We describe a pattern acquisition algorithm that learns, in an unsupervised fashion, a streamlined representation of linguistic structures from a plain natural-language corpus. This paper addresses the issues of learning structured knowledge from a large-scale natural language data set, and of generalization to unseen text. The implemented algorithm represents sentences as paths on a graph whos...

This paper reexamines the potential impact of the English-only movement on linguistic minorities and Anglos’ perceptions of their own and minority groups’ language vitality. Of particular interest is the Hispanic population—the fastest growing minority in the U.S. Communication scholars have paid only scant attention to the English-only movement and how it affects the social and communication c...

In this paper, we evaluate the adequacy of two widely used machine learning algorithms and a computational linguistic proposal to model L2 perceptual development. The three proposals are, in order, Nearest Neighbor, Naive Bayesian and Stochastic OT and the Gradual Learning Algorithm. We compared the three models’ outputs to those of Spanish learners of Dutch who were asked to categorize synthet...

Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) are among the most vulnerable populations. They experience high rates of medical errors with worse clinical outcomes than English-proficient patients and receive lower quality of care by other metrics. However, we have yet to take the issue of linguistic inequities seriously in the medical system and in medical education, tacitly accepting that su...

This study explores the construct validity of speaking tasks included in the TOEFL iBT (e.g., integrated and independent speaking tasks). Specifically, advanced natural language processing (NLP) tools, MANOVA difference statistics, and discriminant function analyses (DFA) are used to assess the degree to which and in what ways responses to these tasks differ with regard to linguistic characteri...

Abstract We investigated age-related decline in adult learning of Dutch as an additional language (L n ) speaking, writing, listening, and reading proficiency test scores for 56,024 immigrants with 50 L1s who came to the Netherlands study or work. Performance all four skills turned out monotonically after age arrival about 25 years, similar developmental trajectories observed earlier aging rese...

Although research on multilingualism has revealed continued neuroplasticity for language-learning beyond what was previously expected, it remains controversial whether and to what extent a second language (L2) acquired in adulthood may induce changes in the neurocognitive processing of a first language (L1). First language (L1) attrition in adulthood offers new insight on neuroplasticity and th...

Cross-linguistic differences in emotionality of autobiographical memories were examined by eliciting memories of immigration from bilingual speakers. Forty-seven Russian-English bilinguals were asked to recount their immigration experiences in either Russian or English. Bilinguals used more emotion words when describing their immigration experiences in the second language (English) than in the ...

Abstract The cross-linguistic gender congruency effect (GCE; a facilitation on retrieval for translations of the same gender) is robust phenomenon analysed almost exclusively with late bilinguals. However, it important to ascertain whether modulated by age acquisition (AoA) and language proficiency. We asked 64 early bilinguals European Portuguese German do forward backward translation task. A ...