Lexico-semantic knowledge of our native language provides an initial foundation for second language learning. In this paper, we investigate whether and to what extent the lexico-semantic models of the native language (L1) are transferred to the second language (L2). Specifically, we focus on the problem of lexical choice and investigate it in the context of three typologically diverse languages...

This study aims at investigating whether Persian native speakers highly advanced in English as a second language (L2ers) can switch to optimal processing strategies in the languages they know and whether working memory capacity (WMC) plays a role in this respect. To this end, using a self-paced reading task, we examined the processing strategies 62 Persian speaking proficient L2ers used to read...

this is a longitudinal case study of two farsi-speaking children learning english: ‘bernard’ and ‘melissa’, who were 7;4 and 8;4 at the start of data collection. the research deals with the initial state and further development in the child second language (l2) acquisition of syntax regarding the presence or absence of copula as a functional category, as well as the role and degree of l1 influe...

Second-language (L2) speech is consistently slower than first-language (L1) speech, and L1 speaking rate varies within- and across-talkers depending on many individual, situational, linguistic, and sociolinguistic factors. It is asked whether speaking rate is also determined by a language-independent talker-specific trait such that, across a group of bilinguals, L1 speaking rate significantly p...

ERPs were used to explore the different patterns of processing of cognate and noncognate words in the first (L1) and second (L2) language of a population of second language learners. L1 English students of French were presented with blocked lists of L1 and L2 words, and ERPs to cognates and noncognates were compared within each language block. For both languages, cognates had smaller amplitudes...

This is a longitudinal case study of two Farsi-speaking children learning English: ‘Bernard’ and ‘Melissa’, who were 7;4 and 8;4 at the start of data collection. The research deals with the initial state and further development in the child second language (L2) acquisition of syntax regarding the presence or absence of copula as a functional category, as well as the role and degree of L1 influe...

We examined how words from bilingual toddlers' second language (L2) primed recognition of related target words in their first language (L1). On critical trials, prime-target word pairs were either (a) phonologically related, with L2 primes overlapped phonologically with L1 target words [e.g., slide (L2 prime)-Kleid (L1 target, "dress")], or (b) phonologically related through translation, with L...

One of the basic questions of bilingual research is to what extent the bilingual’s two phonetic systems influence each other, a question that has occupied a prominent place in bilingual research almost from the outset of the field (see, for example, Weinreich, 1953). Recent studies in bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) demonstrate that, at least in simultaneous bilingual acquisition, i...

WordsL1L2L2 L1 = First LanguageL2 = Second Language Models of representation and processing Models of representation and processing GoalConceptualizerSAS

The acquisition of a second language (L2) is clearly somehow different from that of a first language (L1): adult second language learners rarely (if ever) achieve the same native competence that children do learning their first language and, conversely, children never experience the degree of difficulty that L2 learners do. This disparity between L2 and L1 acquisition is perhaps most apparent w...