Scott A. Crossley Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia USA scrossleygsu.edu Abstract: This paper provides an agenda for replication studies focusing on second language (L2) writing and the use of natural language processing (NLP) tools and machine learning algorithms. Specifically, the paper introduces a variety of available NLP tools and machine learning algorithms and demonstrates how t...

In this paper, we evaluate the adequacy of two widely used machine learning algorithms and a computational linguistic proposal to model L2 perceptual development. The three proposals are, in order, Nearest Neighbor, Naive Bayesian and Stochastic OT and the Gradual Learning Algorithm. We compared the three models’ outputs to those of Spanish learners of Dutch who were asked to categorize synthet...

Previous research has provided evidence that mental imagery and embodied action can facilitate word learning in a novel language. However, it is unclear how these factors interact— as well as why they play a role—in word learning. Through a set of four experiments, this research demonstrated that neither mental imagery nor embodied action directly promotes the acquisition of second language (L2...

This paper presents the results of an experiment that investigated the effects of number and presentation order of high-constraint sentences on semantic processing of unknown second language (L2) words (pseudowords) through reading. All participants were Chinese native speakers who learned English as a foreign language. In the experiment, sentence constraint and order of different constraint se...

This study investigated whether and how university students’ beliefs about the nature of knowledge i.e., epistemological beliefs affected L2 academic reading ability directly and/or indirectly via self-regulated learning strategies. EFL college students (n =196) answered the reading section of a TOEFL test, two parts of Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire and Epistemological Beliefs...

Recent studies suggest that learning and using a second language (L2) can affect brain structure, including the structure of white matter (WM) tracts. This observation comes from research looking at early and older bilingual individuals who have been using both their first and second languages on an everyday basis for many years. This study investigated whether young, highly immersed late bilin...

Language experience systematically constrains perception of speech contrasts that deviate phonologically and/or phonetically from those of the listener’s native language. These effects are most dramatic in adults, but begin to emerge in infancy and undergo further development through at least early childhood. The central question addressed here is: How do nonnative speech perception findings be...

A goal of second language (L2) learning is to enable learners to understand and speak L2 words without mediation through the first language (L1). However, psycholinguistic research suggests that lexical candidates are routinely activated in L1 when words in L2 are processed. In this article we describe two experiments that examined the acquisition of L2 lexical fluency. In Experiment 1, two gro...

Although a substantial amount of cross-cultural psychology research has investigated acculturative stress in general, little attention has been devoted specifically to communication-related acculturative stress (CRAS). In line with the view that cross-cultural adaptation and second language (L2) learning are social and interpersonal phenomena, the present study examines the hypothesis that migr...

speech learning changes over the life span and to explain why "earlier is better" as far as learning to pronounce a second language (L2) is concerned. An assumption we make is that the phonetic systems used in the production and perception of vowels and consonants remain adaptive over the life span, and that phonetic systems reorganize in response to sounds encountered in an L2 through the addi...