Reading text when studying in a second language : an eye‐tracking study

The authors investigated how eye movements are influenced by different reading goals in participants' first (L1) and second language (L2). Participants read or studied the contents of texts while their eye movements were recorded. One group was asked to read L1 and L2 texts as they would read any expository text (informational reading). Another group was asked to study L1 and L2 texts for subsequent tests involving true/false questions (study condition). After reading, all participants, including those in the informational reading condition, completed the true/false tests without being able to further consult the texts, which allowed the authors to investigate the extent to which reading goal and text language affect recognition memory for texts. In general, more reading time was spent on studying than on informational reading, which also resulted in higher test scores in the study condition. The L2-processing cost was larger in the study condition than in the informational reading condition: Participants needed approximately 20% more time to study L2 texts. The results of various eye movement measures suggest that this is caused by slower word recognition processes and a smaller amount of information that can be processed simultaneously in L2. This was true not only for the first reading of the text but also for the rereadings in the study condition. Interestingly, the additional time for L2 studying seemed to compensate for the less efficient processing, as the recognition test scores were the same in L2 as in L1

Information retrieval in tip of the tongue states: New data and methodological advances

Research on Tip of the Tongue (ToT) states has been used to determine whether access to syntactic information precedes access to phonological information. This paper argues that previous studies have used insufficient analyses when investigating the nature of seriality of access. In the first part of this paper, these complex issues are discussed and suitable analyses proposed. In the second part, new experimental data are presented. In Experiment 1, English speakers were asked to give information about mass/count status and initial phoneme of nouns, when in a ToT state. In Experiment 2, German speakers were asked to report grammatical gender and initial phoneme of nouns, when in a ToT state. Evidence that syntactic and phonological information are accessed independently was obtained for both languages. Implications for models of language production and further methodological issues in ToT research are discussed. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

The word frequency effect in first- and second-language word recognition: A lexical entrenchment account

Contains fulltext : 116743.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)We investigate the origin of differences in the word frequency effect between native speakers and second-language speakers. In a large-scale analysis of English word identification times we find that group-level differences are fully accounted for by the individual language proficiency scores. Furthermore, exactly the same quantitative relation between word frequency and proficiency is found for monolinguals and three different bilingual populations (Dutch–English, French–English, and German–English). We conclude that the larger frequency effects for second-language processing than for native-language processing can be explained by within-language characteristics and thus need not be the consequence of “being bilingual” (i.e., a qualitative difference). More specifically, we argue that language proficiency increases lexical entrenchment, which leads to a reduced frequency effect, irrespective of bilingualism, language dominance, and language similarity