刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《应用心理语言学》2023年第3-6期

APPLIED PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

Volume 44, Issue 3-6, 2023

APPLIED PSYCHOLINGUISTICS（SSCI一区，2022 IF：2.1，排名：47/194）2023年第3-6期共发文40篇，其中第3期发文9篇，研究论文涉及神经发育障碍、双语优势与不足、语音和音系、传承语、沟通障碍、失聪群体、自闭症群体语言研究、少数民族语言等。第4期发文10篇，研究论文涉及种族语言学、批判种族理论、言语感知、社会偏见、话语叙事、儿童典型语言、个体差异等。第5期发文12篇，研究论文涉及传承语习得、跨语言影响、眼动追踪实验、自定速阅读、生长曲线模型、语音意识、L1/L2预测加工、形态句法研究等。第6期发文9篇，研究论文涉及双方言现象、语言感知模型、心理词库、语言模态、统计学习、MLAT测试、中介分析等。欢迎转发扩散！（2023年已更完）

往期推荐：

目录

ISSUE 3

ARTICLES

■Towards a just and equitable applied psycholinguistics, by Ethan Kutlu, Rachel Hayes-Harb, Pages 293–300.

■Justice and equity for whom? Reframing research on the “bilingual (dis)advantage”, by Gigi Luk, Pages 301–315.

■Monolingual comparative normativity in bilingualism research is out of “control”: Arguments and alternatives, by Jason Rothman, Fatih Bayram, Vincent DeLuca, Grazia Di Pisa, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, Khadij Gharibi, Jiuzhou Hao, Nadine Kolb, Maki Kubota, Tanja Kupisch, Tim Laméris, Alicia Luque, Brechje van Osch, Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares, Yanina Prystauka, Deniz Tat, Aleksandra Tomić, Toms Voits, Stefanie Wulff, Pages 316–329.

■The impact of neurotypical cognition on communication deficits attributed to pathologized people: schizophrenia as a case study, by Vegas Hodgins, Gillian O’Driscoll, Debra Titone, Pages 330–342.

■ The danger of bilingual–monolingual comparisons in applied psycholinguistic research, by Annick De Houwer, Pages 343–357.

■MIND your language(s): Recognizing Minority, Indigenous, Non-standard(ized), and Dialect variety usage in “monolinguals”, by Neil W. Kirk, Pages 358–364.

■Impairment or difference? The case of Theory of Mind abilities and pragmatic competence in the Autism Spectrum, by Eleonora Marocchini, Pages 365–383.

■Bilingualism with minority languages: Why searching for unicorn language users does not move us forward, by Evelina Leivada, Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez, M. Carmen Parafita Couto, Sílvia Perpiñán, Pages 384–399.

■A position paper on researching braille in the cognitive sciences: decentering the sighted norm, by Robert Englebretson, M. Cay Holbrook, Simon Fischer-Baum, Pages 400–415.

ISSUE4

ARTICLES

■Challenging deficit frameworks in research on heritage language bilingualism, by Eve Higby, Evelyn Gámez, Claudia Holguín Mendoza, Pages 417-430.

■Transmitting white monolingual Anglo-American norms: A concept analysis of “quality of language” in parent-child interactions, by Andrea A.N. MacLeod, Catrine Demers, Pages 431–459.

■Examining linguistic and experimenter biases through “non-native” versus “native” speech, by Rachel Elizabeth Weissler, Shiloh Drake, Ksenia Kampf, Carissa Diantoro, Kurtis Foster, Audrey Kirkpatrick, Isabel Preligera, Orion Wesson, Anna Wood, Melissa M. Baese-Berk, Pages 460–474.

■Searching for the “native” speaker: A preregistered conceptual replication and extension of Reid, Trofimovich, and O’Brien (2019), by Bianca Brown, Botagoz Tusmagambet, Valentino Rahming, Chun-Ying Tu, Michael B. DeSalvo, Seth Wiener, Pages 475–494.

■Acknowledging language variation and its power: Keys to justice and equity in applied psycholinguistics, by Alayo Tripp, Benjamin Munson, Pages 495–513.

■Abandoning inauthentic intersectionality, by Alayo Tripp, Pages 514–533.

■Exploring individual variation in Turkish heritage speakers’ complex linguistic productions: Evidence from discourse markers, by Onur Özsoy, Frederic Blum, Pages 534–564.

■Understanding language processing in variable populations on their own terms: Towards a functionalist psycholinguistics of individual differences, development, and disorders, by Bob McMurray, Keith S. Baxelbaum, Sarah Colby, J. Bruce Tomblin, Pages 565–592.

■Performance pay and non-native language comprehension: Can we learn to understand better when we’re paid to listen?, by Chasen Afghani, Melissa M. Baese-Berk, Glen R. Waddell, Pages 593–609.

■The impact of dialect differences on spoken language comprehension, by Arynn S. Byrd, Yi Ting Huang, Jan Edwards, Pages 610–633.

ISSUE5

ARTICLES

■Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence with different-script languages: Evidence from eye tracking, by Jamie Taylor, Yoichi Mukai, Pages 635–667.

■Resilience and vulnerability of discourse-conditioned word order in heritage Spanish, by Bradley Hoot, Tania Leal, Pages 668–698.

■The growth trajectories of morphological awareness and its predictors, by Tomohiro Inoue, George K. Georgiou, Rauno Parrila, Pages 699–721.

■Frequency effects in Spanish phonological speech errors: Weak sources in the context of weak syllables and words, by Julio Santiago, Elvira Pérez, Alfonso Palma, Joseph Paul Stemberger, Pages 722–749.

■The predictive processing of number information in subregular verb morphology in a first and second language, by Eva Marie Koch, Bram Bulté, Alex Housen, Aline Godfroid, Pages 750–783.

■The role of phonology-to-orthography consistency in predicting the degree of pupil dilation induced in processing reduced and unreduced speech, by Yoichi Mukai, Juhani Järvikivi, Benjamin V. Tucker, Pages 784–815.

■Presuppositions are more persuasive than assertions if addressees accommodate them: Experimental evidence for philosophical reasoning, by Dieter Thoma, Kira Becker, Anica Kißler, Pages 816–843.

■The choice of musical instrument matters: Effect of pitched but not unpitched musicianship on tone identification and word learning, by William Choi, Cheuk Yiu To, Runqing Cheng, Pages 844–857.

■Second language speech comprehensibility and acceptability in academic settings: Listener perceptions and speech stream influences, by Dustin Crowther, Daniel R. Isbell, Hitoshi Nishizawa, Pages 858–888.

■The impact of lexical specificity training on at-risk emergent bilinguals, by Miao Li, Catherine E. Snow, Lauren Ely, Jan C. Frijters, Esther Geva, Becky Xi Chen, Pages 889–912.

■Using intonation to disambiguate meaning: The role of empathy and proficiency in L2 perceptual development, by Joseph V. Casillas, Juan José Garrido-Pozú, Kyle Parrish, Laura Fernández Arroyo, Nicole Rodríguez, Robert Esposito, Isabelle Chang, Kimberly Gómez, Gabriela Constantin-Dureci, Jiawei Shao, Iván Andreu Rascón, Katherine Taveras, Pages 913–940.

■Cross-linguistic influence, limited input, or working-memory limitations: The morphosyntax of agreement and concord in Heritage Russian, by Tatiana Verkhovtceva, Maria Polinsky, Natalia Meir, Pages 941–968.

ISSUE6

ARTICLES

■How bidialectalism affects non-native speech acquisition: Evidence from Shanghai and Mandarin Chinese, by Xiaoluan Liu, Paola Escudero, Pages 969–990.

■The contribution of affective content to cue-response correspondence in a word association task: Focus on emotion words and emotion-laden words, by Ángel-Armando Betancourt, Marc Guasch, Pilar Ferré, Pages 991–1011.

■Perceptual salience and structural ambiguity resolution, by Jeffrey Witzel, Naoko Witzel, Pages 1012–1042.

■The interplay between syntactic and morphological comprehension in heritage contexts: The case of relative clauses in heritage Syrian Arabic, by Evangelia Daskalaki, Adriana Soto-Corominas, Aisha Barisé, Johanne Paradis, Xi Chen, Alexandra Gottardo, Pages 1043–1068.

■Flattening the curve: COVID-19 induced a decrease in arousal for positive and an increase in arousal for negative words, by Milica Popović Stijačić, Ksenija Mišić, Dušica Filipović Đurđević, Pages 1069–1089.

■Contrasting the semantic typology biases of Deaf and hearing nonsigners in their conceptualization of time and space, by María Noel Macedo, Matías Yerro, Jorge Vivas, Mauricio Castillo, Maximiliano Meliande, Adriana de León, Alejandro Fojo, Roberto Aguirre, Pages 1090–1123.

■Statistical learning of phonotactics by children can be affected by another statistical learning task, by Peter T. Richtsmeier, Lisa Goffman, Pages 1124–1142.

■Quantifying the uniqueness and efficiency of the MLAT relative to L1 attainment as a predictor of L2 achievement: A conceptual replication, by Richard L. Sparks, Philip S. Dale, Pages 1143–1160.

■What a thousand children tell us about grammatical complexity and working memory: A cross-sectional analysis on the comprehension of clitics and passives in Italian, by Vincenzo Moscati, Andrea Marini, Nicoletta Biondo, Pages 1161–1184.

摘要

Towards a just and equitable applied psycholinguistics

Ethan Kutlu, Rachel Hayes-Harb, Linguistics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

Abstract We introduce the pair of special issues of Applied Psycolinguistics (this issue, next issue) titled “Towards a just and equitable applied psycholinguistics.” This paper motivates the need for this project, details the editorial process, and provides a brief summary of each article appearing in the special issues.

Key words bilingualism;  adult second language acquisition;  literacy;  neurodevelopmental language disorders;  phonetics and phonology;  sentence processing;  equity and justice

Justice and equity for whom? Reframing research on the “bilingual (dis)advantage”

Gigi Luk, Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University, Montréal QC, Canada.

Abstract The search for the existence and nonexistence of bilingual advantages and disadvantages has become a battleground marked by polarized comments and perspectives, furthering our understanding of neither bilingualism as an experience nor cognition as higher-level mental processes. In this paper, I provide a brief historical overview of research examining the cognitive and linguistic consequences of multilingualism and address the assumptions underlying research exploring the bilingual behavioral difference. I aim to illustrate the sole focus on behavioral (dis)advantage fails to reflect the complexity and dynamicity of people’s bilingual experiences, thereby distracting from understanding bilingualism. Responding to the call of this special issue, I describe the necessity to focus on people when moving toward a just and equitable future for applied psycholinguistic research. Furthermore, I explain why the nuances of bilingualism need to be recognized beyond binary categorization to advance knowledge about bilingualism and its consequences. To avoid unjust misattribution of a behavioral outcome to people’s life experience and to report research findings in a transparent manner, the myopic representation of the terms “bilingual (dis)advantage” should be recognized and reflected on.

Key words bilingual advantage;  bilingual disadvantage;  life experience;  people-centered;  cognition

Monolingual comparative normativity in bilingualism research is out of “control”: Arguments and alternatives

Jason Rothman, Fatih Bayram, Vincent DeLuca, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

Grazia Di Pisa, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, Khadij Gharibi, Jiuzhou Hao, Nadine Kolb, Maki Kubota, Tanja Kupisch, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

Tim Laméris, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Alicia Luque, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain

Brechje van Osch, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

Sergio Miguel Pereira Soares, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Yanina Prystauka, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

Deniz Tat, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Aleksandra Tomić, Toms Voits, Stefanie Wulff, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

Abstract 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 scientific method. Instead, the default nature of monolingual comparative normativity has historically contributed to inequalities in many facets of bilingualism research and continues to impede progress on multiple levels. Beyond framing our views on the matter, we offer some epistemological considerations and methodological alternatives to this standard practice that improve empirical rigor while fostering increased diversity, inclusivity, and equity in our field.

Key words bilingualism;  monolingual comparative normativity;  scientific method;  heritage speakers;  psycholinguistics

The impact of neurotypical cognition on communication deficits attributed to pathologized people: schizophrenia as a case study

Vegas Hodgins, Gillian O’Driscoll, Debra Titone, Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Abstract Social communication deficits have been robustly documented in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Historically, attempts to lessen this dysfunction have focused almost exclusively on modifying the person with schizophrenia’s own behaviors and cognition. However, social communication is inherently dyadic, and this approach leaves unaddressed the role of the neurotypical interlocutor in communication breakdown. In this position piece, we review psycholinguistic theories and research in order to propose a more comprehensive and equitable understanding of the social dysfunction that people with schizophrenia experience. We do so by drawing attention to the manner in which neurotypical individuals may drive communication failure in schizophrenia. Stigma is proposed to be a major component of this phenomenon. In addition to an overview of our theoretical framework, we provide a research agenda to test the hypotheses this framework has produced. We hope this piece can inform future research directions within psycholinguistics.

Key words schizophrenia;  language cognition;  social cognition;  neurotypical cognition;  communication failure;  communication dysfunction;  stigma;  social outcomes;  theoretical approach

The danger of bilingual–monolingual comparisons in applied psycholinguistic research

Annick De Houwer, Harmonious Bilingualism Network (HaBilNet), Rixensart, Belgium

Abstract The pervasive monolingual bias present within many societies threatens the well-being of bilingual children and their families. Unfortunately, such bias is present in much psycholinguistic research as well. Bilingual–monolingual comparisons with methodological approaches upholding monolingual norms are not equitable to bilinguals. We do not need such comparisons to learn more about bilingual use and processing. Instead, psycholinguistic research investigating the impact of different kinds of environments for language learning, use, and processing within bilingual populations can be transformative. Applied psycholinguistic research with an increased focus on investigating all the languages bilingual children and their families need for day-to-day communication, and on the factors supporting their learning and use, can help inform educators, policy makers, and language and speech professionals. This will hopefully contribute to the well-being of the people we study.

Key words bilingual;  monolingual;  children;  families;  well-being;  equitable methods;  bias

MIND your language(s): Recognizing Minority, Indigenous, Non-standard(ized), and Dialect variety usage in “monolinguals”

Neil W. Kirk, Division of Psychology and Forensic Sciences, Abertay University, Dundee, Scotland, UK

Abstract While Psychology research in general has been criticized for oversampling from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) populations, Psycholinguistics has a problem with conducting a large amount of research on a relatively small number of languages. Yet even within WEIRD environments, the experiences of speakers of Minority, Indigenous, Non-standard(ized), and Dialect (MIND) varieties are not always captured alongside their use of a more prestigious standard language.This position piece will provide a case study of one such variety: Scots, a Germanic variety spoken in Scotland, which is often considered “bad English.” However, its speakers display cognitive characteristics of bilingualism despite often regarding themselves as monolingual due to sociolinguistic factors. Such factors include social prestige and language ideology, as well as linguistic distance. In doing so, this paper introduces a new acronym encouraging researchers to MIND their language – by developing more inclusive ways of capturing the linguistic experiences of MIND speakers, to move away from binary distinctions of “bilingual” and “monolingual,” and to recognize that not all varieties are afforded the status of language, nor do many multilinguals consider themselves as anything other than monolingual.

Key words minority;  indigenous;  non-standard;  dialect;  monolingualism;  bilingualism

Impairment or difference? The case of Theory of Mind abilities and pragmatic competence in the Autism Spectrum

Eleonora Marocchini, Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (IGDORE), Gothenburg, Sweden and Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology Unit, University of Genoa, Italy

Abstract Psycholinguistic research on pragmatics in the neurotypical population has increasingly framed pragmatic competence and related cognitive skills in terms of individual differences, co-constructed discourse, and meaning negotiation. However, research on pragmatics in the Autism Spectrum has risen from a wide and biased view of autistic communication as fundamentally compromised and autistic pragmatic abilities as impaired. Mostly due to the impactful theory of a deficit in Theory of Mind, early research on autistic communication presumed a unitary pragmatic impairment, only to find that several pragmatic abilities seem to be “preserved.” However, the interpretation of these findings usually takes an ableist turn, as most studies subsequently suggest that surface-level performance should not be interpreted as competence, but rather as a result of “compensatory” strategies. The raising number of contributions from autistic academics and participatory research enriched the field with new perspectives focusing on differences rather than impairments and drawing hypotheses on communication difficulties between neurotypes rather than within a specific neurotype. However, such contributions are hardly ever cited in the most prominent works. In conclusion, the field would benefit from a higher level of citation of autistic-led research and from an epistemological perspective shift within the mostly neurotypical academic community.

Key words autism;  theory of mind;  pragmatics

Bilingualism with minority languages: Why searching for unicorn language users does not move us forward

Evelina Leivada, Department of Catalan Philology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, SpainInstitució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez, Department of Linguistics, California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, USA

M. Carmen Parafita Couto, Language Variation and Textual Categorisation, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, SpainCenter for Linguistics, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Sílvia Perpiñán, Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Abstract This paper addresses several problematic scientific practices in psycholinguistic research. We discuss challenges that arise when working with minority languages, such as the notion of monolingual/monocultural normality and its historical origins, the stereotype of native-speakerism, the quest for testing people who fit specific profiles, the implications of the policy that urges scholars to match bilingual groups to monolingual comparison groups, and the use of powerful theoretical narratives that may evoke problematic labels and ableist terminology. These issues invest the field of psycholinguistics with questionable practices that contribute to the marginalization of groups that do not tick the standard normative boxes. Surveying some of the most widespread scientific practices in the field of psycholinguistics, our emphasis is on how several processes and policies may embody stereotypes that contribute to the exclusion of certain groups from the scientific literature, with grievous consequences for the visibility and the representation of some minoritized languages.

Key words bilingualism;  minority languages;  native-speakerism;  control group;  monolingual-bias

A position paper on researching braille in the cognitive sciences: decentering the sighted norm

Robert Englebretson, Department of Linguistics, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

M. Cay Holbrook, Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology and Special Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Simon Fischer-Baum, Department of Psychological Sciences, Rice University, Houston, TX, USASocial, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, USA

Abstract This article positions braille as a writing system worthy of study in its own right and on its own terms. We begin with a discussion of the role of braille in the lives of those who read and write it and a call for more attention to braille in the reading sciences. We then give an overview of the history and development of braille, focusing on its formal characteristics as a writing system, in order to acquaint sighted print readers with the basics of braille and to spark further interest among reading researchers. We then explore how print-centric assumptions and sight-centric motivations have potentially negative consequences, not only for braille users but also for the types of questions researchers think to pursue. We conclude with recommendations for conducting responsible and informed research about braille. We affirm that blindness is most equitably understood as but one of the many diverse ways humans experience the world. Researching braille literacy from an equity and diversity perspective provides positive, fruitful insights into perception and cognition, contributes to the typologically oriented work on the world’s writing systems, and contributes to equity by centering the perspectives and literacy of the people who read and write braille.

Key words blindness;  braill;  ediversity;  literacy;  science of reading;  writing systems

Challenging deficit frameworks in research on heritage language bilingualism

Eve Higby, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, California State University, East Bay, Hayward, CA, USA

Evelyn Gámez, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

Claudia Holguín Mendoza, Department of Hispanic Studies, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

Abstract Recent years have seen an increased interest in the study of heritage language bilinguals. However, much of the research on heritage bilingualism is fraught with deficit framing. In this article, we demonstrate how many of the assumptions that underlie this growing field of research and the way that heritage speakers are positioned as research subjects reveal ideologies that center and value monolingualism and whiteness. We problematize a number of ways in which these ideologies commonly show up in the frameworks and methodologies used in psycholinguistics to study this population. We advocate for frameworks such as usage-based linguistics and multicompetence that center the multidimensional experiences of bilinguals and embrace nuance and complexity. We call on the research community to examine their research designs and theories to dismantle the systems that maintain heritage bilingualism at the margins of bilingualism research.

Key words bilingualism;  heritage speakers;  raciolinguistics;  usage-based linguistics;  multicompetence

Transmitting white monolingual Anglo-American norms: A concept analysis of “quality of language” in parent-child interactions

Andrea A.N. MacLeod, Catrine Demers, Multilingual Families Lab, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Abstract White monolingual Anglo-American values permeate language acquisition research, which extends into public health and educational policies. “Quality of language” in parent-child interactions is often called upon to explain weaknesses in the language development of children who are racialized, experiencing poverty, or bilingual. Indeed, many early intervention approaches build on this premise by aiming to improve the “quality of language” used by parents. We aimed to understand the conceptualizations of “quality of language” in studies of parent-child interaction through the critical lens of Community Cultural Wealth Theory and perspectives from development research across cultures. We completed a Systematic Concept Analysis of articles published from 2010 to 2022 and focused on parent-child interactions in the home environment. Our search identified 972 articles and 78 met the inclusion criteria, but only 45 papers provided a definition. These definitions covered eight conceptualizations but only three were previously described. We also found inequity in the use of this terminology, which focused on children who were bilingual, had disability, or experiencing poverty. Informed by a critical lens, we recommend the use of four new terms to encompass “quality of language.” We also recommend refraining from using this term as it is value-laden, poorly defined, and diminishes culturally sustaining language transmission practices.

Key words quality of language;  concept analysis;  critical race theory

Examining linguistic and experimenter biases through “non-native” versus “native” speech

Rachel Elizabeth Weissler, Shiloh Drake, Ksenia Kampf, Carissa Diantoro, Kurtis Foster, Audrey Kirkpatrick, Isabel Preligera, Orion Wesson, Anna Wood, Melissa M. Baese-Berk, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

Abstract There is a consensus in psycholinguistic research that listening to unfamiliar speech constitutes a challenging listening situation. In this commentary, we explore the problems with the construct of non-native and ask whether using this construct in research is useful, specifically to shift the communicative burden from the language learner to the perceiver, who often occupies a position of power. We examine what factors affect perception of non-native talkers. We frame this question by addressing the observation that not all “difficult” listening conditions provide equal challenges. Given this, we ask how cognitive and social factors impact perception of unfamiliar accents and ask what our psycholinguistic measurements are capturing. We close by making recommendations for future work. We propose that the issue is less with the terminology of native versus non-native, but rather how our unexamined biases affect the methodological assumptions that we make. We propose that we can use the existing dichotomy to create research programs that focus on teaching perceivers to better understand talkers more generally. Finally, we call on perceivers and researchers alike to question the idea of speech being “native,” “non-native,” “unfamiliar,” and “accented” to better align with reality as opposed to our inherently biased views.

Key words speech perception;  speech production

Searching for the “native” speaker: A preregistered conceptual replication and extension of Reid, Trofimovich, and O’Brien (2019)

Bianca Brown, Botagoz Tusmagambet, Valentino Rahming, Chun-Ying Tu, Michael B. DeSalvo, Seth Wiener, Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Abstract This study conceptually replicated and extended Reid, Trofimovich, and O’Brien (2019), who found that native English speakers could be biased positively (or negatively) relative to a control condition in terms of how they rate non-native English speech. Our internet-based study failed to replicate Reid et al. across a wider population sample of “native” speakers (n = 189). Listeners did not change how they rated non-native English speech after social bias orientations and performed similarly across all five measures of speech and across age and race (Asian, Black, and Caucasian). We attribute our results to differences in the methods (in-person vs. online) and/or participants. Of note, roughly one-third of our “native” participants indicated proficiency in languages other than English and residency in 12 different English-speaking countries, despite identifying as a) fluent English speakers who b) used English primarily and c) acquired English before any other language from birth. These screening items taken together qualified “native” participants in line with traditional psycholinguistics research. We conclude that the concept of “nativeness” is tied to culture-specific perspectives surrounding language use. As such, the native/non-native categorical variable simultaneously serves and limits the advancement of psycholinguistics research.

Key words speech production;  speech perception;  accent;  second language acquisition;  social biases

Acknowledging language variation and its power: Keys to justice and equity in applied psycholinguistics

Alayo Tripp, Benjamin Munson, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Abstract Recent studies have demonstrated incontrovertibly that person perception influences language perception. Much of this research is predicated on the notion that social categories are stable constructs that are perceived similarly by members of various speech communities. Power differentials necessarily impact the legibility of the social performances circumscribed by macrosociological categories and thus bely any claim to objectivity in these categorization systems. Developing a more just applied psycholinguistics requires researchers to explicitly consider the role of power in language, how power shapes fields’ notions of what research questions are important and meaningful, and therefore how research data are collected, analyzed, and disseminated. We argue that psycholinguists should widely adopt approaches to studying linguistic processing in ways which acknowledge the role of social ideologies in shaping their outcome, and which reckon with how asymmetrical power relations shape the perception, acquisition, and judgment of both social and linguistic variation. We conclude with a series of guidelines intended to promote characterizations of social and linguistic diversity which accurately reflect the importance of power differentials and which engage ethically with sociopolitical goals of justice and equity.

Key words speech perception;  adult typical language;  bilingualism;  narrative and discourse;  phonetics and phonology

Abandoning inauthentic intersectionality

Alayo Tripp, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, USA

Abstract In the time since the term “intersectionality” was first introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw, the term has gained a measure of widespread, even viral popularity. Increasingly, psycholinguists are citing this concept to promote work which more fully engages with the consequences of human diversity for language processing. This piece discusses the ways in which “intersectionality” has thus far been engaged by the field of psycholinguistics. I argue that the common usage of the term “intersectionality” is notably out of step with the tradition of Black feminist scholarship from which it derives. Originally defined as an analytical framework for examining the effect of interlocking oppressions in erasing the distinctive experiences of multiply marginalized people, intersectionality should not be invoked without any serious and specific discussion of oppressive systems or erasure. To achieve a more just and equitable applied psycholinguistics and authentically promote intersectional approaches to understanding language behavior, intersectionality must be taken as a framework primarily engaging with effects of structural violence. The article concludes with some guidelines for readers to assist in distinguishing “intersectional” claims which perform erasure from those which reflect the original and intended anti-misogynoir applications of the theory.

Key words adult typical language;  bilingualism;  narrative and discourse;  speech perception;  child typical language

Exploring individual variation in Turkish heritage speakers’ complex linguistic productions: Evidence from discourse markers

Onur Özsoy, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, GermanyLeibniz-Center General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin, Germany

Frederic Blum, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany

Abstract Research on multilingual speakers is often compared to monolingual baselines which are commonly treated as if they were homogeneous across speakers. Despite recent research showing that this homogeneity does not hold, these practices reproduce native-speakerism and monolingualism. Heritage language research, which established itself in the past two decades, is no exemption. Focusing on three predefined linguistic groups, namely Turkish speakers which are framed as monolingual in Turkey as well as two heritage bilingually framed groups in Germany and the USA, we ask: (1) Do heritage speakers of Turkish produce more discourse and fluency markers (FMs) than monolingual speakers? (2) Are the groups homogeneous, or is there wide variation between speakers across groups? We focus on the variation between and within groups using Bayesian Linear Regression with a multilevel model for speakers and heritage groups. Our findings confirm that the use of discourse and FMs is largely defined through individual variation, and not through the belonging to a certain speaker group. By focusing on variation across groups rather than between groups, our study design supports the growing body of literature that questions common heritage language research practices of today and shows alternative paths to understanding heritage grammars.

Key words bilingualism;  heritage speakers;  discourse markers;  individual variation;  heritage Turkish

Understanding language processing in variable populations on their own terms: Towards a functionalist psycholinguistics of individual differences, development, and disorders

Bob McMurray, Keith S. Baxelbaum, Sarah Colby, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA

J. Bruce Tomblin, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA

Abstract Classic psycholinguistics seeks universal language mechanisms for all people, emphasizing the “modal” listener: hearing, neurotypical, monolingual, and young adults. Applied psycholinguistics then characterizes differences in terms of their deviation from the modal. This mirrors naturalist philosophies of health which presume a normal function, with illness as a deviation. In contrast, normative positions argue that illness is partially culturally derived. It occurs when a person cannot meet socio-culturally defined goals, separating differences in biology (disease) from socio-cultural function (illness). We synthesize this with mechanistic functionalist views in which language emerges from diverse lower-level mechanisms with no one-to-one mapping to function (termed the functional mechanistic normative approach). This challenges primarily psychometric approaches—which are culturally defined—suggesting a process-based approach may yield more insight. We illustrate this with work on word recognition across multiple domains: cochlear implant users, children, language disorders, L2 learners, and aging. This work investigates each group’s solutions to the problem of word recognition as interesting in its own right. Variation in the process is value-neutral, and psychometric measures complement this, reflecting fit with cultural expectations (disease vs. illness). By examining variation in processing across people with a variety of skills and goals, we arrive at deeper insight into fundamental principles.

Key words adult language disorders;  lexical processing;  deafness and hearing impairment;  adult second-language acquisition;  child typical language

Performance pay and non-native language comprehension: Can we learn to understand better when we’re paid to listen?

Chasen Afghani, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

Melissa M. Baese-Berk, Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USADepartment of Linguistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Glen R. Waddell, Department of Economics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USAIZA Bonn, Bonn, Germany

Abstract Non-native speech is difficult for native listeners to understand. While listeners can learn to understand non-native speech after exposure, it is unclear how to optimize this learning. Experimental subjects transcribed non-native speech and were paid either a flat rate or based on their performance. Participants who were paid based on performance demonstrated improved performance overall and faster learning than participants who were paid a flat rate. These results suggest that exposure alone is not sufficient to optimize learning of non-native speech and that current models of this process must be revised to account for the effects of motivation and incentive.

Key words Adaptation;  incentive;  non-native speech;  pay for performance;  speech perception

The impact of dialect differences on spoken language comprehension

Arynn S. Byrd, Yi Ting Huang, Jan Edwards, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland-College Park, MD, USA

Abstract Research has suggested that children who speak African American English (AAE) have difficulty using features produced in Mainstream American English (MAE) but not AAE, to comprehend sentences in MAE. However, past studies mainly examined dialect features, such as verbal -s, that are produced as final consonants with shorter durations when produced in conversation which impacts their phonetic saliency. Therefore, it is unclear if previous results are due to the phonetic saliency of the feature or how AAE speakers process MAE dialect features more generally. This study evaluated if there were group differences in how AAE- and MAE-speaking children used the auxiliary verbs was and were, a dialect feature with increased phonetic saliency but produced differently between the dialects, to interpret sentences in MAE. Participants aged 6, 5–10, and 0 years, who spoke MAE or AAE, completed the DELV-ST, a vocabulary measure (PVT), and a sentence comprehension task. In the sentence comprehension task, participants heard sentences in MAE that had either unambiguous or ambiguous subjects. Sentences with ambiguous subjects were used to evaluate group differences in sentence comprehension. AAE-speaking children were less likely than MAE-speaking children to use the auxiliary verbs was and were to interpret sentences in MAE. Furthermore, dialect density was predictive of Black participant’s sensitivity to the auxiliary verb. This finding is consistent with how the auxiliary verb is produced between the two dialects: was is used to mark both singular and plural subjects in AAE, while MAE uses was for singular and were for plural subjects. This study demonstrated that even when the dialect feature is more phonetically salient, differences between how verb morphology is produced in AAE and MAE impact how AAE-speaking children comprehend MAE sentences.

Key words Listening Comprehension;  Linguistic Diversity;  African American English;  Subject-Verb Agreement

Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence with different-script languages: Evidence from eye tracking

Jamie Taylor, Foreign Language Education Center, Nanzan University, Nagoya, Aichi, JapanGraduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

Yoichi Mukai, Modern Languages Studies Department, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, BC, Canada

Abstract This study compared patterns of nonselective cross-language activation in L1 and L2 visual word recognition with different-script bilinguals. The aim was to determine (1) whether lexical processing is nonselective in the L1 (as in L2), and (2) if the same cross-linguistic factors affected processing similarly in each language. To examine the time course of activation, eye movements were tracked during lexical decision. Thirty-two Japanese–English bilinguals responded to 250 target words in Japanese and in English. The same participants and items (i.e., cognate translation equivalents) were used to directly compare L1 and L2 processing. Response latencies as well as eye movements representing early and late processing were analyzed using mixed-effects regression modeling. Similar cross-linguistic effects, namely cognate word frequency, phonological similarity, and semantic similarity, were found in both languages. These factors affected processing to different degrees in each language, however. While cognate frequency was significant as early as the first fixation, effects of cross-linguistic phonological and semantic similarity arose later in time. Increased phonological similarity slowed responses in L2 but speeded them in L1, while greater semantic overlap was facilitatory in both languages. Results are discussed from the perspective of the BIA+ model of visual word recognition.

Key words visual word recognition;  different-script bilinguals;  cross-linguistic influence;  eye movements

Resilience and vulnerability of discourse-conditioned word order in heritage Spanish

Bradley Hoot, Department of Modern Languages, DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60614, USA

Tania Leal, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA

Abstract Heritage speakers—bilinguals who acquire minority languages naturalistically in infancy but are typically majority-language-dominant in adulthood—generally acquire grammars that differ systematically from the baseline input received in childhood. Yet not all areas diverge equally; understanding what characterizes divergence or resilience of a given feature is crucial to understanding heritage language acquisition. In this realm, we investigate the discourse-conditioned non-canonical word orders that mark information focus in Spanish. Focus bears the hallmarks of structures that diverge from the baseline, yet the evidence is mixed. We use an offline forced-choice task and an online self-paced reading task to compare heritage speakers’ judgments and processing to the baseline’s, and we find, echoing recent work, that the heritage speakers largely resemble baseline speakers. We interpret this convergence with reference to seven factors potentially affecting heritage language acquisition and identify one hypothesis—that focus facilitates processing due to its structural and pragmatic salience—as a promising explanation.

Key words heritage speakers;  heritage language acquisition;  focus;  self-paced reading;  information structure;  Spanish

The growth trajectories of morphological awareness and its predictors

Tomohiro Inoue, Department of Psychology and Centre for Developmental Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong

George K. Georgiou, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Rauno Parrila, Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy, Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy, NSW, Australia

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the early growth of morphological awareness and its predictors. We followed 172 English-speaking Canadian children (82 girls, 90 boys, Mage = 75.56 months at the first assessment point) from Grade 1 to Grade 3 and assessed them on nonverbal IQ, phonological short-term memory, phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and vocabulary at the beginning of Grade 1 and on morphological awareness at the end of Grade 1, beginning and end of Grade 2, and beginning of Grade 3. Results of growth curve modeling showed different growth patterns for Word Analogy and Sentence Analogy. In addition, vocabulary and phonological awareness were associated with the initial status of morphological awareness, and phonological awareness and letter knowledge predicted the growth rate of morphological awareness. These findings suggest that code-related skills drive the development of morphological awareness during the early years of literacy instruction.

Key words growth curve modeling;  letter knowledge;  morphological awareness;  phonological awareness;  vocabulary

Frequency effects in Spanish phonological speech errors: Weak sources in the context of weak syllables and words

Julio Santiago, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

Elvira Pérez, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

Alfonso Palma, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

Joseph Paul Stemberger, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Abstract The present study examines the effects of the frequency of phoneme, syllable, and word units in the Granada corpus of Spanish phonological speech errors. We computed several measures of phoneme and syllable frequency and selected the most sensitive ones, along with word (lexeme) frequency to compare the frequencies of source, target, and error units at the phoneme, syllable, and word levels. Results showed that phoneme targets have equivalent frequency to matched controls, whereas source phonemes are lower in frequency than chance (the WEAK SOURCE EFFECT) and target phonemes (the DAVID EFFECT). Target, source, and error syllables and words also were of lower frequency than chance, and error words (when they occur) were lowest in frequency. Contrary to most current theories, which focus on faulty processing of the target units, present results suggest that faulty processing of the source units (phonemes, syllables, and words) is an important factor contributing to phonological speech errors. Low-frequency words and syllables have more difficulty ensuring that their phonemes, especially those of low frequency, are output only in their correct locations.

Key words speech errors;  frequency effect;  phonological encoding;  Spanish;  language production

The predictive processing of number information in subregular verb morphology in a first and second language

Eva Marie Koch, Bram Bulté, Alex Housen, Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium

Aline Godfroid, Department of Linguistics and Languages, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

Abstract We investigated the predictive processing of grammatical number information through stem-vowel alternations in German strong verbs by adult first language (L1) speakers and Dutch-speaking advanced second language (L2) learners of German, and the influence of working memory and awareness (i.e., whether participants consciously registered the predictive cue) thereon. While changed stem vowels indicate a singular referent (e.g., /ε/ in fällt3SG, “falls”), unchanged vowels indicate plural (e.g., /a/ in fallt2PL, “fall”). This target structure presents a challenge for L2 learners of German due to its subregularity and low salience. With their eye movements being tracked, participants matched German auditory sentences (VSO order) with one of two pictures, displaying identical action scenes but varying in agent number. The number cue provided by the strong verbs allowed participants to predict whether the upcoming subject would be singular or plural. The analyses revealed significant prediction, measured as predictive eye movements toward the target picture and faster button-press responses. Prediction in the L2 group was weaker than in the L1 group and present in the eye movement data only. Higher working memory scores were linked to faster predictive presses. Approximately half of the participants had become aware of the predictive cue, and being aware facilitated prediction to a limited extent.

Key words eye tracking;  L1/L2 predictive processing;  verb morphology;  working memory;  awareness

The role of phonology-to-orthography consistency in predicting the degree of pupil dilation induced in processing reduced and unreduced speech

Yoichi Mukai, Modern Languages Studies Department, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada; Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Juhani Järvikivi, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Benjamin V. Tucker, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, United States

Abstract The relationship between the ways in which words are pronounced and spelled has been shown to affect spoken word processing, and a consistent relationship between pronunciation and spelling has been reported as a possible cause of unreduced pronunciations being easier to process than reduced counterparts although reduced pronunciations occur more frequently. In the present study, we investigate the effect of pronunciation-to-spelling consistency for reduced and unreduced pronunciations in L1 and L2 listeners of a logographic language. More precisely, we compare L1 and L2 Japanese listeners to probe whether they use orthographic information differently when processing reduced and unreduced speech. Using pupillometry, the current study provides evidence that extends the hypothesis about the role of orthography in the processing of reduced speech. Orthographic realization matters in processing for L1 and L2 advanced listeners. More specifically, how consistent the orthographic realization is with its phonological form (phonology-to-orthography consistency) modulates the extent to which reduced pronunciation induces additional processing costs. The results are further discussed in terms of their implications for how listeners process reduced speech and the role of the orthographic form in speech processing.

Key words spoken word recognition;  pronunciation-to-spelling consistency;  spontaneous speech;  pupillometry;  generalized additive modelling

Presuppositions are more persuasive than assertions if addressees accommodate them: Experimental evidence for philosophical reasoning

Dieter Thoma, Kira Becker, Anica Kißler, Department of Psycholinguistics, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

Abstract Best practice and descriptive research claim that presuppositions, such as the “too” in “#MeToo,” increase the persuasiveness of arguments. Surprisingly, there is hardly any causal evidence for this claim. Therefore, we tested experimentally if advertisements and political statements with presuppositions are more persuasive than equivalent assertions. In 1999, Sbisà already theorized that “persuasive presuppositions” incidentally urge addressees to extend their (ideological) knowledge to make true the unstated assumptions writers have about what their addressee knows, which leads to greater agreement. Following Sbisà, we hypothesized that the persuasiveness depends on the addressee’s need and willingness to accommodate the presupposed content. In three experiments, we manipulated (a) the presupposition trigger using either the German additive particle auch “too,” the iterative particle wieder “again,” or factive verbs compared to assertive equivalents and (b) the preceding discourse context which supported the presupposition or not. Results show that presuppositions are perceived as more persuasive if they convey discourse-new information, largely irrespective of addressees’ ideological involvement. Also considering eye-tracked reading, we suggest that the integrative cognitive process of presupposition accommodation initiates their persuasive edge. The findings imply that persuasive communication benefits from the use of lexically conveyed presuppositions if they are sufficiently informative to trigger accommodation.

Key words presupposition;  persuasiveness;  accommodation;  ideology;  advertising

The choice of musical instrument matters: Effect of pitched but not unpitched musicianship on tone identification and word learning

William Choi, Cheuk Yiu To, Runqing Cheng, Academic Unit of Human Communication, Development, and Information Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Speech and Music Perception Laboratory, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Abstract The present study investigated the differential effects of pitched and unpitched musicianship on tone identification and word learning. We recruited 44 Cantonese-pitched musicians, unpitched musicians, and non-musicians. They completed a Thai tone identification task and seven sessions of Thai tone word learning. In the tone identification task, the pitched musicians outperformed the non-musicians but the unpitched musicians did not. In session 1 of the tone word learning task, the three groups showed similar accuracies. In session 7, the pitched musicians outperformed the non-musicians but the unpitched musicians did not. The results indicate that the musical advantage in tone identification and word learning hinges on pitched musicianship. From a theoretical perspective, these findings support the precision element of the OPERA hypothesis. Broadly, they reflect the need to consider the heterogeneity of musicianship when studying music-to-language transfer. Practically, the findings highlight the potential of pitched music training in enhancing tone word learning proficiency. Furthermore, the choice of musical instrument may matter to music-to-language transfer.

Key words music-to-language transfer;  pitch;  tone;  word learning;  OPERA hypothesis

Second language speech comprehensibility and acceptability in academic settings: Listener perceptions and speech stream influences

Dustin Crowther, Daniel R. Isbell, Hitoshi Nishizawa, Department of Second Language Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, USA

Abstract Ideally, comprehensible second language (L2) speech would be seen as acceptable speech. However, the association between these dimensions is underexplored. To investigate the relationship between comprehensibility and “academic acceptability,” defined here as how well a speaker could meet the demands of a given role in an academic setting, 204 university stakeholders judged L2 speech samples elicited from a standardized English test used for university admissions. Four tasks from 100 speakers were coded for 13 speech stream characteristics. Judgments for comprehensibility and acceptability correlated strongly (r = .93). Linear mixed-effects models, used to examine judgments across all tasks and separately for each task, indicated that while random intercepts (i.e., speaker ability, listener severity) explained a substantial amount of total variation (32–44%) in listener judgments compared to speech characteristic fixed effects (8–21%), fixed effects did account for variation in speaker random effects (reducing variation compared to intercept-only models by 50–90%). Despite some minimal differences across task types, the influence of speech characteristics across both judgments was mostly similar. While providing evidence that comprehensible speech can indeed be perceived as acceptable, this study also provides evidence that speakers demonstrate both consistent and less consistent performance, in reference to speech stream production, across performances.

Key words acceptability;  comprehensibility;  speech perception;  speech production;  target language domain

The impact of lexical specificity training on at-risk emergent bilinguals

Miao Li, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Catherine E. Snow, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA

Lauren Ely, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

Jan C. Frijters, Brock University, Saint Catharines, ON, Canada

Esther Geva, Becky Xi Chen, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, USA

Abstract Emergent bilinguals (EBs) who are exposed to societal language at school but use another language at home may experience difficulties in mastering the societal language, especially those at risk for language and reading disabilities. Learning phonologically specific new words that discriminate between phonemes may foster phonological awareness and word reading. This study examined the effectiveness of a lexical specificity intervention program that targeted phoneme discrimination in EBs at risk for reading disabilities. EBs who scored below the 25th percentile on the screening measures were selected and randomly assigned to one of two conditions: at-risk intervention or at-risk control. Of the 76 EBs in the at-risk group, 40 were randomly assigned to receive the intervention. A group of 51 typically developing EBs who did not meet the risk criteria were selected as typical controls. The pre- and post-tests include phoneme discrimination, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, fluency, and decoding. The at-risk intervention group showed improvement on the phoneme discrimination task after the intervention and outperformed the at-risk control group but not the typical control group. In addition, growth was observed during both the training and testing sessions of the intervention. The lexical specificity intervention could be a good resource to enhance a key precursor to literacy development for at-risk EBs.

Key words at-risk;  emergent bilinguals;  lexical specificity;  phoneme discrimination;  second language learning

Using intonation to disambiguate meaning: The role of empathy and proficiency in L2 perceptual development

Joseph V. Casillas, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Juan José Garrido-Pozú, Furman University, Greenville, SC, USA

Kyle Parrish, Laura Fernández Arroyo, Nicole Rodríguez, Robert Esposito, Isabelle Chang, Kimberly Gómez, Gabriela Constantin-Dureci, Jiawei Shao, Iván Andreu Rascón, Katherine Taveras, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Abstract The present study investigates the interplay between proficiency and empathy in the development of second language (L2) prosody by analyzing the perception and processing of intonation in questions and statements in L2 Spanish. A total of 225 adult L2 Spanish learners (L1 English) from the Northeastern United States completed a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) task in which they listened to four utterance types and categorized them as either questions or statements. We used Bayesian multilevel regression and drift diffusion modeling to analyze the 2AFC data as a function of proficiency level and empathy scores for each utterance type. We show that learner response accuracy and sensitivity to intonation are positively correlated with proficiency, and this association is affected by individual empathy levels in both response accuracy and sentence processing. Higher empathic individuals, in comparison with lower empathic individuals, appear to be more sensitive to intonation cues in the process of forming sound-meaning associations, though increased sensitivity does not necessarily imply increased processing speed. The results motivate the inclusion of measures of pragmatic skill, such as empathy, to better account for intonational meaning processing and sentence comprehension in second language acquisition.

Key words Empathy;  intonation;  second language acquisition;  sentence processing;  speech perception

Cross-linguistic influence, limited input, or working-memory limitations: The morphosyntax of agreement and concord in Heritage Russian

Tatiana Verkhovtceva, The Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Maria Polinsky, Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Natalia Meir, The Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel; The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Abstract This study investigated the morphosyntax of adjectival concord in case and number and subject-verb person agreement by monolingual and bilingual speakers of Russian. The main focus of the study is on the potential factors that may trigger divergence between Heritage Language (HL) speakers and those speakers who are dominant in that language, be they monolingual or bilingual. We considered the effects of cross-linguistic influence; limited input (as indexed by Age of Onset of Bilingualism, AOB), and working-memory limitations. An auditory offline grammaticality judgment task was performed by 119 adult participants split into four groups: (1) Monolingual Russian-speaking controls (MonoControl), (2) Immigrant Controls, that is, Russian-Hebrew bilinguals with AOB after the age of 13 (IMMControl); (3) bilinguals with AOB between 5–13 (BL-Late); and (4) bilinguals with AOB before the age of 5 (BL-Early). The latter group represents HL speakers. We did not find effects of cross-linguistic influence or extra memory load; at the same time, the effects of AOB were robust. Additionally, HL speakers (BL-Early group) differed from the other groups in poor performance on adjectival concord, but patterned with the others on person agreement, which indicates that the feature [person] is more robust than other agreement/concord features in HL grammars.

Key words agreement;  case;  concord;  cross-linguistic influence;  heritage languages;  input;  memory;  morphosyntax;  number;  person;  Russian;  Hebrew

How bidialectalism affects non-native speech acquisition: Evidence from Shanghai and Mandarin Chinese

Xiaoluan Liu, Department of English, School of Foreign languages, East China Normal University, Zhongshan, China

Paola Escudero, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour, and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia

Abstract The current study examines how bidialectalism influences non-native speech production. We compared monodialectal Mandarin Chinese with bidialectal Shanghai-Mandarin Chinese speakers in terms of their ability to produce easy and difficult American English vowels. The results showed a general advantage for the bidialectal group compared with the monodialectal group in the production of the vowel formants and duration of the easy English vowels [i] and [u]. However, for the English vowels [ɪ] and [ʊ] known to be difficult for Chinese learners of English, both groups experienced the same challenges in terms of accurately producing the formants of the target vowels. Nevertheless, the bidialectal Shanghai-Mandarin speakers were still better than the monodialectal Mandarin speakers in the durational aspect of the two difficult English vowels. The results are explained by the Second Language Linguistic Perception (L2LP) model and suggest that the bidialectal advantage in non-native speech acquisition is subject to the modulation of cross-linguistic difficulty of the target speech sounds.

Key words Bidialectalism;  the L2LP model;  non-native speech learning;  vowel production;  Shanghai Chinese;  Mandarin Chinese

The contribution of affective content to cue-response correspondence in a word association task: Focus on emotion words and emotion-laden words

Ángel-Armando Betancourt, Marc Guasch, Pilar Ferré, Department of Psychology and CRAMC, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain

Abstract This study aimed at examining the contribution of affective content to the organization of words in the lexicon. Based on existing free association norms and on a series of questionnaires we developed, we examined the characteristics of the words produced as associates to 840 Spanish cue words. Half of them were affective words and the other half were neutral (non-affective) words. Among the affective cue words, some words directly labeled an emotion (emotion words, EM) and others did not label an emotion but could elicit it (emotion-laden words, EL). The words produced as associates were also classified according to this distinction. Furthermore, we examined the relationship between the lexico-semantic and affective properties of the cue words and the associated words. The results revealed that EM, EL, and neutral associated words were elicited to a greater extent by cue words of the same type than by other types of cue words. Furthermore, the degree of correspondence between the affective properties of the cues and their associates was higher than that of lexico-semantic variables. These results have methodological implications for research on semantic memory and are of interest for applied studies focused on affective word organization in specific populations.

Key words affective content;  assortativity;  emotion-laden words;  emotion words;  mental lexicon;  word association

Perceptual salience and structural ambiguity resolution

Jeffrey Witzel, Naoko Witzel, Department of Linguistics and TESOL, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

Abstract This study investigates whether the perceptual salience of grammatical morphemes influences the online processing of temporarily ambiguous sentences during adult first-language (L1) comprehension. In a bidirectional self-paced reading task, adult L1 English participants (N = 44) read sentences with time adjuncts that were in a structural position in which they could attach either to the most recent verb phrase (VP) or to a VP in a higher clause. Consistent with previous findings, the reading times on these sentences indicated processing difficulty when this adjunct allowed only for high attachment. Crucially, this effect was modulated by the perceptual salience of the grammatical morphemes used to indicate time reference in these clauses. Specifically, the processing cost for high attachment was larger when time in the lower clause was indicated by the auxiliary verb will compared to when it was indicated by the relatively less salient past -ed morpheme. These findings were taken to indicate that the influence of perceptual salience extends beyond the acquisition of and sensitivity to grammatical morphemes during L1 and L2 development. Rather, the perceptual salience of these forms also appears to affect online structural processing during adult L1 sentence comprehension.

Key words Bidirectional self-paced reading;  grammatical morphemes;  low-attachment bias;  perceptual salience;  temporary ambiguity;  time reference

The interplay between syntactic and morphological comprehension in heritage contexts: The case of relative clauses in heritage Syrian Arabic

Evangelia Daskalaki, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E7, Canada

Adriana Soto-Corominas, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Aisha Barisé, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Johanne Paradis, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E7, Canada

Xi Chen, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Alexandra Gottardo, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada

Abstract Previous studies show that even though monolingual children find subject relatives easier than object relatives, their comprehension of object relatives can be facilitated by morphological cues. Given that in heritage contexts functional morphology is a vulnerable domain, a question that needs to be addressed is whether bilingual children, who are heritage speakers of their L1, will also be able to use morphological cues to comprehend complex syntax. To contribute to this line of research, we focused on monolingual (N = 18; Mean Age: 11.43) and bilingual/first generation (N = 108; Mean Age: 11.98), Syrian Arabic-speaking children in Canada, and examined their ability to use gender morphology in their comprehension of relative clauses, while taking into consideration cognitive, environmental, and age-related variables. To this end, we used two offline sentence-picture matching tasks targeting relative clauses and gender (as encoded in SV agreement and object clitics). Results showed that, like monolingual children, first-generation, Arabic-speaking children living in Canada used morphological cues to comprehend complex syntax in their L1. Furthermore, even though there was an association between comprehension of gender agreement and comprehension of relative clauses, performance in gender agreement was higher than performance in relative clauses, suggesting that challenges with complex syntactic structures are not necessarily an epiphenomenon of a morphological deficit.

Key words attrition;  gender agreement;  heritage language acquisition;  morphological cues;  Syrian Arabic relative clauses

Flattening the curve: COVID-19 induced a decrease in arousal for positive and an increase in arousal for negative words

Milica Popović Stijačić, Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia

Ksenija Mišić, Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

Dušica Filipović Đurđević, Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia; Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

Abstract In this study, we compared affective ratings of emotional valence and arousal for 882 Serbian words at three points in time: before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (2018), during the COVID-19 lockdown (2020), and after the government measures were abandoned (2022). We did not observe a significant change in average valence or arousal ratings across time points. A more detailed look into the data revealed the change in arousal that was different across the valence values. An increase in their linear correlations and a decrease in the nonlinearity of the GAMM smooth demonstrated that, upon the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, emotionally negative words elicited higher arousal ratings, whereas emotionally positive words elicited lower arousal ratings. It revealed that our participants became more sensitive to the negative content and less sensitive to the positive content. Our results add to the findings, which showed that the relationship between emotional valence and arousal is a function of contextual factors, which primarily influence the arousal of words.

Key words arousal;  COVID-19;  emotional valence;  lexical norms;  words

Contrasting the semantic typology biases of Deaf and hearing nonsigners in their conceptualization of time and space

María Noel Macedo, Centro de Investigación Básica en Psicología, Montevideo, Uruguay

Matías Yerro, Jorge Vivas, Instituto de Psicología Básica, Aplicada y Tecnología (IPSIBAT CONICET-UNMDP), Argentina

Mauricio Castillo, Centro de Investigación Básica en Psicología, Montevideo, Uruguay

Maximiliano Meliande, Adriana de León, Alejandro Fojo, Carrera de Tecnólogo en Traducción e Interpretación LSU-Español, Montevideo, Uruguay

Roberto Aguirre, Centro de Investigación Básica en Psicología, Montevideo, Uruguay

Abstract The mental lexicon offers a window into the configuration of conceptual domains such as space and time, which has been labeled as concrete the former and abstract the latter in the current embodiment approach to cognition. Space has a phonological and semantic value in sign languages, but not in spoken languages. Additionally, the representation of time by spatial means is robust in oral and sign languages. This research asks if Deaf signers and hearing nonsigners have the same conceptual organization of those domains. In their respective languages, sixty-two participants made a repeated free word association task. These results showed that the studied populations have a little overlap in the associates evocated for each clue. The analysis of the preferences of the semantic relations of the pairs clue-associate showed a greater tendency of the Deaf signers to establish thematic relations. In contrast, the hearing participants indicated a bias toward taxonomic relations. The results suggest that the abstractness or concreteness of concepts may be modulated by factors associated with linguistic modalities. However, in this compared free association norms factors related to the language deprivation of Deaf, the asymmetries in the cross-modal language contact and cross-modal borrowing were not exhaustively controlled.

Key words iconicity;  language modality;  semantic memory;  semantic typology;  space;  time

Statistical learning of phonotactics by children can be affected by another statistical learning task

Peter T. Richtsmeier, Lisa Goffman, Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

Abstract Children typically produce high-frequency phonotactic sequences, such as the /st/ in “toaster,” more accurately than the lower frequency /mk/ in “tomcat.” This high-frequency advantage can be simulated experimentally with a statistical learning paradigm, and when 4-year-old children are familiarized with many examples of a sequence like /mk/, they generally produce it more accurately than if they are exposed to just a few examples. Here, we sought to expand our understanding of the high-frequency advantage, but surprisingly, we instead uncovered an exception. Twenty-nine children between 4 and 5 years of age completed a phonotactic statistical learning experiment, but they also completed a separate experiment focused on statistical learning of prosodic contours.The order of the experiments was randomized, with the phonotactic statistical learning experiment occurring first for half of the children. For the children who completed the phonotactic learning experiment first, the results were consistent with previous research and a high-frequency advantage.However, children who completed the phonotactic learning experiment second produced low-frequency sequences more accurately than high-frequency sequences. There is little precedent for the latter effect, but studies of multistream statistical learning may provide some context for unpacking and extending the result.

Key words child speech development;  experiment interaction;  phonology;  phonotactics;  statistical learning

Quantifying the uniqueness and efficiency of the MLAT relative to L1 attainment as a predictor of L2 achievement: A conceptual replication

Richard L. Sparks, Education Department, Mt. St. Joseph University, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Philip S. Dale, Speech & Hearing Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA

Abstract In this conceptual replication of Sparks and Dale ([2023]. The prediction from MLAT to L2 achievement is largely due to MLAT asessment of underlying L1 abilities. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1–25) utilizing a dataset previously reported by Sparks et al. ([2009]. Long-term relationships among early L1 skills, L2 aptitude, L2 affect, and later L2 proficiency. Applied Psycholinguistics, 30, 725–755.), L1 achievement scores over 1st–5th grades and L2 aptitude scores from the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) in 9th grade were examined as predictors of L2 achievement for U.S. secondary students completing L2 courses in 9th and 10th grades. The study’s focus was on the uniqueness and efficiency of MLAT with respect to measuring L1 achievement in predicting L2 achievement. All L1 measures and MLAT predicted L2 literacy and language, and L1 measures predicted MLAT scores. Word decoding was the strongest overall L1 predictor, though there was variation across the L2 measures. The unique contribution of MLAT was modest, as the majority of total prediction (77–86%) was due to L1 measures. The efficiency of MLAT in capturing predictive variance from L1 abilities was moderately high (median ∼73%) but variable across the L1 and L2 measures. Findings are generally consistent with those of Sparks and Dale (2023) showing that prediction from MLAT to L2 is largely due to MLAT’s assessment of L1 abilities, even though a substantial amount of L2 prediction-relevant L1 variance is missed by MLAT.

Key words L2 aptitude;  Modern Language Aptitude Test;  L1 achievement;  mediation analysis

What a thousand children tell us about grammatical complexity and working memory: A cross-sectional analysis on the comprehension of clitics and passives in Italian

Vincenzo Moscati, Dipartimento di Science Sociali, Politiche e Cognitive, University of Siena, Siena, Italy

Andrea Marini, Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature, Comunicazione, Formazione e Società, University of Udine, Udine, Italy

Nicoletta Biondo, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language (BCBL), Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain; Department of Psychology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

Abstract Data from 996 Italian-speaking children were collected and analyzed to assess whether a movement-based notion of grammatical complexity is adequate to capture the developmental trend of clitics and passives in Italian. A second goal of the study was to address the relationship between working memory and syntactic development, exploring the hypothesis that higher digit span values predict better comprehension of complex matrix sentences. The results confirm the validity of a ranking of grammatical structures based on constituent movement, with both clitics and passives developing in parallel and later than canonical SVO sentences. Working memory also shows an effect on sentence comprehension in general, but standard measures (digit span forward/backward) do not show a selective advantage in handling complex constructions such as clitics and passives.

Key words Working memory;  grammatical development;  sentence comprehension;  syntactic movement

期刊简介

Applied Psycholinguistics publishes research into language with relevance to real-world issues. The journal is keen to help make connections between scholarly discourses, theories, and research methods from a broad range of linguistic and other relevant areas of study. The journal welcomes contributions which critically reflect on current, cutting edge theory and practice in applied linguistics.

《应用心理语言学》出版与现实世界问题相关的语言研究。该杂志热衷于从广泛的语言学及其相关领域的研究视角来帮助建立学术话语、理论和研究方法之间的联系。本杂志欢迎那些批判性地反映当前应用语言学前沿理论和实践的文章。

The journal’s Forum section is intended to stimulate debate between authors and the wider community of applied linguists and to afford a quicker turnaround time for short pieces. Forum pieces are typically a commentary on research issues or professional practices or responses to a published article. Forum pieces are required to exhibit originality, timeliness and a contribution to, or stimulation of, a current debate. The journal also contains a Reviews section.

本杂志的论坛板块旨在激发作者和更广泛的应用语言学家社团之间的争鸣，并为短篇文章提供更快的周转时间。论坛文章通常是对研究问题或专业实践的评论或对已发表文章的回应。论坛作品需要展示原创性、及时性以及对当前辩论的贡献或刺激。该杂志还包含书评板块。

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