This article reports an experiment on the implicit learning of second language stress regularities, and presents a methodological innovation on awareness measurement. After practising two-syllable Spanish words, native Cantonese speakers with English as a second language (L2) completed a judgement task. Critical items differed only in placement of…

This project investigates second language (L2) learners' processing of four types of Chinese relative clauses crossing extraction types and demonstrative-classifier (DCl) positions. Using a word order judgment task with a whole-sentence reading technique, the study also discusses how psycholinguistic theories bear explanatory power in L2…

In recent second language (L2) research it has been proposed that unlike linguistic phenomena pertaining to internal interfaces, those at external interfaces pose greater difficulty to adult L2 learners and may not be fully acquired. It has further been pointed out that such problematic acquisition at the interface level should not be attributed…

This study analyses the expression of locative and existential predicates elicited through an oral production task in the speech of two groups of learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) (first language English, n = 18; first language Moroccan Arabic, n = 14), and a native control group (n = 18). A total of 25,000 words were analysed, with…

This article reviews studies in second language classroom research from a cross-theoretic perspective, arguing that the classroom holds the potential for bringing together researchers from opposing theoretical orientations. It shows how generative and general cognitive approaches share a view of language that implicates both implicit and explicit…

Adopting a decompositional approach to items in the lexicon, this article reports on an empirical study investigating Chinese speakers' second language (L2) acquisition of English "wh-on-earth" questions (i.e. questions with phrases like what on earth or "who on earth"). An acceptability judgment task, a…

Adults tend to perceive speech sounds from their native language as members of distinct and stable categories; however, they fail to perceive differences between many non-native speech sounds without a great deal of training. The present study investigates the effects of categorization training on adults' ability to discriminate non-native…

This article presents two experiments employing two structural priming paradigms that investigated whether cross-linguistic syntactic priming occurred in Chinese and English passive sentences that differ in word order (production-to-production priming in Experiment 1 and comprehension-to-production priming in Experiment 2). Results revealed that…

Since the 1980s' decoupling of the formal study of second language acquisition from pedagogical concerns, the social relevance of such research has been of little concern. Early studies, in the 1970s, of uninstructed adult learners' acquisition of morphosyntax pointed to social implications: these working class immigrants had varying…

Much of the recent discussion surrounding the second language acquisition of morphology has centered on the question of whether learners can acquire new formal features. Lardiere's (2008, 2009) Feature Reassembly approach offers a new direction for research in this area by emphasizing the challenges presented by crosslinguistic differences in…

In this article, we report the results of a self-paced reading experiment designed to investigate the question of whether or not advanced French and German learners of English as a second language (L2) are sensitive to tense/aspect mismatches between a fronted temporal adverbial and the inflected verb that follows (e.g. *"Last week, James has…

The earliest stages of adult language acquisition have received increased attention in recent years (cf. Carroll, introduction to this issue). The study reported here aims to contribute to this discussion by investigating the role of several variables in the development of word recognition strategies during the very first hours of exposure to a…

We report on a study of first-exposure learners with different first languages (L1s: English, Japanese) to examine their ability to process input for form and meaning. We used a rich set of tasks to tap respectively into processing, comprehension, imitation, and working memory. We show that there are advantages to having a first language (L1) that…

Recent research indicates that knowledge of words' spellings can influence knowledge of the phonological forms of second language (L2) words when the first and second languages use the same orthographic symbols. It is yet unknown whether learners can make similar use of unfamiliar orthographic symbols. In this study we investigate whether native…

Number lends itself to the study of how input interacts with transferred first language (L1) knowledge to facilitate or impede second language (L2) learning. We present data from adult English speakers exposed for the first time to Indonesian, a language that expresses number through bare noun phrases, reduplication and numeral + classifier…