Learnability theory is an investigation of the cognitive principles that determine developmental stages and eventual success in language acquistion. The focus of this study is on the learning principles within learnability theory that account for developmental stages in adult second language acquisition. Three learning principles, cumulative development, continuity, and conservatism, predict a complex sequence of development in the acquisition of relative clauses and wh-questions in English. They predict an early no-prep stage, gradual development through two additional stages of greater embeddedness of the extracted noun, stranded before nonstranded prepositional structures, and the likelihood of resumption at early stages. These predictions are confirmed by data from previous studies and are further investigated in this study by means of elicited production data collected from 35 Japanese learners of English and 17 native speakers of English. The data show the expected stages of development and confirm the relevance of learning principles to a comprehensive theory of learnability in second language acquisition (SLA).

This paper reports the results of a study which investigated (a) the separate effects that differences in learners' contact can have on various aspects of proficiency, and (b) the combined effects that differences in informal contact and instructional variation can have on improvement in proficiency. Forty-eight adult learners from three intermediate-level ESL classes participated in the study.

To measure differences in learners' informal contact, a language contact questionnaire was administered. The results revealed both quantitative and qualitative differences in learners' out-of-class contact with the second language. When these differences were examined in relation to learners' performance on seven proficiency measures, correlational analysis revealed that while learners' performance on some measures was related to differences in amount of contact, it was related on other measures to differences in type of contact.

To determine whether differences in contact interacted with instructional variation to produce differences in improvement in proficiency, learners' pre-and post-test scores were examined in relation to contact and class in an analysis of co-variance. The results indicated that learners' informal contact interacted with differences in instruction to produce variation in improvement on two proficiency measures.

The findings are discussed in relation to the need for more class-room-centered research to investigate both the separate and combined effects of learner and instructional variables on second language proficiency.

This paper is intended as a programmatic contribution to the work of a number of scholars in second language acquisition (SLA) who are attempting to explain various facts about SLA in terms of an interaction between native-language transfer and language universals (Gass & Selinker, 1983). In the present paper, some of the theoretical assumptions and consequences of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) (Eckman, 1977) are discussed in comparison with the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis. Crucial differences between the two hypotheses are presented, and empirical evidence in favor of the MDH is reviewed. Pedagogical implications of the MDH are then taken up, and a strategy for interlanguage-intervention is discussed in light of an empirical study. Finally, several problems for the MDH which have been proposed in the literature are considered.

The relationship between prior knowledge of and interest in a topic is complex. Although knowledge and interest may often go hand in hand, they do not necessarily correlate. The purpose of this study was to separate the effects of prior knowledge and topic interest on second language reading comprehension. Participants in the study were 104 students of English as a second language in an English-for-academic-purposes program at a large American university. On the basis of a prior-knowledge test and a topic-interest inventory, each student read passages and took multiple-choice comprehension tests on topics for which they had all four possible combinations of high and low topic interest and high and low prior knowledge. Results on the reading comprehension measure for the two main effects of prior knowledge and topic interest, although in the expected direction, did not reach significance, possibly because of a significant interaction between those two variables. There was also a significant effect for English proficiency level, as well as a significant interaction between interest and gender, with males more influenced by high topic interest than females. Our results are compared to those of other first and second language studies that have explicitly investigated the interrelationships among topic interest, prior knowledge, and gender.

It has been known since at least the 1960s that small changes in pupil diameter in response to a mental task are indicative of processing effort associated with this task. More recently, with the advent of modern eye-trackers, which also measure the pupil diameter, pupillometry has been “rediscovered” by language researchers and the method has since been used in many different subdisciplines of linguistics. This article gives a nonexhaustive overview about recent linguistic research with the purpose of introducing researchers in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) to pupillometry. In addition, the article discusses things to consider when designing an experiment and how pupil data can be analyzed. The range of possibilities in which pupillometry can be used in experimental SLA research makes it a welcome addition to other online methods such as eye-tracking and event-related potentials.

This study examines whether aural processing of input in a situation of implicit instruction can build a knowledge base that is available for both comprehension and production tasks. Fifty-five Dutch students learned a miniature linguistic system based on Spanish. Three training conditions were compared in which noun-adjective gender agreement was the learning target. The first group of participants received receptive training, the second group received receptive and productive training, and a third group served as a control. The control group received no training of the target structure and only read an explanation of the target structure rule. Receptive knowledge was assessed with a self-paced listening test, a match-mismatch test, and a grammaticality judgment task. Productive knowledge was tested with a picture description task in single- and dual-task conditions. A postexperimental questionnaire tested whether any explicit knowledge had been induced. Results suggest that the receptive and receptive + productive training programs succeeded in building a knowledge base that was used in comprehension but much less so in production. These results will be interpreted in light of processing and the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge.I would like to express my gratitude to Jan Hulstijn and Rob Schoonen from the University of Amsterdam for their supervision. I would also like to thank the two anonymous SSLA reviewers for their comments and Nick Ellis for taking time to discuss this project with me.

It is well established that part of native speaker competence resides in knowledge of conventionalized word combinations, or nativelike selections (NLSs). This article reports an investigation into the receptive NLS knowledge of second language (L2) users of English in both the United Kingdom and Poland and the influence of a variety of independent variables on this knowledge. Results indicate that only an early start (< 12 years old) in an immersion setting guarantees nativelikeness. Long exposure in late starters brings moderate gains in both settings but not to nativelike levels; positive feelings toward the L2 and motivation to interact in it bear little to no relationship with NLS; phonological short-term memory (pSTM) is the only predictor of NLS ability in immersion late starters, with no effect found in a foreign language setting. Our results suggest that NLS is subject to age effects and that, for late starters, a good pSTM and L2 immersion are necessary for the acquisition of this dimension of L2 knowledge.

This article investigates the information structure of verb-second (V2) declaratives in Swedish, German, and nonnative German. Even though almost any type of element can occur in the so-called prefield, the clause-initial preverbal position of V2 declaratives, we have found language-specific patterns in native-speaker corpora: The frequencies of prefield constituent types differ substantially between German and Swedish, and Swedish postpones new (rhematic) information and instead fills the prefield with given (thematic) elements and elements of no or low informational value (e.g., expletives) to a far greater extent than German. We compare Swedish learners of German to native controls matched for age and genre (Bohnacker, 2005, 2006; Rosén, 2006). These learners master the syntactic properties of V2 but start their sentences in nonnative ways. They overapply the Swedish principle of rheme later in their second language German, indicating first language (L1) transfer at the interface of syntax and information structure, especially for structures that are frequent in the L1.

Word association responses in first-language (L1) Spanish and second-language (L2) English were investigated by means of response latencies and types of associative response produced. The primary aims were to establish whether (a) some response types are produced more often or faster than others, (b) participants’ L2 response time profiles mirror those of their L1, and (c) participants’ L2 association responses are mediated by their L1 and modulated by proficiency. Results indicate that responses are faster when a double association link is produced—that is, when the response is associated by form and meaning (postman → postbox) or meaning and collocation (spider → web). L2 response time profiles broadly mirror those of the L1, although L2 times are generally slower. A significant priming effect from L1 translation equivalents of cues used in the L2 association task was observed, suggesting L1 mediation in the production of L2 associative responses. Findings are discussed in light of the revised hierarchical model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994). New approaches to modeling and understanding the bilingual lexicon are also suggested.

This study examines the generalizability of VanPatten and Cadierno (1993b) by investigating the relative effect of two types of explicit grammar instruction on learners' ability to interpret and produce sentences containing the French causative. Nine classes of 179 fourth-semester French students were assigned to three groups: (a) processing instruction, (b) traditional instruction, and (c) no instruction. The results indicate that processing instruction is as effective as traditional instruction in enabling learners to interpret the French causative and that traditional instruction is more effective in enabling learners to produce the French causative.

The current study examines how second language (L2) users differentially assess the comprehensibility (i.e., ease of understanding) of foreign-accented speech according to a range of background variables, including first language (L1) profiles, L2 proficiency, age, experience, familiarity, and metacognition. A total of 110 L2 listeners first evaluated the global comprehensibility of 50 spontaneous speech samples produced by low-, mid-, and high-proficiency Japanese speakers of English. The listeners were categorized into two subgroups according to a cluster analysis of their rating scores: lenient and strict. Results showed that while the lenient listeners appeared to rely equally on many linguistic areas of speech during their judgments, the strict listeners were strongly attuned to phonological accuracy. Analysis of the background questionnaire data revealed that more lenient listeners likely had higher levels of awareness of the importance of comprehensibility for communication (metacognition); regularly used L2 English in professional settings (experience); and had L1s more linguistically close to the target speech samples, Japanese-accented English (L1-L2 distance).

This study investigates second language acquisition of English noun phrases in discourse, examining the effect of discourse markedness and structural markedness on the development of noun phrase use. English L2 noun phrase forms are examined within three universal discourse contexts: current, known, and new reference to topics. The targeted noun phrases forms include ø anaphora, pronouns and nouns with markers of definiteness and indefiniteness, including left dislocation and existential phrases. Based on expectedness within discourse, the least marked discourse context is reference to a current topic, and the most marked context is the introduction of a new referent as topic. Based on formal complexity, ø anaphora is the least marked structural form, and left-dislocated and existential noun phrases are the most marked. Free production and elicited imitation recall tasks, involving picture sequences that manipulated the three discourse contexts, were used to test Japanese learners' acquisition of noun phrase forms. They were evaluated by comparison with NS production. The results support predictions that L2 learners distinguish between discourse contexts, acquiring more targetlike forms in the least marked context first, and that they acquire the least marked structural forms earlier than the more marked ones.

This study investigates whether conceptualizable agents in the discourse play a role in English L2 overpassivization errors (nontargetlike passivization of unaccusative verbs, a subclass of intransitives). It hypothesizes that learners are more likely to make overpassivization errors in externally caused events (in which an agent or cause may form part of the speaker's mental representation) than in internally caused events (in which the cause or causer of the event is not clear). Advanced Chinese learners of English were asked to choose the more grammatical form (active or passive) in target sentences with unaccusative verbs. Each target sentence was embedded in two different contexts expressing external and internal causation. A significant difference in error rates was found between the two different contexts: Learners accepted passivized unaccusative verbs more frequently when an agent or cause was available than when it was not. This finding is taken as an indication that learners transitivize unaccusative verbs before they passivize them and that the degree of transitivization varies depending on the presence of conceptualizable agents in the discourse. Thus this paper argues against a purely syntactic analysis of interlanguage errors such as overpassivization and in favor of an approach that takes cognitive factors into account.

Over the last 40 years, there have been successive attempts to define or refine a set of key concepts intended to guide theory and experimentation in SLA. These include input, intake, and consciousness. This article tries to take these attempts a stage further by integrating the conceptualization of these notions into a larger interdisciplinary framework called Modular Online Growth and Use of Language (MOGUL). Past work, which is problematic both in terms of the theoretical development itself and in terms of the way the resulting ideas have been applied, is critically reviewed. A reinterpretation of key concepts in MOGUL terms is presented, in hopes that this reformulation will provide a clearer theoretical understanding and serve as an improved foundation for future research.

This study investigates the relationship between foreign language aptitude and the learning of two English structures defined as easy or difficult to learn. Using a quasiexperimental design, 66 secondary-level learners of English as a foreign language from three intact classes were provided with four hours of instruction on the passive (a difficult structure) and the past progressive (an easy structure). Language aptitude was measured using the LLAMA Aptitude Test (Meara, 2005). Language outcomes were measured with a written grammaticality judgment and an oral production task. The results revealed that one of the aptitude components, grammatical inferencing, contributed to learners’ gains on the passive but not the past progressive on the written measure. Another component of aptitude, associative memory, contributed to learners’ gains on the past progressive on the oral measure. The results provide support for the claim that different components of aptitude contribute to the learning of difficult and easy L2 structures in different ways. There is also support for the proposal that different components of aptitude may be involved at different stages of language acquisition (Skehan, 2002).

Elicited imitation tasks (EITs) have been proposed and examined as a practical measure of second language (L2) proficiency. This study aimed to provide an updated and comprehensive view of the relationship between EITs and other proficiency measures. Toward that end, 46 reports were retrieved contributing 60 independent effect sizes (Pearson’s r) that were weighted and averaged. Several EIT features were also examined as potential moderators. The results portray EIT as a generally consistent measure of L2 proficiency (r = .66). Among other moderators, EIT stimuli length was positively associated with stronger correlations. Overall, the findings provide support for the use of EITs as a means to greater consistency and practicality in measuring L2 proficiency. In our Discussion section, we highlight the need for more transparent reporting and provide empirically grounded recommendations for EIT design and for further research into EIT development.

Although research shows that repetition increases second language vocabulary learning, only several studies have examined the long-term effects of increasing retrieval frequency in one learning session. With this in mind, the present study examined the effects of within-session repeated retrieval on vocabulary learning. The study is original in that it (a) gave posttests after a delay greater than 2 weeks, (b) employed a paired-associate format to exert strict control over the treatment, (c) considered time-on-task as a factor, and (d) used the same target items for different frequency levels. In this study, 98 Japanese learners studied 16 English-Japanese word pairs using one of the following four retrieval frequency levels: one, three, five, or seven. Results showed that five and seven retrievals contributed to significantly higher scores than one and three retrievals regardless of the posttest timing. When time-on-task was controlled, however, one retrieval led to the largest gain.

This study investigates some instances of linguistic development in the acquisition of a second language that might be subsumed under the issue of grammaticalization. First, the notion of grammaticalization is discussed with reference to the current linguistic debate and its applicability to the domain of language acquisition is evaluated. Then, some cases are examined drawing on data on the acquisition of Italian collected during several years at the University of Pavia. With respect to temporality and modality, learners are shown to move from lexical means or context-dependent strategies to a gradual acquisition of the morphological devices required by the target language. The results of the analyses are discussed in terms of their implications for both general linguistic theory and language acquisition research.

Despite the frequency with which verbal reports are used in SLA to gather data on learners' cognitive processes (e.g., Bowles, 2003, 2004; Mackey, Gass, & McDonough, 2000; Rosa & Leow, 2004a, 2004b), only two studies (Bowles & Leow, 2005; Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004) have investigated verbal reports' reactivity (i.e., whether they alter cognitive processes) during second language (L2) reading. This is the first study to investigate the reactivity of verbal reports on a L2 problem-solving task. First-semester learners of Spanish were assigned to one of six experimental conditions, which differed in terms of the type of verbalization (i.e., metalinguistic, nonmetalinguistic, or silent) and the type of feedback (i.e., implicit vs. explicit). Results show that metalinguistic verbalization significantly increased time on task and also hindered participants' ability to produce exemplars of the target structure seen during the experimental task. However, neither type of verbalization significantly affected participants' ability to produce novel exemplars of the target structure, and there was no interaction between verbalization and feedback.

This paper investigates the effects of input and interaction as separate entities and in combination. We further investigate these effects as a function of different language areas. One hundred two learners of L2 Spanish were provided with input on (a) Spanish gender agreement (noun + adjective), (b) estar + location, and (c) seven vocabulary items. There were four conditions: (a) material focused solely on input, (b) material focused solely on interaction, (c) input-focused material followed by interaction, and (d) interaction-focused material followed by input. A control group completed a pretest and posttest. In general, greatest improvement from pretest to posttest for all conditions was noted for vocabulary. Learners exposed to input and interaction in combination showed greater improvement than those in conditions with only input or only interaction. In the two grammatical areas (gender agreement and estar + location), learners who received interaction followed by input showed greatest improvement. We consider issues such as complexity and abstractness to account for the findings of differential effects on language areas.Funding for this project was provided by a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education to the Center for Language Education and Research at Michigan State University (P229A990012 and P229A020001). We would like to thank George Sirbu and Pingping Ni for help with the statistics of this study. We are also grateful to the anonymous SSLA reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. All errors remain our own.