Novel word learning and consolidation was studied in inexperienced language learners, to conceptually replicate and extend a similar study in experienced learners by Bakker, Takashima, Van Hell, Janzen, and McQueen (2015). Participants learned definitions for novel words on Day 1 and for another set of novel words on Day 2. Brain potentials…

Previous studies have shown that prior linguistic knowledge affects semantic implicit learning when stimuli are presented in the first language. We report an experiment that investigated whether such crosslinguistic influence from the first language would still emerge in the second language for semantic implicit learning of novel articles and…

The book offers new insights into linguistics by focusing on a range of fast-developing research areas. These include research into language contact, which is represented by some original chapters discussing less-frequently studied language pairs and phenomena. Moreover, it presents new findings in syntax and semantics as well as up-to-date…

Arabic is one of the largest donor languages to Malay and Persian. This study explores the benefits of Arabic vocabulary in teaching Malay words of Arabic origin to Persian-speaking students using a vocabulary survey containing 40 Malay words of Arabic origin, most of which retain phonetic or semantic similarity in Persian. Participants were 20…

How do speakers learn the social meaning of different linguistic variants, and what factors influence how likely a particular social-linguistic association is to be learned? It has been argued that the social meaning of more salient variants should be learned faster, and that learners' pre-existing experience of a variant will influence its…

Uganda Baptist Seminary (UBS) is accredited by the Ugandan National Council for Higher Education and teaches church leaders from Uganda and its surrounding seven countries. The required language of educational instruction is English, although the students come from a multitude of different native languages. This research stems from a need to…

The empirical investigation enlisted seventy-six (76) third graders with age ranging from 8-10. Out of the total number of respondents, males and females are equally represented. The study employed a descriptive-quantitative-correlational design. Moreover, the gathering of data was realized through the use of survey and comprehension reading…

This study describes multilingual students' authentic use of their first and second languages in a "translanguaging science classroom," from a sociocultural perspective. The study is ethnographic, and has followed some lessons each month in a translanguaging science classroom at a primary school for three years. The observed lessons were…

Experience with a second language (L2) has been shown to facilitate learning of a third or subsequent language (L3) (Sanz 2000). However, little is known about how much L2 experience is needed before benefits for L3 development emerge, or about whether effects depend on type of L3 instruction. We report two experiments investigating initial…

To examine the importance of manual character writing to reading in a new writing system, 48 adult Chinese-as-a-foreign-language students were taught characters in either a character writing-to-read or an alphabet typing-to-read condition, and engaged in corresponding handwriting or typing training for five consecutive days. Prior knowledge of…

Due to the role language and literature play in the construction of social, economic and cultural systems, reading comprehension has become a growing challenge. This study examined how the relationship between English as a foreign language reading comprehension and life experiences while using the "Sight Word Strategy" could prove…

The study reported in this article describes second language (L2) vocabulary learning outcomes associated with adult L2 reading comprehension processes, thus connecting L2 learning with the complex cognitive and linguistic processing involved in reading. The study aimed to determine whether background knowledge moderated the relationship between…

It was found that those who read English as a second language (ESL), like L1 individuals, use their knowledge of the world and contribute to information found in the text. However, ESL readers' contributions to the text may be marred by language interference, lack of background knowledge, faulty inferencing, and certain data- and…

Discusses techniques for helping English-as-a-Foreign-Language students activate their prior knowledge for effective top-down processing to facilitate reading comprehension. Three activities are discussed: the use of a semantic map, questioning, and previewing. (Author/VWL)

The study reported in this paper investigated second language learners' ability to analyze new words without the use of context clues. The study focused on how confidence and accuracy increase or decrease with prior knowledge of a language and how availability of reading strategies can affect confidence or accuracy. Three groups of graduate…