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Inducing Shifts in Attentional and Preattentive Visual Processing Through Brief Training on Novel Grammatical Morphemes: An Event‐Related Potential Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Yuyan Xue, John Williams
Can brief training on novel grammatical morphemes influence visual processing of nonlinguistic stimuli? If so, how deep is this effect? Here, an experimental group learned two novel morphemes highlighting the familiar concept of transitivity in sentences; a control group was exposed to the same input but with the novel morphemes used interchangeably. Subsequently, both groups performed two visual oddball
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Iconicity and Gesture Jointly Facilitate Learning of Second Language Signs at First Exposure in Hearing Nonsigners Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Dilay Z. Karadöller, David Peeters, Francie Manhardt, Aslı Özyürek, Gerardo Ortega
When learning spoken second language (L2), words overlapping in form and meaning with one's native language (L1) help break into the new language. When nonsigning speakers learn a sign language as L2, such overlaps are absent because of the modality differences (L1: speech, L2: sign). In such cases, nonsigning speakers might use iconic form‐meaning mappings in signs or their own gestural experience
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Embodiment for Spatial Metaphors of Abstract Concepts Differs Across Languages in Chinese–English Bilinguals Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Yu Fen Wei, Wen Wen Yang, Gary Oppenheim, Jie Hui Hu, Guillaume Thierry
Embodied cognition posits that processing concepts requires sensorimotor activation. Previous research has shown that perceived power is spatially embodied along the vertical axis. However, it is unclear whether such mapping applies equally in the two languages of bilinguals. Using event‐related potentials, we compared spatial embodiment correlates in participants reporting the source of auditory words
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Crosslinguistic Differences in Food Labels Do Not Yield Differences in Taste Perception Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Emanuel Bylund, Steven Samuel, Panos Athanasopoulos
Research has shown that speakers of different languages may differ in their cognitive and perceptual processing of reality. A common denominator of this line of investigation has been its reliance on the sensory domain of vision. The aim of our study was to extend the scope to a new sense—taste. Using as a starting point crosslinguistic differences in the category boundaries of edible bulbs, we examined
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Does Early Unit Size Impact the Formation of Linguistic Predictions? Grammatical Gender as a Case Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-04-02 Rana Abu‐Zhaya, Inbal Arnon
Making adults learn from larger linguistic units can facilitate learning article–noun agreement. Here we ask whether initial exposure to larger units improves learning by increasing the predictive associations between the article and noun. Using an artificial language learning paradigm, we taught 106 Hebrew‐speaking participants novel article–noun associations with either segmented input first or unsegmented
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Willingness to Communicate, Speaking Self‐Efficacy, and Perceived Communicative Competence as Predictors of Second Language Spoken Task Production Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Paul Leeming, Joseph P. Vitta, Phil Hiver, Dillon Hicks, Stuart McLean, Christopher Nicklin
This study investigated how students’ self‐reported individual differences predicted second language (L2) spoken discussion task output, an objective behavioral outcome, in the Japanese university English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Although numerous psychological theories are used as a rationale for task‐based language teaching (TBLT), few studies have investigated the impact of individual
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Awakening the Proto‐Lexicon: A Proto‐Lexicon Gives Learning Advantages for Intentionally Learning a Language Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Wakayo Mattingley, Forrest Panther, Simon Todd, Jeanette King, Jennifer Hay, Peter J. Keegan
Previous studies report that exposure to the Māori language on a regular basis allows New Zealand adults who cannot speak Māori to build a proto‐lexicon of Māori—an implicit memory of word forms without detailed knowledge of meaning. How might this knowledge feed into explicit language learning? Is it possible to “awaken” the proto‐lexicon in the context of overt language learning? We investigate whether
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Event Boundaries Stretched and Compressed by Aspect: Temporal Segmentation in a First and a Second Language Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Norbert Vanek, Haoruo Zhang
Event segmentation tests have shown substantial overlaps in how adults recognize starts and endpoints as events unfold. However, far less is known about what role different language systems play in the process. Variations in grammatical aspect have been shown to influence event processing. We tested how closely first language (L1) speakers of Mandarin and English versus Mandarin learners of English
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Does Studying Latin in Secondary Education Predict Study Achievement in Academic Higher Education? Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-03-28 Cathy Hauspie, Stijn Schelfhout, Nicolas Dirix, Lot Fonteyne, Mark Janse, Arnaud Szmalec, Alexandra Vereeck, Wouter Duyck
Studying Latin in secondary education is still widespread in Europe and believed to result in cognitive benefits, even beyond the linguistic domain. In this study we explored the relation between such study and later academic achievement in higher education (N = 1,898). First, we demonstrated that Latin students exhibit increased levels of study achievement in higher education, particularly in study
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Transient and Long‐Term Linguistic Influences on Visual Perception: Shifting Brain Dynamics With Memory Consolidation Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Martin Maier, Rasha Abdel Rahman
Linguistic categories can impact visual perception. For instance, learning that two objects have different names can enhance their discriminability. Previous studies have identified a typical pattern of categorical perception, characterized by faster discrimination of stimuli from different categories, a neural mismatch response during early visual processing (100–200 ms), and effects restricted to
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Signature Dynamics of Development in Second Language Sociolinguistic Competence: Evidence From an Intensive Microlongitudinal Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-03-16 Mason A. Wirtz, Simone E. Pfenninger
This study is the first to explore microdevelopment in sociolinguistic evaluative judgments of standard German and Austro‐Bavarian dialect by adult second language learners of German by using dense time serial measurements. Intensive longitudinal data (10 observations per participant) were collected from four learners at approximately weekly intervals over 3 months. We employed generalized additive
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Redundancy and Complementarity in Language and the Environment: How Intermodal Information Is Combined to Constrain Learning Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Padraic Monaghan, Heather Murray, Heiko Holz
To acquire language, learners have to map the language onto the environment, but languages vary as to how much information they include to constrain how a sentence relates to the world. We investigated the conditions under which information within the language and the environment is combined for learning. In a cross‐situational artificial language learning study, participants listened to transitive
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Measuring Lexical Diversity in Texts: The Twofold Length Problem Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Yves Bestgen
The impact of text length on the estimation of lexical diversity has captured the attention of the scientific community for more than a century. Numerous indices have been proposed, and many studies have been conducted to evaluate them, but the problem remains. This methodological review provides a critical analysis not only of the most commonly used indices in language learning studies, but also of
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Unraveling the Complexities of Second Language Lexical Stress Processing: The Impact of First Language Transfer, Second Language Proficiency, and Exposure Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Nuria Sagarra, Laura Fernández-Arroyo, Cristina Lozano-Argüelles, Joseph V. Casillas
We investigated the role of cue weighting, second language (L2) proficiency, and L2 daily exposure in L2 learning of suprasegmentals different from the first language (L1), using eye-tracking. Spanish monolinguals, English–Spanish learners, and Mandarin–Spanish learners saw a paroxytone and an oxytone verb (e.g., FIRma–firMÓ “s/he signs–signed”), listened to a sentence containing one of the verbs,
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Toddlers’ Verb-Marking Errors Are Predicted by the Relative Frequency of Uninflected Sequences in Well-Formed Child-Directed Speech: A Preregistered Corpus Analysis Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Hannah Sawyer, Colin Bannard, Julian Pine
Verb-marking errors such as she play football and daddy singing are a hallmark feature of English-speaking children's speech. We investigated the proposal that these errors are input-driven errors of commission arising from the high relative frequency of subject + unmarked verb sequences in well-formed child-directed speech. We tested this proposal via a preregistered corpus analysis and asked at what
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Effects of Form-Focused Practice and Feedback: A Multisite Replication Study of Yang and Lyster (2010) Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 Nadia Mifka-Profozic, Jennifer Behney, Susan M. Gass, Marijana Macis, Gaia Chiuchiù, Giulia Bovolenta
We conducted a multisite replication of Yang and Lyster's (2010) study investigating the effects of recasts and prompts on learning English regular and irregular past tense. Our study was conducted with intact high school and vocational school classes in Italy and Bosnia. Our participants were young adolescents (14–15 and 16–17 years old), a population that has been largely ignored in second language
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Unknown Vocabulary Density and Reading Comprehension: Replicating Hu and Nation (2000) Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Benjamin Kremmel, Bimali Indrarathne, Judit Kormos, Shungo Suzuki
Hu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be familiar with 98% of lexical items for adequate text comprehension, has become highly influential in L2 vocabulary research and pedagogy. However, the 98% critical threshold figure is based on findings from a research project in which a regression analysis was conducted with only 66 university students in New
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Repetition and Incidental Learning of Multiword Units: A Conceptual Multisite Replication Study of Webb, Newton, and Chang (2013) Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Elke Peters, Eva Puimège, Paweł Szudarski
This multisite study replicates Webb, Newton, and Chang's (2013) study on the effect of repetition on incidental learning of multiword units (MWUs). Even though more researchers have started to investigate MWUs, most data have been collected from university students. Furthermore, the large effect of MWU repetition on learning reported by Webb et al. has not yet been corroborated. Data in our study
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Uncovering Sampling Biases, Advancing Inclusivity, and Rethinking Theoretical Accounts in Second Language Acquisition: Introduction to the Special Issue SLA for All? Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Aline Godfroid, Sible Andringa
The social sciences have grappled with sampling biases, perhaps most notably the prevalent reliance on convenience samples drawn from university student populations. Researchers in second language acquisition (SLA) have likewise taken steps to assess and address the scope of these biases and their effects on theory construction. This special issue presents a collection of replications and registered
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L2 Learners’ Signed Language Processing Relates, In Part, to Perspective-Taking Skills Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 David Quinto-Pozos, Taylor Renee Joyce, Abhra Sarkar, Michael DiLeo, Lynn Hou
The comprehension of signed language requires linguistic and visual–spatial processing, such as perspective-taking for correctly interpreting the layout of a spatial scene. However, little is known about how adult second-language (L2) learners process visual–spatial constructions in a signed language that they are studying, including which angles of viewing are most challenging to process and whether
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Bilectal Exposure Modulates Neural Signatures to Conflicting Grammatical Properties: Norway as a Natural Laboratory Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-22 Maki Kubota, Jorge González Alonso, Merete Anderssen, Isabel Nadine Jensen, Alicia Luque, Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares, Yanina Prystauka, Øystein A. Vangsnes, Jade Jørgen Sandstedt, Jason Rothman
The current study investigated gender (control) and number (target) agreement processing in Northern and non-Northern Norwegians living in Northern Norway. Participants varied in exposure to Northern Norwegian (NN) dialect(s), where number marking differs from most other Norwegian dialects. In a comprehension task involving reading NN dialect writing, P600 effects for number agreement were significantly
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Using Parent Report to Measure Vocabulary in Young Bilingual Children: A Scoping Review Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-21 Adriana Weisleder, Margaret Friend, Angeline Sin Mei Tsui, Virginia A. Marchman
A large number of children are exposed to more than one language. One well-established method of assessing early vocabulary development in monolingual children is parent report; however, its use in bilingual/multilingual contexts is less established and brings unique challenges. In this methodological scoping review, we reviewed studies of early vocabulary development using parent report with bilingual/multilingual
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Measuring Teenage Learners’ Automatized, Explicit, and/or Implicit Knowledge: A Question of Context? Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-21 Alexandra Schurz
The present study administered six test instruments to 13- to 14-year-old learners of English in Austria and Sweden (N = 213), countries offering settings with more explicit and implicit learning environments, respectively. Confirmatory Factor Analyses for Austria yielded a factor comprising timed grammaticality judgment tests, an oral narrative test, and elicited imitation, labelled in this study
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Self-Repair in Hearing L2 Learners’ Spontaneous Signing: A Developmental Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Johanna Mesch, Krister Schönström
This study presents a corpus-based investigation of self-repairs in hearing adult L2 (M2L2, second modality and second language) learners of Swedish Sign Language (Svenskt teckenspråk, STS). This study analyses M2L2 learners’ STS conversations with a deaf signer and examines the learners’ self-repair practices and whether there are differences among learners of different proficiency levels. This provides
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The Acquisition of Strategies to Express Plurality in Hearing Second Language Learners of Sign Language of the Netherlands Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-10-30 Eveline Boers-Visker
This study reports on strategies to indicate plural referents in hearing learners of Sign Language of the Netherlands. This is the first explorative study that focuses on L2 expressions of plurality in a sign language. Using data from two datasets, I examined when learners start to express plural and which strategies they apply, and I noted typical learner characteristics. The first study examined
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The Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Second Language Processing: Knowledge Gains from the Past and Future Outlook: A Response to Open Peer Commentaries Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Janet G. van Hell
Writing a review of the neural underpinnings of second language (L2) learning and processing, with a serious eye to future avenues for research, is among the most fun writing invitations that I have ever received. If not curtailed by Language Learning’s word limit, this article would have become a full issue, or even a book! I am thrilled that my passion for this field and enthusiasm for the future
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Learning Without Awareness by Academic and Nonacademic Samples: An Individual Differences Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Kathy MinHye Kim, Ryo Maie, Kiyo Suga, Zachary F. Miller, Bronson Hui
This study addresses the role of awareness in learning and the variables that may facilitate adult second language (L2) implicit learning. We replicated Williams's (2005) study with a similar group of academic learners enrolled at university as well as a group of non-college-educated adults in order to explore the generalizability of the findings to an underrepresented population in research on L2
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Introduction to the Special Issue: Learning Sign Languages as Additional Languages: Considering Language- and Modality-Specific Factors Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-10-21 Russell S. Rosen, David Quinto-Pozos
Additional language (L2/Ln) research largely focuses on learners whose first languages are spoken and who are learning additional spoken languages. In the past few decades, sign languages have become increasingly popular for hearing students in schools. These students must not only learn the vocabulary and grammar of sign languages but also manage a different modality (that is, the channels of production
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Student Outcomes, Perspectives, and Experiences in Traditional and Flipped L2 American Sign Language Classrooms: A Partial Replication Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-10-15 Jody H. Cripps, Russell S. Rosen, Aimee M. Sever-Hall, Sheryl B. Cooper, Ronald Fenicle
Foreign language classrooms have historically used classroom lecture-based approaches for instruction. However, the flipped pedagogical approach was recently introduced into foreign language and other classrooms. Studies of the flipped classroom approach in spoken L2 classrooms have generally found a positive impact on student learning outcomes, perceptions and satisfaction compared with the traditional
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The Role of Modality in L2 Learning: The Importance of Learners Acquiring a Second Sign Language (M2L2 and M1L2 Learners) Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-10-10 Deborah Chen Pichler, Elena Koulidobrova
Second language acquisition (SLA) research offers valuable insight on how languages are learned and how they coexist and influence each other. Sign language learners offer unique perspectives on SLA, allowing researchers to test theories that are otherwise constrained by access to only one modality. Current literature on sign language learning focuses primarily on bimodal bilinguals, mostly hearing
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The Evolution of Science in Second Language Acquisition Research: A Commentary on “The Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Second Language Processing: Knowledge Gains From the Past and Future Outlook” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Viorica Marian
In 1998, while at a symposium in New York City organized by applied linguist Professor Aneta Pavlenko, I was introduced to one of the other panelists whose last name started with “Van” and who turned out to be from the same small village in the Netherlands as my Dutch in-laws. That day, a professional camaraderie was born, one that saw us reconnecting at conferences and meetings in many countries and
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Neural Basis of Second Language Speech Learning – Past and Future: A Commentary on “The Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Second Language Processing: Knowledge Gains From the Past and Future Outlook” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-07-25 Patrick C. M. Wong
The state-of-the-art article by van Hell provided an excellent overview of the current state of the science in the neural and neurocognitive basis of second language (L2) processing and learning. While the target article devoted much effort to reviewing studies related to the syntactic and semantic components of language and to a lesser extent to the lexicon, it is important to also consider the phonetic
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The Neurocognitive Underpinnings of Second Language Processing: Knowledge Gains from the Past and Future Outlook Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-07-19 Janet G. van Hell
The past decades have seen an explosion of research using electrophysiological or neuroimaging techniques for studying the neurocognitive underpinnings of second language (L2) processing. Although this field has a shorter history than does research on language learning more generally, important insights into the neurocognitive basis of L2 processing have driven it to the center stage of language science
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Benefits of Testing and Production for Learning Turkish As a New Language Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-07-19 Maya C. Rose, Patricia J. Brooks, Arshia K. Lodhi, Angela Cortez
This study examined putative benefits of testing and production for learning new languages. Undergraduates (N = 156) were exposed to Turkish spoken dialogues under varying learning conditions (retrieval practice, comprehension, verbal repetition) in a computer-assisted language learning session. Participants completed pre- and posttests of number- and case-marking comprehension, a vocabulary test,
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The Role of Explicit Memory Across Second Language Syntactic Development: A Structural Priming Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-07-19 Marion Coumel, Merel Muylle, Katherine Messenger, Robert J. Hartsuiker
We tested whether second language (L2) learners rely more on explicit memory during structural priming at lower than at higher proficiency levels (Hartsuiker & Bernolet, 2017). We compared within-L2 priming with lexical overlap in 100 low and 100 high proficiency French L2 speakers under low versus high working memory load conditions induced with a letter series recall task presented between primes
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Which Aspects of Visual Motivation Aid the Implicit Learning of Signs at First Exposure? Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-07-18 Julia Hofweber, Lizzy Aumônier, Vikki Janke, Marianne Gullberg, Chloë Marshall
We investigated whether sign-naïve learners can infer and learn the meaning of signs after minimal exposure to continuous, naturalistic input in the form of a weather forecast in Swedish Sign Language. Participants were L1-English adults. Two experimental groups watched the forecast once (n = 40) or twice (n = 42); a control group did not (n = 42). Participants were then asked to assign meaning to
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Lexically Independent Structural Priming in Second Language Online Sentence Comprehension Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-06-04 Hang Wei, Julie E. Boland, Chi Zhang, Anlin Yang, Fang Yuan
This study examined structural priming during online second language (L2) comprehension. In two self-paced reading experiments, 64 intermediate to advanced Chinese learners of English as a foreign language read coordinated noun phrases where the conjuncts had either the same structure or different structures. Experiment 1 showed that the second conjunct was read faster when it had the same structure
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Phonetic and Lexical Crosslinguistic Influence in Early Spanish–Basque–English Trilinguals Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Antje Stoehr, Mina Jevtović, Angela de Bruin, Clara D. Martin
A central question in multilingualism research is how multiple languages interact. Most studies have focused on first (L1) and second language (L2) effects on a third language (L3), but a small number of studies dedicated to the opposite transfer direction have suggested stronger L3 influence on L2 than on L1 in postpuberty learners. In our study, we provide further support for stronger L3-to-L2 than
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Open Research in Artificial Intelligence and the Search for Common Ground in Reproducibility: A Commentary on “(Why) Are Open Research Practices the Future for the Study of Language Learning?” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Odd Erik Gundersen, Kevin Coakley
Open research has a long tradition in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), which is our primary area of expertise. Richard Stallman, who has been affiliated with the AI laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology since the early 1970s, launched the GNU project in 1983 and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. The goal of the free software movement has been to secure freedoms for software
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Practice Makes Perfect, but How Much Is Necessary? The Role of Relearning in Second Language Grammar Acquisition Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Jonathan Serfaty, Raquel Serrano
This study investigated how much practice is necessary for learners to attain durable second language (L2) grammar knowledge. Using digital flashcards, 119 participants practiced translating 12 sentences into an artificial language, followed by feedback, until they had typed all sentences correctly. Participants repeated this activity in one, two, three, or four relearning sessions on consecutive days
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Rethinking First Language–Second Language Similarities and Differences in English Proficiency: Insights From the ENglish Reading Online (ENRO) Project Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-05-22 Noam Siegelman, Irina Elgort, Marc Brysbaert, Niket Agrawal, Simona Amenta, Jasmina Arsenijević Mijalković, Christine S. Chang, Daria Chernova, Fabienne Chetail, A. J. Benjamin Clarke, Alain Content, Davide Crepaldi, Nastag Davaabold, Shurentsetseg Delgersuren, Avital Deutsch, Veronika Dibrova, Denis Drieghe, Dušica Filipović Đurđević, Brittany Finch, Ram Frost, Carolina A. Gattei, Esther Geva, Aline
This article presents the ENglish Reading Online (ENRO) project that offers data on English reading and listening comprehension from 7,338 university-level advanced learners and native speakers of English representing 19 countries. The database also includes estimates of reading rate and seven component skills of English, including vocabulary, spelling, and grammar, as well as rich demographic and
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Open Research Practices and Cultural Change: A Commentary on “(Why) Are Open Research Practices the Future for the Study of Language Learning?” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Isabel Steinhardt, Sylvi Mauermeister, Rebecca Schmidt
In their article, Marsden and Morgan-Short argue that “open research is indeed a large part of our future, and most—if not all—challenges are surmountable, but doing so requires significant changes for many aspects of the research process.” We share Marsden and Morgan-Short's premise that open research practices will play an important role in the future but that many questions about how to implement
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Voices of Three Junior Scholars: A Commentary on “(Why) Are Open Research Practices the Future for the Study of Language Learning?” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Bronson Hui, Joanne Koh, Sanshiroh Ogawa
Open research can (soon) become the norm in language sciences. Major funders and journals have begun to encourage or require more open and transparent research practices, from making materials and data available to disseminating results. Marsden and Morgan-Short closed their review article by suggesting that open research practices are the future. As junior researchers (an early-career scholar and
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Error-Correction Mechanisms in Language Learning: Modeling Individuals Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Adnane Ez-zizi, Dagmar Divjak, Petar Milin
Since its first adoption as a computational model for language learning, evidence has accumulated that Rescorla–Wagner error-correction learning (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) captures several aspects of language processing. Whereas previous studies have provided general support for the Rescorla–Wagner rule by using it to explain the behavior of participants across a range of tasks, we focus on testing
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The Influence of Native Phonology, Allophony, and Phonotactics on Nonnative Lexical Encoding: A Vocabulary Training Study Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Qi Zheng, Kira Gor
Second language (L2) speakers often experience difficulties in learning words with L2-specific phonemes due to the unfaithful lexical encoding predicted by the fuzzy lexical representations hypothesis. Currently, there is limited understanding of how allophonic variation in the first language (L1) influences L2 phonological and lexical encoding. We report how the Mandarin Chinese L1 phonemic inventory
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(Why) Are Open Research Practices the Future for the Study of Language Learning? Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Emma Marsden, Kara Morgan-Short
Open research practices are relevant to all stages of research, from conceptualization through dissemination. Here, we discuss key facets of open research, highlighting its rationales, infrastructures, behaviors, and challenges. Part I conceptualizes open research and its rationales. Part II identifies challenges such as the speed and cost of open research, the usability of open data and materials
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Where is Community Involvement in Open Science? A Commentary on “(Why) Are Open Research Practices the Future for the Study of Language Learning?” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Teresa Girolamo, Lindsay K. Butler, Samantha Ghali, Kristina T. Johnson
As an interdisciplinary research team spanning linguistics, engineering, speech–language pathology, and education focusing on communication disorders, we found Marsden and Morgan-Short's state-of-the-art article extremely relevant. We endorse the importance of open science to language research and appreciate its potential for advancing equity. Yet we argue that the current debate on open science is
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MOSAIC+: A Crosslinguistic Model of Verb-Marking Errors in Typically Developing Children and Children With Developmental Language Disorder Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Daniel Freudenthal, Fernand Gobet, Julian M. Pine
This study extended an existing crosslinguistic model of verb-marking errors in children's early multiword speech (MOSAIC) by adding a novel mechanism that defaults to the most frequent form of the verb where this accounts for a high proportion of forms in the input. Our simulations showed that the resulting model not only provides a better explanation of the data on typically developing children but
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Previewing Novel Words Before Reading Affects Their Processing During Reading: An Eye-Movement Study With First and Second Language Readers Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Irina Elgort, Ross van de Wetering, Tara Arrow, Elisabeth Beyersmann
In this study, we examined the effect of previewing unfamiliar vocabulary on the real-time reading behavior of first language (L1) and second language (L2) readers. University students with English as their L1 or L2 read passages with embedded pseudowords. In a within-participant manipulation, definitions of the pseudowords were either previewed before reading or reviewed after reading. Previewing
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On Linguicism, Epistemic Injustice, and Research in Language-in-Education: A Commentary on “Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-07 Ahmar Mahboob
Current research in (language) education is rightly concerned about the potential of linguicism and epistemic injustice. Linguicism can be broadly defined as excluding and/or silencing students’ other languages and epistemic injustice as excluding and/or silencing students’ ways of knowing, doing, and being. Thus, any attempts at reducing or eliminating the potential of linguicism and epistemic injustice
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Heading South, Unmuting Multilingualisms: A Commentary on “Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-04-03 Kathleen Heugh
The central thesis of Uccelli's target article is a dire need to identify the causes of inequalities in literacy and language education from the fourth grade, and which pedagogies best eliminate them. Uccelli's quest for empirical, pedagogical, and theoretical insights to counter injustice, and to give voice to rather than silence students, is urgent and welcome. Effective redress of structural inequalities
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The Importance of Dialogue for Justice and Learning: A Commentary on “Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-03-24 Mary J. Schleppegrell
Uccelli focuses readers’ attention on two language-based challenges for educational excellence and equity in today's adolescent classrooms. One challenge is the diversity of social identities, where students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds are often taught by teachers who do not share their cultural backgrounds or experiences. Her own university students reported that their teachers
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Modeling Bilingualism as a Dynamic Phenomenon in Healthy and Neurologically Affected Speakers Across the Lifespan: A Commentary on “Computational Modeling of Bilingual Language Learning: Current Models and Future Directions” Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-03-16 Claudia Peñaloza, Uli Grasemann, Risto Miikkulainen, Swathi Kiran
In their review article, Li and Xu offered an insightful overview of the contributions and limitations of computational models of bilingual language learning and processing to our current understanding of the bilingual mind. They further proposed joining cross-disciplinary efforts toward building a computational account that links cognitive theory and neurobiological accounts of bilingualism as part
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CLASSIC Utterance Boundary: A Chunking-Based Model of Early Naturalistic Word Segmentation Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-02-02 Francesco Cabiddu, Lewis Bott, Gary Jones, Chiara Gambi
Word segmentation is a crucial step in children's vocabulary learning. While computational models of word segmentation can capture infants’ performance in small-scale artificial tasks, the examination of early word segmentation in naturalistic settings has been limited by the lack of measures that can relate models’ performance to developmental data. Here, we extended CLASSIC (Chunking Lexical and
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Midadolescents’ Language Learning at School: Toward More Just and Scientifically Rigorous Practices in Research and Education Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2023-01-17 Paola Uccelli
Which theoretical and empirical insights can inform language-in-education research that advances equitable and high-quality learning at school? In this three-part article, I first draw from various sources to foreground the urgent need to counteract linguicism and epistemic injustices and to commit to more just and rigorous scientific practices in research and education. Based on findings from my own
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First Language Literacy and Second Language Oracy: A Partial Replication of Foster and Skehan (1996) Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2022-12-27 Jonathon Ryan, Pauline Foster, Anthea Fester, Yi Wang, Jenny Field, Celine Kearney, Jia Rong Yap
This article responds to calls for greater inclusivity in second language acquisition research and, more specifically, to calls to explore further the impact of first language literacy on second language oracy (e.g., Tarone et al., 2009). We conducted a partial replication of Foster and Skehan's (1996) influential study of task complexity, planning time, and performance over measures of complexity
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Possessive Processing in Bilingual Comprehension Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2022-12-22 Sol Lago, Kate Stone, Elise Oltrogge, João Veríssimo
Second language (L2) learners make gender errors with possessive pronouns. In production, these errors are modulated by the gender match between the possessor and possessee noun. We examined whether this so-called match effect extends to L2 comprehension by attempting to replicate a recent study on gender predictions in first language (L1) German speakers (Stone, Veríssimo, et al., 2021). By comparing
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The More the Merrier? On the Influence of Indexical Variability on Second Language Vocabulary Learning Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Marc Gimeno-Martínez, Rebeca Sánchez, Cristina Baus
We investigated indexical variation as a variable that promotes second language (L2) vocabulary learning across language modalities. In three experiments, we presented Catalan Sign Language signs (Experiments 1a and 1b), pseudowords (Experiment 2), and English words (Experiment 3) to participants in three conditions that varied in the number of people who introduced these stimuli (one, three, or six
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The Lang-Track-App: Open-Source Tools for Implementing the Experience Sampling Method in Second Language Acquisition Research Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2022-12-20 Henriette L. Arndt, Jonas Granfeldt, Marianne Gullberg
This paper introduces the Lang-Track-App, a smartphone application and backend system to aid second language acquisition researchers in implementing the experience sampling method (ESM). Surveying research participants with the Lang-Track-App multiple times per day can yield exceptionally rich data that can be analyzed in multiple ways. This article explains the different Lang-Track-App components
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Costs and Benefits of Spacing for Second Language Vocabulary Learning: Does Relearning Override the Positive and Negative Effects of Spacing? Lang. Learn. (IF 5.24) Pub Date : 2022-12-19 Tatsuya Nakata, Yuichi Suzuki, Xuehong (Stella) He
Research has suggested that long spacing (i.e., temporal intervals) within a training session facilitates second language vocabulary learning. Studies, however, have been limited to treatment that involved sessions for only initial learning but not subsequent relearning. Furthermore, most studies have investigated only the benefits of spacing without considering its potential costs (i.e., increased