Semantic integration and working memory both decline with age. However, it remains unclear whether the semantic integration decline is independent of working memory decline or whether it can be solely explained by the latter factor. In this event-related potentials experiment, 43 younger adults and 43 cognitively healthy older adults read semantically congruent and incongruent sentences. After controlling for working memory, behavioral accuracy was significantly lower in the older adults than in the younger adults. In addition, the semantic integration related N400 effect (incongruent vs. congruent) for correct trials was apparent in the whole brain in the younger adults but restricted to the posterior region in the older adults. The results clarify the relationship between working memory and semantic integration, and clearly demonstrate that semantic integration decline is independent of working memory decline during aging.

This study investigates the shared, independent, and interactive effects of metalinguistic skills (phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic knowledge) to word reading with a sample of struggling adult readers. Controlling for vocabulary knowledge, a second-order latent factor of metalinguistic awareness accounted for unique variance (62.5%) in adults’ word reading skills. Two-way latent interactions between the metalinguistic skills (phonological awareness × morphological awareness, morphological awareness × orthographic knowledge, and phonological awareness × orthographic knowledge) revealed unique interactive contributions (1%–5.2%) of these skills to word reading controlling for the metalinguistic skill main effects and vocabulary knowledge. In particular, high levels of morphological awareness are critical to word reading irrespective of high or low phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge. In addition, higher phonological awareness skills are critical to word reading irrespective of high or low orthographic knowledge. These results indicate the importance as well as the complexity of the nature of metalinguistic skills underlying word reading for struggling adult readers. The theoretical, empirical, and applied implications of these findings are discussed in the context of researchers and practitioners invested in improving outcomes in adult literacy programs.

Linguists have described the English vocabulary as including Latinate and basic subsystems. In three experiments with a total of 93 participants, we asked whether skilled readers are sensitive to graphotactic differences between these systems. Participants saw pairs of nonwords and were asked to choose the item in each pair that appeared more wordlike. Participants were more likely to select an item with an onset and an ending that suggested the same system than an item with a mismatch. Participants also used the presence of a single versus double medial consonant as a marker of the system to which an item belongs. The results suggest that skilled readers have learned about some of the graphotactic differences between Latinate and basic words and do not treat English as a monolithic system.

This study investigates the extent to which internal and contextual factors moderate the linguistic interdependence between receptive vocabulary skills in emergent bilingual children. Such factors are frequently related to first (L1) and second language (L2) skills, but few studies have examined their concurrent influence on the cross-language relationship, or have linked the results to the two main explanatory models for interdependence: common underlying proficiency or individual differences. Using a cross-sectional correlational design, concept comprehension was bilingually assessed in 154 children of Turkish background (aged 4 to 6), attending Flemish preschool. Regression analyses revealed that Turkish L1 vocabulary size significantly predicted Dutch L2 vocabulary size, which is in line with interdependence theories. Age, preschool grade, and L2 use at home positively predicted L2 vocabulary. Newly arrived immigrant status and maternal education (partly) predicted L2 vocabulary negatively, the latter especially in 3rd preschool grade. Concerning moderation, indications were found for weakening interdependence for high L2 use at home (3rd preschool grade) and newly arrived immigrant status. Overall, our findings implicate that interdependence in emergent bilinguals’ vocabulary depends on the examined factors to a limited degree only. Finally, our data point to the individual differences model, rather than the common underlying proficiency model of linguistic interdependence.

The study explores the effect of deviations from native speech rhythm and rate norms on the assessement of pronunciation mastery of a second language (L2) when the native language of the learner is either rhythmically similar to or different from the target language. Using the concatenative speech synthesis technique, different versions of the same sentence were created in order to produce segmentally and intonationally identical utterances that differed only in rhythmic patterns and/or speaking rate. Speech rhythm and tempo patterns modeled those from the speech of French or German native learners of English at different proficiency levels. Native British English speakers rated the original sentences and the synthesized utterances for accentedness. The analysis shows that (a) differences in speech rhythm and speaking tempo influence the perception of accentedness; (b) idiosyncratic differences in speech rhythm and speech rate are sufficient to differentiate between the proficiency levels of L2 learners; (c) the relative salience of rhythm and rate on perceived accentedness in L2 speech is modulated by the native language of the learners; and (d) intonation facilitates the perception of finer differences in speech rhythm between otherwise identical utterances. These results emphasize the importance of prosodic timing patterns for the perception of speech delivered by L2 learners.

This study explored the long-term effects of limited input on bilingual teenagers’ acquisition of complex morphology in Welsh. Study 1 assessed 168 12–13 and 16–17-year-old teenagers, across three bilingual groups: those whose first language was Welsh (L1 Welsh), those who learned Welsh and English simultaneously (L1 Welsh–English), and those who learned Welsh as a second language (L2 Welsh), on their receptive knowledge of grammatical gender. Study 2 assessed the same participants on their production of plural morphology. While the results of Study 1 revealed continuous progression toward adult norms among L1 Welsh-speaking bilinguals, with the simultaneous bilinguals progressing at a slower rate, the results of Study 2 revealed performances on plural morphology that were comparable to adult norms among the 16–17-year-old L1 Welsh-speaking bilinguals, and some progression among the simultaneous bilinguals. In contrast, delayed progression was seen among the L2 Welsh-speaking bilinguals across the board, with 16–17-year-old L2 participants lagging behind their L1 peers on both grammatical gender and plural morphology. The implications of these findings for our understanding of the long-term outcomes for bilinguals learning complex structures under minority language conditions are discussed.

In two reading experiments involving a self-paced reading task, we explored how literariness affects initial stages of incidental vocabulary acquisition during reading in second language German. In Experiment 1, literariness was operationalized along the formalist, language-driven approach, focusing on the role of literary devices and their assumed ability to draw readers’ attention to the verbal message itself. In Experiment 2, we included conventions related to reading fiction (book title, author name, and year of publishing) to modulate the reader’s mode of text processing, which defines literariness according to reader-driven approaches (e.g., reception theory). Contrary to the expectations based on the noticing hypothesis (Schmidt, 2012), we did not observe any advantage for incidental vocabulary acquisition in literary texts compared to nonliterary ones. However, in accordance with claims taking into account the limits of cognitive resources, we found evidence that acquisition of unknown words is impeded, if these directly participate in a literary device.

Phonological processes can pose a learning challenge for children, where the surface form for an underlying contrast may vary as a function of the phonological environment. Mandarin tone sandhi is a complex phonological process that requires knowledge about both the tonal and the prosodic context in which it applies. The present study explored the productive knowledge of tone sandhi processes by 108 3- to 5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children and 33 adults. Participants were asked to produce novel tone sandhi compounds in different tonal contexts and prosodic structures. Acoustic analysis showed that 3-year-olds have abstracted the tone sandhi process and can productively apply it to novel disyllabic words across tonal contexts. However, even 5-year-olds still differed from adults in applying tone sandhi in response to the trisyllabic prosodic structure. The results are discussed in terms of the factors that influence how tone sandhi processes, and phonological alternations more generally, are acquired.

Learning the sounds of letters is important for learning to decode printed words and is a key component of phonics instruction. Some letter sounds are easier for children than others, and studies of these differences can shed light on the factors that influence children’s learning. The present study examined knowledge of the sounds of lowercase letters among children in England, where a government-mandated curriculum specifies the order in which letter sounds should be taught and where letters’ sounds are taught before the names. The participants were 355 children from Nursery (mean age 4 years, 4 months), Reception (mean age 5 years, 4 months), and Year 1 (6 years, 4 months) classes. When order of teaching was statistically controlled, children did better than expected on the initial letter of their first name and worse on visually confusable letters. Unlike the North American children in previous studies, they did not perform better on letters that had their sounds at the beginning of their names than on other types of letters. The sonority and the age of acquisition of the letter’s sound were also not influential. Implications for letter teaching, particularly for children at risk of literacy problems, are discussed.

Spelling is a key, and telling, component of children’s literacy development. An important aspect of spelling development lies in children’s sensitivity to morphological root constancy. This is the sensitivity to the fact that the spelling of roots typically remains constant across related words (e.g., sing in singing and singer). The present investigation examined the extent to which children with dyslexia and younger typically developing children are sensitive to this feature of the orthography. We did so with a spelling-level matched design (e.g., Bourassa & Treiman, 2008) and by further contrasting results with those for a sample of children of the same chronological age as the dyslexic group. Analyses revealed that the dyslexic children and their spelling-ability matched peers used the root constancy principle to a similar degree. However, neither group used this principle to its maximum extent; maximal use of root constancy did emerge for age matched peers. Overall, the findings support the idea that sensitivity to root constancy in children with dyslexia is characterized by delayed rather than atypical development.

Building on the extensive work conceptualizing, developing, and validating foreign language aptitude for successful second language acquisition (e.g., Skehan, 2015, in Applied Linguistics), the current project expounded the cognitive abilities relevant and instrumental to adult Japanese classroom learners’ pronunciation attainment of English /ɹ/. The speech production of 50 Japanese participants was elicited, acoustically analyzed, and linked to different aspects of their aptitude profiles (phonemic coding, associative memory, and sequence recognition). Whereas those with higher phonemic coding demonstrated better performance in a relatively easy dimension of English /ɹ/ pronunciation (lower F2 for tongue retraction), those with greater associative memory demonstrated more advanced performance in the relatively difficult dimensions of English /ɹ/ pronunciation (longer transition duration for phonemic length; lower F3 for labial/alveolar/pharyngeal constrictions). The role of incidental learning aptitude (i.e., sequence recognition) remained unclear. The findings here indicate that explicit aptitude related to phonological analysis and memory may play a key role in predicting the incidence of advanced second language segmental proficiency attainment in classroom settings.

We examined whether morphological awareness made a significant contribution to word-level reading across Grades 1 to 4. We test these relations specifically in a task measuring awareness of past-tense forms. A total of 375 children from Grades 1 to 4 completed tasks assessing past-tense morphological awareness along with real word and pseudoword reading. Children also completed control measures assessing phonological awareness, phonological short-term memory, sentence-level language skills, and nonverbal cognitive ability. After these controls, past-tense morphological awareness was a significant predictor of real word reading in Grades 1 and 2, but not in Grades 3 and 4. Further, following on all controls, past-tense morphological awareness was a consistent predictor of pseudoword reading across Grades 1 to 4. Morphological awareness, at least as measured with past-tense verbs, appears to have a role in word reading across the early to middle elementary school grades; for young readers, there are relations to reading of both known and novel words, and for older readers, relations are significant specifically in reading novel words. These findings are discussed within the context of theories of word reading development.

Multiple studies on bilingualism and emotions have demonstrated that a native language carries greater emotional valence than the second language. This distinction appears to have consequences for other types of behavior, including lying. As bilingual lying has not been explored extensively, the current study investigated the psychophysiological differences between German (native language) and English (second language) in the lying process as well as in the perception of lies. The skin conductance responses of 26 bilinguals were measured during reading aloud true and false statements and listening to recorded correct and wrong assertions. The analysis revealed a lie effect, that is, statistically significant differences between valid and fictitious sentences. In addition, the values in German were higher compared to those in English, in accordance with the blunted emotional response account (Caldwell-Harris & Aycicegi-Dinn, 2009). Finally, the skin conductance responses were lower in the listening condition in comparison to the reading aloud. The results, however, are treated with caution given the fact that skin conductance monitoring does not allow assigning heightened reactivity of the skin to one exclusive cause. The responses may have been equally induced by the content of the statements, which prompted positive or negative associations in the participants’ minds or by the specific task requirements.

This study examined the extent to which explicit instruction about first language (L1) and second language (L2) processing routines improved the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of learners’ responses during sentence interpretation practice. Fifty-three English-speaking learners of L2 French were assigned to one of the following treatments: (a) a “core” treatment consisting of L2 explicit information (EI) with L2 interpretation practice (L2-only group); (b) the same L2 core+L1 practice with L1 EI (L2+L1 group); or (c) the same L2 core+L1 practice but without L1 EI (L2+L1prac group). Findings indicated that increasing amounts of practice led to more accurate and faster performance only for learners who received L1 EI (L2+L1 group). Coefficient of variation analyses (Segalowitz & Segalowitz, 1993) indicated knowledge restructuring early on that appeared to lead to gradual automatization over time (Solovyeva & DeKeyser, 2017; Suzuki, 2017). Our findings that EI and practice about L1 processing routines benefited the accuracy, speed, and automaticity of L2 performance have major implications for theories of L2 learning, the role of L1 EI in L2 grammar learning, and L2 pedagogy.

Verbal fluency tasks, in which participants generate words during a set time, have been used in research and assessments of neurobiological disorders and impairments. Research on verbal fluency in dyslexia has shown impaired performance in semantic and letter fluency. However, studies report inconsistent results, and action fluency has not been examined in dyslexia. Current research has mainly examined verbal fluency in relation to executive functions, vocabulary, and phonological processing. The present study examined performance on letter, semantic, and action fluency in relation to reading ability in 42 students in higher education, of which 16 had developmental dyslexia and 26 had typical reading development. It was examined if verbal fluency can predict variance in reading ability when group, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming are controlled for. Results showed impaired verbal fluency in the developmental dyslexia group. Action fluency and group were significant predictors of reading ability, together explaining 73% of the variance, in a backward elimination regression analysis. The results point to a possible, unique connection between action fluency and reading ability; this connection is discussed based on their neurocognitive underpinnings.