Ricardo de Souza | UFMG - The Federal University of Minas Gerais (original) (raw)

Papers by Ricardo de Souza

Research paper thumbnail of Movendo a avaliação do português como L2 para além do mal-estar

Revista da ABRALIN

Apresentaçao do dossiê Procedimentos e métodos para a avaliação de falantes do português como lín... more Apresentaçao do dossiê Procedimentos e métodos para a avaliação de falantes do português como língua adicional, língua de acolhimento e língua de herança

Research paper thumbnail of Processamento de sujeitos de orações com verbos inacusativos no português brasileiro

Research paper thumbnail of Is Knowledge of a Non!Dominant L2 Activated by Bilinguals Using Their Dominant L1? Insights from an On!Line Psycholinguistic Study

Organon, 2011

L1 influences on L2 learning and use are phenomena vastlydocumented in L2 learning research (ODLI... more L1 influences on L2 learning and use are phenomena vastlydocumented in L2 learning research (ODLIN, 1989; JARVIS & PAVLEN-KO, 2007). However, approaches to the inversed phenomenon, i.e.: L2 influences on L1, are more recent (COOK, 2003). Studies of L2 e" ectson the L1 tend to examine bilinguals living in the linguistic environmentsof the L2. In the present study, we report the results of a psycholinguis-tic study that suggests that bilinguals who probably have their L1 as thedominant language may nonetheless activate L2 semantics-syntax inter-face representations over the course of sentence processing. We discussour results with respect to their implications for the cognitive architectureof bilinguals’ language representations, as well as what they might signifyfor language contact situations.

Research paper thumbnail of Reflections about grammar and its role in applied linguistics: introduction to the RBLA thematic issue on grammar teaching and learning

Research paper thumbnail of Estudo sobre um parâmetro de tarefa e um parâmetro amostral para experimentos com julgamentos de aceitabilidade temporalizados

Revista de Estudos da Linguagem, 2015

The speeded sentence acceptability judgment task is a technique for the elicitation of judgments ... more The speeded sentence acceptability judgment task is a technique for the elicitation of judgments in which temporal constraints are imposed on judges. It is suggested that such technique provides more reliable observations of implicit knowledge and automatic processes. This study explored the setting of minimal temporal ceilings for performance in the speeded acceptability judgment task by native speakers of the stimuli languages, and it also assessed the impact of convenience sampling where participants with language studies backgrounds are recruited. The results show that there is no critical impact of this kind of convenience sampling, and they also show that grammaticality effects are detectable within a time window of 4 seconds per sentence.

Research paper thumbnail of Are bilingualism effects on the L1 byproducts of implicit knowledge? Evidence from two experimental tasks

REVISTA DE ESTUDOS DA LINGUAGEM, 2017

Estudos experimentais em Linguística apoiam-se em dados oriundos de desempenho de participantes e... more Estudos experimentais em Linguística apoiam-se em dados oriundos de desempenho de participantes em tarefas linguísticas. Portanto, a compreensão dos construtos abordados por tais tarefas é fundamental para a interpretação dos resultados gerados pelo trabalho experimental. Neste estudo, explora-se questões trazidas por um estudo previamente publicado baseado em uma tarefa de julgamento de gramaticalidade temporizada que não replicou evidências anteriormente relatadas acerca de efeitos de interações translinguísticas no processamento bilíngue de construções de estrutura argumental que não fazem parte do repertório construcional da L1 dos bilíngues. Apesar da tarefa de julgamento de gramaticalidade temporizada ter sido defendida como uma medida válida de conhecimento linguístico implícito, resenha-se estudos psicométricos recentes que põem este pressuposto em dúvida, ao mostrar que tal tarefa ou não captura conhecimento implícito, ou não o captura tão completamente quanto o fazem taref...

Research paper thumbnail of Realização argumental na língua do aprendiz de línguas estrangeiras-Possibilidades de exploração da interface entre semântica e sintaxe

Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos lingüístic... more Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos lingüísticos que guardam interesse especial para estudos sobre a aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras que têm como foco a representação do aprendiz acerca da língua alvo. A partir de considerações sobre a delimitação da língua do aprendiz de LE como objeto de análise lingüística e sobre estudos contemporâneos que tratam da estrutura argumental nas línguas estrangeiras, hipóteses sobre a pertinência de investigações semelhantes no contexto da aprendizagem do inglês por falantes do português serão apresentadas e discutidas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Estrutura argumental; interlíngua; transferência lingüística. Recebido em 05 de dezembro de 2006. Artigo aceito para publicação no dia 26 de janeiro de 2007.

Research paper thumbnail of Bilingualism effects on L1 representation and processing of argument structure

Journal of the European Second Language Association

This study aims to investigate L2-to-L1 cross-linguistic influence on bilinguals' representation ... more This study aims to investigate L2-to-L1 cross-linguistic influence on bilinguals' representation and processing with three psycholinguistics tasks. The interest in this type of effect lies in its possible association with cognitive control development. Our study focuses on possible influences of the non-dominant language on the dominant language: we analyzed whether highly proficient Brazilian Portuguese-English late bilinguals immersed in the L1 context behaved differently from Brazilian Portuguese monolinguals in regards to sentences in the L1 that simulated an L2-specific construction (true resultative). We conducted a maze task in order to analyze the speakers' linguistic processing and a speeded acceptability judgment task in order to analyze their linguistic representation. We also observed participants' behavior towards a construction available in both languages (depictive). The overall results indicate that bilinguals processed both constructions faster than monolinguals, but the difference between the groups was significantly larger towards the true resultative construction. However, there was no significant difference between the groups in relation to how they perceived the acceptability of both constructions. We interpret the results as evidence that the L2 influence on the L1 occurs during real time sentence processing, but it does not result in changes in the overall L1 representation.

Research paper thumbnail of Déficit represe ntacional nos falantes de L2? Uma ref lexão em torno de dois modelos da arquitetura global da gramática

Signótica, 2011

Déficit representacional nos falantes De l2? Uma reflexão em torno De Dois moDelos Da arqUitetUra... more Déficit representacional nos falantes De l2? Uma reflexão em torno De Dois moDelos Da arqUitetUra global Da gramática ricarDo aUgUsto De soUza* resUmo Este artigo insere-se nos estudos das representações gramaticais de bilíngues. Abordamos a variabilidade de marcação de morfologia de flexão de tempo, aspecto e concordância no inglês como segunda língua. Objetivamos avaliar concepções sobre as representações bilíngues a partir de dois modelos da organização da gramática que as fomentam. Para tal fim, consideramos os dados de dois estudos empíricos, um envolvendo aprendizes do inglês falantes do russo e outro envolvendo falantes do português do Brasil. A discussão dos dados à luz de formulações teóricas sobre a gramática nos leva à opção por um modelo que não assume a sintaxe como único componente combinatorial para a análise das representações bilíngues. Palavras-chave: aquisição de segunda língua, morfologia de flexão, bilin guismo, teoria linguística.

Research paper thumbnail of The Brazilian editor's note

Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Selective transfer in the acquisition of english double object constrctions by brazilian learners

Alfa Revista De Linguistica, Aug 28, 2013

The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBE... more The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBERG, 1995) by Brazilian learners. We hypothesize that, due to first language (L1) influences, the prepositional ditransitive construction (John gave a book to Mary) will be acquired earlier, while the ditransitive construction (John gave Mary a book) will be part of the learner's interlanguages (SELINKER, 1972) only at the advanced level of proficiency. We also hypothesize that learners may transfer (ODLIN, 1989) the placement of the object pronoun in pre-verbal position from their L1 to their interlanguage in early stages of acquisition (João me deu um livro / *John me gave a book). We test our hypotheses by comparing the performance of three groups of learners (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) and native speakers of English on an acceptability judgment task used as a measure of learnability and generalization. Results confirm the order of acquisition of the English double object constructions predicted for native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Moreover, results suggest that, although mother tongue influences may have taken place, they do not do so pervasively, but rather selectively, corroborating the proposal by Kellerman (1983).

Research paper thumbnail of Movendo a avaliação do português como L2 para além do mal-estar

Research paper thumbnail of The challenges imposed by L2 inflectional morphology: evidence from speeded acceptability judgment tasks with Brazilian Portuguese-English bilinguals

Veredas, 2020

ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study was to contribute to current documented evidence of th... more ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study was to contribute to current documented evidence of the challenges imposed by inflectional morphology in second language acquisition. We conducted two speeded acceptability judgment tasks with Brazilian Portuguese-English bilinguals with different linguistic profiles. We analyzed their behavior with respect to grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in English involving inflectional morphology. Our results suggested that the bilingual speakers differed from English native speakers only with respect to the sentences with missing inflectional morphemes regardless of proficiency level and immersion status. We understand these findings as an indication that difficulty with functional morphology involves perceptual salience and possibly learned attention to linguistic cues.

Research paper thumbnail of Are bilingualism effects on the L1 byproducts of implicit knowledge? Evidence from two experimental tasks

Experimental studies in Linguistics rely on data from human participants performing language task... more Experimental studies in Linguistics rely on data from human participants performing language tasks. Therefore, understanding the constructs that such tasks tap into is fundamental for the interpretation of results yielded by experimental work. In the present study we address issues brought out by a previously published study based on a timed grammaticality judgment tasks that fails to replicate reported evidence of cross-linguistic interaction effects in bilingual processing of argument structure constructions that are not part of the bilinguals' L1 construction repertoire. Although the timed grammaticality judgment task has been argued to be a valid measure of implicit linguistic knowledge, we review recent psychometric studies that challenge this assumption by showing that this task either does not tap into implicit knowledge at all, or does not tap into it as completely as online processing psycholinguistic tasks do. In the present study, we conducted two experiments with the same pool of subjects. One of the experiments employed an online processing task, and the other employed a timed grammaticality judgment task. In

Research paper thumbnail of Realização argumental na língua do aprendiz de línguas estrangeiras-Possibilidades de exploração da interface entre semântica e sintaxe

RESUMO: Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos li... more RESUMO: Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos lingüísticos que guardam interesse especial para estudos sobre a aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras que têm como foco a representação do aprendiz acerca da língua alvo. A partir de considerações sobre a delimitação da língua do aprendiz de LE como objeto de análise lingüística e sobre estudos contemporâneos que tratam da estrutura argumental nas línguas estrangeiras, hipóteses sobre a pertinência de investigações semelhantes no contexto da aprendizagem do inglês por falantes do português serão apresentadas e discutidas.

Research paper thumbnail of Estudo sobre um parâmetro de tarefa e um parâmetro amostral para experimentos com julgamentos de aceitabilidade temporalizados

Research paper thumbnail of Memorização De Sentenças Com Construção Específica de uma das Línguas de Bilíngues

This paper revisits the Regeneration Hypothesis, a proposal about the nature of the psycholinguis... more This paper revisits the Regeneration Hypothesis, a proposal about the nature of the psycholinguistic mechanism that supports the immediate recall of sentences recently heard or read. We present specific hypothesis about sentence recall in bilinguals, based on the assumptions of the Regeneration Hypothesis, and we address such hypothesis with a study that sought to investigate the accessibility to language-specific syntactic representations while bilinguals process another language. Results suggest there is such access to language-specific representation, but only for highly proficient bilinguals.

Research paper thumbnail of The learnability of the resultative construction in English L2: a comparative study of two forms of the acceptability judgment task

The acceptability judgment task is a crucial method in experimental syntax. This study compares t... more The acceptability judgment task is a crucial method in experimental syntax. This study compares two forms of the task –Likert-scale and magnitude estimations – in the investigation of the learnability of the English resultative construction for bilinguals of Brazilian Portuguese and English. The resultative poses a challenge for this population, as not only must they learn the syntax-semantics mapping unlicensed in their L1, but they must learn event structure constraints that govern such construction in the L2. The results indicate that while both controlled acceptability judgment tasks attest the learnability of the construction, the alleged superiority of magnitude estimations was not verified.

Research paper thumbnail of Selective transfer in the acquisition of double object constructions by Brazilian learners

The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBE... more The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBERG, 1995) by Brazilian learners. We hypothesize that, due to first language (L1) influences, the prepositional ditransitive construction (John gave a book to Mary) will be acquired earlier, while the ditransitive construction (John gave Mary a book) will be part of the learner’s interlanguages (SELINKER, 1972) only at the advanced level of proficiency. We also hypothesize that learners may transfer (ODLIN, 1989) the placement of the object pronoun in pre-verbal position from their L1 to their interlanguage in early stages of acquisition (João me deu um livro / *John me gave a book). We test our hypotheses by comparing the performance of three groups of learners (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) and native speakers of English on an acceptability judgment task used as a measure of learnability and generalization. Results confirm the order of acquisition of the English double object constructions predicted for native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Moreover, results suggest that, although mother tongue influences may have taken place, they do not do so pervasively, but rather selectively, corroborating the proposal by Kellerman (1983).

Research paper thumbnail of Movendo a avaliação do português como L2 para além do mal-estar

Revista da ABRALIN

Apresentaçao do dossiê Procedimentos e métodos para a avaliação de falantes do português como lín... more Apresentaçao do dossiê Procedimentos e métodos para a avaliação de falantes do português como língua adicional, língua de acolhimento e língua de herança

Research paper thumbnail of Processamento de sujeitos de orações com verbos inacusativos no português brasileiro

Research paper thumbnail of Is Knowledge of a Non!Dominant L2 Activated by Bilinguals Using Their Dominant L1? Insights from an On!Line Psycholinguistic Study

Organon, 2011

L1 influences on L2 learning and use are phenomena vastlydocumented in L2 learning research (ODLI... more L1 influences on L2 learning and use are phenomena vastlydocumented in L2 learning research (ODLIN, 1989; JARVIS & PAVLEN-KO, 2007). However, approaches to the inversed phenomenon, i.e.: L2 influences on L1, are more recent (COOK, 2003). Studies of L2 e" ectson the L1 tend to examine bilinguals living in the linguistic environmentsof the L2. In the present study, we report the results of a psycholinguis-tic study that suggests that bilinguals who probably have their L1 as thedominant language may nonetheless activate L2 semantics-syntax inter-face representations over the course of sentence processing. We discussour results with respect to their implications for the cognitive architectureof bilinguals’ language representations, as well as what they might signifyfor language contact situations.

Research paper thumbnail of Reflections about grammar and its role in applied linguistics: introduction to the RBLA thematic issue on grammar teaching and learning

Research paper thumbnail of Estudo sobre um parâmetro de tarefa e um parâmetro amostral para experimentos com julgamentos de aceitabilidade temporalizados

Revista de Estudos da Linguagem, 2015

The speeded sentence acceptability judgment task is a technique for the elicitation of judgments ... more The speeded sentence acceptability judgment task is a technique for the elicitation of judgments in which temporal constraints are imposed on judges. It is suggested that such technique provides more reliable observations of implicit knowledge and automatic processes. This study explored the setting of minimal temporal ceilings for performance in the speeded acceptability judgment task by native speakers of the stimuli languages, and it also assessed the impact of convenience sampling where participants with language studies backgrounds are recruited. The results show that there is no critical impact of this kind of convenience sampling, and they also show that grammaticality effects are detectable within a time window of 4 seconds per sentence.

Research paper thumbnail of Are bilingualism effects on the L1 byproducts of implicit knowledge? Evidence from two experimental tasks

REVISTA DE ESTUDOS DA LINGUAGEM, 2017

Estudos experimentais em Linguística apoiam-se em dados oriundos de desempenho de participantes e... more Estudos experimentais em Linguística apoiam-se em dados oriundos de desempenho de participantes em tarefas linguísticas. Portanto, a compreensão dos construtos abordados por tais tarefas é fundamental para a interpretação dos resultados gerados pelo trabalho experimental. Neste estudo, explora-se questões trazidas por um estudo previamente publicado baseado em uma tarefa de julgamento de gramaticalidade temporizada que não replicou evidências anteriormente relatadas acerca de efeitos de interações translinguísticas no processamento bilíngue de construções de estrutura argumental que não fazem parte do repertório construcional da L1 dos bilíngues. Apesar da tarefa de julgamento de gramaticalidade temporizada ter sido defendida como uma medida válida de conhecimento linguístico implícito, resenha-se estudos psicométricos recentes que põem este pressuposto em dúvida, ao mostrar que tal tarefa ou não captura conhecimento implícito, ou não o captura tão completamente quanto o fazem taref...

Research paper thumbnail of Realização argumental na língua do aprendiz de línguas estrangeiras-Possibilidades de exploração da interface entre semântica e sintaxe

Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos lingüístic... more Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos lingüísticos que guardam interesse especial para estudos sobre a aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras que têm como foco a representação do aprendiz acerca da língua alvo. A partir de considerações sobre a delimitação da língua do aprendiz de LE como objeto de análise lingüística e sobre estudos contemporâneos que tratam da estrutura argumental nas línguas estrangeiras, hipóteses sobre a pertinência de investigações semelhantes no contexto da aprendizagem do inglês por falantes do português serão apresentadas e discutidas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Estrutura argumental; interlíngua; transferência lingüística. Recebido em 05 de dezembro de 2006. Artigo aceito para publicação no dia 26 de janeiro de 2007.

Research paper thumbnail of Bilingualism effects on L1 representation and processing of argument structure

Journal of the European Second Language Association

This study aims to investigate L2-to-L1 cross-linguistic influence on bilinguals' representation ... more This study aims to investigate L2-to-L1 cross-linguistic influence on bilinguals' representation and processing with three psycholinguistics tasks. The interest in this type of effect lies in its possible association with cognitive control development. Our study focuses on possible influences of the non-dominant language on the dominant language: we analyzed whether highly proficient Brazilian Portuguese-English late bilinguals immersed in the L1 context behaved differently from Brazilian Portuguese monolinguals in regards to sentences in the L1 that simulated an L2-specific construction (true resultative). We conducted a maze task in order to analyze the speakers' linguistic processing and a speeded acceptability judgment task in order to analyze their linguistic representation. We also observed participants' behavior towards a construction available in both languages (depictive). The overall results indicate that bilinguals processed both constructions faster than monolinguals, but the difference between the groups was significantly larger towards the true resultative construction. However, there was no significant difference between the groups in relation to how they perceived the acceptability of both constructions. We interpret the results as evidence that the L2 influence on the L1 occurs during real time sentence processing, but it does not result in changes in the overall L1 representation.

Research paper thumbnail of Déficit represe ntacional nos falantes de L2? Uma ref lexão em torno de dois modelos da arquitetura global da gramática

Signótica, 2011

Déficit representacional nos falantes De l2? Uma reflexão em torno De Dois moDelos Da arqUitetUra... more Déficit representacional nos falantes De l2? Uma reflexão em torno De Dois moDelos Da arqUitetUra global Da gramática ricarDo aUgUsto De soUza* resUmo Este artigo insere-se nos estudos das representações gramaticais de bilíngues. Abordamos a variabilidade de marcação de morfologia de flexão de tempo, aspecto e concordância no inglês como segunda língua. Objetivamos avaliar concepções sobre as representações bilíngues a partir de dois modelos da organização da gramática que as fomentam. Para tal fim, consideramos os dados de dois estudos empíricos, um envolvendo aprendizes do inglês falantes do russo e outro envolvendo falantes do português do Brasil. A discussão dos dados à luz de formulações teóricas sobre a gramática nos leva à opção por um modelo que não assume a sintaxe como único componente combinatorial para a análise das representações bilíngues. Palavras-chave: aquisição de segunda língua, morfologia de flexão, bilin guismo, teoria linguística.

Research paper thumbnail of The Brazilian editor's note

Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Selective transfer in the acquisition of english double object constrctions by brazilian learners

Alfa Revista De Linguistica, Aug 28, 2013

The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBE... more The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBERG, 1995) by Brazilian learners. We hypothesize that, due to first language (L1) influences, the prepositional ditransitive construction (John gave a book to Mary) will be acquired earlier, while the ditransitive construction (John gave Mary a book) will be part of the learner's interlanguages (SELINKER, 1972) only at the advanced level of proficiency. We also hypothesize that learners may transfer (ODLIN, 1989) the placement of the object pronoun in pre-verbal position from their L1 to their interlanguage in early stages of acquisition (João me deu um livro / *John me gave a book). We test our hypotheses by comparing the performance of three groups of learners (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) and native speakers of English on an acceptability judgment task used as a measure of learnability and generalization. Results confirm the order of acquisition of the English double object constructions predicted for native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Moreover, results suggest that, although mother tongue influences may have taken place, they do not do so pervasively, but rather selectively, corroborating the proposal by Kellerman (1983).

Research paper thumbnail of Movendo a avaliação do português como L2 para além do mal-estar

Research paper thumbnail of The challenges imposed by L2 inflectional morphology: evidence from speeded acceptability judgment tasks with Brazilian Portuguese-English bilinguals

Veredas, 2020

ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study was to contribute to current documented evidence of th... more ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study was to contribute to current documented evidence of the challenges imposed by inflectional morphology in second language acquisition. We conducted two speeded acceptability judgment tasks with Brazilian Portuguese-English bilinguals with different linguistic profiles. We analyzed their behavior with respect to grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in English involving inflectional morphology. Our results suggested that the bilingual speakers differed from English native speakers only with respect to the sentences with missing inflectional morphemes regardless of proficiency level and immersion status. We understand these findings as an indication that difficulty with functional morphology involves perceptual salience and possibly learned attention to linguistic cues.

Research paper thumbnail of Are bilingualism effects on the L1 byproducts of implicit knowledge? Evidence from two experimental tasks

Experimental studies in Linguistics rely on data from human participants performing language task... more Experimental studies in Linguistics rely on data from human participants performing language tasks. Therefore, understanding the constructs that such tasks tap into is fundamental for the interpretation of results yielded by experimental work. In the present study we address issues brought out by a previously published study based on a timed grammaticality judgment tasks that fails to replicate reported evidence of cross-linguistic interaction effects in bilingual processing of argument structure constructions that are not part of the bilinguals' L1 construction repertoire. Although the timed grammaticality judgment task has been argued to be a valid measure of implicit linguistic knowledge, we review recent psychometric studies that challenge this assumption by showing that this task either does not tap into implicit knowledge at all, or does not tap into it as completely as online processing psycholinguistic tasks do. In the present study, we conducted two experiments with the same pool of subjects. One of the experiments employed an online processing task, and the other employed a timed grammaticality judgment task. In

Research paper thumbnail of Realização argumental na língua do aprendiz de línguas estrangeiras-Possibilidades de exploração da interface entre semântica e sintaxe

RESUMO: Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos li... more RESUMO: Este artigo apresenta um ensaio acerca da realização argumental como gama de fenômenos lingüísticos que guardam interesse especial para estudos sobre a aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras que têm como foco a representação do aprendiz acerca da língua alvo. A partir de considerações sobre a delimitação da língua do aprendiz de LE como objeto de análise lingüística e sobre estudos contemporâneos que tratam da estrutura argumental nas línguas estrangeiras, hipóteses sobre a pertinência de investigações semelhantes no contexto da aprendizagem do inglês por falantes do português serão apresentadas e discutidas.

Research paper thumbnail of Estudo sobre um parâmetro de tarefa e um parâmetro amostral para experimentos com julgamentos de aceitabilidade temporalizados

Research paper thumbnail of Memorização De Sentenças Com Construção Específica de uma das Línguas de Bilíngues

This paper revisits the Regeneration Hypothesis, a proposal about the nature of the psycholinguis... more This paper revisits the Regeneration Hypothesis, a proposal about the nature of the psycholinguistic mechanism that supports the immediate recall of sentences recently heard or read. We present specific hypothesis about sentence recall in bilinguals, based on the assumptions of the Regeneration Hypothesis, and we address such hypothesis with a study that sought to investigate the accessibility to language-specific syntactic representations while bilinguals process another language. Results suggest there is such access to language-specific representation, but only for highly proficient bilinguals.

Research paper thumbnail of The learnability of the resultative construction in English L2: a comparative study of two forms of the acceptability judgment task

The acceptability judgment task is a crucial method in experimental syntax. This study compares t... more The acceptability judgment task is a crucial method in experimental syntax. This study compares two forms of the task –Likert-scale and magnitude estimations – in the investigation of the learnability of the English resultative construction for bilinguals of Brazilian Portuguese and English. The resultative poses a challenge for this population, as not only must they learn the syntax-semantics mapping unlicensed in their L1, but they must learn event structure constraints that govern such construction in the L2. The results indicate that while both controlled acceptability judgment tasks attest the learnability of the construction, the alleged superiority of magnitude estimations was not verified.

Research paper thumbnail of Selective transfer in the acquisition of double object constructions by Brazilian learners

The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBE... more The present study investigates the acquisition of the English double object constructions (GOLDBERG, 1995) by Brazilian learners. We hypothesize that, due to first language (L1) influences, the prepositional ditransitive construction (John gave a book to Mary) will be acquired earlier, while the ditransitive construction (John gave Mary a book) will be part of the learner’s interlanguages (SELINKER, 1972) only at the advanced level of proficiency. We also hypothesize that learners may transfer (ODLIN, 1989) the placement of the object pronoun in pre-verbal position from their L1 to their interlanguage in early stages of acquisition (João me deu um livro / *John me gave a book). We test our hypotheses by comparing the performance of three groups of learners (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) and native speakers of English on an acceptability judgment task used as a measure of learnability and generalization. Results confirm the order of acquisition of the English double object constructions predicted for native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Moreover, results suggest that, although mother tongue influences may have taken place, they do not do so pervasively, but rather selectively, corroborating the proposal by Kellerman (1983).