The debate over the characterization of specific language impairment (SLI) is fundamental to theoretical linguistics and, more broadly, to the whole of cognitive science. It is built directly out of the pervasive question regarding the extent to which language ability is best considered as a domain-specific set of skills or as the outcome of various domain-general processes. Therefore, an examination of this issue in conjunction with bilingual language acquisition, a situation that naturally entangles both linguistic and cognitive systems, is a powerful forum for exploring these basic theoretical questions. Paradis' Keynote Article is a substantial contribution to this enterprise: it provides a thorough review of the literature on bilingualism and SLI, and in so doing, evaluates the evidence in terms of its consistency with the maturational model that follows from the tradition of domain-specific language acquisition and the limited processing capacity (LPC) theory, a more domain-general approach. Her extensive review of the literature shows that both second language (L2) learning and bilingualism produce language proficiency profiles that are not identical to those found in SLI, and therefore support neither approach. In our view, the problem is in the attempt to dichotomize language ability as being controlled by either domain-specific or domain-general factors. A more inclusive approach to language ability, especially regarding bilingualism and L2 learning, would set out different criteria for evaluating language development other than the strictly linguistic features used in Paradis' analyses. Such an analysis may lead to a clearer identification of how these experiences uniquely affect language outcomes.

The acquisition of a heritage language, normally the weaker language of early bilinguals, has been oftentimes defined as incomplete, especially for morphosyntax. As a result, these early bilinguals resemble late bilinguals more than native language speakers, calling into question the role of age of exposure. The effects of syntactic complexity on knowledge of morphosyntactic structures, however, have not been sufficiently considered hitherto. This study investigates age of exposure and syntactic complexity by comparing heritage, second language, and native language speakers on knowledge of Italian accusative clitics in three structures. An oral structural priming task and a speeded grammaticality judgment task find a discrepancy in the level of ultimate attainment heritage speakers reach for syntax and morphology. While their abstract representation of clitic structures approximates that of native language speakers more closely, their morphological knowledge of clitics aligns with second language speakers, suggesting early exposure has tangible effects only on syntactic knowledge. In turn, syntactic complexity affects the representation of clitic structures in a predictable manner, but is inconsequential to explicit knowledge of morphological forms in monolingual and bilingual speakers. Lack of age of exposure effects in the morphological domain are attributed to interface vulnerability.

At issue in the present research is whether native speakers' “simplified” or modified utterances, as in foreigner-talk (FT), actually facilitate comprehension for nonnative speakers hearing such utterances. It was hypothesized that (grammatical) Dutch inversion sentences (AdvVSO) that have proven to be problematic in studies on Dutch second language (L2) acquisition - as reflected both in the (ungrammatical) output of L2 learners and in the (ungrammatical) FT input to L2 learners - would not be problematic in terms of comprehension, when compared with modified, ungrammatical AdvSVO and AdvSOV sentences, as long as such sentences do not express an implausible state of affairs. Three subject groups participated in the experiment: 20 English and 22 Turkish L2 learners of Dutch and 30 Dutch native speakers (control group). Subjects heard and interpreted declarative Dutch sentences, in which word order (NVN, VNN, NNV) and animacy configurations (Al [i.e., animate/inanimate], AA, LA) were systematically manipulated. Subjects had to name the noun (first or second) that functions as actor/subject of the sentence. Positive evidence was found for the hypotheses. It is concluded from the present study, as well as from a previous study (Issidorides, 1988), that linguistically more complex input will not necessarily impede comprehension. The fact that normative speakers have difficulties in producing a certain grammatical structure (e.g., the AdvVSO structure) does not imply that such a structure is also more difficult to understand in the speech of others.

While the relationship between vocabulary, morphological awareness, and reading comprehension has been examined extensively, research on this relationship among adult second language learners has only been explored recently. The present study addresses this gap by examining how adult English as a foreign language learners developed different types of English vocabulary and morphological awareness over the course of one academic year. Participants included 523 college freshmen in Taiwan with varying reading proficiency levels. Results from a series of mixed-measure analyses of variance revealed that (a) even the more proficient college English as a foreign language learners failed to fully grasp morphological principles; (b) the gap in vocabulary between the less skilled readers, the average, and the skilled readers widened significantly over the course of one academic year; (c) the effect of phonological and orthographic changes involved in morphologically complex words differed for the assessment of base meaning, but did not vary across proficiency levels; (d) progress in different aspects of morphological awareness, such as interpreting the meaning of the suffix or identifying the base of a morphologically complex word, varied significantly among readers of different proficiency levels; and (e) suffixes of different parts of speech posed different challenges to learners. Theoretical and pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.

Decoding and language comprehension skills have been found to be the core components of reading comprehension across many writing systems. The present study examined the contributions of vocabulary and some discourse-level skills to reading comprehension in Chinese in addition to that of decoding. One hundred and seventeen Chinese second and third graders in Hong Kong were tested on decoding, vocabulary, discourse-level skills, and verbal working memory. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that the discourse-level skills contributed an additional 5% of variance to reading comprehension over decoding, vocabulary, and other control variables, and all factors accounted for a total of 70% variance in reading comprehension. Further path analysis showed that all the direct paths of word reading, vocabulary, text-structure knowledge, and topic knowledge to reading comprehension were significant. Vocabulary also contributed to reading comprehension through indirect paths to discourse-level knowledge. The present findings support the simple view of reading with elaborations on the language comprehension component, namely, (a) vocabulary is a foundational language skill for text comprehension through its role on discourse-level knowledge, and (b) some discourse-level knowledge also plays an important role in passage comprehension.

The present study aimed to identify predictors of one aspect of sign language acquisition, sign learning, in hearing nonsigners. Candidate predictors were selected based on the theory that the observed relationship between phonological short-term memory and L2 lexical learning is due in part to common perceptual-motor processes. Hearing nonsigning adults completed a sign learning task, three assessments of short-term memory for movements (movement STM; two of which used sign-like stimuli), and two visuospatial STM tasks. The final sample included 103 adults, ranging between 18 and 33 years of age. All predictors were moderately to strongly correlated with the sign learning task and to each other. A series of regression analyses revealed that both movement and visuospatial STM uniquely contributed to the prediction of sign learning. These results suggest that perceptual-motor processes play a significant role in sign learning and raise questions about the role of phonological processing.

The aim of the current study was to compare both incidental and explicit auditory learning of second language derivational morphology by measuring the accuracy and the reaction time of a grammaticality judgment task. Furthermore, the study was set up to examine the nature of acquired knowledge using subjective measures of awareness during the testing phases and postexperimental verbal reports. The delayed effects of learning were investigated by testing participants immediately after the learning and 1 week later also. The results showed a significant learning effect for the incidental and explicit learners immediately after exposure, but only the explicit learners maintained the learning effects a week later. Both types of learners showed no significant difference in the reaction time. Incidental learners primarily developed implicit knowledge, while explicit learners relied on explicit knowledge to a large extent, part of which became unconscious later. The differences of learning under incidental and explicit learning conditions are discussed in terms of the maintenance of knowledge.

The role of morphology in word recognition during reading acquisition in transparent orthographies is a subject that has received little attention. The goal of this study is to examine the variables affecting the fluency and accuracy for morphologically complex word reading across grade levels in Spanish. We conducted two word-naming experiments in which morphological complexity and word frequency were factorially manipulated. Experiment 1 was a cross-sectional study with 2nd-, 4th- and 6th-grade children as participants. In Experiment 2, a longitudinal study, a sample of the children in 2nd and 4th grades in Experiment 1 were retested with the same stimuli 2 years later in order to explore the evolution of morphology and frequency effects. Analyses of reading latencies and accuracy in both experiments showed that grade and frequency affected both reading fluency and accuracy. Morphology only affected fluency, irrespective of grade. In accordance with previous literature in Italian, we conclude that when learning to read in transparent orthographies, morphology mostly benefits reading fluency since accurate pronunciation can be achieved through grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules.

Using both offline and online measures, the present study investigates attachment resolution in relative clauses in English natives (L1) and nonnatives (L2). We test how relative clause resolution interacts with linguistic factors and participant-level individual differences. Previous L1 English studies have demonstrated a low attachment preference and also an “ambiguity advantage” suggesting that L1ers may not have as strong a low attachment preference as is sometimes claimed. We employ a similar design to examine this effect in L1 and L2 comprehension. Offline results indicate that both groups exhibit a low attachment preference, positively correlated with reading span scores and with proficiency in the L2 group. Online results also suggest a low attachment preference in both groups. However, our data show that individual differences influence online attachment resolution for both native and nonnatives; higher lexical processing efficiency correlates with quicker resolution of linguistic conflicts. We argue that the current findings suggest that attachment resolution during L1 and L2 processing share the same processing mechanisms and are modulated by similar individual differences.

The study explores the effect of deviations from native speech rhythm and rate norms on the assessement of pronunciation mastery of a second language (L2) when the native language of the learner is either rhythmically similar to or different from the target language. Using the concatenative speech synthesis technique, different versions of the same sentence were created in order to produce segmentally and intonationally identical utterances that differed only in rhythmic patterns and/or speaking rate. Speech rhythm and tempo patterns modeled those from the speech of French or German native learners of English at different proficiency levels. Native British English speakers rated the original sentences and the synthesized utterances for accentedness. The analysis shows that (a) differences in speech rhythm and speaking tempo influence the perception of accentedness; (b) idiosyncratic differences in speech rhythm and speech rate are sufficient to differentiate between the proficiency levels of L2 learners; (c) the relative salience of rhythm and rate on perceived accentedness in L2 speech is modulated by the native language of the learners; and (d) intonation facilitates the perception of finer differences in speech rhythm between otherwise identical utterances. These results emphasize the importance of prosodic timing patterns for the perception of speech delivered by L2 learners.

Previous studies show that young, typically developing (TD) children (<age 5) and children with specific language impairment (SLI; >age 5) make errors in the choice between a definite and an indefinite article. Suggested explanations for overgeneration of the definite article include failure to distinguish speaker from hearer assumptions, and for overgeneration of the indefinite article failure to draw scalar implicatures, and weak working memory. However, no direct empirical evidence for these accounts is available. In this study, 27 Dutch-speaking children with high-functioning autism, 27 children with SLI, and 27 TD children aged 5–14 were administered a pragmatic article choice test, a nonverbal theory of mind test, and three types of memory tests (phonological memory, verbal, and nonverbal working memory). The results show that the children with high-functioning autism and SLI (a) make similar errors, that is, they overgenerate the indefinite article; (b) are TD-like at theory of mind, but (c) perform significantly more poorly than the TD children on phonological memory and verbal working memory. We propose that weak memory skills prevent the integration of the definiteness scale with the preceding discourse, resulting in the failure to consistently draw the relevant scalar implicature. This in turn yields the occasional erroneous choice of the indefinite article a in definite contexts.

Here we report a longitudinal follow-up of 103 children with low or typical IQ and good or poor word reading, first studied by Kuppen, Huss, Fosker, Mead, and Goswami (2011). Our current goal was to explore whether different basic auditory processing measures taken 14 months previously would predict development in word reading and phonology in this sample. We also assessed the stability over time for the associations among basic auditory processing, phonology, and reading reported by Kuppen et al. (2011) for low IQ readers. The auditory processing measures showed significant longitudinal relations with both reading and phonology, and associations between the measures were largely stable over time. The data suggest that basic auditory processing skills and phonological skills, rather than IQ, determine a child's progress in word reading, throwing light on the fundamental biological mechanisms that determine reading development. Children with low IQ and poor reading should thus be treated in the same way as children with an IQ-discrepancy defined reading disability, both in research studies and in terms of gaining access to targeted remediation.

Two major semantic features of emotion concepts have been shown to impact performance in emotion perception tasks: valence and arousal. To design psycholinguistic experiments with emotion terms as stimuli, norms are required that indicate valence and arousal values for individual words. Although such norms are usually obtained from ratings of adults, they are often also used in developmental studies. This procedure raises the question of whether children and adults perceive emotional valence and arousal of words in the same way, and consequently, whether adults’ ratings are adequate when constructing stimulus sets for children. The present study obtained valence and arousal ratings for 48 German emotion terms from three different groups: 9-year-old children and adults tested in a controlled laboratory setting, and adults tested via online survey. Results demonstrate high correlations for valence and arousal across settings. The comparison between children and adults also revealed high correlations, suggesting that children at the age of 9 already display adultlike behavior in their evaluation of emotion terms. A small difference was found for absolute rating values of arousal, with children rating words less arousing than adults. Overall, 9-year-olds and adults are sufficiently similar in their perception of emotion to warrant the use of adult valence and arousal ratings in the analysis of children data.

There were eight occurrences of an incorrect spelling of the adjectival term language-learning as language-leaning in the original article (Bird, 2010). These typographical errors occurred in the first few pages only, which are reprinted herein. We regret these errors and any problems they may have caused.

Processes involved in late bilinguals’ production of morphologically complex words were studied using an event-related brain potentials (ERP) paradigm in which EEGs were recorded during participants’ silent productions of English past- and present-tense forms. Twenty-three advanced second language speakers of English (first language [L1] German) were compared to a control group of 19 L1 English speakers from an earlier study. We found a frontocentral negativity for regular relative to irregular past-tense forms (e.g., asked vs. held) during (silent) production, and no difference for the present-tense condition (e.g., asks vs. holds), replicating the ERP effect obtained for the L1 group. This ERP effect suggests that combinatorial processing is involved in producing regular past-tense forms, in both late bilinguals and L1 speakers. We also suggest that this paradigm is a useful tool for future studies of online language production.

Weinreich (1953) distinguished three types of bilingualism: the compound, the coordinate, and the subordinative. In this article, we use his partition to describe the effects of a small typological distance on the organization of the bilingual lexicon. In order to do so, two relatively closely related varieties were used, standard Dutch and the dialect of Maastricht. Subjects had to carry out an auditory lexical decision task using the repetition priming paradigm. Stimuli under investigation were cognates and noncognates. There were two age groups (13 and 17 years old) and two language backgrounds (standard Dutch and Maastricht dialect). The results indicated no differences depending on age. With regard to language background, no interlingual repetition priming was found for the dialect speakers. However, in contrast with earlier findings on visual repetition priming, there were interlingual repetition effects not only for the cognates, but also for the noncognates when the standard speakers were concerned. Therefore, we concluded that, at least in the auditory modality, the dialect speakers in question are coordinate bilinguals and the standard speakers are subordinative bilinguals. Finally, it is shown that Weinreich's model in his pure form leads to unexplainable processes in language acquisition. For that reason, his distinctions are incorporated into the lexico-semantic model of Levelt (1989).

As children develop language, they also acquire strategies to utilize surface forms to interpret the meaning and functions of sentences. This study investigated how Chinese-speaking children (aged 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13) and adults utilize structural and prosodic cues to interpret the pragmatic function of given and new information intrasententially. The results revealed that: (a) children did not utilize word order cues effectively in NVN sentences with normal stress; (b) children utilized the marked grammatical structure of passives and pseudoclefts more effectively than clefts; (c) when stress converged or competed with word order or syntactic structures, children responded nonuniformly; and (d) animacy was a factor that affected children's interpretation of given versus new. Interaction effects are discussed in light of the Competition Model.

The argument structure complexity hypothesis (Thompson, 2003) was introduced to account for the verb production pattern of agrammatic patients, who show greater difficulty in producing transitive versus unergative verbs (argument number effect) and in producing unaccusative versus unergative verbs (syntactic movement effect). The present study investigates these two effects in the reading performance of a patient (GR) suffering from deep dyslexia. GR read nouns significantly better than verbs; moreover, her performance was better on unergative than on transitive verbs, whereas the comparison between unergative and unaccusative verbs did not differ significantly. Data support the extension of the argument structure complexity hypothesis to word naming and suggest that the two aspects of argument structure complexity occur at different levels within models of lexical processing.

This study examined the role of orthography in the production and storage of spoken words. Korean speakers learned novel Korean words with potential variants of /h/, including [ɦ] and ø. They were provided with the same auditory stimuli but with varying exposure to spelling. One group was presented with the letter for ø (<ㅇ>), the second group, the letter for [ɦ] (<ㅎ>), and the third group, auditory input only. In picture-naming tasks, the participants presented with <ㅇ> produced fewer words with [ɦ] than those presented with <ㅎ>. In a spelling recall task, the participants who were not exposed to spelling displayed various types of spellings for variants, but after exposure to spelling, they began to produce spellings as provided in the task. These results suggest that orthographic information influences the production of words via an offline restructuring of the phonological representation.

This study examines the role that voiced stop spirantization plays in the acquisition of English/b d g/ and /dgr;/ by native Spanish speakers. The results of a data-based experiment show that accuracy in English pronunciation is hindered by native language transfer, including the transfer of spirantization and LI syllable structure constraints. Furthermore, the suppression of spirantization is not achieved at an equal rate for all voiced stops: /d/ is spirantized the least often. It is proposed that the phonemic value of /δ/ in English contributes to this disparity. An examination of the L2 pronunciation of /δ/ further reveals that learners do not assign phonemic status to /δ/ in all contexts; it is acquired in postvocalic position first and only more gradually acquired elsewhere.