The mapping of lexical form to meaning is an important part of vocabulary acquisition in a second language (L2). This study examines the proposition that L2 lexical forms are often mapped to the existing semantic content of their first language (L1) translations rather than to new semantic specifications of their own. Native and nonnative English speakers were asked to perform two semantic judgment tasks in which they had to determine the degree of semantic relatedness of English word pairs (experiment 1) or to decide whether two English words were related in meaning (experiment 2). The nonnative speakers, but not the native speakers, were found to provide higher rating scores on or responded faster to L2 word pairs sharing the same L1 translations than to L2 word pairs that do not. The finding is interpreted as strong evidence in support of the presence of L1 semantic content in L2 lexical entries.

This study investigates whether advanced second language (L2) learners of a nonnull subject language (Dutch) are influenced by their null subject first language (L1) (Turkish) in their offline and online resolution of subject pronouns in L2 discourse. To tease apart potential L1 effects from possible general L2 processing effects, we also tested a group of German L2 learners of Dutch who were predicted to perform like the native Dutch speakers. The two L2 groups differed in their offline interpretations of subject pronouns. The Turkish L2 learners exhibited a L1 influence, because approximately half the time they interpreted Dutch subject pronouns as they would overt pronouns in Turkish, whereas the German L2 learners performed like the Dutch controls, interpreting pronouns as coreferential with the current discourse topic. This L1 effect was not in evidence in eye-tracking data, however. Instead, the L2 learners patterned together, showing an online processing disadvantage when two potential antecedents for the pronoun were grammatically available in the discourse. This processing disadvantage was in evidence irrespective of the properties of the learners' L1 or their final interpretation of the pronoun. Therefore, the results of this study indicate both an effect of the L1 on the L2 in offline resolution and a general L2 processing effect in online subject pronoun resolution.

Swain's (1985, 1995, 2000) output hypothesis states that language production is facilitative of second language (L2) learning. An important component of the output hypothesis involves pushing learners to produce appropriate, accurate, and complex language (Swain, 1993), which may occur when interlocutors provide learners with negative feedback (Gass, 1997, 2003; Long, 1996; Mackey, in press; Pica, 1994; Swain & Lapkin, 1995). When learners modify their previous utterances in response to negative feedback, learning opportunities are created by both the provision of negative feedback and the production of modified output. Consequently, it is difficult to determine how these interactional features—alone or in combination—positively impact L2 development. The current study examines the impact of negative feedback and learners' responses on English as a second language (ESL) question development, which is operationalized as stage advancement in Pienemann and Johnston's developmental sequence for ESL question formation (Pienemann & Johnston, 1987; Pienemann, Johnston, & Brindley, 1988). Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) learners (n = 60) carried out a series of communicative tasks with native English speakers in four conditions that provided different negative feedback and modified output opportunities and also completed four oral production tests over an 8-week period. Analysis of the treatment data identified the amount of modified output involving developmentally advanced question forms produced by the learners, and analysis of the test data revealed whether the learners' stage assignment changed over time. Logistic regression indicated that the only significant predictor of ESL question development was the production of modified output involving developmentally advanced question forms in response to negative feedback.I am grateful to Alison Mackey for her insightful comments on this paper and on the dissertation research on which it is based. I also thank Rhonda Oliver, Jeff Connor-Linton, Jennifer Leeman, Jenefer Philp, Ana-Maria Nuevo, and the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their valuable comments. Any errors, of course, are my own.

Learning a second/foreign language (L2) is a long process and L2 learners certainly will encounter setbacks and discouragements during this process. However, their reactions to these failures might be different based on their perceptions of L2 learning ability and their subsequent effort put into L2 learning. Based on this, the present study aimed at exploring two underresearched constructs within the field of applied linguistics, namely grit (continuous effort and interest for long-term goals) and language mindset (individuals’ perceptions of their language learning ability). We had five main aims: to examine (a) the factor structure of grit, (b) the factor structure of language mindset, (c) whether there are gender differences in grit or language mindset, (d) the relationships between language mindset and grittiness, and (e) the roles of grit and language mindset as predictors of L2 achievement. To address these aims, a total number of 1,178 university students who were taking general English courses took part in our study and completed the questionnaires. Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the two-factor structure for both grit and language mindset fit the data better than the single-factor structure. We also tested several structural equation models and found that a growth language mindset weakly, but positively, predicted one component of grit (perseverance of effort, or POE), but not the other (consistency of interest, or COI). A fixed language mindset did not predict POE, but did negatively predict COI. Finally, only growth language mindset was a weak, positive predictor of L2 achievement. At the end, theoretical and pedagogical implications regarding the role of grit and language mindset in L2 learning are presented.

This study investigated the influence of frequency effects on the processing of congruent (i.e., having an equivalent first language [L1] construction) collocations and incongruent (i.e., not having an equivalent L1 construction) collocations in a second language (L2). An acceptability judgment task was administered to native and advanced nonnative English speakers (L1 Swedish) to assess response times to and error rates for these collocations along with a matched set of unrelated items. The results suggested that advanced learners are highly sensitive to frequency effects for L2 collocations, which seems to support the idea that usage-based models of language acquisition can be fruitfully applied to understanding the processes that underlie L2 collocational acquisition. At the same time, however, the apparent continued influence of the L1 indicates that researchers may also want to draw on other models of language acquisition to gain a fuller understanding of the processes underlying the acquisition of collocations in a L2.

This quasi-experimental study is aimed at (a) teaching learners how to provide corrective feedback (CF) during peer interaction and (b) assessing the effects of peer interaction and CF on second language (L2) development. Four university-level English classes in Japan participated (N = 167), each assigned to one of four treatment conditions. Of the two CF groups, one was taught to provide prompts and the other to provide recasts. A third group participated in only peer-interaction activities, and a fourth served as the control group. After one semester of intervention, the two CF groups improved in both overall accuracy and fluency, measured as unpruned and pruned speech rates, whereas the peer-interaction-only group outperformed the control group only on fluency measures. This study draws on monitoring in speech-production theory and the declarative-procedural model of skill-acquisition theory to interpret these results, thus contributing a new theoretical approach to CF research in the context of peer interaction in which learners can be providers of CF. It is concluded that whereas peer interaction offered opportunities for repeated production practice, facilitating proceduralization, CF sharpened learners’ ability to monitor both their own language production and that of their interlocutors.

Whereas most research in SLA assumes the relationship between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) to be unidirectional, this study investigates the possibility of a bidirectional relationship. We examine the domain of manner of motion, in which monolingual Japanese and English speakers differ both in speech and gesture. Parallel influences of the L1 on the L2 and the L2 on the L1 were found in production from native Japanese speakers with intermediate knowledge of English. These effects, which were strongest in gesture patterns, demonstrate that (a) bidirectional interaction between languages in the multilingual mind can occur even with intermediate proficiency in the L2 and (b) gesture analyses can offer insights on interactions between languages beyond those observed through analyses of speech alone.We gratefully acknowledge technical and financial support from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO; MPI 56-384, The Dynamics of Multilingual Processing, awarded to M. Gullberg and P. Indefrey). We would also like to thank two anonymous SSLA reviewers for their useful comments.

This article reports on a first attempt to develop and test run an observation procedure for assessing the syntactic and morphological development of adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) as evidenced in spontaneous speech production. The procedure is based on the profile analysis approach, which was first developed by Crystal, Fletcher, and Gorman (1976) for the assessment of impaired speech (English) and later adapted to the assessment of second language development (German) by Clahsen (1985). The theoretical basis of the procedure is the multidimensional model of second language acquisition (SLA) developed by Meisel, Clahsen, and Pienemann (1981) and extended to ESL acquisition by Pienemann and Johnston (1987a). According to the model, invariant developmental stages in the acquisition of certain syntactic and morphological elements in German and English can be predicted and explained in terms of hierarchically ordered speech processing constraints.

In order to assess the developmental stage of ESL learners, an observation form was drawn up, incorporating a selection of morphosyntactic features whose presence or absence in a taped sample of natural speech was monitored by assessors. The ratings made by the assessors were then compared to those assigned through a detailed linguistic analysis to test the feasibility of using a “shorthand” version of a profile analysis.

Analysis of the outcomes of the test run revealed significant correlations between the assessments and the linguistic analysis. But some variation was found in the assessors' ability to apply the assessment criteria, and the extent of agreement between the assessors' observations and the linguistic analysis was less than would be acceptable in the given theoretical framework. However, the source of these problems was identified through the first test run and suggestions were made for further refining the procedure to improve its accuracy.

This study examines the effectiveness of written error corrections versus reformulations of second language learners' writing as two means of improving learners' grammatical accuracy on a three-stage composition-comparison-revision task. Concurrent verbal protocols were employed during the comparison stage in order to study the learners' reported awareness of the more targetlike reformulations. The reactivity of think-alouds as a research tool was also assessed. First, 15 adult learners of English participated in a repeated-measures study with three experimental conditions: error correction, reformulation, and reformulation + think-aloud. Participant reports of awareness in the reformulation + think-aloud condition suggested that noticing of feedback was related to the accuracy of subsequent revisions. A second nonrepeated-measures study was then carried out with 54 participants; a control group was added and the design was modified in an attempt to eliminate the reported tendency of learners to develop and use memorization strategies while processing the written feedback. In both experiments, participants performed significantly better in the error correction condition than in the reformulation condition. The think-alouds, used to examine learners' attentional processes, were found to be reactive in the first study; learners in the reformulation condition produced significantly more accurate revisions than those who were asked to think aloud while processing the reformulations they received. The results suggest that whereas verbal protocols might be able to shed some light on learner-internal processes in relation to written feedback, they should be employed and interpreted with care.We would like to thank Alison Mackey and the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful suggestions on this article.

This experimental study examines the extent to which 60 adult Japanese ESL learners were able to acquire a rule regulating the argument structure frames of novel verbs of English after exposure to grammatical examples of sentences containing the verbs. Training took place under conditions with no focus on form (implicit and incidental conditions) and with focus on form (enhanced and instructed conditions). The presentation of instances during training was manipulated as a test of predictions made by Logan's (1988, 1990, 1992) memory-based instance theory of automaticity. Results measured in reaction times show similar slopes for automaticity on trained examples in each condition but significant differences in the extent of learning, with the focus on form conditions outperforming the no focus on form conditions in transfer of learned knowledge to accurate judgments of new ungrammatical sentences. Implications are drawn from the results regarding the acquisition of rule-based versus memory-based knowledge from exposure to stimuli in each training condition and the influence of this knowledge on decision-making about grammaticality during the transfer task.

The present study aims to sensitize SLA researchers to the importance of documenting and controlling for their participants’ proficiency in the target language, with the goal of establishing more robust proficiency assessment standards in experimental research. First, this article presents a survey of recent (2000–2008) foreign and second-language (L2) acquisition studies that show that such standards have yet to be met. Second, it demonstrates the validity, reliability, and practicality of a cloze (i.e., fill-in-the-blank) test designed to discriminate among L2 learners of French at different proficiency levels. Subject and item analyses are performed on the cloze test scores of 169 L2 learners of French from various language backgrounds. The relationship between these scores and the learners’ language background is examined. Cutoff points between proficiency levels are identified in the data. The test then is shared with scholars so that those working with a similar population of L2 learners of French can also use it.

Theories on the role of consciousness and the enhancement of noticing (Schmidt, 1990, 1994; Sharwood Smith, 1993) predict a facilitative effect of explicit knowledge, as built up by explicit instruction, on the acquisition of implicit second language (L2) knowledge. This study investigates the interaction between the presence or absence of explicit instruction and the variables complexity and morphology/syntax in the acquisition of four L2 structures. Two groups of 27 university students, differing in the exposure to explicit instruction, followed a computer-controlled self-study course in an artificial language. Results from computer-controlled posttests confirm the general hypothesis that explicit instruction facilitates the acquisition of L2 grammar. However, no evidence could be reported for the hypotheses predicting a differential effect of explicit instruction depending on the variables complexity and morphology/syntax.

In the previous 20 years, more than 60 studies have been carried out within the input and interaction approach to SLA (Long, 2007; Mackey 2012), many of which have found positive associations between different types of recasts and the learning of a range of linguistic forms for a number of different second languages (L2s), in different learning contexts, with adults and with children. However, the following claims also appear: (a) recasts are not effective, (b) recasts are effective only in laboratories and not in classrooms, and (c) other types of feedback are more effective when compared with recasts. We demonstrate important methodological and interpretative problems in the small number of studies on which these negative claims are based, including issues with (a) modified output opportunities, (b) single-versus-multiple comparisons, (c) form-focused instruction, (d) prior knowledge, and (e) out-of-experiment exposure. We conclude by suggesting that making a case against recasts is neither convincing nor useful for advancing the field and that more triangulated approaches to research on all types of corrective feedback, employing varied and rigorous methodological designs, are necessary to further our understanding of the role of corrective feedback in L2 learning.

This paper investigates the theoretical and applied domains of pragmatic failure. With respect to theory, it further clarifies pragmatic failure both in native and non-native speech, and with respect to the applied domain compares request realizations of native and non-native speakers in terms of length of utterance. In discussing the results of this comparison, a number of hypotheses are put forward concerning the ways in which deviation from native norms of utterance length might be a potential cause for pragmatic failure.

The data were collected within the CCSARP (Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Pattern) project involving seven different languages and dialects (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984). The data were collected from both native and non-native speakers of each of the languages. The analysis of responses across several languages revealed a systematic difference in length of utterance used to realize speech acts by non-native speakers as compared to native speakers. The types of pragmatic failure that might be linked to being a non-native speaker are examined, thus continuing a line of research focusing on the pragmatic aspects of interlanguage (Blum-Kulka, 1982; Thomas, 1983; Edmondson et al., 1984).

This study investigated the effects of text modification and task on incidental learning of foreign language vocabulary by reading. The focus of the study was on how different cue types (appositives and single and multiple-choice marginal glosses) and a task (translation) would affect processing of input, initial learning, and retention of the meaning of target words in a text. Two hundred thirty-one students in Japanese universities were randomly assigned to 10 condition groups. After a pretest, a reading task, and a cloze test, they were given a surprise vocabulary test. A week later, two unexpected delayed posttests were also given. The results indicated that (a) both single and multiple-choice marginal gloss conditions performed significantly better than the no cue and the appositive conditions, (b) no statistically significant difference existed between the single and the multiple-choice gloss conditions nor between the appositive and the no cue conditions, and (c) the translation task had no effect.

This empirical study investigates the relationship between language aptitude components and second language (L2) outcomes among learners whose intensive L2 exposure began at different ages. The learners in this study are 65 11th-grade students in continuing early and late French immersion programs. Evidence is found to support the main hypothesis that in late immersion starting in adolescence there will be a positive relationship between L2 outcomes and an analytical dimension of language aptitude, whereas in early immersion beginning in grade 1 a positive relationship will hold between L2 outcomes and memory ability. A further hypothesis that early immersion students will have higher language aptitude as a result of their early L2 exposure is not supported by the findings.

Effects of pedagogical interventions with visual input enhancement on grammar learning have been investigated by a number of researchers during the past decade and a half. The present review delineates this research domain via a systematic synthesis of 16 primary studies (comprising 20 unique study samples) retrieved through an exhaustive literature search. The overall magnitude of visual input enhancement was addressed by calculating and aggregating effect size d values. The results indicate that second language readers provided with enhancement-embedded texts barely outperformed those who were exposed to unenhanced texts with the same target forms flooded in them (d = 0.22). A theoretical tension between form and meaning was indicated by a small but negative effect size value for learners' meaning processing (d = −0.26). The importance of improving methodological practices in this research domain, including the reporting of statistical and treatment-related information and the counteracting of a possible publication bias, was also revealed by the synthetic analyses and is further discussed.

Language anxiety is a prevalent phenomenon in second language learning. This experiment examines the arousal of anxiety caused by the introduction of a video camera at various points in a vocabulary learning task. Seventy-two students of 1st-year university French were randomly assigned to one of four groups: (a) one group who had anxiety aroused during their initial exposure to the stimuli, (b) a second group who had anxiety aroused when they began to learn the meanings of the words, (c) a third group who had anxiety aroused when they were asked to produce the French word (when prompted with the English), and (d) a control group who did not experience anxiety arousal. Significant increases in state anxiety were reported in all three groups when the video camera was introduced, and concomitant deficits in vocabulary acquisition were observed. It is concluded that the stage at which anxiety arises has implications for any remedial action taken to reduce the effects of language anxiety.

This paper describes a cognitive framework for explaining the acquisition and use of a second language. The framework is based on the identification of two cognitive processing components, called analysis of knowledge and control of processing, that jointly function to develop proficiency in the language. The framework is explained briefly and then applied to five issues in second language acquisition: the similarity of first and second language learning, the starting point for second language acquisition, consciousness, variability, and instruction.

This paper reports a paired-groups experimental study, which tests the Interaction Hypothesis in a computer-mediated communicative environment. Pairs of intermediate-level nonnative speakers of English (n = 24) interacted with one another in a synchronous mode over a local area network while attempting to jointly complete jigsaw and decision-making tasks that were seeded with largely unknown target lexical items. The data suggest that learners often engage in negotiated interaction when presented with unknown lexical items during the course of task completion. Results also show that previously unknown lexical items that were negotiated were retained significantly better as measured by immediate and delayed recognition (receptive) and object labeling (productive) posttests than those items where preemptive input alone was provided and where target items were not engaged. The results are interpreted as being supportive for the interactionist perspective on SLA, especially the importance of attention, as they provide evidence of a more direct link between negotiated interaction and acquisition.I would like to thank the following people for their input and interaction with various aspects of this work: Roby Ariew, Sue Gass, Greta Gorsuch, Jun Liu, and Mary Wildner-Bassett. I would also like to thank the five anonymous SSLA reviewers whose insightful comments certainly helped strengthen this article. Finally, I would like to thank the participants in the study, to whom I am greatly indebted.