The present study aimed to investigate second language (L2) word-level and
sentence-level automatic processing among English as a foreign language students through a
comparative analysis of students with different proficiency levels. As a multidimensional and
dynamic construct, automaticity is conceptualized as processing speed, stability, and accuracy
which are indexed by reaction time, coefficient variation and accuracy rate. Sixty students (39
undergraduate students and 21 graduate students) who majored in English participated in this
study. They completed the lexical semantic classification task, the sentence construction task,
the sentence verification task under two different modalities (visually- and aurally-presented
situations). Multivariate analyses were conducted to examine the differences between the
students with different proficiency levels pertaining to their L2 performance. The results indi-
cated that the processing speed was not found to be a good indicator of automatic language
processing. Moreover, both levels of students appeared to reach a plateau in word-level pro-
cessing but there were some variations in students’ sentential processing. Finally, the findings
showed that automatic language processing seemed to be module-specific and non-sharable
across different modalities and skills.

EB00000004026K

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• Word-Level and Sentence-Level Automaticity in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learners: A Comparative Study