Abstract: This study investigated the effects of individual word frequency, collocational frequency and association on L1 and L2 collocational processing. An acceptability judgment task was administered to L1 and L2 speakers of English. Response times were analysed using mixed- effects modelling for three types of adjective-noun pairs: (1) high-frequency, (2) low-frequency and (3) baseline items. This study extends previous research by examining if the effects of individual word and collocation frequency counts differ for L1 and L2 speakers’ processing of collocations. This study also compared to what extent L1 and L2 speakers’ response times are affected by mutual information and log dice scores, which are corpus-derived association measures. Both groups of participants demonstrated sensitivity to both individual word and collocation frequency counts. However, there was a reduced effects of individual word frequency counts for processing high-frequency collocations compared to low-frequency collocations. Both groups of participants were similarly sensitive to the association measures used.

Abstract: To date, a growing number of studies have shown that domain‐general auditory processing, which prior work has linked to L1 acquisition, could explain various dimensions of naturalistic L2 speech proficiency. The current study examined the generalizability of this topic to L2 speech learning in classroom settings. The spontaneous speech samples of 39 Vietnamese English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language learners were analyzed for fluent and accurate use of pronunciation and lexicogrammar and linked to a range of variables in their auditory processing profiles. The results identified moderate‐to‐strong correlations between the participants’ accurate use of lexicogrammar and audio‐motor sequence integration scores (i.e., the ability to reproduce melodic/rhythmic information). However, the relationship between phonological proficiency and auditory acuity (i.e., the ability to encode acoustic details of sounds) was nonsignificant. Although the findings support the audition‐acquisition link to classroom L2 speech learning to some degree, they only suggest that this link is robust for the acquisition of lexicogrammar information.

Abstract: This article introduces the NFL7 (Nuclear Family List 7), a list of the 2,887 most frequent “nuclear” word families, that is, families that include just the most frequent family members and exclude those that constitute less than 7% of family occurrences. The NFL7 was developed by using a dedicated computer program, the Nuclear List Builder (freely available to users). To construct the list, we used that tool to reduce the complete BNC/COCA lists of the 3,000 most frequent word families from 19,062 to 7,293 word types and from 9,132 to 5,610 lemmas. Despite this reduction, the NFL7 compares favorably with other lists in terms of text coverage, and it includes a small number of the most frequent derivational affixes. We argue that the nuclearization of the list makes it suitable for nonadvanced learners, for teaching and testing both receptive and productive knowledge, and for instruction in basic morphology.

Abstract: It is often assumed that all languages are fundamentally the same. This assumption has been challenged by research in linguistic typology and language evolution, but questions of language learning and use have largely been left aside. Here we review recent work on Danish that provides new insights into these questions. Unlike closely related languages, Danish has an unusually reduced phonetic structure, which seemingly delays Danish-learning children in several aspects of their language acquisition. Adult language use appears to be affected as well, resulting, among other things, in an increased dependence on top-down information in comprehension. In this conceptual review, we build the argument that a causal relationship may exist between the sound structure of Danish and the peculiarities of its acquisition and use. We argue that a theory of language learning that accommodates the existing evidence from Danish must explicitly account for the interaction between learner-related factors and language-specific constraints.

Abstract: Contending with talker variability has been found to lead to processing costs but also benefits by focusing learners on invariant properties of the signal. These discrepant findings may indicate that talker variability acts as a desirable difficulty. That is, talker variability may lead to initial costs followed by long term benefits for retention and generalization. Adult participants learned an artificial grammar affording learning of multiple components by 1-, 2- or 8- talkers, tested at 3 time points. The 8-talker condition did not impact learning. The 2-talker condition negatively impacted some aspects of learning, but only under more difficult learning conditions. Across both experiments, generalization of the grammatical dependency was difficult. Taken together, we discovered that high and limited talker variability differentially impact artificial grammar learning. However, talker variability does not act as a desirable difficulty in the current paradigm, as the few evidenced costs were not related to long-term benefits.

Abstract: This study aimed to test three competing hypotheses concerning the strength of the cross-language relationship in listening comprehension proficiency in emergent bilinguals: Cummins's developmental linguistic interdependence hypothesis, Proctor, August, Snow, and Barr's interdependence continuum hypothesis, and Goodrich, Lonigan, Kleuver, and Farver's language independence hypothesis. We assessed 75 Turkish-Dutch bilingual children attending Dutch-medium schools using a two-wave design. This involved an assessment of sentence comprehension when the children were in preschool, followed by an assessment of their discourse comprehension in 1st grade. Correlational, multiple regression, and path analyses indicated significant positive and medium-sized L1-L2 relationships between listening comprehension proficiency at the two points in time yet not over time. These findings were consistent with the developmental linguistic interdependence hypothesis for sentence comprehension and with the developmental linguistic interdependence and the language independence hypotheses for discourse comprehension. We advocate a multidimensional explanatory framework to explore the moderating role of type of skill in determining the strength of the cross-language relationship.