The study explored the origin of the age of acquisition (AoA) effect in second language (L2) using ERPs technique. We simulated L2 AoA by manipulating the order at which English pseudowords entered into training. Chinese-English bilinguals (mean age 22.04, range 18–28) learned English pseudowords matched with Chinese (L1) words, investigating the order of acquisition (OoA) effect of English pseudowords and its relationship with the matched L1 words’ AoA. OoA effects were observed in lexical decision, naming and semantic judgment tasks on N170, P200 and N400. Furthermore, OoA effects were modulated by L1 AoA in the semantic judgment task. These results suggested that OoA effects were independent at orthographic and phonological levels but modulated by L1 AoA at the semantic level. The interpretation of L2 AoA effects requires not only the integration of Semantic and Arbitrary Mapping Hypotheses, as well as consideration of the representation and activation characteristics of L2 words.

Research on the language acquisition of deaf individuals who are exposed to accessible linguistic input at a variety of ages has provided evidence for a sensitive period of first language acquisition. Recent studies have shown that deaf individuals who first learn language after early childhood, late first-language learners (LL1), do not comprehend reversible Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) sentences. The present study analyzed 478 signed productions elicited with pictures depicting simple events with one or two arguments by 28 signers. The argument order patterns of native signers converged with one another and the word order patterns of American Sign Language (ASL). By contrast, the ordering patterns of the LL1 signers did not converge with one another or with the patterns of the native signers. This indicates that early childhood is a period of heightened sensitivity to basic word order and may help explain why complex structures are difficult for LL1 signers to learn.

The cross-linguistic gender congruency effect (GCE; a facilitation on gender retrieval for translations of the same gender) is a robust phenomenon analysed almost exclusively with late bilinguals. However, it is important to ascertain whether it is modulated by age of acquisition (AoA) and language proficiency. We asked 64 early and late bilinguals of European Portuguese and German to do a forward and backward translation task. A measure of language balance was calculated through the DIALANG test. Analyses included this factor along with the gender congruency between translations, the target language, and the AoA of both languages, among others. Results showed a GCE for European Portuguese that was independent of the AoA and greater the higher the language imbalance. We propose that changes in proficiency in any of the languages create situations of dependency between them which allow cross-linguistic gender interaction to occur and effects to emerge depending on gender transparency.

The present study investigated the age of acquisition (AoA) effect in processing second language (L2) words and how it is related to the AoA of the corresponding first language (L1) words. We adopted a lexical decision task in three experiments. The filler words were orthographically illegal in Experiment 1 to elicit more word form processing, while Experiment 2 used legal fillers to shift the bias toward semantic processing. In Experiment 3, we used a larger amount of stimuli containing more longer words with legal fillers. Our results showed that L2 AoA has a weak effect at the orthographical processing level and a stable effect at the semantic processing level. The L1 AoA modulates the L2 AoA effect at the semantic processing level, which is more likely to appear in long words. These results suggest that it is important to take bilingual representation and activation into consideration to explain the L2 AoA effect.

This study investigated the unresolved issue of potential sources of heritage language attrition. To test contributing effects of three learner variables – age of second language acquisition, length of residence, and language input – on heritage children's lexical retrieval accuracy and speed, we conducted a real-time word naming task with 68 children (age 11–14 years) living in South Korea who spoke either Chinese or Russian as a heritage language. Results of regression analyses showed that the participants were less accurate and slower in naming target words in their heritage language as their length of residence in Korea and the amount of Korean input increased. The age of Korean acquisition did not significantly influence their performance. These findings support the claim that heritage speakers’ language experience is a more reliable predictor of first language attrition than age of acquisition. We discuss these findings in light of different approaches to explaining language attrition.

Normative ratings are a means to control for the effects of confounding variables in psycholinguistic experiments. This paper introduces a new dataset of normative ratings for Swedish encompassing 111 concrete nouns and the corresponding picture stimuli in the MultiPic database (Duñabeitia et al. 2017). The norms for name agreement, category typicality, age of acquisition and subjective frequency were collected using online surveys among native speakers of the Finland-Swedish variety of Swedish. The paper discusses the inter-correlations between these variables and compares them against available ratings for other languages. In doing so, the paper argues that ratings for age of acquisition and subjective frequency collected for other languages may be applied to psycholinguistic studies on Finland-Swedish, at least with respect to concrete and highly imageable nouns. In contrast, norms for name agreement should be collected from speakers of the same language variety as represented by the subjects in the actual experiments.

This paper investigates whether typical stress patterns in English nouns and verbs are available as a prosodic cue for categorisation and accelerated word learning during first language acquisition. The stress typicality hypothesis states that left-stressed nouns and right-stressed verbs should be acquired earlier than the reverse configurations if stress effectively signals lexical class membership. In this view, class-typical stress patterns are expected to facilitate learning of novel items. A series of generalized additive models (GAMs) based on a comprehensive set of lexical data (CELEX) as well as a large set of age-of-acquisition (AoA) and concreteness ratings reveals that stress typicality plays a minor role in early acquisition, as it is generally superseded by a preference for left-hand (or ‘trochaic’) patterns in both nouns and verbs. This may be explained by general cognitive constraints (perceptual salience and recency) or exposure to the dominant pattern in the ambient language.

Although bilinguals benefit from semantic context while perceiving speech-in-noise in their native language (L1), the extent to which bilinguals benefit from semantic context in their second language (L2) is unclear. Here, 57 highly proficient English–French/French–English bilinguals, who varied in L2 age of acquisition, performed a speech-perception-in-noise task in both languages while event-related brain potentials were recorded. Participants listened to and repeated the final word of sentences high or low in semantic constraint, in quiet and with a multi-talker babble mask. Overall, our findings indicate that bilinguals do benefit from semantic context while perceiving speech-in-noise in both their languages. Simultaneous bilinguals showed evidence of processing semantic context similarly to monolinguals. Early sequential bilinguals recruited additional neural resources, suggesting more effective use of semantic context in L2, compared to late bilinguals. Semantic context use was not associated with bilingual language experience or working memory.

Studies of the second language (L2) processing of object–subject ambiguities (OSA), where the parser must revise an initially incorrect analysis of the input, have yielded two findings that the present paper addresses. First, L2 speakers are guided more strongly by plausibility information than L1 speakers in OSA processing. Second, L2 speakers generally do not perform reanalysis in real time, and their comparably poor performance on subsequent comprehension questions suggests ultimate failure to derive a grammatical parse. Because previous studies have targeted later L2 acquirers living outside of an L2 context, the present study tested whether the above two findings hold for childhood L2 acquirers with extensive naturalistic L2 exposure, hypothesizing that these factors would engender more nativelike processing. A self-paced reading task involving two kinds of OSA construction was conducted. Sensitivity to plausibility information differed across the first language and L2 groups per construction type. Within the L2 group, there is evidence that the early childhood acquirers initiated online reanalysis. Comprehension question accuracy did not differ across participant groups, suggesting that all participants succeeded in reanalysis to the same extent. The role of age of onset in L2 processing is discussed, as is the findings’ relevance to current models of L2 processing.

Previous studies suggest that age of acquisition affects the outcomes of learning, especially at the morphosyntactic level. Unknown is how syntactic development is affected by increased cognitive maturity and delayed language onset. The current paper studied the early syntactic development of adolescent first language learners by examining word order patterns in American Sign Language (ASL). ASL uses a basic Subject–Verb–Object order, but also employs multiple word order variations. Child learners produce variable word order at the initial stage of acquisition, but later primarily produce canonical word order. We asked whether adolescent first language learners acquire ASL word order in a fashion parallel to child learners. We analyzed word order preference in spontaneous language samples from four adolescent L1 learners collected longitudinally from 12 months to six years of ASL exposure. Our results suggest that adolescent L1 learners go through stages similar to child native learners, although this process also appears to be prolonged.

While several studies have shown a bilingual advantage in cognitive control, others have refuted such findings, leading to debates regarding the existence of bilingual benefits. The current study conducts two experiments to investigate this issue, focusing on the effect of the age of second language immersion in young adult non-immigrant bilinguals. We use a colour-word Stroop task to assess linguistic cognitive control, and an Attention Network Test to examine non-linguistic cognitive control. Results show significant differences between Simultaneous and Early Sequential bilinguals (typically grouped together as ‘early’) in the Stroop task, but these only become apparent when both languages are mixed. Simultaneous bilinguals also show improved Executive Control efficiency, particularly in the presence of alerting and orienting cues, suggesting enhanced attentional skills for this group. We discuss these findings with respect to participant grouping and task effects, noting the importance of the language environment.

The keynote article (Mayberry & Kluender, 2017) makes an important contribution to questions concerning the existence and characteristics of sensitive periods in language acquisition. Specifically, by comparing groups of non-native L1 and L2 signers, the authors have been able to ingeniously disentangle the effects of maturation from those of early language exposure. Based on L1 versus L2 contrasts, the paper convincingly argues that L2 learning is a “less clear test” of sensitive periods. Nevertheless, we believe Mayberry and Kluender underestimate the evidence for maturational factors in L2 learning, especially that coming from recent research.

We investigated the extent to which second-language (L2) learning is influenced by the similarity of grammatical features in one's first language (L1). We used event-related potentials to identify neural signatures of a novel grammatical rule – grammatical gender – in L1 English speakers. Of interest was whether individual differences in L2 proficiency and age of acquisition (AoA) influenced these effects. L2 and native speakers of French read French sentences that were grammatically correct, or contained either a grammatical gender or word order violation. Proficiency and AoA predicted Left Anterior Negativity amplitude, with structure violations driving the proficiency effect and gender violations driving the AoA effect. Proficiency, group, and AoA predicted P600 amplitude for gender violations but not structure violations. Different effects of grammatical gender and structure violations indicate that L2 speakers engage novel grammatical processes differently from L1 speakers and that this varies appreciably based on both AoA and proficiency.