As language rhythm relies partly on general acoustic properties, such as intensity and duration, mastering two languages with distinct rhythmic properties (i.e., stress position) may enhance musical rhythm perception. We investigated whether competence in a second language (L2) with different rhythmic properties than a L1 affects musical rhythm aptitude. Turkish early (TELG) and late learners (...

This paper investigates the use of automatic speech recognition (ASR) errors as indicators of the second language (L2) learners’ listening difficulties and in doing so strives to overcome the shortcomings of Partial and Synchronized Caption (PSC) system. PSC is a system that generates a partial caption including difficult words detected based on high speech rate, low frequency, and specificity....

Language switching has been repeatedly found to be costly. Yet, there are reasons to believe that switches in language might benefit language comprehension in some groups of people, such as less proficient language learners. This study therefore investigated the interplay between language switching and semantic processing in groups with varying language proficiency. EEG was recorded while L2 le...

Most research on second language and culture concentrates on learning the target culture in order to better understand the second language. This survey study looks at culture from a different perspective i.e., from the learners’ own culture point of view. It focuses on the relationship that exists between attachment to one’s home culture and comprehending written texts in a foreign language. Th...

It is well known that L2 learners differ from L1 learners in the acquisition of the target language. One of the areas of the grammar in which L2 learners exhibit variability is in the production of verbal morphology, in particular, tense and agreement markings are often found to be optional in L2 data. The contrast in attainment between L1 and L2 has led some researchers to propose that the var...

In earlier work on second language acquisition by adults, Klein & Perdue (1997) have shown that L2-learners tend to create their own language system. They do this, not only by trying to follow the grammatical rules of the L2, but also by imposing on their new language system a number of constraints. If the learners do not violate these constraints, chances are that their utterances will be corr...

This study investigates the effect of tonal context on L2 learners’ production of Mandarin tones. Ten English-speaking learners of Mandarin were asked to imitate native productions of disyllables encompassing all possible tone combinations. Their productions were evaluated by two native judges. The results show that the learners’ error patterns vary depending on the tonal context. Specifically,...

The central issue of the pilot study on which this article is based concerns the potential role of metacognition in the development of second language (L2) competence, specifically when L2 learners are confronted with their own videoed oral performance. An experiment was carried out at a French university with a group of first-year non-specialist undergraduate learners of English (N=12). The co...