To determine when and how L2 learners start to process L2 words affectively and semantically, we conducted a longitudinal study on their interaction in adult L2 learners. In four test sessions, spanning half a year of L2 learning, we monitored behavioral and ERP learning-related changes for one and the same set of words by means of a primed lexical-decision paradigm with L1 primes and L2 target...

The present study aims to investigated Iranian L2 speaker`s knowledge of the overt pronounconstraint (OPC) in English. It also aims to examine L2 learners understanding of UniversalGrammar (Chomsky 1981, 1986, 2000, 2001) and if it is common to all languages. Specifically,this study takes a new look at the L2 acquisition of knowledge of the overt pronoun constraint(Montalbetti 1984) by Persian ...

abstract norton’s (1995) investment hypothesis in l2 learning that l2 learners who cherish and foresee a richer personality for themselves in their l2 context would thrive more diligently and consequently would both enrich their personality and achieve a higher proficiency in their new language was investigated in this study in the community of iranian efl students. the integration and mutual r...

This study examined whether processing ambiguous sentences containing relative clauses (RCs) following a complex determiner phrase (DP) by Persian-speaking learners of L2 English with different proficiency and working memory capacities (WMCs) is affected by semantic priming. The semantic relationship studied was one between the subject/verb of the main clause and one of the DPs in the complex D...

L2 studies demonstrate that learners differ in their speech perception patterns. Recent explanations attribute this variation to the different initial stages with which learners start their L2 development. Spanish listeners' categorization of Standard Southern British English and American English vowels is compared. The results show that, on the basis of steady-state F1 and F2 values, listeners...

Individual differences in second language (L2) aptitude have been assumed to depend upon a variety of cognitive and personality factors. Especially, the cognitive factor phonological working memory has been conceptualised as language learning device. However, strong associations between phonological working memory and L2 aptitude have been previously found in early-stage learners only, not in a...

Four groups of second language (L2) learners of English from different language backgrounds (Chinese, Japanese, German & Greek) and a group of native speaker controls participated in an on-line reading-time experiment with sentences involving long-distance wh-dependencies. While the native speakers showed evidence of making use of intermediate syntactic gaps during processing, the L2 learners a...

In L2 development, the cognitive complexity of tasks plays a crucial role in task performance and language features produced. However, there have only been few studies addressing the impact of task complexity on EFL learners' attention to L2 system and form-focused self-repairs (FFS).This study explores the role of increasing cognitive task complexity in EFL learners' form-focused attention (FF...

Although story mapping strategy has been shown to be beneficial in many reading comprehension classes, the benefits of this technique have not been thoroughly investigated in L2 writing research. The small number of previous studies (e.g., Li, 2007; Brunner, 2010) have found the potential benefits of using story mapping strategy on students’ writing performance, but they did not focus on differ...