make a lexical selection. This requires stable phonological categories and unambiguous representations of words in the mental lexicon. Unlike native speakers, second language (L2)…

Definite expressions may be used to introduce a referent into discourse when their familiarity between speaker and listener can be inferred, a strategy known as bridging. However, for a number of reasons, bridging may be difficult to acquire compared to the acquisition of indefinite introductions for noninferable referent types, with the native…

The study aimed to identify different second language (L2) learner motivational types drawing on the framework of the L2 motivational self system. A total of 1,278 secondary school students learning English in Iran completed a questionnaire survey. Cluster analysis yielded five different groups based on the strength of different variables within…

We present the outcomes of a pronunciation training program conducted in a workplace setting with second language speakers who had lived in an English-speaking environment for an average of 19 years. The research questions concerned whether improvement would occur in the learners' perception of certain segments and prosody; in the…

In this article, we investigate the integration of concept-based pragmatics instruction, grounded in Vygotskian sociocultural psychology, in an intact second-semester French class (n = 13) over the course of an academic term. Our focus is on learners' appropriation of the concepts of self-presentation, social distance, and power with respect…

Where native speakers supposedly are fluent by default, nonnative speakers often have to strive hard to achieve a nativelike fluency level. However, disfluencies (such as pauses, fillers, repairs, etc.) occur in both native and nonnative speech and it is as yet unclear how fluency raters weigh the fluency characteristics of native and nonnative…

This investigation examined two techniques that may help learners focus on second language (L2) constructions when recasts are provided during meaning-based communicative activities: altering the cognitive complexity of tasks and manipulating the input frequency distributions of target constructions. We first independently assessed the validity of…

Research on second language (L2) communication strategies over the past three decades has concerned itself broadly with defining their usage in terms of planning and compensation, as well as with the use of taxonomies for coding different types of strategies. Taking a Conversation Analytic (CA) perspective, this article examines the fine-grained…

The present meta-analysis examined the overall average correlation (weighted for sample size and corrected for measurement error) between passage-level second language (L2) reading comprehension and 10 key reading component variables investigated in the research domain. Four high-evidence correlates (with 18 or more accumulated effect sizes: L2…

Humor and language play have been recognized as important aspects of second language (L2) development. Qualitative studies that have documented the forms and functions of language play for adult and child L2 users have taken place largely in classroom settings. In order to gain a fuller understanding of such creative manipulations by L2 users, it…

The study compared the effects of two types of form-focused written feedback--direct corrective feedback (DCF) and metalinguistic explanation (ME) given to the whole class--on Japanese university students' accuracy of use of two grammatical structures: indefinite article and the hypothetical conditional. Both types of feedback were given with…

This study investigated the link between low second language performance and difficulties with native language phonological processing. Participants were native Hebrew speakers, 19-31 years of age, who learned English as a second language in a school setting. Individuals with dyslexia performed below high-proficiency second language learners on…

A common predictor of language gains during study abroad (SA) is amount of language use. Yet little attention has been given to determining what factors influence the extent of language use while abroad. Studies in this area have mainly been case studies of learners in single locations. In this larger study, we seek to determine variables…