This study explored the impact of contextualized practice on second language (L2) learners’ production of wh-questions in the L2 classroom. It examined the quality of practice (correct vs. incorrect production) and the contribution of declarative knowledge to proceduralization. Thirty-four university-level English as a foreign language learners first completed a declarative knowledge test. Then, they engaged in various communicative activities over five weeks. Their production of wh-questions was coded for accuracy (absence of errors) and fluency (speech rate, mean length of pauses, and repair phenomena). Improvement was measured as the difference between the first and last practice sessions. The results showed that accuracy, speech rate, and pauses improved but with distinct patterns. Regression models showed that declarative knowledge did not predict accuracy or fluency; however, declarative knowledge assisted the learners to engage in targetlike behaviors at the initial stage of proceduralization. Furthermore, whereas production of accurate wh-questions predicted accuracy improvement, it had no impact on fluency.

Although there are certainly observable frequency effects in language, in most cases, there are alternative approaches to explanation that more directly relate to the essential characteristic of language—that it is a system relating form to meaning. For example, for both word choice in production and ambiguity resolution in comprehension, meaning-based approaches can often provide equally satisfying, or more satisfying, explanations. In the meaning-based approach, the statistical structure of the language can affect the development of linguistic knowledge (for example, by influencing acquisition order or providing evidence for developing grammars); however, linguistic knowledge is not itself knowledge of the statistical structure of language. An example is provided of how frequency may relate to grammaticality judgments of nonnative speakers acquiring multiple wh-questions.

Linguistic theory must be sufficiently rich and comprehensive to be able to account for the structure of the most complex or elaborate manifestation of language. In consequence any structurally less complex verbal behaviour is typically explained as a use of some ‘reduced’ or ‘simplified’ code or register. Many languages, if not all, are said to possess such reduced registers and it is said to be part of a native speaker's competence to be able to use such ‘reduced registers’ where appropriate. It is part of his total communicative competence to know when it is appropriate to use such registers. These reduced or simplified registers are associated with more or less well defined situations of language use or types of discourse. Telegraphese is obviously restricted by the medium of transmission as well as the restricted range of communicative functions it is used for, e.g. orders, reports and announcements of plans. Technical description in botanical and ornithological reference books have a purely referential function, while the so-called language of instructions has clearly restricted rhetorical functions.

While empirical studies have shown the beneficial role of observing and producing hand gestures mimicking pitch features in the learning of L2 tonal or intonational contrasts, mixed results have been obtained for the use of gestures encoding durational contrasts at the perceptual level. This study investigates the potential benefits of horizontal hand-sweep gestures encoding durational features for boosting the perception and production of nonnative vowel-length contrasts. In a between-subjects experiment with a pretest–posttest design, 50 Catalan participants without any knowledge of Japanese practiced perceiving and producing minimal pairs of Japanese disyllabic words featuring vowel-length contrasts in one of two conditions, namely with gestures or without them. Pretest and posttest consisted of the completion of identical vowel-length identification and imitation tasks. The results showed that while participants improved equally at posttest across the two conditions in the identification task, the Gesture group obtained a larger improvement than the No Gesture group in the imitation task. These results corroborate the claim that producing hand gestures encoding prosodic properties of speech may help naïve learners to learn novel phonological contrasts in a foreign language.

The field of language acquisition is divided over the question of whether the inborn mechanisms underlying linguistic development include actual grammatical categories and principles or are of a more general character. Recent proposals suggest a possible convergence of views on this matter, with implications for the study of both first language acquisition and second language learning. This paper explores this possibility by examining the evolution of grammatical nativism with particular emphasis on a radical shift in the generality of the inborn principles that have been posited in recent work. The nature and implications of this shift are illustrated with the help of developmental data involving gap-containing structures in first and second language acquisition.

Various researchers have shown that second language (L2) speakers have difficulties with marking information structure in English prosodically: They deviate from native speakers not only in terms of pitch accent placement (Grosser, 1997; Gut, 2009; Ramírez Verdugo, 2002) and the type of pitch accent they produce (Wennerstrom, 1994, 1998) but also with regard to the phonetic realization of these pitch accents (Atterer & Ladd, 2004; O’Brien & Gut, 2010). This study investigates the prosodic strategies of first language (L1) Malay speakers of English for marking given and new discourse elements. Ten Malay speakers of English were recorded reading out a 179-word story that contained six given and six new words. Additionally, 10 Malay speakers read aloud a 152-word story containing six given and six new words in Malay. The given-new word pairs were analyzed both auditorily and acoustically in terms of type of pitch accent, syllable duration, phonetic realization of the rise, and pitch peak alignment. The results show that the Malay speakers of English produce longer rises on new than on given discourse elements but do not show different pitch accents, syllable duration, pitch peak alignment, or steepness of rises on the two types of words. The average extent and steepness of the rises as well as the pitch peak alignment are almost identical in Malay and the L2 English of Malay speakers, which suggests direct influence from the L1. However, differences in the type of pitch accents produced and the similarities to the patterns produced by other L2 speakers suggest further influencing factors.

One way of characterizing communication in the FL classroom is in terms of what at a given time is in primary focus. Adopting a basic distinction between transactions with a focus on the FL code (meta transactions) and transactions with a focus on socio-literary or other non-linguistic content (content transactions), I argue that meta talk constitutes a largely neglected area of classroom research and address two aspects of this, each of which highlights significant aspects of meta talk: (1) The occurrence of scaffolded constructions, i.e., syntagms distributed over several turns at speech; and (2) the norms holding for talk about talk, i.e., what counts as an argument about the FL code. Following an exemplification from Danish classroom data (English and German as L2), I conclude by discussing the learning and pedagogical potential of each of these types of meta talk.

This article reports on a comprehensive synthesis of the literature on the role of working memory in second language (L2) writing. It starts with an overview and clarification of the construct and measurement of working memory, followed by an elaboration of major theoretical models informing the synthesized research. The article then presents a synthesis of the methods and results of the 16 studies that have been conducted on the associations between working memory and L2 writing. The methodological synthesis encompasses research design, methods of working memory, measurement of writing performance, methods of data elicitation for writing processes, and data analysis and reporting. The results of the synthesized studies demonstrate that (1) working memory is largely unrelated to overall writing proficiency; (2) it is predictive of specific aspects of L2 composition such as complexity, accuracy, and fluency; (3) the role of working memory varies as a function of genre, proficiency, target structure, instruction type, and task demands; and (4) verbal working memory, phonological short-term memory, visual-spatial working memory, and executive functions (inhibiting, shifting, and updating) have differential associations with the process and product aspects of L2 writing. The methods and results are discussed by identifying trends, accounting for disparities, clarifying confusion, recommending solutions, and proposing new directions.

Interaction research has come a long way since its beginnings nearly 25 years ago. The aim of this special issue is to demonstrate how the methodological boundaries of interaction research continue to be expanded with the use of new and interesting methodological angles and techniques. Our goal is to further our insights into the question that seems to be paramount in the interaction field at the moment—namely, how does interaction work to bring about positive effects on second language (L2) learning? The articles collected here suggest that new methodologies promise to open up avenues of research that will allow us to gain insights into the interaction-learning relationship.Our intent in this special issue is to show some of the current methodological techniques being used to provide insights about how interaction works to promote L2 learning. We would like to thank the contributing authors who have made interesting and worthwhile contributions to help us attain this goal as well as the SSLA editorial team for all their help in bringing this issue to completion.

L2 sounds present different kinds of challenges to learners at the phonetic, phonological, and lexical levels, but previous studies on L2 tone learning mostly focused on the phonetic and lexical levels. The present study employs an innovative technique to examine the role of prior tonal experience and musical training on forming novel abstract syllable-level tone categories. Eighty Cantonese and English musicians and nonmusicians completed two tasks: (a) AX tone discrimination and (b) incidental learning of artificial tone-segment connections (e.g., words beginning with an aspirated stop always carry a rising tone) with synthesized stimuli modeled on Thai. Although the four participant groups distinguished the target tones similarly well, Cantonese speakers showed abstract and implicit knowledge of the target tone-segment mappings after training but English speakers did not, regardless of their musical experience. This suggests that tone language experience, but not musical experience, is crucial for forming novel abstract syllable-level tone categories.

The primary goal of this research was to compare the improvement in the second language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing among fourth semester French students enrolled in a content course taught in French and similar level students enrolled in a traditional fourth semester French course where the focus was primarily on the teaching of the language itself. The research used a non-equivalent pretest-posttest design and the results were analyzed using an analysis of covariance to determine mean gain scores of intact experimental and control sections of fourth semester students on the MLA Cooperative French Test. Results showed significant improvement for the experimental group in three of the four skills (listening, speaking, writing) and in two (listening and writing) for the control group. When compared to each other, the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in the speaking skill while the latter significantly outperformed the experimental group in the writing skill. Attitudinal results showed a significantly more positive attitude toward the study of French among the experimental group. The study is important because it challenges the conventional assumptions regarding the way L2 skills are acquired and improved, and offers the student a valuable time and money saving option since he or she might be able to study a specific content while simultaneously improving L2 skills.

Lexical tones are widely believed to be a formidable learning challenge for adult speakers of nontonal languages. While difficulties—as well as rapid improvements—are well documented for beginning second language (L2) learners, research with more advanced learners is needed to understand how tone perception difficulties impact word recognition once learners have a substantial vocabulary. The present study narrows in on difficulties suggested in previous work, which found a dissociation in advanced L2 learners between highly accurate tone identification and largely inaccurate lexical decision for tone words. We investigate a “best-case scenario” for advanced L2 tone word processing by testing performance in nearly ideal listening conditions—with words spoken clearly and in isolation. Under such conditions, do learners still have difficulty in lexical decision for tone words? If so, is it driven by the quality of lexical representations or by L2 processing routines? Advanced L2 and native Chinese listeners made lexical decisions while an electroencephalogram was recorded. Nonwords had a first syllable with either a vowel or tone that differed from that of a common disyllabic word. As a group, L2 learners performed less accurately when tones were manipulated than when vowels were manipulated. Subsequent analyses showed that this was the case even in the subset of items for which learners showed correct and confident tone identification in an offline written vocabulary test. Event-related potential results indicated N400 effects for both nonword conditions in L1, but only vowel N400 effects in L2, with tone responses intermediate between those of real words and vowel nonwords. These results are evidence of the persistent difficulty most L2 learners have in using tones for online word recognition, and indicate it is driven by a confluence of factors related to both L2 lexical representations and processing routines. We suggest that this tone nonword difficulty has real-world implications for learners: It may result in many toneless word representations in their mental lexicons, and is likely to affect the efficiency with which they can learn new tone words.

Recent advances in linguistic theory within the principles and parameters framework have exerted considerable influence on the field of second language acquisition. SLA researchers working within this framework of syntactic theory have investigated the extent to which developing second language grammars are constrained by principles of Universal Grammar (UG). Much of the UG-based SLA research in the 1980s focused on adult L2 acquisition, but the role of UG principles in child L2 acquisition remained largely unexplored. More recently, however, this state of affairs has begun to change as SLA researchers are becoming more and more interested in child second language syntactic development. In this paper, I review recent and current developments in UG-based child SLA research, and I argue that child SLA has a valuable role to play in enabling us to arrive at a better understanding of the role of biological factors in language acquisition and in strengthening the links between SLA and linguistic theory. Specifically, I discuss the findings of child SLA studies with respect to the following issues: the role of UG parameters in child SLA, the status of functional categories and their projections in child SLA, and the nature of the evidence available to and used by child L2 learners. The overall picture emerging from these studies suggests that child L2 developing grammars are indeed constrained by Universal Grammar. While it is not fully clear at the present time whether the child L2 learners& knowledge is a result of direct access to UG or indirect access to UG (i.e., through the mediation of the L1), the evidence indicates that L1 transfer (at least in certain syntactic domains) cannot be entirely ruled out.

Different expectations for structure and content in the construction of text can lead to difficulties in cross-cultural communication. This study investigates letters of reference as one type of written text that is relatively frequent in the contexts of the international academic community. Sixty-five letters of reference written by American referees and 65 letters written by referees from five Asian cultures were analyzed to discover the conventions and expectations guiding readers and writers from these backgrounds. Although there were many similarities in the two sets of texts, there were also several differences in the structure, content, and implicature employed in the letters; there is a complex interaction between the tripartite conceptual structure of the letters (the introduction, body, and closing) and the occurrence of specific elements of content and the form those elements took.

This paper presents an empirical study of repetition in expository essays written by 24 nonnative speakers (NNS) and 16 native speakers (NS) of English. Repetition is coded according to three categories: the degree of particular types of repetition, the interaction between instances of repetition, and the location of these interactions (Hoey, 1991). Four quantitative measures devised for this study show no significant differences between the two groups. A qualitative comparison of three essays from each group, however, shows that the NSSs do not match their degree of repetition to the development of the argument structure of the text in the same way as the NSs. These examples from NNS texts show that when considering the significance of repetition the content of what is being repeated is as important as the quantity.

Herein, we provide counterargumentation to some of Domínguez, Hicks, and Slabakova's claims that the term incomplete acquisition is conceptually necessary on theoretical grounds for describing the outcome grammars of heritage language bilingualism. Specifically, we clarify their claim that previous challenging of the term in our and others’ work is primarily based on a misconceived belief that incompleteness is intended to describe heritage speakers. We contextualize and problematize their appropriation of descriptive constructs in the adjacent fields of child L1, child 2L1, and adult L2 acquisition as a basis for supporting their general thesis. Relatedly, we conclude that a fundamental blurring of development and ultimate attainment issues is at the core of what, in our view, is flawed reasoning. While we empathize with the well-intentioned spirit of Domínguez et al.’s article—to provide a forum for respectful discussion—we invite the field to engage more directly with the inherent quandary of labeling the coherent grammars of heritage bilinguals in their own right as “incomplete” on the basis of differences to standard varieties.

This special issue presents results from comparative research into the principles constraining learner varieties (interlanguages) in use. The contributors analyze the oral production of complex verbal tasks (descriptions, instructions, narratives, retellings) in L2 Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian, concentrating on the way information from different semantic domains is organized across utterances (referential movement) and on a major aspect of the interaction between utterance-level and discourse-level constraints, namely, scope phenomena. We hope the results presented here will provide insights into the structural and communicative factors pushing, or hampering, L2 acquisition and will further our understanding of how the organizing principles interact at different levels of discourse production, be it in L1 or L2.

This study explored the latent profiles of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies (cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational regulation) endorsed by Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) readers in a high-stakes testing environment, and also their associations with individual factors (gender, grade, reading proficiency, and motivational beliefs). With a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, students in grades 11 and 12 (n = 1,113) completed a reading comprehension test and a questionnaire regarding their strategy use and individual factors, and some (n = 16) were randomly selected for follow-up semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed three SRL profiles, characterized by high, medium, and low levels of SRL-strategy use. Self-efficacy and extrinsic motivation most powerfully predicted an individual’s profile membership; all the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation variables were significantly higher for learners from the higher strategy-use profile. Moreover, reading proficiency did not significantly predict profile membership, but more self-regulated students still achieved higher reading scores as a group tendency.