Volume 49, Issue 3

Using a self-paced reading task, the present study explores how Dutch-English L2 speakers parse English wh -subject-extractions and wh -object-extractions. Results suggest that English native speakers and highly-proficient Dutch–English L2 speakers do not always exhibit measurable signs of on-line reanalysis when reading subject-versus object-extractions in English. However, less-proficient Dutch-English L2 speakers exhibit greater processing costs on subject-extractions relative to object-extractions, similar to previously reported findings (e.g., Dussias and Piñar, Second Language Research 26: 443–472, 2010; Juffs, Second Language Research 21: 121–151, 2005; Juffs and Harrington, Studies in Second Language Acquisition 17: 482–516, 1995). These findings are discussed in light of relevant research surrounding on-line processing among L2 speakers and their ability to adopt native-like processing patterns in the L2.

This study investigates Swedish learners' lexical richness in French and Italian L2. A frequency-based measure was used to compare the lexical richness of learners at different proficiency levels to that of native speakers. Frequency bands based on oral L1 data were created for both languages to serve as a benchmark. For French, the results show that there are differences between two groups of learners at different proficiency levels concerning lexical richness. Moreover, the most advanced learners have a lexical profile that is similar to that of a control group of native speakers, suggesting that these learners are native-like as far as lexical richness is concerned. The results for Italian also point at differences between the learner groups. However, the most advanced group does not reach the degree of lexical richness of the native speakers. The overall results support earlier proposals of a discriminating capacity of lexical frequency profiling methods for L2 proficiency.

A robust finding from studies investigating the Aspect Hypothesis is that learners at the early stages of acquisition show a strong preference for using the progressive aspect as associated with activity verbs. As they advance in their acquisition of the second or foreign language, learners move from this prototypical association to associations traditionally considered to be more peripheral (e.g., -ing with accomplishments or achievements).Within this framework, the goal of this paper is to provide further evidence from groups of learners with different proficiency levels with regard to the acquisition of progressive aspect by tutored learners of English who are bilingual Catalan-Spanish. This is done by eliciting data by means of two different task types and by looking at both tokens and types. Our results are consistent with previous research according to which -ing morphology is closely associated with durative lexical aspect, although not necessarily with activity predicates. The study also shows that the type of task has an influence on the frequency and the distribution of learners' progressive forms.