In this paper we describe our participation in the Interactive Social Book Search task at CLEF 2015. We focus our analysis on differences in search behaviour between native and non-native speakers of English. The analysis is based on both questionnaire and log data. 49 participants out of the 192 total participants are native speakers and the remaining 143 participants are nonnative speakers. I...

Non-native speakers have lower linguistic competence than native speakers, which renders their language less reliable in conveying their intentions. We suggest that expectations of lower competence lead listeners to adapt their manner of processing when they listen to non-native speakers. We propose that listeners use cognitive resources to adjust by increasing their reliance on top-down proces...

this paper aims at investigating the acquisition of italian complex predicates by native speakers of persian. complex predication is not as pervasive a phenomenon in italian as it is in persian. yet italian native speakers use complex predicates productively; spontaneous data show that persian learners of italian seem to be perfectly aware of italian complex predicates and use this familiar fea...

Several recent theories have suggested that an increase in the number of non-native speakers in a language can lead to changes in morphological rules. We examine this experimentally by contrasting the performance of native and non-native English speakers in a simple Wug-task, showing that non-native speakers are significantly more likely to provide non -ed (i.e., irregular) past-tense forms for...

Experiments investigating phonetic convergence in conversation often focus on interlocutors with similar phonetic inventories. Extending these experiments to those with dissimilar inventories requires understanding the capacity of speakers to imitate native and non-native phones. In the present study, we tested native Spanish and native English speakers to determine whether imitation of non-nat...

This study investigated the processing of lexical stress in native and non-native speakers of English. Specifically, we examined stress typicality effects (where typicality is defined on the basis of grammatical category) in disyllabic words using two on-line tasks. Our grammatical classification experiment showed an overall effect of stress typicality in non-native speakers but no overall effe...

This paper aims at investigating the acquisition of Italian complex predicates by native speakers of Persian. Complex predication is not as pervasive a phenomenon in Italian as it is in Persian. Yet Italian native speakers use complex predicates productively; spontaneous data show that Persian learners of Italian seem to be perfectly aware of Italian complex predicates and use this familiar fea...

Non-native speakers often have difficulties with prosody; stress and intonation patterns that differ from those of native speakers can contribute to “foreign accent,” even at high proficiency levels. Although effects of a listener’s native language on the perception of prosody are well established, few studies have examined non-native prosody production. In particular, it is not known whether t...