Rob Schoonen, University of Amsterdam
Individual differences in second language proficiency: linguistic and psycholinguistic sources
In this presentation, I want to focus on (second and foreign) language proficiency and its
constituent components, and how these components contribute to the overall language abilities
language learners have to acquire, such as speaking and writing. Based on past and current research
in which we used a number of psycholinguistically inspired measures, in addition to more
conventional language knowledge tests, we have tried to unravel language proficiency into its
constituent components. The psycholinguistic measures pertain to the fluency of cognitive
processing with which language users are able to perform certain linguistic tasks.
Data and results come from different learning contexts: learning English as a foreign language in
secondary school, and learning Dutch as a second language in adolescence/adulthood. Using
structural equation modelling, the relationships between the constituent subskills and language
proficiency will be modelled. Using available longitudinal data, the role of subskills in the
development of Dutch (L1) and English (FL) writing ability will be discussed.