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The Complex Adaptive Systems Principles (CASP) model of SLA claims that L1 transfer results when language processing effort is minimized. This claim was investigated by a self-paced on-line sentence judgment task in which L1 Arabic and Korean speakers and a control group of L1 English speakers read and judged English subject, direct object, and oblique relative clauses (RCs) in gapped and resumptive pronoun (RP) conditions. It was hypothesized that L1 influence would cause the Arabic speakers to accept English RCs with RPs more frequently than Korean speakers because RPs are acceptable in Arabic direct object and oblique RCs, whereas Korean bans RPs in these RC types. It was also hypothesized that the L2 English speakers would accept RPs more often than the L1 English speakers because RPs would ease L2 sentence processing. As predicted, L1 Arabic speakers accepted RPs more frequently than L1 Korean speakers, a transfer effect, and both L2 English groups accepted RPs more frequently than L1 English speakers, a processing effect. The results thus support the CASP model's claim that L1 transfer is conditioned by language processing and other complex SLA processes that interact with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, children need to become proficient in both their home language (L1) and an international language, such as English (L2). Governments face tradeoffs in how to prioritize these two objectives. We provide empirical evidence on cross-linguistic transfer between L1 and L2, using the results of two randomized evaluations of Structured Pedagogy Programs implemented in South Africa. The programs had the same design, implementing organization, and duration. The key difference is that one program targeted the teaching of reading in L1, while the other targeted L2. We find that both interventions had positive effects on the languages they targeted. The L1 intervention also had a positive effect on L2 reading proficiency. In contrast, the L2 intervention had a negative effect on L1 outcomes, for the lower-performing students. These results are consistent with the Simple View of Reading and suggest that decoding skills are best learned in L1. It is thus cost-effective to prioritize learning to read in L1, as well as supporting teachers in this subject, even if becoming proficient in L2 is also regarded as an important policy objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influence of learners' first language (L1) on English language acquisition, focusing on phonology, syntax, and lexicon across five L1 groups: Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, and Hindi. Using a quantitative research design, data were collected from 200 participants through questionnaires, proficiency tests, and pronunciation assessments. The results reveal that L1 interference significantly affects English proficiency, particularly in phonology, with Arabic and Mandarin speakers showing the strongest negative correlations. Hindi and Spanish speakers demonstrated higher proficiency, with fewer syntax and lexical errors, while Japanese learners struggled primarily with phonological challenges. Regression analysis confirmed that phonology had the strongest impact on English proficiency, followed by syntax and lexicon. The study highlights the need for tailored instructional strategies to address L1-specific challenges in language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: Connectors are vital tools for cohesive discourse, significantly influencing the writing proficiency of learners. In Chinese educational contexts, many learners grapple with the correct application of connectors, due to potential first language (L1) influence. Previous research primarily delves into lexical and syntactic aspects, overlooking discourse-level considerations. This study aims to assess the frequency and accuracy of connector usage in English narratives among Chinese learners. It also seeks to investigate the extent of language transfer concerning connectors among Chinese learners and discern how this transfer evolves as learners' second language (L2) proficiency advances. Methodology: To amass data, 150 narratives composed by 30 Chinese learners were analyzed. Initial qualitative analysis was followed by quantitative examination. Findings: The findings underscore temporal words as the most frequently employed connectors, closely trailed by additives and causal words. Notably, temporal words and adversatives exhibited higher accuracy when compared to other connector types. Positive transfer manifested more frequently than negative transfer. Moreover, positive transfer displayed a noticeable inflectional change across the five time narratives, whereas little variation was observed in negative transfer. Contributions: This study suggests that stakeholders, including educators, learners, and policymakers, should leverage positive transfer as a strategic resource when instructing connectors to enhance L2 writing proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Plural marking differs across languages. Some must mark plurality using an overt morpheme (e.g. English, Russian), while others mark it optionally (e.g. Korean) or lack an explicit plural morpheme (e.g. Chinese). This crosslinguistic difference in plural marking has received much attention in research exploring language transfer in the context of L2 acquisition, but little in the context of L3 acquisition. This study tests the effects of L1 and L2 knowledge on L3 acquisition with two groups of multilingual children (n = 68; 11–13 years old) with different L1s (Chinese or Russian) but the same L2 (Korean) and L3 (English). We also investigated whether L2 proficiency modulates influence of the previously learned language in L3 acquisition. The participants completed a timed acceptability judgment designed to investigate their knowledge of English plural marking. Results showed that the L1-Russian children were better able to distinguish between felicitous and infelicitous plural marking than the L1-Chinese children. In addition, the L1-Chinese children showed poorer performance as their L2 proficiency increased. The study discusses these results in light of theoretical approaches to L3 acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the "multi-competence" of the inter-state migrant students of India who deal with four languages at the same time will be explored. The typological distance and the possible language transfer between Bangla, English, Hindi, and Telugu in terms of segmental and supra-segmental features will be tried to examine. According to the New Education Policy 2020, three-language formula has been adopted in schools of India. Generally, most of the states have taken English, Hindi and the regional language of the respective states to implement the three-language formula in schools. But people who move from one state to another learn their L4 as the third language in schools. For example, when one socioeconomically privileged Bengali moves to Telangana whose mother tongue is Bangla, he/she learns English as L1, Hindi as L2 and Telugu as L3. Here in this paper, along with English and Hindi, Bangla and Telugu have been chosen for this study as the mother tongue of the author is Bangla and the author is a resident of Telangana. This study is relevant for all the inter-state migrant students whose mother tongue is not Hindi or English. These students learn three languages in a formal set up in school in addition to their mother tongue. To learn a language, we need to acquire multiple subsystems of that language, for example, its phonology, vocabulary, writing system, grammar etc. In this study, the phonological differences of Bangla, English, Hindi, and Telugu will be discussed to understand the varied knowledge of the Indian inter-state migrant students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language transfer or crosslinguistic influence (CLI), referring to the influence of an L1 on the learning of an L2, is a significant aspect of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Much work in this area is data-driven, and consequently, large L2 corpora have been constructed for use in CLI analyses. The field of Natural Language Processing, and in particular the specific task of Grammatical Error Correction (GEC), also has corpora that can be of use in these kinds of analyses. In this paper, we take the FCE corpus, a popular dataset of English as a Second Language (ESL) learner texts used for Grammatical Error Correction model training, and use it to analyse the relationship between the distributions of errors and the first languages of the ESL learners. We carry out a detailed analysis of three error types, and demonstrate that the errors made by ESL learners have a statistically significant relationship with linguistic characteristics of their first languages, suggesting the existence of both positive and negative transfer. The analysis aligns with results from the SLA literature, and validates the use of GEC corpora for use in CLI analysis.

Extensive evidence indicates that early vocabulary skills predict later reading development among monolingually developing children. Some evidence suggests that a relationship between vocabulary and later reading also holds across languages among children whose home language differs from the school language. However, these findings have been mixed and it remains unclear if, and under what circumstances, vocabulary in one language supports reading comprehension development in another. The present study followed 84 Spanish-English bilingual children, assessing their vocabulary skills at 5 years and their reading comprehension at 6, 7, 8, and 9 years. Longitudinal multilevel models revealed significant within-language relations between early vocabulary knowledge and subsequent reading comprehension in both English and Spanish and no across-language relations. There were significant concurrent across-language relations between English and Spanish reading comprehension skills. These findings suggest that the contribution of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension is language specific but that there are also language general components to reading comprehension, which result in significant concurrent relations between reading comprehension skill across languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we demonstrate the use of Visible Vowels to detect formant and durational differences between L2 and L1 speakers. We used a dataset that contains vowel measures from L1 speakers of French and from L2 learners of French, with Italian, Spanish and English as L1. We found that vowels that are not part of the L1 phonological system are often pronounced differently by L2 speakers. Inspired by the Native Language Magnet Theory which was introduced by Patricia Kuhl in 2000, we introduced magnet plots that relate vowels shared by the French phonological system and the learners' phonological system—the magnet vowels—to the vowels found only in the French phonological system. At a glance, it can be seen which vowels are attracted to the magnets and which vowels become further away from the magnets. When comparing vowel spaces, we found that the shape of the French vowel space of the English learners differed most from the shape of L1 speakers' vowel space. Finally, it was found that the vowel durations of the L2 speakers are greater than that of the L1 speakers of French, especially those of the English learners of French. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our Western and industrialized society, there is an increasing number of plurilingual individuals who know at least two distinct languages. Recent attention has been focused on bilingual children and how they learn to speak. A current research question that this work aims to answer is: How can we rehabilitate the language abilities of bilingual children who experience language difficulties? To address this question, this document begins with the need to analyze the texts and contents of national and international guidelines drafted by competent institutions, which are considered as the compass guiding the actions of health professionals who rehabilitate communicative and linguistic skills, namely speech and language therapists. Subsequently, a non-systematic review of the literature related to this research axis was conducted, starting from the assumption that the analysis of the available scientific evidence is needed to support and promote evidence-based clinical speech and language therapy practice. The tools, evidence, and theoretical and practical strategies available to speech therapists to increase the chances of effectively achieving rehabilitative goals were discussed. Finally, considering the state of the art and the absence of scientifically evaluated evidence in the rehabilitative care of bilingual children with language difficulties, a proposal for experimental projects was launched to the scientific community, aiming to begin building the foundations of rehabilitative proposals based on scientific evidence for the Italian speech and language therapy intervention for bilingual Italian-speaking children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Spanish phonological awareness and concepts about print predict English decoding. • Spanish phonological awareness and English vocabulary predict reading comprehension. • Phonological awareness is a language-general skill that supports reading. • Vocabulary knowledge has a language-specific benefit to reading comprehension. • In bilinguals, the reading gap associated with early oral skills narrows over time. Despite substantial research, the contribution of oral language skills acquired in Spanish to Spanish–English bilingual children's acquisition of English reading skill is unclear. The current study addressed this question with data on the oral language and pre-literacy skills of 101 Spanish–English bilingual learners at 5 years of age and their English word reading (i.e., decoding) and reading comprehension skills at 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 years. Separate multilevel models using English language, Spanish language, and pre-literacy skills as predictors of these outcomes identified English phonological awareness, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts of print knowledge as positive predictors of word reading. A final model including all these significant predictors found only Spanish phonological awareness and concept of print to be significant predictors. Significant predictors of reading comprehension in separate models were English vocabulary, Spanish phonological awareness, and concepts about print. In the final model, only English vocabulary and Spanish phonological awareness predicted English reading comprehension. These findings provide evidence that phonological awareness is a language-general skill that supports reading across languages, consistent with the common underlying proficiency model of bilingual reading development. The finding that only English vocabulary predicts English reading comprehension suggests that vocabulary knowledge is not part of a common underlying proficiency but is language specific in its value to reading ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]