Cross-linguistic comparison is a good starting point for computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT). A comparison between the segment inventories of a learner’s mother tongue (L1) and the target language (L2) can be made on the basis of the IPA categories. Since these are claimed to reflect universal phonemic distinctions, mastering the contrasts in the target language in perception and pr...

The masked translation priming paradigm has been widely used in the last 25 years to investigate word processing in bilinguals. Motivated by studies reporting mixed findings, in particular for second language (L2) to first language (L1) translation priming, we conducted, for the first time in the literature, a meta-analysis of 64 masked priming lexical decision experiments across 24 studies to ...

This article presents and reviews a new methodological resource for research in second language acquisition (SLA), CEDEL2 ( Corpus Escrito del Español L2 ‘L2 Spanish Written Corpus’), its free online search-engine interface cedel2.learnercorpora.com ). is multi-first-language corpus (Spanish, English, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, French, Greek, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic) of lear...

This study is designed to investigate errors emerged in written texts produced by 30 Turkish EFL learners with an explanatory, and thus, qualitative perspective. Erroneous language elements were identified by the researcher first and then their grammaticality and intelligibility were checked by five native speakers of English. The analysis of the data showed that it is difficult to claim that a...

A response signal, speed–accuracy tradeoff (SAT) variant of a same–different category task was used to examine how experience affects the speed and accuracy of retrieving conceptual information in first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Conceptual retrieval was evaluated in three bilingual groups: 10 balanced bilinguals with equal proficiency in Russian (L1) and English (L2); 9 Russian-dominant b...

The time course of cross-script translation priming and repetition priming was examined in two different scripts using a combination of the masked priming paradigm with the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). Japanese-English bilinguals performed a semantic categorization task in their second language (L2) English and in their first language (L1) Japanese. Targets were preceded by a v...

In the acquisition of a second language, numerous factors interact simultaneously, including the patterns of the first language (L1), the patterns of the target language (L2), universals of language acquisition, and the amount and type of exposure to the L2. English is learned as a second language in India, where the first languages of the English learners differ widely in the phonotactics of c...

Communicating in a second language could be seen as a process requiring the deconstruction and reconstruction of cultural meanings. If this is the case, how do second language (L2) learners express cultural meanings of their first language (L1) expressions that do not have semantically equivalent L2 expressions? Twentynine Japanese students learning English as a second language in the US were a...

In this paper, we validate Macaro’s (2006) model of strategy use among language learners by assessing the amount of neural activity around the prefrontal cortex, the supposed locus of working memory (WM). We also examine whether WM activation during first language (L1) strategy deployment is lower than WM activation during second language (L2) strategy deployment, as predicted by Macaro’s model...

Multilingual patients pose a unique challenge when planning epilepsy surgery near language cortex because the cortical representations of each language may be distinct. These distinctions may not be evident with routine electrocortical stimulation mapping (ESM). Electrocorticography (ECoG) has recently been used to detect task-related spectral perturbations associated with functional brain acti...