How multiple sources of experience influence bilingual syntactic choice: Immediate and cumulative cross-language effects of structural priming, verb bias, and language dominance

We investigated trial-by-trial and cumulative cross-language effects of structural priming and verb bias on L1 and L2 dative syntactic choices (e.g., ‘boy-give-ball-to-girl’ [PO structure] vs. ‘boy-give-girl-ball’ [DO structure]). Dutch-dominant Dutch–English bilinguals listened to a prime sentence with a DO or PO structure in one language and then described a picture in the other language, using verbs that varied in their bias towards the PO or DO structure in Dutch and English. We found effects of cross-language structural priming and verb bias on syntactic choice, some of which were influenced by the participants’ language dominance. In addition, we found cumulative forms of structural priming, leading to cross-language priming effects between experimental blocks. We discuss these results in terms of models on the representation of lexical and syntactic information in bilinguals, and point out how the observed effects can be related to experience-based mechanisms of language use and contact-induced language change.

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Structural priming persists for one month in young adults

10.31234/osf.io/9gdqr ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Evelien Heyselaar ◽

Katrien Segaert

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Young Adults ◽

Implicit Learning ◽

Language Change ◽

Syntactic Processing ◽

Learning Theories ◽

Structural Priming ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Knowledge Based ◽

Age Related

Implicit learning theories suggest that we update syntactic knowledge based on prior experience (e.g., (Chang et al., 2006). To determine the limits of the extent to which implicit learning can influence syntactic processing, we investigated whether structural priming effects persist up to one month post-exposure, and whether they persist less long in healthy older (compared to younger) adults. We conducted a longitudinal experiment with three sessions: Session A, session B (one week after A), and session C (four weeks after B). For young adults, we found passive priming effects to persist and accumulate across sessions (one week and four weeks). However, for older adults the effects persisted for one week but not four. This suggests that for young adults, who unlike older adults experience no age-related decline in implicit memory, the limit to the duration of structural priming persistence is longer than four weeks. In a second longitudinal experiment with two sessions one-week apart we found that priming in session A affected syntactic processing in a different, independent task in session B, both for young and older adults. Experiment 2 suggests that implicit persistence of the learned syntax is not limited to a specific context or task. Together, our findings give insight into how structural priming can contribute to language change throughout the lifespan, showing that implicit learning is a pervasive and robust mechanism that contributes to syntactic processing.

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Processing similarities between native speakers and non-balanced bilinguals

International Journal of Bilingualism ◽

10.1177/13670069211033647 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 136700692110336

Author(s):

Marina Sokolova ◽

Roumyana Slabakova

Keyword(s):

Sentence Processing ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Multiple Sources ◽

Native Languages ◽

Social Conventions ◽

Syntactic Information ◽

The Matrix ◽

L1 And L2 ◽

Syntactic Cues ◽

Human Sentence Processing

Aims and objectives: The study investigates human sentence processing and argues that information from multiple sources is considered equally in native and non-native languages. Non-syntactic information does not overrule the parsing decisions prompted by syntactic cues. Methodology: The experiment used ambiguous relative clauses (RC) in a self-paced reading task with 20 native and 45 non-native adult speakers of English and Russian. The software Linger recorded participants’ answers to comprehension questions and the time they spent reading each word. Data and analysis: Mixed linear analysis performed in R checked for the effect of a matrix verb, RC length, social conventions, the native language and the language of testing on RC processing and interpretation. Findings: Both native and non-native speakers followed social conventions in deciding on the interpretation of the RC. However, this information never overruled the attachment decision prompted by the matrix predicate or by the length of the RC which entails certain sentence prosody. Originality: The study is innovative in investigating the extent to which each factor affected RC processing. It shows that social conventions enhance processing when they conspire with the structural parse prompted by linguistic cues. When they do not, syntactic information governs sentence parsing in both L1 and L2. Significance/implications: The study provides evidence that sentence processing uses linguistic structure as a first parsing hypothesis, which can then be adjusted to incorporate the incoming information from multiple sources. Limitations: The findings need further support from testing L2 learners of Russian in various socio-cultural contexts.

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Role of structural priming in contact-induced change: Subject pronoun expression in L1 Turkish by Turkish-Dutch bilinguals

10.31234/osf.io/2uxej ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hande Sodacı ◽

Ad Backus ◽

Gerrit Jan Kootstra

Keyword(s):

Language Contact ◽

Structural Priming ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Null Subject ◽

Subject Pronouns ◽

Pronoun Use ◽

Subject Pronoun ◽

Null Pronoun ◽

Cross Language

Subject pronoun expression has been extensively studied for effects of language contact, but it is fairly recent that these studies started including cross-language structural priming paradigms. The earlier studies on subject pronoun use in Turkish spoken by Turkish-Dutch bilinguals did not find any difference from monolingual speakers of Turkish but reported a few instances of unconventional use of subject pronouns, indicating the influence of Dutch on Turkish. This study aimed to determine whether structural priming may have a part in the unconventional variation observed in subject pronoun use in Turkish in contact with Dutch. Twenty-eight Turkish-Dutch bilinguals listened to short stories and responded to subsequently presented instructive sentences. These sentences were prime sentences, which contained either an overt or a null subject pronoun. Priming effects were investigated in monolingual and bilingual settings by presenting the stories in Turkish in the former and in Dutch in the latter. Results yielded a higher likelihood of using overt subject pronouns in the bilingual than in the monolingual setting following a prime sentence with an overt rather than a null pronoun. Our findings, which are based on a structure and a language that have not yet been studied much in relation to structural priming (i.e., subject pronoun use in Turkish), strengthen the empirical basis of how structural priming influences syntactic choices in language contact settings.

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Lingering misinterpretation in native and nonnative sentence processing: Evidence from structural priming

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716420000351 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-30

Author(s):

Hiroki Fujita ◽

Ian Cunnings

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Priming Effect ◽

Target Sentence ◽

Structural Priming ◽

Correct Interpretation ◽

Priming Effects ◽

L1 And L2 ◽

Accuracy Rates ◽

Comprehension Accuracy

Abstract Native (L1) and nonnative (L2) speakers sometimes misinterpret temporarily ambiguous sentences like “When Mary dressed the baby laughed happily.” Recent studies suggest that the initially assigned misinterpretation (“Mary dressed the baby”) may persist even after disambiguation, and that L2 speakers may have particular difficulty discarding initial misinterpretations. The present study investigated whether L2 speakers are more persistent with misinterpretation compared with L1 speakers during sentence processing, using the structural priming and eye tracking while reading tasks. In the experiment, participants read prime followed by target sentences. Reading times revealed that unambiguous but not ambiguous prime sentences facilitated processing of the globally correct interpretation of ambiguous target sentences. However, this priming effect was only observed when the prime and target sentence shared the same verb. Comprehension accuracy rates were not significantly influenced by priming effects but did provide evidence of lingering misinterpretation. We did not find significant L1/L2 differences in either priming effects or persistence of misinterpretation. Together, these results suggest that initially assigned misinterpretations linger in both L1 and L2 readers during sentence processing and that L1 and L2 comprehension priming is strongly lexically mediated.

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Target accessibility contributes to asymmetric priming in translation and cross-language semantic priming in unbalanced bilinguals

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728917000645 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 157-176 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

YISRAEL SMITH ◽

JOEL WALTERS ◽

ANAT PRIOR

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Semantic Priming ◽

Decision Task ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Lexical Activation ◽

Frequency Of Use ◽

Translation Priming ◽

Cross Language ◽

L1 And L2

The current study examined within- and cross-language connectivity in four priming conditions: repetition, translation, within-language semantic and cross-language semantic priming. Unbalanced Hebrew–English bilinguals (N = 89) completed a lexical decision task in one of the four conditions in both languages. Priming effects were significantly larger from L1 to L2 for translation priming and marginally so for cross-language semantic priming. Priming effects were comparable for L1 and L2 in repetition and within-language semantic priming. These results support the notion that L1 words are more effective primes but also that L2 targets benefit more from priming. This pattern of results suggests that the lower frequency of use of L2 lexical items in unbalanced bilinguals contributes to asymmetrical cross-language priming via lower resting-level activation of targets and not only via less efficient lexical activation of primes, as highlighted by the BIA+ model.

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The development of shared syntax in second language learning

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728915000164 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 219-234 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

ROBERT J. HARTSUIKER ◽

SARAH BERNOLET

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Language Learning ◽

Language Learners ◽

Explicit Memory ◽

Second Language Learning ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

Structural Priming ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Memory Processes ◽

L1 And L2

According to Hartsuiker et al.'s (2004) shared-syntax account bilinguals share syntactic representations across languages whenever these representations are similar enough. But how does such a system develop in the course of second language (L2) learning? We will review recent work on cross-linguistic structural priming, which considered priming in early second language learners and late second language learners as a function of proficiency. We will then sketch our account of L2 syntactic acquisition. We assume an early phase in which the learner relies on transfer from L1 and imitation, followed by phases in which language- and item-specific syntactic representations are added and in which such representations become increasingly abstract. We argue that structural priming effects in L2 (and between L1 and L2) depend on the structure of this developing network but also on explicit memory processes. We speculate that these memory processes might aid the formation of new representations.

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