The positive effects of bi-modal input on language learning are becoming a largely accepted experimental finding. However, experiments looking at bi-modal reading in a foreign language are normally limited by the common experimental situation of classroom-based researchers studying university age participants for the limited timespan of a…

University students, especially language learners, have increasingly been using machine translation (MT) systems in the last decade and for all kinds of texts, including homework, assignments and exams. This ubiquity does not translate into visibility as few teachers address the subject in class. Several researchers have shown that MT systems,…

A large amount of literature exists on how native speakers derive and process pragmatic inferences, yet few studies have examined the issue in second language learners, despite a controversial debate of second language (L2) ultimate attainment of phenomena situated at external interfaces. This study contributes to the debate on the integration of…

Developing effective aptitude test batteries for conference interpreting is highly relevant for China given its large and fast-growing interpreting trainee population. This paper reports on the aptitude tests implemented to 23 first-year students at a CIUTI member and UN MOU university in China. We compared the validity of recall, a test commonly…

Past studies on aptitude for interpreting have investigated the correlation between personal traits and achievement, yet relatively few have singled out students' emotional state as an important aptitude constituent or tracked its developmental patterns. To address this gap, the present study followed 116 Chinese students of interpreting for five…

Strategic competence, as a meta-cognitive ability, determines the other translation sub-competences. To tease out how students' strategic competence is developed in translation project is significant in enlightening the translation teaching practice. This study explores how five Chinese college students' translation competence, particularly their…

This study investigated the effects of exposure frequency, depth of processing, and activity repetition types on vocabulary learning. In total, 78 South Korean fifth-grade students were divided into four conditions. Students in each condition were asked to read a passage with four of the eight target words (exposure: four times) and the other four…

The present study investigates the multiple constraints on the processing of English dative alternation by Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners. The intermediate and advanced learners completed an acceptability judgment task which was composed of 30 dative alternations selected from a spoken corpus. The results showed that the…

With advances in technology, intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have become available to assist users with a variety of tasks using voice commands. Because IPAs may induce dialogic interactions, researchers speculated that they may benefit second language learning, especially regarding pronunciation, listening and speaking skills. So far, very…

The purpose of this research is to investigate the variable production of English Object-Experiencer (OE) psych predicates among 80 L1 Thai EFL first-year university students. Psych verbs are notable for posing difficulty for learners due to a unique property that violates Grimshaw's (1990) Thematic Hierarchy. The participants were given a cloze…

This article reports on an experiment investigating the effects of featural Relativized Minimality (Friedmann et al., 2009) on the representation and processing of relative clauses in the second language (L2) English of Mandarin speakers. Object relatives (ORCs) are known to cause greater problems in first language (L1) acquisition and in adult…

The type of processing-resource allocation (TOPRA) model predicts that the semantic processing of new second language (L2) words can impede the learning of their forms while structural processing can promote it. Using this framework, the present study examined the effects of processing type (semantic, structural, control), exposure frequency (one…

To the extent automated written corrective feedback (AWCF) tools such as Grammarly are based on sophisticated error-correction technologies, such as machine-learning techniques, they have the potential to find and correct more common L2 error types than simpler spelling and grammar checkers such as the one included in Microsoft Word (technically…

Learners of a nonnull subject language (e.g., English) whose first language (L1) is a null subject language (e.g., Spanish) can show some optionality in the interpretation of overt subject pronouns in the second language (L2). By exposing L2 learners to nativelike interpretations of pronouns in discourse, we aim at understanding how exposure can…

Research on second-language (L2) acquisition has identified linguistic domains that appear to be especially difficult to learn--one such sticking point being syntactic structures that depend on the surrounding discourse. The Interface Hypothesis (IH) explains what makes such constructions problematic by appealing to a modular view of language,…