The present study examined the proposal that the presence of a similar morpheme in the learner's first and second languages (L2) facilitates morphological development in the L2. Advanced Russian and Japanese speakers of English as a second language performed a self-paced reading task in which they read English sentences word by word for comprehension. Russian participants showed a reliable sensitivity to plural errors, but Japanese participants did not. The findings supported the morphological congruency hypothesis. A theoretical proposal is put forward to explain how morphological congruency affects L2 morpheme acquisition. The findings and the proposal are relevant to the discussion of the critical period hypothesis, ultimate attainment in L2, and the characterization of L2 competence of steady-state adult L2 learners.The acquisition of grammatical morphemes by second-language (L2) learners has received a great deal of attention in SLA research, both as a research topic in its own right and as a means to investigate other SLA issues such as the aspectThe results of the study were presented at

International audienceSecond language (L2) learners must often learn to perceive and produce novel L2 phoneme contrasts. Although both research and intuition suggest that these difficulties can be overcome to some extent with exposure to the L2, it is not known what consequences this kind of learning has for the phonological structure of the L2 lexicon. We present an experiment designed to investigate the lexical representations that learners establish for L2 words that contain novel phonemic contrasts. Specifically, we consider the acquisition of Japanese consonant length contrasts by native speakers of English: Japanese contrasts consonants such as /k/ and /kk/ while English does not. The results indicate that native English speakers do not initially encode consonant length consistently in their lexical representations of Japanese words, as reflected in both listening and production tasks. However, after one year of Japanese experience, the phonological structure of their Japanese lexicon more closely approximates that of native Japanese speakers. We conclude that significant changes to the structure of the L2 lexicon can occur even within the first year of L2 learning

This study examines the development of interactional competence (Hall, 1993(Hall, , 1995 by English-speaking learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) in a study abroad setting, as indexed by their use of the interactionally significant particle "ne." The analysis is based on a comparison of (a) 6 sets of conversations between JFL learners and native Japanese peers during the first week of the study abroad program, and (b) 6 sets of conversations between the same pairs of speakers during the fifth week of the program. Although there is great variability in efficiency of interactional competence acquisition among JFL cohorts, JFL learners on the whole seem to have enhanced their interactional competence by using more "ne" alignments. This study supports the argument that a study abroad program provides a valuable developmental experience that can accelerate JFL learners' acquisition of interactional competence.IN GENERAL, THE STUDY OF INTERACtional competence development in Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) is still in its infancy. Recent classroom research has shown that JFL learners indeed develop interactional competence over time when engaged in teacher-student interactions, especially through acknowledgment and alignment practice with the particle ne. In Ohta's (1999, 2001a, 2001b) studies, first-year JFL learners developed interactional competence through interactions with their instructors as well as peers in the classroom.Other recent studies examine this issue in study abroad settings. Ishida's (2009) longitudinal study, for instance, documents that an American student in Japan improved when making alignments with the particle ne in a wider range of sequential contexts. 1 Alignments with ne seemed

Upon reviewing the data from a previous study (Masuda and Labarca forthcoming) on the effects of using a Cognitive Linguistics (CL) explanation and schematic diagrams to teach Japanese polysemous particles to college students, a tendency to longer-term retention was detected. In this chapter, we analyze student languaging (Swain et al. 2009) in audio-recorded protocols made while higher and lower pairs worked on activities. The relationship between pair level and type of languaging was found to be significant (p = <.05). Qualitative analyses indicate that there is a relationship between languaging quality and the pairs' ability to correctly identify and use particle functions. Progress, as measured in contextualized fill-in-the-blank exercises as well as in story writing, seems to be facilitated by higher-level languaging, e.g., proposing theory about particles used. Moreover, schematic diagrams seem to better support understanding of difficult grammatical concepts as well.

This introductory chapter presents a concise overview of two theories (Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar), and an explanation of some central concepts relevant to the other chapters including categorization, usagebased model, figure and ground, schema, prototypes, metaphor and metonymy 1 as well as insights into the role of Cognitive Linguistics (CL) in foreign and second language (L2) instruction. We then give a brief historical account of Sociocultural Theory (SCT) development and its fundamental principles within Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Core Vygotskian notions such as language envisioned as a mediational tool, internalization, zone of proximal development, verbal consciousness and L2 conceptual development are reviewed as well. We also discuss other related notions derived from Vygotskian theory such as languaging (Swain 2006). Furthermore, Chapter 1 explains why new assimilative development in both CL and SCT is advantageous for informing foreign or L2 language classroom practices.