This study is the first attempt to explore the relationship between rater variables focusing on raters' language aptitude and their judgments of second language (L2) speech. Thirty-four English listeners rated 65 spontaneous native and nonnative speech samples for comprehensibility, accentedness, and fluency. They also completed the LLAMA language…

Informed by Segalowitz's (Cognitive bases of second language fluency, Routledge, 2010) L2 speech production model and MacIntyre et al.'s (Mod Lang J 82(4):545-562, 1998. https://doi-org.bibliotheek.ehb.be/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1998.tb05543.x) L2 willingness to communicate model, this study sought to understand the influence of cognitive, affective and sociocultural…

The present study investigates the effect of task repetition and individual differences on Vietnamese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' lexical use and fluency in oral task performance. The study adopts a within-subjects design with forty students performing the same narrative task twice. Students also completed two prior vocabulary…

From the perspective of complexity theory and based on Robinson's Cognition Hypothesis and the Triadic Componential Framework, this paper investigated the effect of manipulating task complexity along resource-dispersing dimension on L2 written performance. The results showed that: 1) Significant interactive effects were found between the two…

It is unknown whether and to what extent cognitive individual differences may play different roles in paper versus computer-based second language (L2) writing. This exploratory study is a first attempt to explore this issue, focusing on the effects of working memory and language aptitude on the quality of paper versus computer-based L2 writing…

This study investigates the impact on L2 oral performance of participatory structure of strategic planning (individual vs. collaborative pair planning) and task complexity (simple vs. complex tasks) defined according to the number of elements involved. It also explores individual and collaborative planners' planning behaviours prior to simple vs.…

Second language (L2) writing has been determined to be influenced by what is read, with language learners tending to borrow words and short phrases from input texts while writing (e.g., Wang & Wang, 2015). This phenomenon is referred to as lexical alignment. Only one empirical study has investigated the influence that the linguistic complexity…

Willingness to communicate (WTC) has recently been researched as a dynamic variable, with some investigations viewing it as a complex dynamic system (CDS). One important property associated with CDS is the notion of attractor states, which are characterized by stable patterns of behavior. The present study employed an idiodynamic method to monitor…

Children's frequency of stuttering can be affected by utterance length, syntactic complexity, and lexical content of language. Using a unique small-scale within-subjects design, this study explored whether language samples that contain more stuttering have (a) longer, (b) syntactically more complex, and (c) lexically more diverse utterances than…

The current study longitudinally examined the influence of aptitude on second language (L2) pronunciation development when 40 first-year Japanese university students engaged in practice activities inside and outside English-as-a-Foreign-Language classrooms over one academic year. Spontaneous speech samples were elicited at the beginning, middle,…

While research suggests that study abroad (SA) benefits second language (L2) oral fluency, its benefits for other domains are less clear, especially for shorterterm programs, which are becoming more common. Additionally, studies investigating the relationship between cognitive capacity and benefits of SA report inconsistent patterns. In light of…

This inquiry analyzed the relationships between individual differences and gains made in oral proficiency of adult, second language learners of Spanish during one semester studying abroad. Oral proficiency was measured using a pre/post-SA Computerized Oral Proficiency Instrument (COPI, CAL, 2009). Gain scores were correlated with two cognitive…

The primary aim of this dissertation was to investigate the relationship between speech perception and speech production difficulties among Japanese second language (L2) learners of English, in their learning complex syllable structures. Japanese L2 learners and American English controls were tested in a categorical ABX discrimination task of…