This study examined whether the linguistic distance between the first (L1) and second (L2) language is a significant determinant of L2 writing skills of 292 adult immigrants from 39 different source countries, who were beginner learners of Spanish L2. Gender, age, length of residence in Spain, education level as a proxy for literacy skills in L1,…

Purpose: This scoping review considers the acoustic features of a clear speech register directed to nonnative listeners known as foreigner-directed speech (FDS). We identify vowel hyperarticulation and low speech rate as the most representative acoustic features of FDS; other features, including wide pitch range and high intensity, are still under…

This longitudinal study examined the development of narrative micro- and macrostructure in Japanese-English bilingual returnee children. Returnees are children of immigrant families who move to a foreign country, spending a significant portion of their formative developmental years in the foreign majority language context before returning to their…

This paper seeks to examine the emerging sociolinguistic trends in Nigeria with the view to ascertaining the use of English as a first language among its speakers particular in Calabar, Nigeria. The study adopts Vygotsky's (1978) Social Interactionist Theory. The theory is relevant because it accounts for the intentional and changing linguistic…

In this paper, in contrast to previous neuroimaging literature reviews on first language (L1) and second language (L2), the focus was only on neuroimaging studies that were directly conducted on multilingual participants. In total, 14 neuroimaging studies were included in our study such as 10 functional magnetic resonance imaging, 1 positron…

One major competence for learners in the 21st century is acquiring a second language (L2). Based on this, L2 instruction has integrated new concepts to motivate learners in their pursue of achieving fluency. A concept that is adaptable to digital natives and digital immigrants that are learning a L2 is Gamification. As a pedagogical strategy,…

We examined how words from bilingual toddlers' second language (L2) primed recognition of related target words in their first language (L1). On critical trials, prime-target word pairs were either (a) phonologically related, with L2 primes overlapped phonologically with L1 target words [e.g., "slide" (L2 prime)-"Kleid" (L1 target, "dress")], or…

In the seven decades since Leopold's groundbreaking 1939 study, there has been no longitudinal study covering more than two years of a Japanese bilingual subject's development. Despite the lack of longitudinal research, however, we have been broadly informed by the veritable outpouring of research on a short-term basis since the late twentieth…

Multilingualism is an international fact of life and increasing in the United States. Multilingual families are exceedingly diverse, and policies relevant to them should take this into account. The quantity and quality of a child's exposure to responsive conversation spoken by fluent adults predicts both monolingual and multilingual language and…