Child first language acquisition (L1A) and adult second language acquisition (SLA) have observably different outcomes. Considering how distinct the two acquisition contexts often are, divergence is perhaps not surprising. Only adults acquiring a second language (L2) (i) are typically not surrounded by high quantities of native input, (ii) receive and must filter through significant amounts of ...

This paper discusses the interplay between acquisition and theory construction. It endeavors to show how a more direct and crucially bi‐directional relationship between formal linguistic theory and the study of heritage language bilingualism can provide mutual benefit. It will be argued that data from acquisition—not exclusively but indeed especially from heritage language bilingualism—provide windows ...

In studies of bilingual word recognition with masked priming, first language (L1) primes activate their second language (L2) translation equivalents in lexical decision tasks, but effects in the opposite direction are weaker (Wen & van Heuven, 2017). This study seeks to clarify the relative weight of stimulus-level (frequency) and individual-level (L2 proficiency, L2 exposure/use) factors in the ...

This study examines the role of language dominance (LD) on linguistic competence outcomes in two types of early bilinguals: (i) child L2 learners of Catalan (L1 Spanish-L2 Catalan and, (ii) child Spanish L2 learners (L1 Catalan-L2 Spanish). Most child L2 studies typically focus on the development of the languages during childhood and either focus on L1 development or L2 development. Typically, these ...

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 native language environment. The returnees did a ...

The goal of this brief article is to highlight a specific methodological consideration pertaining to the examination of linguistic transfer in sequential language acquisition: When and how can transfer be meaningfully disentangled from issues pertaining to developmental trajectories of the target language? While this methodological issue is relevant for all transfer studies irrespective of learner ...

Herein, we contextualize, problematize, and offer some insights for moving beyond the problem of monolingual comparative normativity in (psycho) linguistic research on bilingualism. We argue that, in the vast majority of cases, juxtaposing (functional) monolinguals to bilinguals fails to offer what the comparison is supposedly intended to do: meet the standards of empirical control in line with the ...

The growing interdisciplinary research feld of psycholinguistics is in constant need of new and up-to-date tools which will allow researchers to answer complex questions, but also expand on languages other than English, which dominates the feld. One type of such tools are picture datasets which provide naming norms for everyday objects. However, existing databases tend to be small in terms of ...

This study explores the interpretation of null and overt object pronouns by Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and European Portuguese (EP) bidialectal bilinguals. Object pronouns are a particularly good domain to examine, given that, particularly with respect to null objects, the underlying syntax as well as the semantic and discourse constraints that regulate their distributions in the two varieties are ...