This study re-examines the well-established negative relationship between foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and foreign language proficiency by testing whether this linear association remains stable across the proficiency continuum. Drawing on cross-sectional data from 413 English Foreign Language learners in Mexico, we used piecewise regression to examine whether the strength of the FLCA–proficiency link changes after a data-driven proficiency threshold. Model comparisons indicated that a segmented model provided a better fit than a standard linear model, identifying a breakpoint at a LEXTALE score of 66.25, roughly corresponding to the B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference. Below this threshold, the FLCA–proficiency relationship was weak and non-significant after correction; above it, the association was significantly stronger. These findings suggest that FLCA may become more closely tied to proficiency after learners reach certain proficiency thresholds, such that more proficient learners feel less anxiety (rather than less proficient learners feeling more anxiety). Methodologically, the study demonstrates the value of piecewise regression for testing theoretically motivated discontinuities in otherwise linear emotion–proficiency relationships.
This study investigates the perception–production relationship in second-language (L2) English vowel contrasts, /i, ɪ/ (b e a t–b i t) and /æ, ɛ/ (b a t–b e t), in Mandarin learners of English. Using vowel continua derived from natural tokens that independently manipulated spectral and duration properties, we examined group- and individual-level performance in perceptual categorization and phonetic imitation tasks, allowing us to assess how multiple phonetic dimensions are differentially weighted and linked across perception and production. In perception, Mandarin learners primarily relied on duration cues for the /i, ɪ/ contrast, but on spectral cues for the /æ, ɛ/ contrast. Correspondingly, individual differences in perceptual cue weighting predicted production distinctness along the primary phonetic dimension for each contrast, revealing a duration-based perception–production link for /i, ɪ/ and a spectral-based link for /æ, ɛ/. In the imitation of acoustically ambiguous vowels, learners showed spectral assimilation toward the /i/ category for the /i, ɪ/ contrast, indicating strong first-language (L1) influence from Mandarin /i/, whereas no reliable group-level assimilation effect was observed for /æ, ɛ/. At the individual level, assimilation of ambiguous vowels was correlated with perceptual bias for the /æ, ɛ/ contrast, but not for /i, ɪ/. Collectively, these findings suggest that L2 perception and production are linked at the representational level in a dimension- and contrast-specific manner, together shaped by phonetic cue weighting and L1 influence.
While learners from first languages (L1s) without word stress (e.g. French) often struggle to perceive lexical stress in a second language, some specific L1 prosodic cues (e.g. use of F0 in Korean) may facilitate second language (L2) stress perception. This study investigated how L1 background (French vs. Korean) and L2 proficiency ( ab initio vs. experienced) influence Spanish lexical stress perception. Seventy-eight French and Korean learners of Spanish (in two proficiency groups) completed an oddity discrimination task under varying phonetic variability conditions (different talkers and intonation patterns). Results showed that Korean learners significantly outperformed French learners, irrespective of proficiency, suggesting cross-linguistic transfer of F0-based prosodic sensitivity for L2 stress perception. Experienced learners performed better than ab initio learners, indicating that L2 experience facilitates stress perception. However, increased phonetic variability reduced stress discrimination accuracy for all learners, with no interaction between proficiency and phonetic variability. These findings indicate that while L1-specific prosodic background and L2 experience each independently benefit L2 lexical stress perception, advanced learners also struggle under high-variability conditions. The results underscore the importance of accounting for L1 prosodic transfer in second language acquisition and support the use of high-variability perceptual training in L2 instruction to improve learners’ stress perception.
It remains unclear whether second language prosody-syntax integration resembles native language mechanisms. This study examines how first language (L1) Chinese second language (L2) English learners integrate prosody and syntax compared with native English speakers, and explores L1 Chinese and L2 English processing within L2 learners. Using the Rapid Prosody Transcription method, 89 participants, including native English speakers and Chinese L2 learners, judged prosodic boundaries under manipulated acoustic and syntactic conditions. Results showed that Chinese L2 learners exhibited stronger syntactic constraints in English sentence judgments compared with native speakers. Furthermore, they relied more on syntactic information when processing L2 English than L1 Chinese. These results were examined in relation to the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (SSH), as heuristic processing appears to dominate in L2, leading learners to prioritize syntactic over acoustic cues for rapid and global interpretation. This study proposes that 'shallow' in the SSH indicates that L2 processing prioritizes higher-level information.
This study investigates how feature specification in a learner's native language (L1) - specifically, whether a feature is contrastively specified or overspecified - influences discrimination in naive perception. We focus on the perception of four high vowels ([i], [y], [(sic)], [u]) by Mandarin and Italian speakers. We propose that Italian specifies /u/ as [labial], while Mandarin overspecifies this vowel as both [labial] and [dorsal]. The vowel /y/ is native in Mandarin but non-native in Italian, while the vowel /(sic)/ is not native in either language. We test two possible feature redeployment mechanisms, fusion and fission, using an ABX task to examine four contrasts, /i/-/y/, /u/-/y/, /(sic)/-/u/, and /(sic)/-/y/. Feature fusion predicts that the non-native /y/ can be built by Italian naive learners by combining [coronal] and [labial] from /i/ and /u/, such that Italian participants should show similar discrimination accuracy for both /i/-/y/ and /u/-/y/ contrasts as Mandarin participants. In contrast, feature fission predicts that [labial] can detach from /u/ in Mandarin to form /(sic)/ without causing a merger. However, this process should not be possible in Italian, where fission would cause /(sic)/ to merge with /u/, since /u/ is exclusively represented with [labial]. Thus, Mandarin participants should show better discrimination accuracy for the /(sic)/-/u/ and /(sic)/-/y/ contrasts than Italian participants. Results from the discrimination task align with these predictions, supporting the proposed feature specifications and demonstrating the effects of L1 feature specification and feature redeployment (fusion/fission) on naive second language (L2) vowel perception. Importantly, while phonetic cues form the perceptual basis for sound discrimination, our findings indicate that language-specific feature representations guide how these cues are phonologically interpreted.
This study investigates the source of a complement selection bias observed in the choice between infinitives and gerunds. It has long been noted that second language (L2) learners show a stronger preference for infinitives over gerunds, but the source of this bias has remained unclear. Building on previous theoretical and empirical work, this study hypothesizes that L2 learners resort to the syntactically default option (i.e. infinitive) when they lack the relevant lexical knowledge. To test this hypothesis, we conducted three binary-choice experiments: (1) Real verbs: This experiment confirmed the previously reported bias toward the infinitive; (2) Nonce verbs without meanings assigned: This experiment examined how participants behaved when encountering entirely novel verbs; (3) Nonce verbs with meanings prototypically associated with either the infinitive or the gerund: This experiment tested whether the patterns observed in Experiment 2 shifted in accordance with the assigned prototypical meanings. A total of 91 native speakers of English (NSEs) and 98 Japanese-speaking learners of English at the intermediate level (JLEs) participated across the three experiments. Taken together, the results revealed a clear divergence between NSEs and JLEs, especially when presented with nonce verbs: (1) NSEs selected complements randomly, whereas JLEs showed a strong preference for the infinitive; and (2) while NSEs continued to respond randomly even when nonce verbs were assigned meanings, JLEs’ choices became more aligned with the complement selection patterns associated with the assigned meanings. The findings are discussed in terms of derivational economy.
German has a set of high front rounded vowels, /y:, Y/, that are difficult for second language (L2) learners to acquire. They are often misperceived by L2 learners as back vowels. Many models explain the initial perceptual assimilation of L2 segments into first language (L1) segments, but it is unclear how acquisition occurs in the articulatory domain. This study investigates the acoustic-articulatory acquisition of high vowels in German by L1 speakers of Polish. We collected acoustic and ultrasound data for learners at the A-level (beginner), B-level (intermediate), and C-level (advanced) to examine how articulatory acquisition progresses. The findings indicated assimilation of German /y:, Y, (sic)/ to Polish /u/ for A-level learners. Differences emerge at the B-level, and at the C-level we observed robust contrasts. The data indicates that L2 segmental acquisition is a long process and that, for perceptually similar segments, L2 learners appear to harvest their L1 articulations and modify them until the contrast is acquired.
This study investigated how implicit causality (IC) bias occurs in second language (L2) comprehension by testing the empty-slot theory's core assumption: IC coreference bias emerges as an epiphenomenon of explanatory coherence bias. A story-continuation experiment compared Japanese learners of English and native English speakers in contexts where explanations were explicitly signaled (with because) or left implicit (full-stop condition). When explanations were expected from IC verbs (coherence bias), IC influenced coreference (coreference bias) as strongly as in the because condition, supporting the central claim of the empty-slot theory. However, L2 learners showed significantly reduced coherence bias compared to native speakers, particularly for verbs whose lexical representations were underspecified or specified differently from native speakers. Consequently, they exhibited non-native-like coreference bias for IC verbs of lower lexical quality, specifically in the full-stop condition. These findings suggest that the cognitive mechanism of IC bias is qualitatively similar across first language (L1) and second language (L2) comprehension, evidencing the coherence-coreference link in the L2 context. At the same time, the magnitude of coreference and coherence biases is quantitatively weaker among learners than native speakers, especially when their lexical representations are less detailed or differently specified. This study extends the empty-slot theory to L2 discourse processing and identifies conditions under which L2 IC-based expectations are attenuated.
In the present study, 48 native speakers of Swedish and 46 Finnish-speaking learners of Swedish read sentence preambles with or without grammatical gender cues to an upcoming picture/noun, and named the picture in Swedish as fast as possible. The study investigated whether facilitation from the gender cues, in terms of faster naming latencies to the nouns, was modulated by markedness and the number of gender cues. In both groups, facilitation only emerged for nouns of the marked gender (neuters) and only after preambles with two gender cues, suggesting that both groups showed similar sensitivity to markedness and to the number of gender cues. This was the case, despite the learners' first language (L1) Finnish lacking grammatical gender. These results appear more in line with proposals which assume that anticipatory mechanisms are similar and are modulated by similar factors in the L1 and the second language (L2).
This study investigated how listeners' language and music backgrounds jointly affect their non-native tone perception in the low variability condition, where tones were constantly borne by a fixed syllable, and in the high variability condition, where tones were always carried by different syllables. Using an AX discrimination task combined with low and high syllable variability manipulation, we asked four participant groups, including Mandarin-L1 monolinguals and Mandarin-L1 and Cantonese-L2 bilinguals with or without musical training, to make tone comparisons in Teochew, a complex tonal language unknown to them. Results of mixed-effects models on the sensitivity d' values showed that all groups obtained higher d' values when perceiving contour tones than level tones, and in the low variability condition than the high variability condition. This suggested effects of native phonology of tone on non-native tone perception and perceptual integration of non-native tones and syllables. Furthermore, bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in perceiving tones in the high variability condition, indicating bilinguals' stronger ability to extract pitch information across stimulus variations. The bilingual advantage was also found in the perception of level tones, but not in contour tones, with musically trained bilinguals performing better than their non-musician peers. This suggested that listeners' pitch sensitivity can be re-modulated by a tonal second language, with musicianship further amplifying this effect on non-saturated acoustic cues. Overall, these findings reveal that listeners' previously acquired tonal languages and musical training integrally affect their non-native tone perception, and these combined effects are tailored by tone type and syllable variability. Both pedagogical and clinical implications are discussed.
This longitudinal study investigates how auditory acuity and the amount of second language (L2) input lead learners to shift L2 cue-weighting strategies towards native norms in an immersion context. Thirty Mandarin-speaking students were tested on Spanish lexical stress perception upon arrival (T1) and before leaving Spain after one academic year (T2). Due to cross-linguistic influence, the learners placed more weight on pitch for stress perception, unlike Spanish natives, who relied more on duration. However, at T2, the learners upweighted the duration cue, suggesting a potential L2 cue-weighting shift. At the individual level, more L2 input helped learners with lower pitch acuity shift towards a native-like cue-weighting strategy, whereas those with higher pitch acuity showed the opposite pattern. The results highlight the persistent influence of L1 prosodic transfer and the interaction of cognitive and experiential factors in reshaping L2 perceptual categorization, which underscores the importance of individual differences in L2 speech acquisition in naturalistic settings.
In this introduction to the special collection on linguistic distance and crosslinguistic influence in second and third language acquisition, we contextualize the articles of the collection in current debates. We propose a three-tiered framework for typological comparison: individual feature similarity, parameter-setting similarity, and grammar-level linguistic distance. We review key theoretical debates in generative second language acquisition (SLA) regarding whether second language (L2) acquisition entails parameter resetting or feature (re)assembly, highlighting ongoing difficulties with functional morphology despite successful acquisition of syntactic word order. We connect recent large-scale empirical studies showing robust effects of linguistic distance on L2 outcomes with smaller experimental studies examining specific morphosyntactic features. The articles in the collection address four key questions: whether broad typological effects can be distinguished from feature-level effects; whether L1-L2/3 typological similarity consistently facilitates acquisition; how linguistic similarity should be measured; and how prior knowledge effects vary across proficiency levels. After introducing each article, we synthesize findings showing that broad typological effects often override individual feature similarities in determining transfer patterns. In contrast, linguistic proximity can sometimes impede acquisition when micro-variation requires costly 'restructuring' of existing first language (L1) representations rather than the development of a new item in L2. Large-scale studies reveal that lexical and morphological distance measures are more predictive than phonological or syntactic ones, with distance effects persisting across proficiency levels while, at the same time, shifting in relative importance during acquisition. We propose that considering multiple levels of typological granularity is essential for understanding crosslinguistic influence in multilingual development.
Studies on cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in third language (L3) acquisition of morphosyntax have predominantly used offline tasks to determine which language(s) constitute the source of CLI. Yet, they provide little evidence about incremental processing of morphosyntactic features that are similar to participants' first language (L1) and/or second language (L2). Therefore, we conducted an eye-tracking study with Polish-English bilinguals (n = 41) who were taught a miniature version of Norwegian in a laboratory setting. Participants were presented with sentences testing adjectival number agreement (a feature present in Polish and Norwegian, but absent in English) and indefinite articles (present in English and Norwegian, but absent in Polish). The results showed a complex pattern of both facilitative and non-facilitative transfer effects from the L1 and the L2, thus providing evidence for property-by-property models of L3 syntax.
We test whether structural priming is syntactically constrained in first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers. In a written production task, 68 L1 English speakers and 144 L2 English learners described transfer-of-possession events shown in pictures by using double-object (DO) datives ('The artist sells the sailor the knife') or prepositional-object (PO) datives ('The artist sells the knife to the sailor'). The preceding prime sentences were either DO or PO datives, syntactically related locatives ('The boy carries the cake to the soldier') or syntactically unrelated infinitivals ('The monk brings the cake to share'). Additionally, verbs between prime and target sentences either overlapped or were different. L1 speakers showed structural priming of datives from datives and locatives, yet not from infinitivals. Higher-proficiency L2 learners showed priming only within datives; yet, lower-proficiency learners demonstrated dative priming from datives, locatives and infinitivals. Lexical overlap in verbs contributed to priming within datives, yet not from infinitivals to datives. The results show that structural priming in L1 speakers and in higher-proficiency L2 learners does not cross syntactic boundaries. In L2 development, lexical surface overlap ('to') between infinitivals and datives occasions across-structure priming. We discuss implications of such form-based across-structure priming in L2 development for learning and language change.
Given the critical role of phonological vocabulary in second language (L2) listening proficiency, scholars have increasingly focused on measuring not only the form-meaning mapping aspects of vocabulary knowledge but also the extent to which learners can access this knowledge accurately and promptly in real-time contexts. To assess the automatized dimension of vocabulary knowledge, we built upon prior efforts to develop the lexicosemantic judgment task (LJT). Study 1 successfully replicated previous findings, showing that LJT outcomes could be distinguished from measures of declarative vocabulary knowledge (meaning recognition) and that LJT exhibited relatively strong associations with general L2 listening proficiency, even when controlling for other influencing factors. To further refine the construct validity of LJT as a measure of automatized L2 knowledge, Studies 2 and 3 developed and tested a timed version of the LJT. The results of the timed LJT, compared to the untimed version in Study 1, revealed similar links with listening proficiency, suggesting that the effect of time pressure on performance may be relatively minor. The test materials are provided in various formats to facilitate future research and pedagogical applications.
The present study compared the comprehension of morphological case in transitive and ditransitive German sentences in two multilingual speaker groups whose first languages (L1s) differ typologically and structurally from the target language: Polish and Norwegian. Like German and unlike Norwegian and English (Germanic languages), Polish (Slavic) has morphological case and a relatively free word order. For all participants, German was the third or even later acquired language, and all had knowledge of English. In a picture selection task, the participants were presented with two event scenes: one that matched the event as described in an auditorily presented sentence and one that mismatched. Critically, successful comprehension required the exploitation of case on full noun phrases (NPs). The results showed that the comprehension of object-initial vs. subject-initial transitive sentences differed between Norwegian and Polish L1 speakers, supporting cross-linguistic influence as a function of structural similarity to the target language. The difference in performance between the object-initial and the prototypical subject-initial order was larger for the Norwegian than for the Polish L1 group, indicating a higher reliance on word order in the former group. The results for the comprehension of different object orders following a ditransitive verb were less conclusive but point in a similar direction. The findings of this study provide new answers to the question under which circumstances there is cross-linguistic influence from other grammar(s) in the comprehension of a later acquired language beyond early stages of acquisition.
This study investigates the production of English and Tagalog voiceless stops by 14 Tagalog-English bilinguals in California, focusing on the effects of birth country and language dominance. Specifically, the study addresses three questions: (1) How do US-born heritage Tagalog speakers differ from Philippines-born heritage speakers in pronunciation? (2) How do their language-specific acoustic realizations in Tagalog and English vary as a function of birthplace? (3) How does individual language dominance influence the production of voiceless stops in both languages? Data from a reading-aloud task reveal that both US-born (Generation 2) and Philippines-born (Generations 1 and 1.5) bilinguals maintain distinct voice onset time (VOT) patterns for /p/, /t/, and /k/ in each language. Compared to US-born speakers, Philippines-born participants produce more 'Tagalog-like' VOTs in English, indicating phonetic convergence. Individual analyses further show that English-dominant bilinguals generally produce longer English VOTs than balanced or Tagalog-dominant speakers, whereas this trend was not statistically significant in their Tagalog VOTs. These findings illuminate the sources of cross-linguistic phonological influence and provide novel insight into the phonetic behavior of a heterogeneous and understudied diasporic community in the US, highlighting the interplay of birthplace and language dominance in heritage bilingual speech.
This article investigates the role of typological distance and morphosyntactic variation in second language (L2) acquisition. It examines two sets of existing studies that compare learners with typologically different first languages (L1s) acquiring distinct L2 properties: Korean WH-indefinites and English experiential constructions. Both sets of studies test L1 groups where one L1 is typologically close to the L2 with micro-variation in the target property, and the other L1 is typologically distant from the L2. The findings from both studies consistently reveal that L2 acquisition is more challenging when learners must restructure their L1-based interlanguage to accommodate subtle morphosyntactic differences in the L2 (e.g. Japanese speakers learning Korean WH-indefinites or Chinese speakers learning English experiential constructions), a process referred to as 'restructuring'. Conversely, acquisition is relatively easier when learners develop new L2 lexemes without direct L1 equivalents (e.g. English speakers learning Korean WH-indefinites or Korean speakers learning English experiential constructions), termed 'development'. The article argues that the nature of these acquisition tasks, rather than typological distance alone, primarily influences L2 performance and developmental trajectories, highlighting that restructuring poses a greater challenge than development in L2 acquisition. These findings suggest that microvariation between typologically close languages can impede L2 learning, and that L2 acquisition research should carefully consider the specific acquisition tasks involved, moving beyond broad typological comparisons.
In recent years, insights from cognitive psychology on unconscious learning have been applied to second language acquisition (SLA) research, proposing that unconscious knowledge gradually becomes conscious through repetitive experience. This perspective offers a reinterpretation of the interface between implicit and explicit knowledge in SLA, contrasting with the traditional view that explicit knowledge gives rise to implicit knowledge. While the phenomenon of unconscious knowledge becoming conscious provides valuable insights into the dynamics of knowledge acquisition, it also suggests the need to reconceptualize the traditional notions of implicit and explicit knowledge. This paper aims to propose a framework that integrates recent insights on unconscious learning with traditional claims in SLA. Specifically, we propose replacing the unidimensional linear continuum view—which positions implicit and explicit knowledge as two ends of a single axis and conceptualizes second language development as a back-and-forth transition between these poles—with a multilayered knowledge view: The Hierarchical-Layer Model of Conscious-Unconscious Knowledge (H-L Model). This alternative model serves as a working hypothesis to better capture the multilayered and differentiated nature of linguistic cognition.
This article examines whether the second language (L2) acquisition of English plural marking by learners from Generalized Classifier first languages (L1s) is affected by L1 transfer. Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Korean exhibit micro-variation with regard to contexts in which plural markers are required, optional, or disallowed. This article lays out the predictions for L1 transfer from these three languages to English, based on the micro-variation, and under different theoretical approaches to transfer (the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis of Lardiere and the Morphological Congruency Hypothesis of Jiang et al.). The article then reviews seven studies that use online processing tasks in order to gauge whether L1 Mandarin / L1 Japanese / L1 Korean L2 English learners are sensitive to the omission of plural marking in English. The findings of these studies are discussed in light of the predictions based on micro-variation; the article lays out directions for possible future studies that would directly address L1 transfer in this domain.
