Incremental interpretation in second language sentence processing

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN N. WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
On Line ◽  
Incremental Interpretation ◽  
And Task

The degree to which native and non-native readers interpret English sentences incrementally was investigated by examining plausibility effects on reanalysis processes. Experiment 1 required participants to read sentences word by word and to make on-line plausibility judgements. The results showed that natives and non-natives immediately computed the plausibility of the preferred structural analysis, which then affected ease of reanalysis. Experiment 2 required participants to read the same sentences word by word in order to perform a memory task. The natives showed a similar pattern of results to Experiment 1, whereas for the non-natives plausibility effects were delayed. However, the non-natives still appeared to be performing immediate syntactic reanalysis. It is concluded that syntactic processing was person- and task-independent, whereas the incrementality of interpretation was more dependent on task demands for the non-natives than for the natives.

Psycholinguistically oriented second language research

2001 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 207-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Juffs
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Language Performance ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Language Research ◽  
On Line

This chapter reviews recent research that investigates second language performance from the perspective of sentence processing (on-line comprehension studies) and word recognition. It concentrates on describing methods that employ reaction time measures as correlates of processing difficulty or knowledge representation. This research suggests that second language learners employ much the same on-line processing strategies as native speakers, but that the L1 can also influence L2 processing. Reaction times in lexical decision experiments have been useful in exploring the relationship between the first and second language lexicons and automatic processes in lexical access. Finally, the chapter mentions some of the problems in this line of research, in particular the issue of individual differences in working memory and technological challenges.

scholarly journals The processing of ambiguous sentences by first and second language learners of English

2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAUDIA FELSER ◽  
LEAH ROBERTS ◽  
THEODORE MARINIS ◽  
REBECCA GROSS
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
On Line ◽  
Native Speakers Of English

This study investigates the way adult second language (L2) learners of English resolve relative clause attachment ambiguities in sentences such as The dean liked the secretary of the professor who was reading a letter. Two groups of advanced L2 learners of English with Greek or German as their first language participated in a set of off-line and on-line tasks. The results indicate that the L2 learners do not process ambiguous sentences of this type in the same way as adult native speakers of English do. Although the learners' disambiguation preferences were influenced by lexical–semantic properties of the preposition linking the two potential antecedent noun phrases (of vs. with), there was no evidence that they applied any phrase structure–based ambiguity resolution strategies of the kind that have been claimed to influence sentence processing in monolingual adults. The L2 learners' performance also differs markedly from the results obtained from 6- to 7-year-old monolingual English children in a parallel auditory study, in that the children's attachment preferences were not affected by the type of preposition at all. We argue that children, monolingual adults, and adult L2 learners differ in the extent to which they are guided by phrase structure and lexical–semantic information during sentence processing.

scholarly journals Plausibility and recovery from garden paths in second language sentence processing

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
LEAH ROBERTS ◽  
CLAUDIA FELSER
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Second Language Processing ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
On Line

ABSTRACTIn this study, the influence of plausibility information on the real-time processing of locally ambiguous (“garden path”) sentences in a nonnative language is investigated. Using self-paced reading, we examined how advanced Greek-speaking learners of English and native speaker controls read sentences containing temporary subject–object ambiguities, with the ambiguous noun phrase being either semantically plausible or implausible as the direct object of the immediately preceding verb. Besides providing evidence for incremental interpretation in second language processing, our results indicate that the learners were more strongly influenced by plausibility information than the native speaker controls in their on-line processing of the experimental items. For the second language learners an initially plausible direct object interpretation lead to increased reanalysis difficulty in “weak” garden-path sentences where the required reanalysis did not interrupt the current thematic processing domain. No such evidence of on-line recovery was observed, in contrast, for “strong” garden-path sentences that required more substantial revisions of the representation built thus far, suggesting that comprehension breakdown was more likely here.

On-Line Syntactic Processing in the Native Versus Second Language

1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Frenck-Mestre ◽  
Jyotsna Vaid
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
On Line

The shallow structure hypothesis of second language sentence processing: What is restricted and why?

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-52
Author(s):  
Margaret Gillon Dowens ◽  
Manuel Carreiras
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Processing Speed ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Direct Form ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Shallow Structure Hypothesis ◽  
On Line ◽  
Shallow Structure

Clahsen and Felser (CF) analyze the performance of monolingual children and adult second language (L2) learners in off-line and on-line tasks and compare their performance with that of adult monolinguals. They conclude that child first language (L1) processing is basically the same as adult L1 processing (the contiguity assumption), with differences in performance being due to cognitive developmental limitations. They argue that differences in L2 performance, however, are more qualitative and not explained by shortage of working memory (WM) resources, differences in processing speed, transfer of L1 processing routines, or incomplete acquisition of the target grammar. They propose a shallow structure hypothesis (SSH) to explain the differences reported in sentence processing. According to this, the syntactic representations computed by L2 learners during comprehension are shallower and less detailed than those computed by native speakers and involve more direct form-function mappings.

The timing of lexical and syntactic processes in second language sentence comprehension

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 1253-1280 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOLGER HOPP
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Complex Object ◽  
Reading Experiment ◽  
Processing Differences

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates how lexical processing difficulty affects second language (L2) syntactic processing. In a self-paced reading experiment with 36 monolingual and 62 first language German speakers of English, we test how differences in lexical frequency moderate structural processing differences between subject and object clefts. For the L2 group, the results show linear relations between verb frequency and the location of the reading difficulty resulting from the structurally more complex object clefts. Native speakers evince comparable effects only in lower word frequency ranges. The findings indicate that greater demands on lexical processing may cause non-native-like syntactic processing in that they attenuate and delay effects of structure building in L2 sentence processing. We discuss implications for current models of L2 sentence processing.

scholarly journals Facilitating the task for second language processing research: A comparison of two testing paradigms

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 613-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. KATE MILLER
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Second Language Processing ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Probe Classification

ABSTRACTThis study considers the effects of experimental task demands in research on second language sentence processing. Advanced learners and native speakers of French were presented with the same experimental sentences in two different tasks designed to probe for evidence of trace reactivation during processing: cross-modal priming (Nicol & Swinney, 1989) and probe classification during reading (Dekydtspotter, Miller, Schaefer, Chang, & Kim, 2010). Although the second language learners produced nontargetlike results on the cross-modal priming task, the probe classification during reading task revealed results suggestive of trace reactivation, which point to detailed structural representations during online sentence processing. The implications for current theories of second language sentence processing and for future research in this domain are discussed.

scholarly journals Electrophysiological correlates of second language processing

2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta L. Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Critical Periods ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Second Language Processing ◽  
Phoneme Discrimination ◽  
On Line

The aim of this article is to provide a selective review of event-related potential (ERP) research on second language processing. As ERPs have been used in the investigation of a variety of linguistic domains, the reported studies cover different paradigms assessing processing mechanisms in the second language at various levels, ranging from phoneme discrimination to complex sentence processing. Differences between ERP patterns of first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers can help to specify and to test predictions derived from models of L2 processing or hypotheses concerning critical periods for some aspects of second language acquisition. The studies currently available suggest that ERPs are indeed sensitive to qualitative and quantitative differences in L2 speakers with regard to on-line processing.

Cross-linguistic lexical and syntactic co-activation in L2 sentence processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Hopp
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
First Language ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Lexical Activation ◽  
Co Activation ◽  
On Line ◽  
Embedded Clauses

Abstract This study investigates under which conditions the L1 syntax is activated in L2 on-line sentence comprehension. We study whether cross-linguistic syntactic activation of the L1 word order is affected by lexical activation of the first language (L1) by virtue of cognate words. In two eye-tracking experiments, German-English bilinguals and English natives read English sentences containing reduced relative clauses whose surface word order partially overlaps with German embedded clauses. The verbs used were either German-English cognates or matched control verbs. The results show lexical cognate facilitation and syntactic co-activation of L1 word order, with the latter being moderated by proficiency and cognate status. Critically, syntactic co-activation is found only with English control words. We argue that fleeting co-activation of the L1 syntax becomes measurable under higher demands of lexical processing, while cognate facilitation frees resources for inhibition of the L1 syntax and target-like syntactic processing.

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