As is well known, the study of L2 acquisition provides essential insights about the language learning process in general. Approaching language learning through the study of L1 acquisition alone yields an incomplete and potentially erroneous view of the language faculty. For example, L2 study critically informs such debates as the "maturation of linguistic principles" proposed for L1 learning. P...

This study examines second language (L2) syntactic development in conjunction with the effects such development has on human judgments of writing quality (i.e., judgments of both overall writing proficiency and more fine-grained judgments of syntactic proficiency). Essays collected from 57 L2 learners in a longitudinal study were analyzed for growth and scoring patterns using syntactic complexi...

some scholars have argued that there is a negative correlation between the onset age of l2 acquisition and performance on different measures of l2 knowledge. a kind of biological scheduling is assumed to be responsible for this maturational constraint on language development. the present study asks whether and to what extent critical period effects can be found for universal properties of langu...

Cdx2, an intestine specific transcription factor, is expressed in Barrett's esophagus (BE). We sought to determine if esophageal Cdx2 expression would accelerate the onset of metaplasia in the L2-IL-1β transgenic mouse model for Barrett's-like metaplasia. The K14-Cdx2::L2-IL-1β double transgenic mice had half as many metaplastic nodules as control L2-IL-1β mice. This effect was not due to a red...

The present study examines the role of Gal’perin’s Concept-based Instruction (CBI) as a pedagogical approach in teaching cognitive grammar-based (CG-based) concepts of tense and aspect to EFL students. Following the sociocultural theory of L2 Acquisition (SCT), arming L2 learners with scientific concepts can lead to L2 development by deepening their understanding and raising awareness of L2 str...

This special issue devoted to the bilingual mental lexicon focuses upon the consequences of second language (L2) vocabulary learning for bilingual lexicosemantic representation. Acquisition and representation are inseparable. So theories of development that are blind to the nature of the mature cognitive system are lacking, 1 as are theories of representation that ignore how this came about. 2 ...

Little research has explored how preschools can support children’s second-language (L2) vocabulary development. This study keenly followed the progress of twemty-six Turkish immigrant children growing up in Norway from preschool (age five) to fifth grade (age ten). Four different measures of preschool talk exposure (amount and diversity of teacher-led group talk and amount and diversity of peer...

The role of age in second language (L2) acquisition is a subject of much debate. The paper is to examine the role of age in L2 acquisition. In this context, the paper firstly introduces Lenneberg’s (1967) Critical period hypothesis, then further development of the hypothesis made by Johnson and Newport (1989) is offered. Following this, Felix’s (1994) Competition Model and Bley-Vroman’s (1990) ...

Corpus linguistic methods have led to many revelations about the nature of language use and language learning which are otherwise untenable. To date, however, these findings have not had major impact on L2 (second and foreign language) teaching, except in a few areas like L2 for specialized purposes. This may be due to a number of reasons, including issues of theoretical commensurability and th...

This paper addresses the process of transcribing and annotating spontaneous non-native speech with the aim of compiling a training corpus for the development of Computer Assisted Pronunciation Training (CAPT) applications, enhanced with Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology. To better adapt ASR technology to CAPT tools, the recognition systems must be trained with non-native corpora tra...