The latency of the brain response to semantic anomalies (N400 effect) has been found to be longer in a bilingual's second language (L2) than in their first language (L1) and/or to that seen in monolinguals. This has been explained in terms of late exposure to L2, although age of exposure and language proficiency are often highly correlated. We thus examined the relative contributions of these f...

 Lexicalization-patterns, the way words are mapped onto concepts, differ from one language      to another. This study investigated the influence of first language (L1) lexicalization patterns on the processing of second language (L2) words in sentential contexts by both less proficient and more proficient Persian learners of English. The focus was on cases where two different senses of a polys...

Utilizing eye-tracking technology and focusing on the “rapid”, “purposeful” and “comprehending” attributes of fluent reading, this study investigated first language (L1) and second language (L2) readers’ online reading patterns and comprehension. Eye movement data from nine L1 readers and nine L2 readers were collected, analyzed and compared. Post-experiment interviews were conducted to obtain ...

To investigate whether second language processing is characterized by the same sensitivity to the emotional content of language - as compared to native language processing - we conducted an EEG study manipulating word emotional valence in a visual lexical decision task. Two groups of late bilinguals - native speakers of German and Spanish with sufficient proficiency in their respective second l...

In recent studies by Goad & White (2004, 2006a, in press) the acquisition of articles (the/a) by second language (L2) learners of English have been investigated. They claim that L2 learners from article-less languages such as Turkish and Chinese will have difficulty in prosodically representing articles in spoken production due to first language (L1) prosodic transfer i.e. no prosodic structure...

Grammar competition has been proposed as a model for second language (L2) acquisition. Variational Learning provides framework within which to investigate the idea of grammar requires marriage quantitative properties input with Universal Grammar. A diachronic variational is extended acquisition (L2A) explore verb-second word order optionality in L2 English. Patterns L1-German–L2-English are rev...

Research has assessed how language use differences between bilinguals (e.g., whether two languages are used approximately equally often or not) influence processing. However, first (L1) and second (L2) might also differ within bilinguals, depending on the topic of conversation. For example, a Mandarin–English bilingual studying in North America UK talk about exams English but their childhood Ma...

This work investigates first-language (L1) influence on second-language (L2) acquisition of embedded aspect, comparing participants with homogeneous L1 background (Russian) in Greece (L2 Standard Modern Greek) and Cyprus (L2 Cypriot Greek), where verb complementation takes a finite form instead of an infinitival as in Russian. The focus of the experimental study is on those embedded sentential ...

The present study investigated cross-language influences in the processing of binomial expressions ( knife and fork ), from a first language (L1) to second (L2) L2 L1. Two groups unbalanced bilinguals (Chinese/L1-English/L2 English/L1-Chinese/L2) control group English monolinguals performed visual lexical decision task that incorporated unmasked priming. To assess influences, we used three type...

Formal and semantic overlap across languages plays an important role in bilingual language processing systems. In the present study, Japanese (first language; L1)-English (second language; L2) bilinguals rated 193 Japanese-English word pairs, including cognates and noncognates, in terms of phonological and semantic similarity. We show that the degree of cross-linguistic overlap varies, such tha...