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It is time to work toward explicit processing models for native and second language speakers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2006

Peter Indefrey
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Nijmegen

Extract

In their target article, Clahsen and Felser (CF) review studies that they and others have conducted in recent years to confirm the dual mechanism hypothesis and to extend its application to first and second language (L1 and L2) learners. They interpret the findings as supporting both the dual mechanism hypothesis and the claim that the sentence-level processing of L2 but not L1 learners shows “striking” differences compared to adult native speakers. I argue that an exclusive focus on the representation of linguistic knowledge is insufficient for understanding the real-time processes in morphological production and sentence comprehension.

Type
Commentaries
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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