9 An on-line look at sentence processing in the second language (original) (raw)
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Bates and MacWhinney and their colleagues(1981,1982,1984) have shown that native speakers depend on a particular set of probabilistic cues to assign formal surface devices in their language to a specified set of underlying functions. The research program encompassed by their approach to language processing has extended from describing crosslinguistic processing differences in even typologically similar languages (e.g., English and Italian, both SVO languages), to charting the pattern of acquisition of grammatical ''rules" in the first language , and more recently to crosslanguage investigations of "characteristic" neurological-based language deficits. A natural extension of this broad experimental effort is in a field that involves issues of both language learning and sentence processing in adults: late second language acquisition. Given the large volume of rlata already collected from monolingual speakers, we are now in a position to begin exploration into bilingual sentence processing strategies. In this chapter we report on sentence processing experiments carried out with adults who speak two or more languages. The notion that cues vary in strength has proven valuable in describing the psychologically relevant features of different kinds of languages; it may also provide a window into the psycholinguistic properties of second language acquisition. Students of language study come from many schools; not all share our assumptions or biases regarding the kinds of questions that are germane to second language acquisition, nor what constitutes an answer to those questions. For this reason, we will briefly review a small part of the history of second language acquisition research that lies behind the work presented here. We will focus on two issues: the influence of first language acquisition research on work in second language learning, and the role of rules in characterizing language acquisition of either kind.
Syntactic Processing by Skilled Bilinguals
Language Learning, 1998
Recent advances in cross-language psycholinguistics provide reading researchers with both the models and the tools needed to investigate the syntactic processing of second language (L2) readers. In our study, 48 L1 (first language) and 48 highly fluent L2 French readers read sentences containing constructions that do not exist in English, the L1 of the L2 readers: pre-verbal pronominalization (clitics) and the faire+infinitive causative construction. The L2 readers exhibited the same processing as L1 French readers; however, slower (but equally fluent) L2 readers also employed a compensatory processing for sentences with clitics. These results build on previous findings that faster L2 readers are more efficient in their use of lower-level information by demonstrating that they are also more efficient at higher-level syntactic processing. Results are discussed in terms of implications for theories of L2 reading and recent models of cross-language syntactic processing.
The role of the native language in second-language syntactic processing
2009
The present thesis investigates in how far properties of a reader’s first language (L1) have an influence on syntactic processing in a second language (L2). While the Competition Model (Bates & MacWhinney, 1982, 1987, 1989, MacWhinney, 1997) predicts that syntactic properties of the L1 can have an influence on L2 processing, the Shallow-Structure Account (Clahsen & Felser, 2006) suggests that an L2 speaker’s representation of an L2 sentence is shallower, lacks syntactic detail, and is therefore not detailed enough for properties of the L1 to have an influence on L2 processing (Papadopoulou & Clahsen, 2003). In two sets of studies, I investigate whether L2 speakers of English activate syntactic information from their L1 while processing English sentences. In Experiments 1-4, native speakers of German, and control groups of native speakers of French and English, are confronted with English sentences consisting of a word order which exists in both English and German, but which represen...
The Influence of Language Exposure on Lexical and Syntactic Language Processing
Experimental Psychology (formerly "Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie"), 2003
Previous literature has argued that proficient bilingual speakers often demonstrate monolingual-equivalent structural processing of language (e.g., the processing of structural ambiguities; . In this paper, we explore this thesis further via on-line examination of the processing of syntactically complex structures with three populations: those who classify as monolingual native English speaker (MNES), those who classify as non-native English speakers (NNES), and those who classify as bilingual native English speakers (BNES). On-line measures of processing of objectrelative constructions demonstrated that both NNES and BNES have different patterns of performance as compared to MNES. Further, NINES and BNES speakers perform differently from one another in such processing. The study also examines the activation of lexical information in biasing contexts, and suggests that different processes are at work in the different type of bilinguals examined here. The nature of these differences and the implications for developing sensitive models of on-line language comprehension are developed and discussed.
Syntactic ambiguity resolution while reading in second and native languages
The Quarterly Journal of …, 1997
Bilinguals' reading strategies were examined in their native and second language via the recording of eye movements. Experiment 1 examined the processing of sentences that contained local syntactic ambiguities. Results showed that bilinguals reading in their second language tended to resolve these ambiguities in a different way from native readers. Bilinguals tended to prefer to attach incoming information to the most recently processed constituent. However, this global strategy was in¯uenced by lexical information provided by the verb. Moreover, the combined analysis of both groups of readers revealed an in¯uence of verb subcategorization information on syntactic ambiguity resolution. Experiment 2 also examined syntactic ambiguity resolution in the native and second language, for sentences that were ambiguous in only one of the bilinguals' two languages. Results showed that bilinguals hesitated when reading in their second language at points in the sentence where their native language presented con¯icting lexical information. Following this localized effect of``transfer'', however, bilinguals performed in a manner similar to native speakers of the language. In combination, these experiments demonstrate that bilinguals perform a complete syntactic parsing of sentences when reading in the second language, and they do so in a manner similar to native speakers. Although lexical information can apparently in¯uence parsing in the second language, our results do not provide strong evidence that it acts to override syntactic analysis based on structural principles.
Examining second language reading: An on-line look
Proceedings of the GALA 1997 conference on …, 1997
The results of several eye-movement experiments, which examined adult non-native readers' performance online whilst they read single sentences in their second language, are discussed. Reading performance was investigated in subjects of varying second language ability, and for a variety of linguistic structures. Bilingual subjects' immediate sensitivity to the inconsistency of lexical and/or syntactic constraints across their two languages was demonstrated. This sensitivity provoked longer reading times specifically in the second language and specifically at the region of the sentence where the inconsistency occurred. Moreover, we provide evidence that bilinguals are sensitive to lexical constraints within their second language and use this information when reading potentially ambiguous structures. Transfer effects from the native to the second language were seen to influence syntactic processing, however the amount and effect of transfer varied considerably both as a function of the level of non-native speaker and syntactic ambiguity.
Does L1 syntax affect L2 processing? A study with highly proficient early bilinguals
In a picture naming experiment we explored whether the syntactic properties (word-order) of L1 affect L2 speech production in highly-proficient early bilinguals. We asked Basque-Spanish and Catalan-Spanish bilinguals to name pictures with singular or plural Determiner Phrase (DP) structures in their L2 (Spanish). The word order of these languages' DPs is different: Basque DPs have Noun+Determiner structure, while Spanish and Catalan DPs have Determiner+Noun structures. In the experiment, information regarding the noun or the number of the target picture was provided before its presentation. The naming latencies of pictures primed with number advanced information and noun advanced information were registered. The bilinguals' naming performance was contrasted to that of Spanish Native speakers. Differences were observed between Basque-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish native speakers, but not between Catalan-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish native speakers. These results are interpreted as indicating that L1 syntax does affect L2 processing.
2005
Second language sentence processing is examined here in light of several monolingual psycholinguistic models of parsing, as well as that of linguistic theories specifically adapted to account for second language acquisition in adult learners. We first examine studies that have primarily recorded eyemovements to trace syntactic processing. Syntactic-ambiguity resolution is used in these studies to address various current models of parsing, both in monolinguals and bilinguals. To illustrate how these models can be tested, we discuss a particular type of structural ambiguity: reduced relative clauses. Thereafter, we focus our attention on studies that have recorded eventrelated potentials during the processing of spoken and written sentences in bilinguals. In these studies, the accent is placed upon how semantic and syntactic anomalies, rather than ambiguities, are treated. We conclude with a quick comparison of these two approaches.