Although research has consistently shown that a bilingual's two languages interact on multiple levels, it is also well-established that bilinguals can vary considerably in their proficiency in the second language (L2). In this paper we review empirical studies that have examined how differences in L2 proficiency modulate cross-language…

Recognizing the specific speech act ( Searle, 1969) that a speaker performs with an utterance is a fundamental feature of pragmatic competence. Past research has demonstrated that native speakers of English automatically recognize speech acts when they comprehend utterances (Holtgraves & Ashley, 2001). The present research examined whether this…

This study considered the effects of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI; Petrides & Mavroveli, 2007) and sociobiographical variables (age, gender, education level, number of languages known, age of onset of acquisition, context of acquisition, frequency of use, socialization, network of interlocutors, self-perceived proficiency) on…

Childhood bilingualism may develop toward a steady state of balanced competence in 2 languages or toward an imbalanced competence in which one of the child's languages begins to undergo attrition or early stabilization. In child second language learning an analogous distinction is often drawn between additive and subtractive bilingualism. This…