This study investigates whether statistical learning ability, conceptualized as a cognitive ability to learn regularities implicitly, is a good predictor for L2 learners' online language processing performance. Native-English-speaking adults, as a control group, and native-Korean-speaking adult L2 learners of English participated. They completed:…

This study examined the extent to which textual enhancement and task manipulation affect the learners' attentional processing and the development of second language (L2) grammatical knowledge. A total of 73 Korean college students read an opinion news article in one of four experimental conditions: (1) textually enhanced, careful reading, (2)…

The current study explores the effects of processing demands and proficiency on second language (L2) learners' acceptability judgment of wh-island sentences. A total of 65 adult Korean learners of English and ten native speakers (NSs) of English participated in an experiment that combined self-paced reading and acceptability judgment. They were…

Improving reading fluency in English is a challenging task for English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students. It is particularly hard for those whose first languages are linguistically distant from English, for example, Korea, Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian languages. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether digitally reformatted…

We document weak garden paths after intransitive verbs, modulated by intransitivity type, in the treatment of DP[subscript 1] V[subscript intransitive] DP[subscript 2] V[subscript 2] sequences as in "As the journalist arrived the editor postponed the meeting" in first language (L1) and second language (L2) sentence processing. In a…

Several empirical studies and syntheses of extensive reading have concluded that extensive reading has positive impacts on language learning in second- and foreign-language settings. However, many of the studies contained methodological or curricular limitations, raising questions about the asserted positive effects of extensive reading. The…

Research to date suggests that textual enhancement may positively affect the learning of multiword combinations known as collocations, but may impair recall of unenhanced text. However, the attentional mechanisms underlying such effects remain unclear. In this study, 38 undergraduate students were divided into two groups: one read a text…

In this study, young, middle-aged, and elderly adults read two different history texts. In the "knowledge advantage" condition, readers read a history text about an event that was well-known to readers of all ages but most familiar to elderly adults. In the "no advantage" condition, readers read a history text about a political…