Lexico-semantic knowledge of our native language provides an initial foundation for second language learning. In this paper, we investigate whether and to what extent the lexico-semantic models of the native language (L1) are transferred to the second language (L2). Specifically, we focus on the problem of lexical choice and investigate it in the context of three typologically diverse languages...

Bilinguals who have acquired both of their languages simultaneously since birth or learned first language (L1) and second (L2) sequentially, as children adults, are able to produce perceive two different sound systems [...]

The ability to process the linguistic input in real time is crucial for successfully acquiring a language, and yet little is known about how language learners comprehend or produce language in real time. Against this background, we have conducted a detailed study of grammatical processing in language learners using experimental psycholinguistic techniques and comparing different populations (ma...

We addressed whether children learning French as a first (L1) and multilingual children (MUL, for whom French is a second or third language) are sensitive to sub-regular verb conjugation patterns (i.e., neither default, nor idiosyncratic) (e.g., Albright, 2002; Clahsen, 1999). Some argue that children with other first languages have more difficulty learning verb conjugation patterns due to thei...

A recent study by Keysar, Hayakawa, and An (2012) suggests that "thinking in a foreign language" may reduce decision biases because a foreign language provides a greater emotional distance than a native tongue. The possibility of such "disembodied" cognition is of great interest for theories of affect and cognition and for many other areas of psychological theory and practice, from clinical and...

Ever since the introduction of the “independent grammars assumption,” whereby a child is said to have its own grammar and not just an imitation of adult language, first language (L1) acquisition researchers such as Martin Braine (1963) and others have constructed grammars for children’s languages rather than treat them as defective adult grammars. This is based on the view that language learner...

Listeners are skilled at detecting native talkers of a language, but can they identify specific non-native language backgrounds? Open-set identification was used to explore this question. Eighty monolingual American English-speaking listeners labeled the language backgrounds of 30 talkers with 5 different native languages (L1s) on the basis of syllableand word-length samples of English. As expe...

This paper reports on a multilingual investigation into the effects of different masker types on native and non-native perception in a VCV consonant recognition task. Native listeners outperformed 7 other language groups, but all groups showed a similar ranking of maskers. Strong first language (L1) interference was observed, both from the sound system and from the L1 orthography. Universal aco...

Throughout much of the history research into second language acquisition (SLA), role learners’ first (L1) has been a hotly debated issue. Prodromou (2000) refers to mother tongue as ‘skeleton in closet’, while Gabrielatos (2001) calls it ‘bone contention’. Such views are but mere reflection different methodological shifts English Language Teaching, which have brought about new and outlooks on t...