scholarly journals German in childhood and Latin in adolescence: On the bidialectal nature of lexical access in English

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo E. Hernandez ◽  
Juliana Ronderos ◽  
Jean Philippe Bodet ◽  
Hannah Claussenius-Kalman ◽  
My V. H. Nguyen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds

AbstractThe nature of word etymology, long a topic of interest in linguistics, has been considered to a much lesser extent in the word recognition literature. The present study created a database of overlapping words from the English Lexicon Project (ELP) and a database with the age of acquisition (AoA) norms which were categorized as either Germanic or Latin-based. Results revealed that Germanic words were learned earlier than Latin-based words. Germanic words also showed slower reaction times and higher accuracy relative to Latin-based words even when controlling for AoA, word frequency, and length. Additionally, analyses were conducted using a publicly available database that used the English Crowdsourcing Project (ECP) data with native and second language (L2) English speakers. The results with native speakers were similar to those collected with the ELP. However, nonnative speakers showed better accuracy and faster reaction times for Latin-based words compared to Germanic words. The findings support a bidialectal view of English in that Germanic words serve as the base of lexical processing during childhood, whereas Latin-based words fill in the lexical space across adolescence and into early adulthood. Furthermore, L2 speakers appear to acquire English via more advanced Latin-based vocabulary relative to native speakers. These results carry implications for theories of word recognition and the processing of lexical items in populations that come from linguistically diverse backgrounds.

scholarly journals German in childhood and Latin in adolescence: On the bidialectal nature of lexical access in English

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo E Hernandez ◽  
Juliana Ronderos ◽  
Tres Bodet ◽  
Hannah Claussenius-Kalman ◽  
Ferenc Bunta
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Word Frequency ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Early Adulthood ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Lexical Items

The nature of word etymology, long a topic of interest in linguistics, has been considered to a much lesser extent in the word recognition literature. The present study created a database of overlapping words from the English Lexicon Project and a database with age of acquisition (AoA) norms which were categorized as either Germanic or Latin-based. Results revealed that Germanic words were learned earlier than Latin-based words. Germanic words also showed lower reaction times and higher accuracy relative to Latin-based words even when controlling for AoA, word frequency and length. The findings support a bidialectal view of English in that Germanic words serve as the base of lexical processing during childhood, whereas Latin-based words fill in the lexical space across adolescence and into early adulthood. These results carry implications for theories of word recognition and the processing of lexical items in populations that come from linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Complex Structures in the Child-Directed Speech of Native and Nonnative Speakers

2018 ◽  
pp. 127-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aslı Altan ◽  
Erika Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Child Interaction ◽  
Mother Child Interaction ◽  
Bilingual Communities

Children in bilingual communities are frequently exposed to speech from nonnative speakers, but little research has described how that input might differ from the input of native speakers. There is evidence that input from nonnative speakers might be less useful to language learning children, but little research has asked why. This chapter analyzes the frequency of complex structures in the child-directed speech of 30 native English speakers and 36 nonnative speakers who were late learners of English, all speaking English to their two-and-a-half-year-old children. All instances of nine categories of complex structures were coded in transcripts of mother-child interaction. The frequency of all but one category was greater in the speech of native speakers. These findings suggest that input provided by native speakers provides more frequent models of complex structures than nonnative input.

scholarly journals Age of Acquisition and Spoken Words: Examining Hemispheric Differences in Lexical Processing

2022 ◽  
pp. 002383092110684
Author(s):  
Julio González-Alvarez ◽  
Teresa Cervera-Crespo
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Hemispheric Differences ◽  
Objective Criterion ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Spoken Words

The relationship between the age of acquisition (AoA) of words and their cerebral hemispheric representation is controversial because the experimental results have been contradictory. However, most of the lexical processing experiments were performed with stimuli consisting of written words. If we want to compare the processing of words learned very early in infancy—when children cannot read—with words learned later, it seems more logical to employ spoken words as experimental stimuli. This study, based on the auditory lexical decision task, used spoken words that were classified according to an objective criterion of AoA with extremely distant means (2.88 vs. 9.28 years old). As revealed by the reaction times, both early and late words were processed more efficiently in the left hemisphere, with no AoA × Hemisphere interaction. The results are discussed from a theoretical point of view, considering that all the experiments were conducted using adult participants.

ESL learners’ intra-speaker variability in producing American English tense and lax vowels

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce L. Smith ◽  
Eric Johnson ◽  
Rachel Hayes-Harb
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Speaker Variability ◽  
Production Variability ◽  
Vowel Formants ◽  
Esl Learners

Abstract Nonnative (L2) English learners are often assumed to exhibit greater speech production variability than native (L1) speakers; however, support for this assumption is primarily limited to secondary observations rather than having been the specific focus of empirical investigations. The present study examined intra-speaker variability associated with L2 English learners’ tense and lax vowel productions to determine whether they showed comparable or greater intra-speaker variability than native English speakers. First and second formants of three tense/lax vowel pairs were measured, and Coefficient of Variation was calculated for 10 native speakers of American English and 30 nonnative speakers. The L2 speakers’ vowel formants were found to be native-like approximately half of the time. Whether their formants were native-like or not, however, they seldom showed greater intra-speaker variability than the L1 speakers.

NS and NNS processing of idioms and nonidiom formulaic sequences: What can reaction times and think-alouds tell us?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Hang Zheng ◽  
Melissa A. Bowles ◽  
Jerome L. Packard
Keyword(s):  
Processing Speed ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Formulaic Sequences ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Think Alouds ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Abstract Although researchers generally agree that native speakers (NSs) process formulaic sequences (FSs) holistically to some extent, findings about nonnative speakers (NNSs) are conflicting, potentially because not all FSs are psychologically equal or because in some studies NNSs may not have fully understood the FSs. We address these issues by investigating Chinese NSs and NNSs processing of idioms and matched nonidiom FSs in phrase acceptability judgment tasks with and without think-alouds (TAs). Reaction times show that NSs processed idioms faster than nonidioms regardless of length, but NNSs processed 3-character FSs faster than 4-character FSs regardless of type. TAs show NSs’ understanding of FSs has reached ceiling, but NNSs’ understanding was incomplete, with idioms being understood more poorly than nonidioms. Although we conclude that idioms and nonidioms have different mental statuses in NSs’ lexicons, it is inconclusive how they are represented by NNSs. TAs also show that NNSs employed various strategies to compensate for limited idiom knowledge, causing comparable processing speed for idioms and nonidioms. The findings highlight the importance of distinguishing subtypes of FSs and considering NNSs’ quality of understanding in discussions of the psychological reality of FSs.

scholarly journals A mare in a pub? Nonnative facilitation in phonological priming

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kira Gor ◽  
Svetlana V Cook
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Unrelated Word ◽  
Phonological Priming ◽  
Lexical Competition ◽  
Sublexical Processing ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Prime Target

A phonological priming experiment reports inhibition for Russian prime-target pairs with onset overlap in native speakers. When preceded by the phonological prime /kabɨla/, the target /kabak/ ( кобыла – КАБАК, mare – PUB) takes longer to respond than the same target preceded by a phonologically unrelated word. English-speaking late learners of Russian also show inhibition, but only for high-frequency prime-target pairs. Conversely, they show facilitation for low-frequency pairs. In semantic priming (e.g. carnation – DAISY), facilitation is observed for the same two lexical frequency ranges both in native speakers and learners of Russian, suggesting that the primes and targets in the low-frequency range are familiar to the nonnative participants. We interpret nonnative phonological facilitation for low-frequency words as evidence for sublexical processing of less familiar words that is accompanied by reduced lexical competition in nonnative lexical access. We posit that low lexical competition is due to unfaithful, or fuzzy phonolexical representations: nonnative speakers are unsure about the exact phonological form of low-frequency words. Such unfaithful representations are not strongly engaged in lexical competition and selection. High reliance on sublexical rather than lexical processing may be a general property of nonnative word recognition in case when the words are less familiar and have a low level of entrenchment.

scholarly journals Which words do English non-native speakers know? New supernational levels based on yes/no decision

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832093452
Author(s):  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
Emmanuel Keuleers ◽  
Paweł Mandera
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Vocabulary Test ◽  
Word Families ◽  
The World

To have more information about the English words known by second language (L2) speakers, we ran a large-scale crowdsourcing vocabulary test, which yielded 17 million useful responses. It provided us with a list of 445 words known to nearly all participants. The list was compared to various existing lists of words advised to include in the first stages of English L2 teaching. The data also provided us with a ranking of 61,000 words in terms of degree and speed of word recognition in English L2 speakers, which correlated r = .85 with a similar ranking based on native English speakers. The L2 speakers in our study were relatively better at academic words (which are often cognates in their mother tongue) and words related to experiences English L2 students are likely to have. They were worse at words related to childhood and family life. Finally, a new list of 20 levels of 1,000 word families is presented, which will be of use to English L2 teachers, as the levels represent the order in which English vocabulary seems to be acquired by L2 learners across the world.

scholarly journals Speech Segmentation by Native and Non-Native Speakers

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa D. Sanders ◽  
Helen J. Neville ◽  
Marty G. Woldorff
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Speech Segmentation ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Lexical Information ◽  
Segmentation Task ◽  
Pattern Information

Varying degrees of plasticity in different subsystems of language have been demonstrated by studies showing that some aspects of language are processed similarly by native speakers and late-learners whereas other aspects are processed differently by the two groups. The study of speech segmentation provides a means by which the ability to process different types of linguistic information can be measured within the same task, because lexical, syntactic, and stress-pattern information can all indicate where one word ends and the next begins in continuous speech. In this study, native Japanese and native Spanish late-learners of English (as well as near-monolingual Japanese and Spanish speakers) were asked to determine whether specific sounds fell at the beginning or in the middle of words in English sentences. Similar to native English speakers, late-learners employed lexical information to perform the segmentation task. However, nonnative speakers did not use syntactic information to the same extent as native English speakers. Although both groups of late-learners of English used stress pattern as a segmentation cue, the extent to which this cue was relied upon depended on the stress-pattern characteristics of their native language. These findings support the hypothesis that learning a second language later in life has differential effects on subsystems within language.

scholarly journals Seeing a Phrase " Time and Again" Matters: The Role of Phrasal Frequency in the Processing of Multiword Sequences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova ◽  
K Conklin ◽  
WJB van Heuven
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American Psychological Association ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Nonnative English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
American Psychological ◽  
Mixed Effects Modeling

Are speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report an eye-tracking study that investigates this by examining the processing of multiword sequences that differ in phrasal frequency by native and proficient nonnative English speakers. Participants read sentences containing 3-word binomial phrases (bride and groom) and their reversed forms (groom and bride), which are identical in syntax and meaning but that differ in phrasal frequency. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that native speakers and nonnative speakers, across a range of proficiencies, are sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in English. Results also indicate that native speakers and higher proficiency nonnatives are sensitive to whether a phrase occurs in a particular configuration (binomial vs. reversed) in English, highlighting the contribution of entrenchment of a particular phrase in memory. © 2011 American Psychological Association.

The effect of implicit causality and consequentiality on nonnative pronoun resolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
WEI CHENG ◽  
AMIT ALMOR
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Nonnative Speakers ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Sentence Completion ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Pronoun Resolution ◽  
Implicit Causality ◽  
Psychological Verbs

ABSTRACTWe report two sentence-completion experiments investigating how nonnative speakers use universal semantic and discourse information, which are implicit causality and consequentiality biases associated with psychological verbs, to resolve pronouns. The results indicate that intermediate-advanced and advanced Chinese-speaking English learners show weaker implicit causality and consequentiality biases than native English speakers in pronoun resolution. Instead, nonnative speakers exhibit a general subject or first-mention bias. These findings suggest that nonnative speakers do not use semantic and discourse information in comprehension as effectively as native speakers.

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