Learning a new language is an important goal that many individuals find difficult to achieve, particularly during adulthood. Several factors have related this variability to different extrinsic (learning condition, difficulty of the materials) and intrinsic (cognitive abilities) factors, but the interaction between them is barely known. In two experiments, participants learned English grammar rules in intentional (Experiment 1) or explicit (Experiment 2), and incidental learning-contexts. Overall, results of this study indicated that intentional-explicit conditions benefitted rule-learning, as compared to incidental conditions. This benefit was mainly present when participants were learning an easy-rule; explicit and incidental learning did not differ in the case of participants learning a difficult rule (Experiment 2). Moreover, individual differences in executive functioning predicted successful learning in interaction with difficulty. When learning an easy-rule, proactive control facilitated intentional learning. In contrast, when participants were learning a complex-rule, incidental learning was enhanced by lower involvement of proactive control.

Many cross-language sentence processing studies showed structural priming, which suggests a shared representation across languages or separate but interacting representations for each language. To investigate whether multilinguals can rely on such representations to predict structure in comprehension, we conducted two visual-world eye-tracking priming experiments with Cantonese–Mandarin-English multilinguals. Participants were instructed to read aloud prime sentences in either Cantonese, Mandarin, or English; then they heard a target sentence in Mandarin while looking at the corresponding target picture. When prime and target had different verbs, there was within-language structural priming only (Mandarin-to-Mandarin, Experiment 1). But when prime and target had translation-equivalent verbs, there was not only within-language but also between-language priming (only Cantonese-to-Mandarin, Experiment 2). These results indicate that structure prediction between languages in comprehension is partly lexically-based, so that cross-linguistic structural priming only occurs with cognate verbs.

Code-switching is generally dispreferred at points of non-shared word order across a bilingual's two languages. In priming studies, this dispreference persists even following exposure to a code-switched non-shared-word-order utterance. The present study delves deeper into the scope of code-switching priming by investigating whether lexical repetition across target and prime, a factor known to boost structural priming, can increase code-switching at points of word order divergence. Afrikaans–English bilinguals (n=46) heard prime sentences in which word order, lexical repetition, and switch position were manipulated and subsequently produced code-switched picture descriptions. The results show that lexical repetition boosts the priming of code-switching in a non-shared word order. The findings demonstrate that code-switching in production is affected by a dynamic interplay between factors both language-internal (i.e., word order) and language-external (i.e., priming, and specifically lexical repetition).

Language production is incremental in nature; we tend to plan linguistic chunks prior to articulating the first word of the utterance. Researchers have acquired knowledge about how far ahead sentences are generally planned, but mostly in monolinguals or the speaker's first language (Allum & Wheeldon, 2007; Martin, Crowther, Knight, Tamborello II, & Yang, 2010; Wagner, Jescheniak, & Schriefers, 2010). It is unclear whether the scope of planning is the same in bilinguals, or the speaker's second language. Here, we examined planning scope in Dutch–English bilinguals' sentence production using a paradigm that elicits descriptions of short animations. Analyses of speech onset times and articulation durations suggest that, on the surface, bilinguals have comparable planning scope in L1 and L2. However, in their L2, bilinguals extended their articulation duration, suggesting that they committed early to the initial noun phrase, but produced it more slowly to buy time to plan the next noun phrase.

Cross-linguistic structural priming effects suggest that bilinguals have shared or connected memory representations for similar syntactic structures. This predicts an influence of the production preferences of one language in the other language (Bernolet & Hartsuiker, 2018). We hypothesized that shared structures will lead to a facilitatory effect on production frequencies, whereas connected structures may sometimes lead to an inhibitory effect due to competition between structures. We compared the production preferences and priming effects in Dutch for the frequent by-phrase-final and the uncommon by-phrase-medial passive between Arabic/Berber–Dutch and Turkish–Dutch heritage speakers and native speakers of Dutch. Arabic/Berber–Dutch speakers produced more agentless passives –that is, the alternative shared between their two languages. In contrast, Turkish–Dutch speakers produced less by-phrase-medial passives, although these are less uncommon in Turkish. This inhibition effect suggests that syntactic structures may sometimes be connected rather than shared, although the exact mechanisms behind the inhibitory effects require further research.

The aim of our study was to examine the longitudinal associations between two forms of second language (L2) knowledge (i.e., explicit and implicit knowledge) and the activity types that facilitate different processing mechanisms (i.e., form- and meaning-focused processing). L2 English speakers completed two tests of explicit knowledge (untimed written grammaticality judgment test and metalinguistic knowledge test) and three tests of implicit knowledge (timed written grammaticality judgment test, oral production, and elicited imitation) at the beginning and the end of a semester of university-level study. To track engagement in the activity types, participants completed self-reported language exposure logs across five days throughout the semester. The results from an autoregressive cross-lag analysis suggest L2 explicit and implicit knowledge influenced each other reciprocally over time. Neither activity type predicted knowledge development. We conclude that language acquisition is a developmental process typified by a dynamic, synergistic interface between explicit and implicit knowledge.

Researchers have taken great interest in the assessment of text readability. This study expands on this research by developing readability models that predict the processing effort involved during first language (L1) and second language (L2) text reading. Employing natural language processing tools, the study focused on assessing complex linguistic features of texts, and these features were used to explain the variance in processing effort, as evidenced by eye movement data for L1 or L2 readers of English that were extracted from an open eye-tracking corpus. Results indicated that regression models using the indices of complex linguistic features provided better performance in predicting processing effort for both L1 and L2 reading than the models using simple linguistic features (word and sentence length). Furthermore, many of the predictive variables were lexical features for both L1 and L2 reading, emphasizing the importance of decoding for fluent reading regardless of the language used.

Referential processing relies on similar cognitive functions across languages – in particular, working memory. However, this has only been investigated in spoken languages with highly similar referential systems. In contrast to spoken languages, American Sign Language (ASL) uses a spatial referential system. It is unknown whether the referential system of ASL (L1) impacts referential processing in English (L2). This cross-language impact may be of particular importance for deaf, bimodal bilinguals who sign in ASL and read in English. Self-paced reading times of pronouns in English texts were compared between ASL–English bimodal bilinguals and Chinese–English unimodal bilinguals. The results showed that L1 referential characteristics influenced pronoun reading time in L2. Furthermore, in contrast to Chinese–English bilinguals, ASL–English bilinguals’ referential processing during reading of English texts relied on vocabulary knowledge – not working memory. These findings emphasize the need to expand current theories of referential processing to include more diverse types of language transfer.

Previous research has provided evidence for cross-language phonological activation during visual word recognition. However, such findings mainly came from alphabetic languages, and readers’ familiarity with the two scripts might differ. The present study aimed to test whether such cross-language phonological activation can be observed in Chinese, a logographic script, without the confounding factor of script familiarity as readers read the same script in different languages. Cantonese–Mandarin bilinguals were tested in an eye-tracking experiment in which they were instructed to read sentences silently. A target word in the sentence was replaced by either a homophone in both Cantonese and Mandarin, a homophone in Cantonese or in Mandarin only, or an unrelated character. The results showed that native Cantonese readers could activate phonological representations of L1 and L2 while reading Chinese sentences silently. However, the degree to which they relied on phonological decoding in L1 and L2 varied in the two languages.

In this two-part study, we conducted both cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations on the relative weights of experiential, cognitive, and sociopsychological factors in adult L2 speech learning. In the cross-sectional phase (Study 1), speech was elicited from 73 Japanese speakers of English via a picture description task, and rated for accentedness and comprehensibility. These scores were linked to scores on a range of tests designed to measure aptitude, motivation, and anxiety. The results showed that comprehensibility was exclusively linked to experiential variables (e.g., the amount of L2 use outside classrooms), while accentedness was linked to phonemic coding ability and anxiety. In the longitudinal phase (Study 2), we tracked the same participants' L2 comprehensibility and accentedness development when they received four weeks of explicit pronunciation instruction. According to the results of pre- and post-tests, participants significantly improved the comprehensibility and accentedness of their speech regardless of cognitive and sociopsychological differences.

This study compared late bilinguals’ pitch feedback control in L1 and L2 production using a frequency-altered feedback paradigm in which participants read target words while presented with unexpected pitch-shift in their voice feedback. Variables of language (L1 or L2) and perturbation magnitudes (0, 100, 200, or 400 cents) were manipulated. Behaviorally, participants produced larger magnitudes but longer latencies of vocal compensation in L2 than in L1 production, suggesting that L2 pitch feedback control has greater importance but lower efficiency. Event-related potential findings demonstrated that 400-cent shifts elicited greater N1 amplitudes than those in the 0-cent baseline condition in L1 production. This difference was non-significant in L2 production, implying different neural processing of unaltered feedback and externally-generated feedback in L1 and L2 production. Participants’ vocal compensation and P2 amplitudes were similarly modulated by pitch-shift in L1 and L2 production, implying a similar gating mechanism to correct internal and external errors.

Differential affective processing has been widely documented for bilinguals: L1 affective words elicit higher levels of arousal and stronger emotionality ratings than L2 affective words (Pavlenko, 2012). In this study, we focus on two closely related Chinese languages, Mandarin and Cantonese, whose affective lexicons are highly overlapping, with shared lexical items that only differ in pronunciation across languages. We recorded L1 Cantonese – L2 Mandarin bilinguals’ pupil responses to auditory tokens of Cantonese and Mandarin affective words. Our results showed that Cantonese–Mandarin bilinguals had stronger pupil responses when the affective words were pronounced in Cantonese (L1) than when the same words were pronounced in Mandarin (L2). The effect was most evident in taboo words and among bilinguals with lower L2 proficiency. We discuss the theoretical implications of the findings in the frameworks of exemplar theory and models of the bilingual lexicon.

This paper explores the link between the metaphoric structure TIME IS SPACE and time perception in bilinguals. While there appear to be fundamental commonalities in the way humans perceive and experience time regardless of language background, language-specific spatiotemporal metaphors can give rise to differences between populations, under certain conditions. Little is known, however, about how bilinguals experience time, and the specific factors that may modulate bilingual temporal processing. Here, we address this gap by examining L1 Spanish – L2 Swedish bilinguals in a psychophysical task. Results show that duration estimation of dynamic spatial configurations analogous to L2-specific temporal metaphors is modulated by L2 proficiency. In contrast, duration estimation of spatial configurations analogous to the L1 metaphorical expressions appears to be modulated by the age of L2 acquisition. These findings are discussed in terms of associative learning and cognitive restructuring in the bilingual mind.

Recalling future intentions (i.e., prospective memory, PM) plays an essential role in everyday life, but sometimes, if the person is involved in a demanding ongoing task, PM is unsuccessful. This is especially relevant for bilinguals who, in many situations, have to recall intentions while performing a task in their second language (L2). Our aim was to explore whether PM is modulated by the linguistic context in which PM takes place. In this study, bilinguals performed a PM task in their first (L1) or second language (L2). We also manipulated the demands of the ongoing task (early/late updating) and the PM cue (focal/non-focal). In general, results showed an overall impairment in the recall of future intentions when the task was performed in L2. This impairment was especially evident in the more demanding conditions, suggesting that increments in attentional demands due to L2 processing hinder the processes required for prospective remembering.

Bilingual infants rely differently than monolinguals on facial information, such as lip patterns, to differentiate their native languages. This may explain, at least in part, why young monolinguals and bilinguals show differences in social attention. For example, in the first year, bilinguals attend faster and more often to static faces over non-faces than do monolinguals (Mercure et al., 2018). However, the developmental trajectories of these differences are unknown. In this pre-registered study, data were collected from 15- to 18-month-old monolinguals (English) and bilinguals (English and another language) to test whether group differences in face-looking behaviour persist into the second year. We predicted that bilinguals would orient more rapidly and more often to static faces than monolinguals. Results supported the first but not the second hypothesis. This suggests that, even into the second year of life, toddlers’ rapid visual orientation to static social stimuli is sensitive to early language experience.

Thirty-four English–Malay bilinguals of between four and six years of age (both balanced and dominant) characterized as low socioeconomic status (SES) on income and parental education were tested on the child-Attentional Network Task (child-ANT; Rueda, Fan, McCandliss, Halparin, Gruber, Lercari & Posner, 2004) measuring executive attention. Although SES measures fell below the Singapore median, Malay children's performance on the child-ANT remained high when compared to other age-matched monolingual and bilingual children previously tested with the child-ANT (Yang, Yang & Lust, 2011), and English–Chinese Singaporean bilinguals (Kang, 2009). None of the three SES measures – father's and mother's education, and income, significantly correlated with child-ANT components. Regression analyses confirmed that none of the SES measures significantly predicted performance on the child-ANT. Caregiver reports suggested that both balanced and dominant bilinguals displayed high executive control. We consider the possibility that cultural variations – simultaneous and pervasiveness of bilingualism in Singapore, or pervasive code-switching – may ameliorate potential negative effects of SES on executive control development.