The work of Susan Gathercole and others on nonword repetition has increased general interest in the relationship between memory and language, and has provided a fertile theoretical framework for researchers to explore how the language system makes use of the phonological loop, a component in Baddeley's (1986) working memory model. Gathercole (2006) integrated a number of findings from a variety of research methodologies and populations to support this theoretical framework. She also discussed how this framework might be applied to increase our understanding of language disorders characterized by word learning problems. Synthesizing the findings from many and diverse areas of study to formulate a coherent theory is a challenge, but this challenge must be undertaken if we hope to significantly advance our understanding of human behavior, including the differences in processing that are found across the lifespan and across individuals. I admire Gathercole for undertaking this challenge (and the additional challenge of applying the theory to language disorders) in the area of word learning.

Social communication deficits have been robustly documented in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Historically, attempts to lessen this dysfunction have focused almost exclusively on modifying the person with schizophrenia’s own behaviors and cognition. However, social communication is inherently dyadic, and this approach leaves unaddressed the role of the neurotypical interlocutor in communication breakdown. In this position piece, we review psycholinguistic theories and research in order to propose a more comprehensive and equitable understanding of the social dysfunction that people with schizophrenia experience. We do so by drawing attention to the manner in which neurotypical individuals may drive communication failure in schizophrenia. Stigma is proposed to be a major component of this phenomenon. In addition to an overview of our theoretical framework, we provide a research agenda to test the hypotheses this framework has produced. We hope this piece can inform future research directions within psycholinguistics.

Differences between native (L1) and non-native (L2) comprehension have been debated. This study explores whether a source of potential L1/L2 differences lies in susceptibility to memory-based interference during dependency formation. Interference effects are known to occur in sentences like The key to the cabinets were rusty, where ungrammaticality results from a number mismatch between the sentence subject and verb. Such sentences are sometimes misperceived as grammatical due to the presence of a number-matching “distractor” (“the cabinets”). Interference has been well-examined in a number agreement. However, whether and how forming thematic relations is susceptible to interference remains underexplored in L1 and L2 language comprehension. In six preregistered experiments, we investigated semantic interference in language comprehension and explored whether potential L1/L2 differences can be attributed to different degrees of susceptibility to interference. The results did not show that L2 speakers are more susceptible to interference than L1 speakers. Also, the observed interference patterns were only partially consistent with existing theories of memory retrieval during comprehension. We discuss how these theories may be reconciled with our findings and argue our results suggest that similar processes are involved in L1 and L2 subject-verb dependency formation.

Much research has documented that second language (L2) development of tense and aspect markers is influenced by a range of factors that include cross-linguistic influences, phonological nature of forms, inherent semantics of predicates, and discourse structure. Nonetheless, relatively little research has examined the role of discourse organization in the development of tense and aspect marking. To expand our understanding of L2 tense and aspect, this study examined child L2 development of English tense and aspect in oral narratives in relation to the foregrounding and backgrounding of narrative discourse. Thirty-eight learners’ oral narratives were elicited, using Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969) three points in time: kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. The foreground in oral narratives was associated with more frequent use of the simple past than the background across the grade levels. While the occurrence of the simple past did not necessarily mark the foreground, the simple past emerged as the dominant form in the foreground in Grade 1. In the background, on the other hand, it took longer for the past forms to catch up with the non-past forms. The simple past became dominant in the background in Grade 2.

The present study focuses on the production of predicates by Korean agrammatic aphasic patients with respect to the argument structure distribution of the predicates. We analyzed narrative production data and picture/scene description data elicited from three Broca's aphasic patients in comparison with matched controls. In particular, we examined whether our subjects have the same kind of difficulties that Kegl's English agrammatic patient exhibited in the production of noncopular unaccusative constructions. The results show that our Korean aphasics do not exhibit any dramatic discrepancy from the control group in the pattern of argument structure distribution of the predicates produced. Regarding methodology, our studies reveal that the picture/scene description measures the subjects' competence more effectively than the narrative production task. We propose that the difference found between our agrammatic patients and Kegl's agrammatic subject may be due to the differences in the syntactic processes for deriving unaccusative constructions in the two languages.

Bringing together lines of research from sentence processing and lexical access, this empirical study investigates the interplay between lexical (grammatical gender) and syntactic (word order) cross-linguistic overlap in L2 German. Eighty-six L1 Spanish-L2 German and thirty-six monolingual German adults completed a German self-paced reading task with noun phrases (NPs) manipulated by L1-L2 gender congruency (congruent, incongruent, neuter) and L1-L2 adjective-noun word order (pre- vs. postnominal adjectives). The study examines the effects of gender congruency, the type of L1-L2 gender mapping (i.e., presence vs. absence of each class in L1 and L2), and L2 proficiency level. Results show that the detection of ungrammatical word order in L2 German interacts with gender congruency, in that L2 speakers are only sensitive to word order violations for sentences with gender-congruent nouns. The detection of ungrammaticality for sentences containing gender-incongruent nouns only emerges at higher L2 proficiency levels. These findings underscore the role of cross-linguistic lexical overlap in syntactic processing.

Data from 996 Italian-speaking children were collected and analyzed to assess whether a movement-based notion of grammatical complexity is adequate to capture the developmental trend of clitics and passives in Italian. A second goal of the study was to address the relationship between working memory and syntactic development, exploring the hypothesis that higher digit span values predict better comprehension of complex matrix sentences. The results confirm the validity of a ranking of grammatical structures based on constituent movement, with both clitics and passives developing in parallel and later than canonical SVO sentences. Working memory also shows an effect on sentence comprehension in general, but standard measures (digit span forward/backward) do not show a selective advantage in handling complex constructions such as clitics and passives.

Best practice and descriptive research claim that presuppositions, such as the “too” in “#MeToo,” increase the persuasiveness of arguments. Surprisingly, there is hardly any causal evidence for this claim. Therefore, we tested experimentally if advertisements and political statements with presuppositions are more persuasive than equivalent assertions. In 1999, Sbisà already theorized that “persuasive presuppositions” incidentally urge addressees to extend their (ideological) knowledge to make true the unstated assumptions writers have about what their addressee knows, which leads to greater agreement. Following Sbisà, we hypothesized that the persuasiveness depends on the addressee’s need and willingness to accommodate the presupposed content. In three experiments, we manipulated (a) the presupposition trigger using either the German additive particle auch “too,” the iterative particle wieder “again,” or factive verbs compared to assertive equivalents and (b) the preceding discourse context which supported the presupposition or not. Results show that presuppositions are perceived as more persuasive if they convey discourse-new information, largely irrespective of addressees’ ideological involvement. Also considering eye-tracked reading, we suggest that the integrative cognitive process of presupposition accommodation initiates their persuasive edge. The findings imply that persuasive communication benefits from the use of lexically conveyed presuppositions if they are sufficiently informative to trigger accommodation.

This article refutes the reanalysis of a phonologically disordered child's use of fricatives as developed by Fey (1989) within a relational framework. Evidence in the form of nonsystematic correspondences between this child's substitution patterns and the target sound system is used to further establish the accuracy of the original independent generative analysis developed by Gierut (1986). This evidence supplements and supports the initial claims that this child exhibited a pattern of complementary distribution among the fricatives [f] and [s] and, moreover, the remediation program successfully induced a phonemic split.

Production studies on event conceptualization have shown that the language inventory has a clear influence on event descriptions in different languages (e.g., Carroll & von Stutterheim, 2010). In our perception study with native speakers of German, English, and Dutch and Dutch learners of German and English, we were able to show that in addition to preferred verbalization patterns, there are other verbalization patterns that are rated as equally likely. Our results suggest that a more differentiated explanation is needed than that proposed by Slobin (1996b). Grammatical aspects of a language are easier to acquire and apply than lexical aspects. These differences can be explained in terms of automatization and cognitive control of first language and second language processes (Levelt, 1989).

This study examines how input mode – whether written or auditory – interacts with orthography in the production of North American English (NAE) schwar (/ɝ/, found in fur, heard, bird) by native Spanish speakers. Greater orthographic interference was predicted for written input, given the obligatory activation of orthographic representations in the execution of the task. Participants were L1 Mexican Spanish/L2 English speakers (L2, n = 15) and NAE (n = 15, rhotic dialect speakers). The target items were 10 schwar words and 10 words matched in graphemes to the onset and nucleus of the schwar words (e.g., bird was matched with big), for a total of 20 items. The degree of overlap between schwar productions across group and input mode (L2 only) was analyzed, followed by a generalized additive mixed model analysis of F3, one of the acoustic cues to rhotacization. Results showed that L2 schwar productions were different from the NAE productions in both the overlap and F3 measures, and the written input mode showed greater L1 orthographic interference than the auditory input mode, supporting the hypothesis that L1 orthography–phonology correspondences affect L2 productions of English schwar words.

Speakers employ gestures to identify nonpresent objects in nonneutral locations (e.g., pointing to the left to indicate a toy car) and maintain the same spatial locations to indicate the same objects throughout the discourse. These kinds of gestures are referred to as shared-location spatially modulated gestures. Previous research showed that native signers form associations between locations and objects as early as age 5. We examined whether nonsigning children also produced shared-location spatially modulated gestures as early as age 5, and if so, whether such ability is associated with verbal memory, spatial memory, and eductive reasoning (i.e., the ability to derive meaning from the complex situations). Our results showed that nonsigning children use spatial devices in their gestures as early as age 5, but such ability is not well developed until age 7 to 11. It is interesting that different types of cognitive skills may come into play in the production of shared-location spatially modulated gestures across different age groups. We found significant correlations between the production of this type of gesture and spatial memory in the younger children and eductive reasoning in the older children. Thus, there is possibly a developmental shift of the cognitive processes involved in the production of shared-location spatially modulated gestures.

This study examined how language knowledge and item properties (i.e., semantic relatedness and position) influenced Chinese missing logographeme effects. Eighty-four Chinese readers and 53 English readers were asked to search for the Chinese logographeme 口 while reading a Chinese prose passage. The target 口 appeared in five different positions (i.e., left, right, top, bottom, or inside), varying its degree of semantic relatedness to its embedded characters. The generalized linear mixed-effect model revealed a significant interaction between semantic relatedness and position in Chinese, but not in English, readers when visual complexity and frequency were controlled. For Chinese readers, a higher omission rate occurred when 口 appeared in the top and inside positions and exhibited low semantic relatedness with its embedded characters, whereas 口 was omitted more when it was positioned on the right and exhibited high semantic relatedness to its embedded characters. English readers exhibited a different omission pattern: 口 was omitted more when it appeared in the left or right position irrespective of semantic relatedness. In addition, 口 was omitted more in the inside, rather than the bottom, position. These findings suggest that the omission rate of the logographeme is determined by item properties at the sublexical level and the reader’s language knowledge.

This study investigated differences in the English referencing behaviors in the context of oral narrative retell between typically developing first- and second-grade Spanish–English emergent bilingual children in dual language immersion and English-only instructional contexts (N = 105). Children heard and retold Mercer Mayer wordless picture books, and analyses were conducted to examine how they used nominals and pronominals to maintain and switch reference to potential thematic protagonists in the story. Multivariate analysis of variance showed significant grade-level differences in the proportion of pronominals used to switch and maintain reference to BOY/S (boy and dog or frog), as well as to switch to BOY. In contrast, instructional context differences were significant only for reference to the DOG or FROG. The finding that second graders in both dual language immersion and English-only programs continued to demonstrate an overreliance on pronominal forms to switch reference in a second language suggests that differences in literacy and oral language development may extend beyond the grades that we investigated. It is therefore important to continue investigating the referencing behaviors of emergent bilingual children throughout the elementary years of schooling.

This study examined whether learning styles, along with age of starting English learning and length of English learning, are related to perceptual patterns for English /i/–/ɪ/ among Chinese college students who learn English as a foreign language. A total of 83 Chinese college students with different learning styles as measured by Kolb's Learning Style Inventory (1985) and 16 native speakers of American English identified the vowels in a synthetic beat–bit continuum. The results revealed that the Chinese participants’ perceptual patterns for English /i/–/ɪ/ varied with their learning styles. The participants with Kolb's (1985) assimilative and divergent learning styles were more likely to exhibit perceptual patterns resembling those of the American participants than were the participants with convergent and accommodative learning styles. Furthermore, of Kolb's four learning modes, reflective observation had a facilitative effect on the participants’ perception, whereas active experimentation was more likely to cause difficulties; abstract conceptualization and concrete experience bore little relation to the perception of these two sounds. In addition, length of English learning played a critical part in the development of English /i/–/ɪ/ perception. However, age of starting English learning in foreign language conditions was not as crucial as suggested by earlier studies on speech perception in second language conditions.

Second language (L2) anxiety has been proposed to play a causal role in L2 achievement. However, most studies have failed to acknowledge confounding variables that may be relevant to the study of anxiety and L2 achievement or to investigate the causal effect of L2 anxiety using longitudinal data. For these reasons, we investigated the effect of L1 reading achievement, L2 aptitude, and L2 anxiety as covariates on the growth of L2 reading achievement across three time points. We used the latent growth curve model (LGCM) to estimate the growth trajectory of US secondary school students’ L2 reading growth in Spanish (N = 307) over three school years. The findings showed that students’ L1 reading achievement and L2 aptitude strongly and significantly predicted L2 reading achievement growth. However, L2 anxiety did not predict L2 reading achievement growth. Findings suggest that growth in L2 reading achievement depends on the language-related skills used for L1 reading and the language skills that comprise L2 aptitude, but not on anxiety. Similar to past cross-sectional studies, L2 anxiety related only to initial levels of L2 reading achievement, suggesting that anxiety reflects students’ initial experience of L2 reading but not their L2 achievement.

Previous studies show that even though monolingual children find subject relatives easier than object relatives, their comprehension of object relatives can be facilitated by morphological cues. Given that in heritage contexts functional morphology is a vulnerable domain, a question that needs to be addressed is whether bilingual children, who are heritage speakers of their L1, will also be able to use morphological cues to comprehend complex syntax. To contribute to this line of research, we focused on monolingual (N = 18; Mean Age: 11.43) and bilingual/first generation (N = 108; Mean Age: 11.98), Syrian Arabic-speaking children in Canada, and examined their ability to use gender morphology in their comprehension of relative clauses, while taking into consideration cognitive, environmental, and age-related variables. To this end, we used two offline sentence-picture matching tasks targeting relative clauses and gender (as encoded in SV agreement and object clitics). Results showed that, like monolingual children, first-generation, Arabic-speaking children living in Canada used morphological cues to comprehend complex syntax in their L1. Furthermore, even though there was an association between comprehension of gender agreement and comprehension of relative clauses, performance in gender agreement was higher than performance in relative clauses, suggesting that challenges with complex syntactic structures are not necessarily an epiphenomenon of a morphological deficit.