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The present study investigated whether adult learners of second language (L2) can automatically activate emotional connotation during emotional word recognition as compared native (L1) users and whether L2 use plays a significant role in it. The automaticity of activation was measured through the emotional Stroop task. In this task, emotional words and neutral words were displayed in two different colors, and the participants were asked to indicate the color by button press. Results showed a delay in L2 learners' response to emotional words (the emotional Stroop effect) without significant differences from L1 users' response, indicating comparable automaticity in activating emotional connotation in performing the task. Further analyses on the effect of L2 use revealed its significant role in increasing the emotional Stroop effect. Specifically, L2 learners with higher amount of L2 use in daily life produced a significant emotion Stroop effect comparable to L1 users, while L2 learners with lower L2 use did not. We discuss the importance of L2 use in actual context in automatic processing of L2 emotional words, especially among adult learners who began L2 learning in adulthood in a case of underrepresented languages as L2.

The lexicon of emotion words is fundamental to interpersonal communication. To examine how emotion word acquisition interacts with societal context, the present study investigated emotion word development in three groups of child Korean users aged 4-13 years: those who use Korean primarily outside the home as a majority language (MajKCs) or inside the home as a minority language (MinKCs), and those who use Korean both inside and outside the home (KCs). These groups, along with a group of L1 Korean adults, rated the emotional valence of 61 Korean emotion words varying in frequency, valence, and age of acquisition. Results showed KCs, MajKCs, and MinKCs all converging toward adult-like valence ratings by ages 11-13 years; unlike KCs and MajKCs, however, MinKCs did not show age-graded development and continued to diverge from adults in emotion word knowledge by these later ages. These findings support the view that societal context plays a major role in emotion word development, offering one reason for the intergenerational communication difficulties reported by immigrant families.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the perceptions of school membership, risk factors, and behavioral and academic engagement among a sample of alternative school students. The study subjects were 48 7th-9th graders who were at high risk for school failure because of their serious and chronic behavioral and academic problems. All subjects had an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). A 25 item school membership questionnaire adapted from existing school membership surveys was used to assess students' perceived school membership. The study participants reported a moderately positive school membership score. The findings indicated that commonly known risk factors, such as being a male, minority, low [socioeconomic status] (SES), no participation in extracurricular activities, and a history of involvement with the juvenile justice system did not negatively affect study participants' perceptions of school membership. The relationships between students' school outcomes and the risk variables were also analyzed. The findings indicated that the above-mentioned risk variables did not result in significantly negative effects on school outcomes (GPA, number of missed school days, hours spent for in-school suspension, and days spent for out-of-school suspension). Instead, academic and behavioral school outcome variables were found to be closely related with each other, and also with some demographic factors, including race/ethnicity and grade levels. Implications for planning academic and behavioral interventions for students with emotional and behavioral challenges are discussed.

This study investigated how bilinguals' perception of their first language (L1) differs according to age of reduced contact with L1 after immersion in a second language (L2). Twenty-one L1 Korean-L2 English bilinguals in the United States, ranging in age of reduced contact from 3 to 15 years, and 17 control participants in Korea were tested perceptually on three L1 contrasts differing in similarity to L2 contrasts. Compared to control participants, bilinguals were less accurate on L1-specific contrasts, and their accuracy was significantly correlated with age of reduced contact, an effect most pronounced for the contrast most dissimilar to L2. These findings suggest that the earlier bilinguals are extensively exposed to L2, the less likely they are to perceive L1 sounds accurately. However, this relationship is modulated by crosslinguistic similarity, and a turning point in L2 acquisition and L1 attrition of phonology appears to occur at around age 12.

Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections can be many things to many readers—a domestic fiction, a campus novel, a neuronovel, a novel about mental illness, and a novel of globalization. A rereading of the novel over two decades after its publication in 2001 reveals yet another way to describe it—a historical novel that engages with the cultural and political discourse of the 1990s. The Corrections can be seen as engaging especially with the then popular thesis as conceived by Francis Fukuyama, which is that history has come to an endpoint because American-style democracy—a combination of capitalism and liberalism—has proved itself to be the best form of social and political organization, thereby ending all ideological struggle. In the novel, ideological struggles are hardly resolved, and history is far from being at its end. There are mainly two ways in which Franzen illustrates this: firstly, by showing the limits of economic and political liberalism; and secondly, by depicting the plights of the post-Soviet Union Lithuania. This also enables Franzen to critique the idea of the American Century that entails a sense of superiority and exceptionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association of integrins with caveolin-1 regulates cell adhesion. However, the vascular ramifications of this association remain to be clearly determined. We recently reported that the X chromosome-linked inhibitor of apoptosis protein (XIAP)-caveolin-1 interaction is critical to endothelial cell survival. Thus, we hypothesized that XIAP performs a crucial function in integrin/caveolin-1-mediated endothelial cell survival. In this study, we demonstrated that XIAP is recruited into the [[alpha].sub.5]-integrin complex via caveolin-1 binding and mediates cell adhesion. We also determined that XIAP is critical to shear stress-stimulated ERK activation in an [[alpha].sub.5]-integrin-dependent manner but is not important to VEGF-induced ERK activation. This differential activation of ERK is partly attributable to unique localizations of the receptors. Furthermore, we confirmed that XIAP is an essential molecule in the efficient recruitment of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) into the [[alpha].sub.5]-integrin-associated complex. This [[alpha].sub.5]-integrin-caveolin-l-XIAP-FAK multicomplex regulates endothelial cell migration via a mechanism that involves shear-dependent ERK activation. Together, our results indicate that XIAP stabilizes the [[alpha].sub.5]-integrin-associated focal adhesion complex, thereby further regulating endothelial cell adhesion and migration. The findings of this study provide us with greater insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying the control of vascular function by integrins. endothelial cells; focal adhesion kinase; vascular endothelial growth factor; extracellular signal-regulated kinase doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00180.2010.