Different mechanisms in learning different second languages: Evidence from English speakers learning Chinese and Spanish

Cao, Fan; Sussman, Bethany L.; Ríos, Valeria de los; Yan, Xiao‐Xin; Zhao, Wei; Spray, Gregory J.; Mack, Ryan

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.01.042

Cited by 29 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…A similar relationship has been established for visual word learning in the L2, which is influenced by phonological skills in both the L1 and the L2 (Cao et al, 2017;Hamada & Koda, 2008;Meschyan & Hernandez, 2002;Sparks et al, 1997;Sparks et al, 2006;Weekes, 2018). For example, Meschyan and Hernandez found that L1 decoding ability predicted L2 vocabulary size and L2 competency in a group of classroom English-Spanish learners (see also Hummel & French, 2016).…”

Section: Individuals With Better Phonological Skills Are Better Orthosupporting

confidence: 54%

“…In addition, if the target L2 is not alphabetic, phonological skills no longer contribute to visual word learning. Cao et al (2017) found that phonological awareness in L1 English correlated positively with the ability to produce the meaning and pronunciation of Spanish words, but not of Chinese characters, within the same group of learners. Thus, phonological skills appear to affect the learning of visual word forms in the L1 and the L2, but only when the relationship between orthography and phonology is predictable, as in alphabetic languages.…”

Section: Individuals With Better Phonological Skills Are Better Orthomentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Languages with alphabetic orthographies (e.g., English and Korean) have a systematic correspondence between graphemes and phonemes, whereas languages with nonalphabetic orthographies (e.g., Chinese) do not have the same reliable sublexical structure. In the case of Chinese, directing attention toward phonology has been shown to benefit the learning of phonological form, but not the learning of orthographic form (e.g., Cao et al, 2017;Guan, Liu, Chan, Ye, & Perfetti, 2011;Guan, Perfetti, & Meng, 2015;Lagarrigue et al, 2017). For example, Lagarrigue and colleagues recently reported a study in which native French speakers who were enrolled in a basic Chinese university course learned a small set of Chinese characters in the laboratory.…”

Section: Directing Attention Toward Phonology Improves Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of phonology during visual word learning in adults: An integrative review

Meade

2019

Psychon Bull Rev

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Throughout their lifetime, adults learn new words in their native lannguage, and potentially also in a second language. However, they do so with variable levels of success. In the auditory word learning literature, some of this variability has been attributed to phonological skills, including decoding and phonological short-term memory. Here I examine how the relationship between phonological skills and word learning applies to the visual modality. I define the availability of phonology in terms of (1) the extent to which it is biased by the learning environment, (2) the characteristics of the words to be learned, and (3) individual differences in phonological skills. Across these three areas of research, visual word learning improves when phonology is made more available to adult learners, suggesting that phonology can facilitate learning across modalities. However, the facilitation is largely specific to alphabetic languages, which have predictable sublexical correspondences between orthography and phonology. Therefore, I propose that phonology bootstraps visual word learning by providing a secondary code that constrains and refines developing orthographic representations. Keywords Adult word learning. Orthographic processing. Phonological recoding. Lexical quality Adults continually learn new words in their native language (L1), and possibly also in a second language (L2), making vocabulary one of the few aspects of language that continues to expand throughout the lifespan (e.g., Ramscar, Hendrix, Shaoul, Milin, & Baayen, 2014; Verhaeghen, 2003). Establishing a rich vocabulary is a key prerequisite for success in areas as varied as reading comprehension, syntax development, and foreign language proficiency (e.g., Meschyan & Hernandez, 2002; Ricketts, Nation, & Bishop, 2007). Whereas learning new words comes easy to some, it is a challenge for others, and the factors that underlie this variability remain poorly understood. Building on the growing evidence that strong phonological abilities improve the acquisition of new auditory word forms (e.g.

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Section: Individuals With Better Phonological Skills Are Better Orthosupporting

confidence: 54%

Section: Individuals With Better Phonological Skills Are Better Orthomentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Directing Attention Toward Phonology Improves Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of phonology during visual word learning in adults: An integrative review

Meade

2019

Psychon Bull Rev

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“…Sequential bilingualism and L2 learning and their relationship to neuroplasticity, especially for those learning a second language in their adulthood, have garnished attention in more recent years [ 10 , 11 ]. With the help of rapidly advancing technology in neuroimaging and other techniques, researchers have been able to better understand the neuroplasticity of L2 learning in adulthood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the help of rapidly advancing technology in neuroimaging and other techniques, researchers have been able to better understand the neuroplasticity of L2 learning in adulthood. For example, it has been found that adults who were immersed in Chinese learning courses demonstrated increased white matter density compared to their monolingual control counterparts [ 11 ]. At the subcortical level, however, little research exists regarding how the brainstem changes its encoding of information during or after the L2 learning experience, especially in adulthood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning a Second Language in Adulthood Changes Subcortical Neural Encoding

et al. 2020

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Second language learning has been shown to impact and reshape the central nervous system, anatomically and functionally. Most of the studies on second language learning and neuroplasticity have been focused on cortical areas, whereas the subcortical neural encoding mechanism and its relationship with L2 learning have not been examined extensively. The purpose of this study was to utilize frequency-following response (FFR) to examine if and how learning a tonal language in adulthood changes the subcortical neural encoding in hearing adults. Three groups of subjects were recruited: native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (native speakers (NS)), learners of the language (L2 learners), and those with no experience (native speakers of foreign languages (NSFL)). It is hypothesized that differences would exist in FFRs obtained from the three language experience groups. Results revealed that FFRs obtained from L2 learners were found to be more robust than the NSFL group, yet not on a par with the NS group. Such results may suggest that in human adulthood, subcortical neural encoding ability may be trainable with the acquisition of a new language and that neuroplasticity at the brainstem level can indeed be influenced by L2 learning.

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Language distance in orthographic transparency affects cross‐language pattern similarity between native and non‐native languages

Dong

Chen

et al. 2020

Human Brain Mapping

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How native and non‐native languages are represented in the brain is one of the most important questions in neurolinguistics. Much research has found that the similarity in neural activity of native and non‐native languages are influenced by factors such as age of acquisition, language proficiency, and language exposure in the non‐native language. Nevertheless, it is still unclear how the similarity between native and non‐native languages in orthographic transparency, a key factor that affects the cognitive and neural mechanisms of phonological access, modulates the cross‐language similarity in neural activation and which brain regions show the modulatory effects of language distance in orthographic transparency. To address these questions, the present study used representational similarity analysis (RSA) to precisely estimate the neural pattern similarity between native language and two non‐native languages in Uyghur‐Chinese‐English trilinguals, whose third language (i.e., English) was more similar to the native language (i.e., Uyghur) in orthography than to their second language (i.e., Chinese). Behavioral results revealed that subjects responded faster to words in the non‐native language with more similar orthography to their native language in the word naming task. More importantly, RSA revealed greater neural pattern similarity between Uyghur and English than between Uyghur and Chinese in select brain areas for phonological processing, especially in the left hemisphere. Further analysis confirmed that those brain regions represented phonological information. These results provide direct neuroimaging evidence for the modulatory effect of language distance in orthographic transparency on cross‐language pattern similarity between native and non‐native languages during word reading.

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Different mechanisms in learning different second languages: Evidence from English speakers learning Chinese and Spanish

Cited by 29 publications

References 81 publications

The role of phonology during visual word learning in adults: An integrative review

The role of phonology during visual word learning in adults: An integrative review

Learning a Second Language in Adulthood Changes Subcortical Neural Encoding

Language distance in orthographic transparency affects cross‐language pattern similarity between native and non‐native languages

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