Bilingual Processing and Acquisition
Psycholinguistic and neurocognitive approaches to bilingualism/multilingualism and language acquisition continue to gain momentum and uncover valuable findings explaining how multiple languages are represented in and processed by the human mind. With these intensified scholarly efforts come thought-provoking inquiries, pioneering findings, and new research directions. The Bilingual Processing and Acquisition book series seeks to provide a unified home, unlike any other, for this enterprise by providing a single forum and home for the highest-quality monographs and collective volumes related to language processing issues among multilinguals and learners of non-native languages. These volumes are authoritative works in their areas and should not only interest researchers and scholars investigating psycholinguistic and neurocognitive approaches to bilingualism/multilingualism and language acquisition but also appeal to professional practitioners and advanced undergraduate and graduate students.
In an attempt to be as inclusive as possible, this book series aims to publish volumes that represent the various subfields pertaining to bilingual/multilingual processing and acquisition as demonstrated in current research trends. Some of topics covered may include but are not limited to: language acquisition in adults; language acquisition in children; language attrition (native and non-native); linguistic competence and performance; processing perspectives of interlanguage development; bimodal bilingualism; phonological processing; morphosyntactic processing; orthographic processing; lexical processing; processing perspectives of code-switching; language activation; language representation; language selection; language and inhibitory control; speech perception; language production; working memory; cognitive consequences of bilingualism/multilingualism; cognitive executive functioning; innovative methodologies; artificial intelligence; computational modelling; cross-linguistic interference; language disorders; neurolinguistic approaches to bilingualism/multilingualism; and neurological and cognitive issues in healthy and brain-damaged bilinguals/multilinguals.
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The Acquisition of L2 Mandarin Prosody
More LessThis book examines the acquisition of L2 Mandarin prosody, a less explored area in SLA. While acknowledging that tone acquisition is one of the most important aspects in acquiring L2 Mandarin phonology, the book demonstrates that phrase- and utterance-level prosody is equally important. Specifically, this book discusses the acquisition of Mandarin lexical tones and utterance-level prosody, the interaction of tones and intonation, the acquisition of Tone 3 sandhis, the temporal differences between L1 and L2 Mandarin discourse, and the relationship between intelligibility, comprehensibility and foreign accent perception in L2 Chinese. In addition, a whole chapter is exclusively devoted to the pedagogy of L2 Mandarin prosody. Studies in this book further our understanding of speech prosody in L1 and L2 and showcase the interesting interaction of phonetics, phonology, and pedagogy in SLA. This book will be of great interest to SLA researchers and graduate students, applied linguists, Chinese linguists, and Chinese practitioners.
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Bilingualism
More LessIn the world today, bilingualism is more common than monolingualism. Thus, the default mental lexicon may in fact be the bilingual lexicon. More than ever, social and technological innovation have created a situation in which lexical knowledge may change dramatically throughout an individual’s lifetime. This book offers a new perspective for the understanding of these phenomena and their consequences for the representation of words in the mind and brain. Contributing authors are leaders in the field who provide a re-analysis of key assumptions and a re-focusing of research. They bring new insights and new findings that advance the understanding of both bilingualism and the mental lexicon. This volume serves to generate new directions and advances in bilingualism research.
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Bilingualism through the Prism of Psycholinguistics
More LessProfessor Albert Costa (1972-2018) was one of the most influential scholars in the fields of psycholinguistics and bilingualism. This book provides a faithful look at the most relevant lines of research in which he worked during his academic career. Written by some of his close collaborators and friends, the book presents a coherent summary of the most relevant psycholinguistic theories on language processing and bilingualism, including critical reviews to current models of lexical access, the representation of cognate words, neurolinguistic models of bilingualism, cross-linguistic effects in bimodal bilinguals (sign language), prediction processes and linguistic alignment in bilinguals, the influence of foreign-language effects in social cognition and the effects of bilingualism in emotion and decision making processing. This volume is a tribute to Prof. Costa and his work, and is born from a deep love and respect for his way of approaching the science of multilingualism from a psycholinguistic perspective.
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Bilingualism, Language Development and Processing across the Lifespan
More LessHow does knowledge of a first or second language develop, and how is that knowledge used in real time comprehension and production of one or two languages? Language development and processing are the central topics that this book explores, initially in terms of first language(s) and then in terms of additional languages. Human growth and development necessarily involve the passage of time, implicating this orthogonal factor and leading to the observation that capacities may vary across the lifespan. Two theoretical frameworks have historically attributed explanations for knowledge and use of language, nature versus nurture approaches: the former credits biogenetic intrinsic characteristics, while the latter ascribes environmental extrinsic experiences as the causes of developmental change. The evidence examined throughout this book offers a more nuanced and complex view, eschewing dichotomy and favoring a hybrid approach that takes into account a range of internal and external influences.
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Child Bilingualism and Second Language Learning
More LessThis book focuses exclusively on child bilinguals or children exposed to a second language in various learning contexts. Through the presentation of research on how children learn the sound systems or lexicon in two languages and via different routes, the book aims to paint a comprehensive picture of child bilingualism and second language learning. In addition, the book features contributions focused on theoretical overviews and methodological approaches. Researchers from diverse disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, and speech-language pathology contributed to the book that thus represents an effort to integrate multiple views and perspectives. The book is useful for researchers, clinicians, and educators who work with children acquiring or learning a second language in different settings. It should also be of interest to university students studying bilingualism and/or second language acquisition or parents raising bilingual children.
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Cognitive Control and Consequences of Multilingualism
More LessThe human mind is a marvelous device that effectively regulates mental activities and facilitates amendable cognitive behaviour across several domains such as attention, memory, and language processing. For multilinguals, the mind also represents and manages more than one language system—a mental exercise which may lead to cognitive benefits. Through an in-depth exploration of these issues, Cognitive Control and Consequences of Multilingualism presents original studies and new perspectives which are cutting-edge and feature traditional and innovative methodologies such as ERPs, fMRIs, eye-tracking, picture- and numeral naming, the Simon, flanker, and oculomotor Stroop tasks, among others. The studies in this book investigate prominent themes in multilingual language control for both comprehension and production and probe the notion of a cognitive advantage that may be a result of multilingualism. The growing number of researchers, practitioners, and students alike will find this volume to be an instrumental source of readings that illuminates how one mind accommodates and controls multiple languages and the consequences it has on human cognition in general.
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Cognitive Individual Differences in Second Language Processing and Acquisition
More LessCognitive Individual Differences in Second Language Processing and Acquisition contains 14 chapters that focus on the role of cognitive IDs in L2 learning and processing. The book brings together theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of cognitive IDs, as well as empirical studies that investigate the mediating role of cognitive IDs in various linguistic domains. Chapters include contributions from researchers working within second language acquisition (SLA), psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology, sharing a common interest in the application of cognitive IDs to their respective areas of study. The interdisciplinary understanding of cognitive IDs presented in this book makes the book of interest to a wide readership of graduate students, faculty members, and academic researchers in the fields of SLA, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and education.
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Cross-language Influences in Bilingual Processing and Second Language Acquisition
More LessA great majority of people around the world know more than one language. So, how does knowing one language affect the learning and use of additional languages? The question of cross-language influences is the focus of this book. Do bilinguals hear, understand, and produce language and meaning differently because of the languages they speak? How well can theoretical and computational models of language processing and acquisition explain and predict bilingual use patterns and acquisition trajectories? What learner, language, and context characteristics influence bilingual comprehension and production? This book provides a state-of-the-art review and critique of research into cross-language influences in phonology, lexicon, and morphosyntax, and suggests directions for future research. The interdisciplinary nature of the book bridges the gap between research on bilingualism and second language acquisition. The book will be of interest to graduate students, teachers, and researchers in linguistics and second language acquisition, cognitive psychology, and language education.
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The Frequency–Grammar Interface
More LessSpeakers and learners, based on memory and experience, implicitly know that certain language elements naturally pair together. However, they also understand, through abstract and frequency-independent categories, why some combinations are possible and others are not. The frequency-grammar interface (FGI) bridges these two types of information in human cognition. Due to this interface, the sediment of statistical calculations over the order, distribution, and associations of items (the regularities) and the computation over the abstract principles that allow these items to join together (the rules) are brought together in a speaker’s competence, feeding into one another and eventually becoming superposed. In this volume, it is argued that a specific subset of both first and second language grammar (termed ‘combinatorial grammar’) is both innate and learned. While not derived from language usage, combinatorial grammar is continuously recalibrated by usage throughout a speaker’s life. In the domain of combinatorial grammar, both generative and usage-based theories are correct, each shedding light on just one component of the two that are necessary for any language to function: rules and regularities.
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Input Processing and Processing Instruction
More LessInput Processing is a theoretical framework on which the pedagogical paradigm called Processing Instruction is predicated. In this book, new data on the acquisition of Italian and Modern Standard Arabic are presented and analyzed within this framework. Each study in the book explores how input processing strategies affect the acquisition of a particular linguistic feature and/or structure in the two languages. The studies use both offline (e.g., sentence and discourse-level tasks) and online tests (e.g., eye-tracking) to measure the effects of this instructional training.
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The Internal Context of Bilingual Processing
More LessThis book offers a broad-based account of bilingual processing, drawing on research findings and current thinking from various domains across cognitive science. The theoretical approach adopted is the Modular Cognition Framework in which language processing is characterized as an interaction between dedicated linguistic systems and the other modules of the human mind. The latter provide the 'internal context' of bilingual processing. This internal context involves goals, value, emotion, self, and representations of the external context. The book combines all these elements into a coherent picture of the bilingual's internal context and the way it shapes processing. It then shows how some central concepts in cognitive science and bilingualism fit in with – and follow from – this view. These concepts include working memory, consciousness, attention, effort, codeswitching, and the possible cognitive benefits of being bilingual. The book should be of interest to professionals in the field as well as postgraduate students and advanced undergraduates.
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L3 Syntactic Transfer
More LessThis book fills an existing gap in the field of third language acquisition (L3A) by bringing together theoretical, empirical, and practical accounts that contribute to informed teaching practices in multilingual classrooms. The volume is organised into three sections that focus on prominent syntactic transfer models in the field of L3A and together provide insights into the interplay of the influences of prior languages in L3 syntax and how we can enrich the practical field of instructed L3 acquisition. Part I includes original papers dealing with new developments of existing theoretical models on syntactic transfer in L3A and Part II consists of empirical studies testing existing models from different perspectives (formal, lexico-functional, and neurocognitive). Following these two sections, Part III discusses how theory can inform practices for L3 learning and teaching. This concise compilation brings to light innovations, not only in terms of theoretical refinements and practical implementations, but also in offering an impressive range of language combinations. This book is intended to act as a unique resource for scholars, applied linguists, language educators, both novices and experts alike, in and beyond the field of L3A.
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Language Acquisition in Romance Languages
More LessThe research presented in this volume covers first language acquisition, second language acquisition, language heritage and language impairment. Papers in this collection use a variety of experimental methods, such as eye-tracking, elicitation tasks, production tasks administered off-line and untimed, transcriptions of spontaneous speech, production elicitation, Truth Value Judgement tasks, standardized tests and multiple choice tasks. The studies included in this book try to cover most of the methods used in first and second language acquisition in typical and atypical populations. This book will be useful for linguists, speech therapists, and psycholinguists working on first, second and impaired language acquisition.
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Language Processing in Advanced Learners of English
More LessThe production and processing of collocations and formulaic language is a field of growing interest in corpus linguistics and experimental psycholinguistics. In the past this fascinating field at the interface of grammar and the lexicon has been mainly studied based on English native speakers, while research focusing on second language speakers and language learners has been comparatively rare. This book proposes an integration of corpus-based and experimental methods by analysing language processing of collocation by advanced learners of English. In using corpus-derived collocational stimuli of native-like and learner-typical language use in an experimental setting, it shows how advanced German L1 learners of English process native-like collocations, L1-based interferences and non-collocating lexical combinations. This book is of interest to anyone interested in the psycholinguistic validity of collocation from a bilingual point of view, as it explores methods of tracking collocational processing of speakers working with different sets of ‘collocational preferences’.
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Prediction in Second Language Processing and Learning
More LessThere is ample evidence that language users, including second-language (L2) users, can predict upcoming information during listening and reading. Yet it is still unclear when, how, and why language users engage in prediction, and what the relation is between prediction and learning. This volume presents a collection of current research, insights, and directions regarding the role of prediction in L2 processing and learning. The contributions in this volume specifically address how different (L1-based) theoretical models of prediction apply to or may be expanded to account for L2 processing, report new insights on factors (linguistic, cognitive, social) that modulate L2 users’ engagement in prediction, and discuss the functions that prediction may or may not serve in L2 processing and learning. Taken together, this volume illustrates various fruitful approaches to investigating and accounting for differences in predictive processing within and across individuals, as well as across populations.
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Second Language Acquisition Theory
More LessProfessor Michael H. Long (1945-2021) was one of the most influential scholars in the field of second language acquisition. This volume presents a set of chapters that honour some of his key contributions in language teaching and learning. Following a bibliometric analysis of the impact of his research to the field, the volume spans topics such as task-based language teaching, focus on form, age effects, transfer, feedback, interaction, incidental learning, stabilization, among many others.
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Understanding L2 Proficiency
More LessThis edited volume is a collection of theoretical and empirical overviews of second language (L2) proficiency based on four skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Each skill is reviewed in terms of how it has been conceptualized, measured, and studied over the years in relation to relevant (sub-) constructs of the language skill under discussion. This is followed by meta-analyses of correlation coefficients that examine the relationship between the L2 skill in question and its component variables. Unlike most meta-analyses that have a limited range of variables under investigation, our meta-analyses are much larger in scope to better clarify such relationships. By combining theoretical and empirical approaches, the book is helpful in deepening the understanding of how subcomponents or various variables are related to a particular L2 skill.
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Understanding Second Language Processing
More LessThis book aims to help researchers and teachers interested in language processing and Processability Theory (PT) to understand this theory and its applications. PT is an influential account of second language processing which hypothesizes that, due to the architecture of language processing, learners acquire second languages in developmental stages. This book lays out PT’s predictions and research on the development of diverse target languages – particularly English and Scandinavian languages – by learners of various categories. It discusses the typological issues facing PT and its contribution to an understanding of variation and cognitive constraints on pedagogy. However, the book also raises a critical eye to the literature which, after almost twenty years of evolution, requires explanation, clarification and, in some cases, extension. Why do some phenomena belong to different stages in different languages? Why are important types of variation under-represented? Is teaching as constrained as proposed in PT?
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Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Language Learning
More LessIt is intriguing and challenging to learn a language by diving into the worlds of Virtual Reality (3-D environments, avatars, games) and Artificial Intelligence (chatbots, agents). What are the issues and benefits of these technological innovations? Taking readers on a journey through the brain, this book explains how VR and AI may foster and sustain connectivity between language faculties, the senses/emotions, working and long-term memory, and attention. With the speed of technological innovation increasing, cognitive demand as well as aspects of intrinsic motivation are analyzed, charted, and discussed, as these may become essential for future development of language learning experiences. This volume should be of interest to instructors, researchers, and students of languages and linguistics, cognitive psychology, and computer science.
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Writing Systems, Reading Processes, and Cross-Linguistic Influences
More LessThis book provides readers with a unique array of scholarly reflections on the writing systems of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in relation to reading processes and data-driven interpretations of cross-language transfer. Distinctively broad in scope, topics addressed in this volume include word reading with respect to orthographic, phonological, morphological, and semantic processing as well as cross-linguistic influences on reading in English as a second language or a foreign language. Given that the three focal scripts have unique orthographic features not found in other languages – Chinese as logography, Japanese with multi-scripts, and Korean as non-Roman alphasyllabary – chapters expound script-universal and script-specific reading processes. As a means of scaling up the body of knowledge traditionally focused on Anglocentric reading research, the scientific accounts articulated in this volume importantly expand the field’s current theoretical frameworks of word processing to theory building with regard to these three languages.
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