This thesis is the pilot study of an ongoing investigation of the organization of the mental lexicon in children with specific language impairment and children who stutter (CWS). The current study analyzes the performance of 8 CWS, ages 4; 11 – 10; 1 and their typically developing age matches (CWNS) on a list recall task adapted from Roediger and McDermott (1995). Talker groups were matched for maternal education level, male to female ratio, and standardized measures of nonverbal intelligence, expressive vocabulary, digit memory, and narrative comprehension and production. Similar to previous reports, the CWS performed significantly lower on a measure of receptive vocabulary and a measure of phonological memory than the CWNS. For both talker groups, there was a positive correlation between age and percentage of correctly recalled words on the list recall task. Older CWNS produced more semantic intrusions than younger CWNS; however the same trend was not demonstrated in CWS. False recall of semantically-related, phonologically-related, and unrelated words was not significantly different between talker groups. These findings provide preliminary evidence of differences between talker groups on a list recall task. The inclusion of a greater number of participants may provide stronger support for the hypothesis that lexical-semantic organization is less efficient in CWS. / text

The purpose of this research was to study grammatical categories in the Tagalog mental lexicon using lexical decision tasks. Some linguists question whether words in Tagalog can be classified as nouns and verbs (Foley, 1998; Kaufman, 2011) because most root words can be inflected for any grammatical function and because verbs cannot be used in their uninflected form. Previous studies with English and German (Kauschke and Stenneken 2008) have shown that participants respond differently to nouns and verbs in lexical decision tasks. These studies have also shown that participants respond differently to transitive and intransitive verbs in lexical decision tasks. It was assumed that if nouns and verbs exist in Tagalog, response times to Tagalog lexical decision tasks will show similar patterns to those performed in English and German. Two experiments were performed to examine whether words are classified as nouns and verbs in the Tagalog mental lexicon and whether other factors affected that classification. For the experiments, native speakers of Tagalog participated in lexical decision tasks and response times were measured. The first experiment tested the classification of root nouns and verbs. Contrary to findings in other languages, there was no significant difference between response times to nouns and verbs. However, there were differences in response times to nouns from different semantic categories and to verbs with different morphosyntactic structures. The second experiment examined the classification of inflected nouns and verbs. Again, the results showed no difference between response times to nouns and verbs. There was also no difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. However, there was a slight difference between verbs of different voice inflections. The results of the experiments suggest the while the grammatical classes of nouns and verbs may not be the most important features of words in the Tagalog mental lexicon, they may still play a role since different features, semantics or morphosyntactics, did affect the responses to words from the different categories.

This study analyses the textbook Veckans ord 5 by Britta Redin and Görel Hydén (2003), which is used as a teaching aid in Swedish as a second language. The aim is to examine the theories of vocabulary learning and the learning strategies revealed in the content and design of the textbook and thereby examine its functionality for Swedish L2 pupils. We use content analysis as a method and apply it to selected chapters in the book connected to vocabulary learning and how pupils are expected to consolidate the words they learn. The analysis also considers whether the exercises deal with the form of words (morphology, orthography, phonology) or their content (syntax, lexical field, synonyms, hyponyms, antonyms).   The result shows that the arrangement of the textbook agrees with some common theories and vocabulary learning strategies such as repeating words, linking them to synonyms and learning words through pictures. Another finding is that the exercises highlight the form of words more than their content and meaning.

Decades of research have shed light on the nature of reading in our first language. There is substantial research about how we recognize words, the ways in which we process sentences, and the linguistic and non-linguistic factors which may affect those processes (e.g. Besner & Humphreys, 2009). This has led to more effective pedagogical techniques and methodologies in the teaching of L1 reading (Kamil et al., 2011). With the ever-increasing number of L2 English speakers in U.S. schools and universities, research in more recent has begun to investigate reading in L2. However, this field of inquiry is not nearly as robust as that of L1 reading. Much remains to be explored in terms of how L2 readers process words, sentences, and comprehend what they read (Grabe, 2012). The studies in this dissertation add to the growing body of literature detailing the processes of L2 reading and improvement in L2 reading skills. The first two studies will focus on a topic that has sparked lively discussion in the field over the last 10 years or so: the online processing of L2 morphologically complex words in visual word recognition. Article 3 discusses the effects of a pedagogical intervention and the ways in which it may influence the development of second language reading. Broadly, the studies in this dissertation will address the following research questions: (1) how do L2 readers process morphologically complex words? (2) Is there a connection between their knowledge of written morphology and their ability to use it during word recognition? (3) What is the role of L2 proficiency in these processes? (4) How does extensive reading influence the development of L2 reading skills? Many studies of L2 word processing have been conducted using offline methods. Accordingly, the studies in this dissertation seek to supplement what we know about L2 morphological processing and reading skills with the use of psycholinguistic tasks, namely, traditional masked priming, masked intervenor priming, and timed reading. Secondly, this collection of studies is among the few to explore the relationship between online processing and offline morphological awareness, thereby bridging the two fields of study. Thirdly, unlike most studies of online processing, the data from this dissertation will be discussed in terms of its implications for the teaching of L2 morphologically complex words and L2 reading skills. Thus, this dissertation may be of interest to those working in L2 psycholinguistics of word recognition and sentence processing as well as ESL practitioners.

In Chinese orthography, phonetic compounds comprise about 80% of the most frequent characters. They contain separate phonological and semantic elements, referred to as phonetic and semantic radicals respectively. A dominant type exists in which the se-mantic radical appears on the left and the phonetic radical on the right (SP characters); an opposite, minority structure also exists in which the semantic radical appears on the right and the phonetic radical on the left (PS characters). Through statistical analyses, connectionist modelling, behavioural experiments, and neuroimaging studies, this dis-sertation demonstrates that the distinct structures of these two types of characters allow us crucial insights into the relationship between brain structure and reading processes. The statistical analyses of a Chinese lexical database show that, because of the different information profiles of SP and PS characters and the imbalanced distribution between them in the lexicon, the overall information is skewed to the right. This information skew provides important opportunities to examine the interaction between foveal split-ting and the information structure of the characters. The foveal splitting hypothesis as-sumes a vertical meridian split in the foveal representation and the consequent contra-lateral projection to the two cerebral hemispheres; it has been shown to have important implications for visual word recognition. The square shape and the condensed structure of Chinese characters make them a severe test case for the split fovea claim. Through a lateralized cueing examination and a TMS study of the semantic radical combinability effect with foveally presented characters in character semantic judgements, a flexible division of labour between the hemispheres in character recognition is demonstrated, with each hemisphere responding optimally to the information in the contralateral visual hemifield. The interaction between stimulation site and radical combinability in the TMS study also provides further support for the split fovea claim, suggesting functional foveal splitting as a universal processing constraint in reading. Even if foveal splitting is true, it is still unclear about how far the effects of foveal split-ting can extend from the retina into the process of character recognition. We show that, in naming isolated, foveally presented SP and PS characters, adult male and female readers process them differently, with opposite patterns of ease and difficulty: males responded significantly faster to SP than PS characters; females showed a non-significant tendency in the opposite direction. This result is also supported by a corre-sponding ERP study showing larger N350 amplitude elicited by PS character than SP characters in the male brain, and an opposite pattern in the female brain. The split fovea claim suggests that the two halves of a centrally fixated character are initially processed in different hemispheres. The male brain typically relies more on the left hemisphere for phonological processing compared with the female brain, causing this gender difference to emerge. This interaction is also predicted by an implemented computational model, contrasting a split cognitive architecture, in which the mapping between orthography to phonology is mediated by two partially encapsulated, interconnected processing do-mains, and a non-split cognitive architecture, in which the mapping is mediated by a single, undifferentiated processing domain. Thus, the effects of foveal splitting in read-ing extend far enough to interact with the gender of the reader in a naturalistic reading task. In short, this dissertation demonstrates that foveal splitting is a universal language proc-essing phenomenon, precise enough to project the two radicals of a centrally-fixated Chinese character to different hemispheres to allow a flexible division of labour be-tween the two hemispheres to emerge, and its effects in reading extend far enough into word recognition to interact with the gender of the reader in a naturalistic reading task. The results can also be extrapolated to Chinese word and sentence processing as well as to other languages. This dissertation thus has contributed to a better understanding of the relationship between brain structure and language processes.

Desde a segunda metade do último século, as teorias cognitivas têm trazido algumas visões interessantes em relação ao aprendizado de linguagem. A aplicação destas teorias em modelos computacionais tem duplo benefício: por um lado, implementações computacionais podem ser usaas como uma forma de validação destas teorias; por outro lado, modelos computacionais podem alcançar uma performance melhorada a partir da adoção de estratégias de aprendizado cognitivamente plausíveis. Estruturas sintáticas são ditas fornecer uma pista importante para a aquisição do significado de verbos. Ainda, para um subconjunto particular de verbos muito frequentes e gerais - os assim-chamados light verbs - há uma forte ligação entre as estruturas sintáticas nas quais eles aparecem e seus significados. Neste trabalho, empregamos um modelo computacional para investigar estas propostas, em particular, considerando a tarefa de aquisição como um mapeamento entre um verbo desconhecido e referentes prototípicos para eventos verbais, com base na estrutura sintática na qual o verbo aparece. Os experimentos conduzidos ressaltaram alguns requerimentos para um aprendizado bem-sucedido, em termos de níveis de informação disponível para o aprendiz e da estratégia de aprendizado adotada. / Cognitive theories have been, since the second half of the last century, bringing some interesting views about language learning. The application of these theories on computational models has double benefits: in the one hand, computational implementations can be used as a form of validation of these theories; on the other hand, computational models can earn an improved performance from adopting some cognitively plausible learning strategies. Syntactic structures are said to provide an important cue for the acquisition of verb meaning. Yet, for a particular subset of very frequent and general verbs – the so-called light verbs – there is a strong link between the syntactic structures in which they appear and their meanings. In this work, we used a computational model, to further investigate these proposals, in particular looking at the acquisition task as a mapping between an unknown verb and prototypical referents for verbal events, on the basis of the syntactic structure in which the verb appears. The experiments conducted have highlighted some requirements for a successful learning, both in terms of the levels of information available to the learner and the learning strategies adopted.

Desde a segunda metade do último século, as teorias cognitivas têm trazido algumas visões interessantes em relação ao aprendizado de linguagem. A aplicação destas teorias em modelos computacionais tem duplo benefício: por um lado, implementações computacionais podem ser usaas como uma forma de validação destas teorias; por outro lado, modelos computacionais podem alcançar uma performance melhorada a partir da adoção de estratégias de aprendizado cognitivamente plausíveis. Estruturas sintáticas são ditas fornecer uma pista importante para a aquisição do significado de verbos. Ainda, para um subconjunto particular de verbos muito frequentes e gerais - os assim-chamados light verbs - há uma forte ligação entre as estruturas sintáticas nas quais eles aparecem e seus significados. Neste trabalho, empregamos um modelo computacional para investigar estas propostas, em particular, considerando a tarefa de aquisição como um mapeamento entre um verbo desconhecido e referentes prototípicos para eventos verbais, com base na estrutura sintática na qual o verbo aparece. Os experimentos conduzidos ressaltaram alguns requerimentos para um aprendizado bem-sucedido, em termos de níveis de informação disponível para o aprendiz e da estratégia de aprendizado adotada. / Cognitive theories have been, since the second half of the last century, bringing some interesting views about language learning. The application of these theories on computational models has double benefits: in the one hand, computational implementations can be used as a form of validation of these theories; on the other hand, computational models can earn an improved performance from adopting some cognitively plausible learning strategies. Syntactic structures are said to provide an important cue for the acquisition of verb meaning. Yet, for a particular subset of very frequent and general verbs – the so-called light verbs – there is a strong link between the syntactic structures in which they appear and their meanings. In this work, we used a computational model, to further investigate these proposals, in particular looking at the acquisition task as a mapping between an unknown verb and prototypical referents for verbal events, on the basis of the syntactic structure in which the verb appears. The experiments conducted have highlighted some requirements for a successful learning, both in terms of the levels of information available to the learner and the learning strategies adopted.

Desde a segunda metade do último século, as teorias cognitivas têm trazido algumas visões interessantes em relação ao aprendizado de linguagem. A aplicação destas teorias em modelos computacionais tem duplo benefício: por um lado, implementações computacionais podem ser usaas como uma forma de validação destas teorias; por outro lado, modelos computacionais podem alcançar uma performance melhorada a partir da adoção de estratégias de aprendizado cognitivamente plausíveis. Estruturas sintáticas são ditas fornecer uma pista importante para a aquisição do significado de verbos. Ainda, para um subconjunto particular de verbos muito frequentes e gerais - os assim-chamados light verbs - há uma forte ligação entre as estruturas sintáticas nas quais eles aparecem e seus significados. Neste trabalho, empregamos um modelo computacional para investigar estas propostas, em particular, considerando a tarefa de aquisição como um mapeamento entre um verbo desconhecido e referentes prototípicos para eventos verbais, com base na estrutura sintática na qual o verbo aparece. Os experimentos conduzidos ressaltaram alguns requerimentos para um aprendizado bem-sucedido, em termos de níveis de informação disponível para o aprendiz e da estratégia de aprendizado adotada. / Cognitive theories have been, since the second half of the last century, bringing some interesting views about language learning. The application of these theories on computational models has double benefits: in the one hand, computational implementations can be used as a form of validation of these theories; on the other hand, computational models can earn an improved performance from adopting some cognitively plausible learning strategies. Syntactic structures are said to provide an important cue for the acquisition of verb meaning. Yet, for a particular subset of very frequent and general verbs – the so-called light verbs – there is a strong link between the syntactic structures in which they appear and their meanings. In this work, we used a computational model, to further investigate these proposals, in particular looking at the acquisition task as a mapping between an unknown verb and prototypical referents for verbal events, on the basis of the syntactic structure in which the verb appears. The experiments conducted have highlighted some requirements for a successful learning, both in terms of the levels of information available to the learner and the learning strategies adopted.

abstract: Drawing on previous empirical works in the field of Intercultural Competence (ICC) and telecollaboration (Chun, 2011; Elola & Oskoz, 2008; Furstenberg, 2004; Schulz, 2007), this study investigates how a completion of Cultura Project tasks in L1 and L2 helped to determine students' cultural values and behaviors, find out how their mental lexicons are structured, and assess a state of their critical cultural awareness. The theoretical framework for this study is based on Byram's (1997) work on ICC. As a part of their course work, Spanish language learners from a lower-division class participate in three Cultura Project tasks and provided their comments afterwards. The findings revealed cultural values and believes of the participants, as well as the organization of their mental lexicons. Moreover, the findings illustrated how the level of critical cultural awareness, as one of the components of ICC, could be assessed using the rubrics developed based on Byram's (1997) work on ICC and Bloom's (1990) revised taxonomy of learning skills. The results of the study contributed to the field of SLA on what is known about the roles of culturally-based questionnaires in critical cultural awareness assessment and the structure of mental lexicons of L2 learners. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Spanish 2015

There has been little research exploring whether different memory processes (i.e. related to short term memory (STM), working memory (WM) and long term memory (LTM) may be differentially sensitive to representation and processing aspects of compound words. This study investigated how compound words are represented in STM in immediate serial recall tasks and in WM in complex span tasks that combine processing and storage demands. The simple span STM task was comprised of solely a list of memory words, whereas the two complex span WM tasks interleaved sentence processing between presentation of memory words. They varied in the presence of a pause after presentation of each memory word and before onset of the following distractor sentence for processing. The absence of a pause was intended to minimize opportunity for subvocal rehearsal, whereas the presence of a pause encouraged rehearsal. To increase chances of recombination errors for error analyses, lists of memoranda were manipulated so that each set (list) of four compound words contained one “lure” pair (e.g. pinstripe + warhead = pinhead) in which the modifier and head constituents from separate compound words could recombine to form a new, legal word. Recall performance was better in the simple span and complex span pause tasks compared to the complex span no pause task. Whole compound and left constituent frequencies played opposite roles, helping and harming, respectively. Error types reflecting decomposition of the compound words to their constituents were more common in simple span than in complex span. Omissions were more common in complex span. We discuss how different memory processes may be differentially sensitive to representation and processing aspects, and how recall of compound words is affected by various lexical variables. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)