20. The Role of Conceptual Development in the Acquisition of the Spatial Domain by L1 and L2 Learners of French, English and Polish

Author(s):  
Henriëtte Hendriks ◽  
Marzena Watorek
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 745-774
Author(s):  
Abdulkafi Albirini ◽  
Eman Saadah ◽  
Mohammad T. Alhawary

Abstract This study examines the influence of previously acquired languages – namely, Colloquial Arabic (CA) and English – on the acquisition of Standard Arabic (SA) by L3 and L2 learners. It reports on the role of typological and structural proximity in language transfer and whether transfer patterns change over time. The study involved 105 participants: 41 CA-L1, English-L2 learners of SA, 47 English-L1 learners of SA, and 17 Arabic-L1 speakers. The participants completed three written tasks focusing on: definite article use, verb subcategorization rules, and sentential negation. The results indicate that CA plays a positive role in L3 learners’ acquisition of SA, mainly in forms where SA and CA converge, whereas English seems to play more of a negative role for both L3 and L2 learners. Thus, structural proximity seems to play a positive role in transfer to the L3. Negative transfer, irrespective of proximity/distance, diminishes as learners advance in their study of SA.


1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Lardiere

This article investigates the acquisition of English synthetic compounding by native Spanish and native Chinese speakers. Data are presented which con tradict the claim by Gordon (1985), Clahsen (1991) and Clahsen et al. (1992) that morphological level-ordering is universally, innately available to lan guage learners to guide their acquisition of compounding constraints. Empirical arguments are given which show that compounding, at least, can not be universally subject to the particular inflectional constraints - namely, a restriction on plurals in compounds - imposed by the level-ordering mod els cited in the above acquisition studies. I also present additional experi mental results which demonstrate that L2 learners of English freely violate this restriction, and that such violations reflect particular L1 influence. I suggest an alternative approach to analysing the role of Universal Grammar in the acquisition of compounding which better accounts for both the L1 and L2 English data, by considering 1) the interaction of syntactic principles with lexical derivation; 2) the parametric differences between the L1 and L2; and 3) the language-specific nature of morphological affixation.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Tkachenko ◽  
Tatiana Chernigovskaya

In this study we take a usage-based perspective on the analysis of data from the acquisition of verbal morphology by Norwegian adult learners of L2 Russian, as compared to children acquiring Russian as an L1. According to the usage-based theories, language learning is input-driven and frequency of occurrence of grammatical structures and lexical items in the input plays a key role in this process. We have analysed to what extent the acquisition and processing of Russian verbal morphology by children and adult L2 learners is dependent on the input factors, in particular on type and token frequencies. Our analysis of the L2 input based on the written material used in the instruction shows a different distribution of frequencies as compared to the target language at large. The results of the tests that elicited present tense forms of verbs belonging to four different inflectional classes (-AJ-, -A-, -I-, and -OVA-) have demonstrated that for both Russian children and L2 learners type frequency appears to be an important factor, influencing both correct stem recognition and generalisations. The results have also demonstrated token frequency effects. For L2 learners we observed also effects of formal instruction and greater reliance on morphological cues. In spite of the fact that L2 learners did not match completely any of the child groups, there are many similarities between L1 and L2 morphological processing, the main one being the role of frequency.


Author(s):  
Anouschka Foltz

Abstract While monolingual speakers can use contrastive pitch accents to predict upcoming referents, bilingual speakers do not always use this cue predictively in their L2. The current study examines the role of recent exposure for predictive processing in native German (L1) second language learners of English (L2). In Experiment 1, participants followed instructions to click on two successive objects, for example, Click on the red carrot/duck. Click on the green/GREEN carrot (where CAPS indicate a contrastive L + H* accent). Participants predicted a repeated noun following a L + H* accent in the L1, but not in the L2, where processing was delayed. Experiment 2 shows that after an exposure period with highly consistent prosodic cues, bilinguals engaged in predictive processing in both their L1 and L2. However, inconsistent prosodic cues showed different effects on bilinguals’ L1 and L2 predictive processing. The results are discussed in terms of exposure-based and resource-deficit models of processing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 6628
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Pieniężna ◽  
Aleksandra Kotynia ◽  
Justyna Brasuń

In this paper, we present findings from studying the interaction of copper(II) ions with the His2-cyclopentapeptide and the role of proline used for the purpose of potentiometric titration and UV-Vis, CD and EPR spectroscopic measurements. Experiments of two homodetic peptides differing by one amino acid residue were conducted for a ligand to metal ratio of 1:1 in the pH range 2.5–11.0. The presented studies reveal that peptides form only mononuclear complexes, and the CuH2L complex appears in the system first (for both L1 and L2). Study results show that the presence of Pro influences the structure of formed complexes and their stabilities and has a strong impact on the efficiency of copper(II) coordination.


2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
XIANGZHI MENG ◽  
HANLIN YOU ◽  
MEIXIA SONG ◽  
AMY S. DESROCHES ◽  
ZHENGKE WANG ◽  
...  

Auditory phonological processing skills are critical for successful reading development in English not only in native (L1) speakers but also in second language (L2) learners. However, the neural deficits of auditory phonological processing remain unknown in English-as-the-second-language (ESL) learners with reading difficulties. Here we investigated neural responses during spoken word rhyme judgments in typical and impaired ESL readers in China. The impaired readers showed comparable activation in the left superior temporal gyrus (LSTG), but reduced activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and left fusiform and reduced connectivity between the LSTG and left fusiform when compared to typical readers. These findings suggest that impaired ESL readers have relative intact representations but impaired manipulation of phonology and reduced or absent automatic access to orthographic representations. This is consistent with previous findings in native English speakers and suggests a common neural mechanism underlying English impairment across the L1 and L2 learners.


2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjolein Cremer ◽  
Daphne Dingshoff ◽  
Meike de Beer ◽  
Rob Schoonen

Differences in word associations between monolingual and bilingual speakers of Dutch can reflect differences in how well seemingly familiar words are known. In this (exploratory) study mono-and bilingual, child and adult free word associations were compared. Responses of children and of monolingual speakers were found to be more dispersed across response categories than responses of adults and of L2 speakers, respectively. Log linear analyses show that the distributional patterns of association responses differ among the groups. Age has the largest effect on association responses. Adults give more meaning-related responses than children. Child L1 speakers give more meaning-related responses than child L2 speakers. Form-based and ‘Other’ associations were mostly given by (L2) children. The different findings for mono- and bilingual children and for mono- and bilingual adults show the influence of bilingualism on the development of word associations. The prominent effect of age emphasizes the role of conceptual development in word association behavior, and makes free word association tasks less suitable as an assessment tool for word knowledge.


2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Rah ◽  
Dany Adone

This article presents new evidence from offline and online processing of garden-path sentences that are ambiguous between reduced relative clause resolution and main verb resolution. The participants of this study are intermediate and advanced German learners of English who have learned the language in a nonimmersed context. The results show that for second language (L2) learners, there is a dissociation between parsing mechanisms and grammatical knowledge: The learners successfully process the structures in question offline, but the online self-paced reading task shows different patterns for the L2 learners and the native-speaker control group. The results are discussed with regard to shallow processing in L2 learners (Clahsen & Felser, 2006). Because the structures in question differ in English and German, first language (L1) influence is also discussed as an explanation for the findings. The comparison of the three participant groups’ results points to a gradual rather than a fundamental difference between L1 and L2 processing.


2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDITH KAAN ◽  
JOSEPH KIRKHAM ◽  
FRANK WIJNEN

According to recent views of L2-sentence processing, L2-speakers do not predict upcoming information to the same extent as do native speakers. To investigate L2-speakers’ predictive use and integration of syntactic information across clauses, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) from advanced L2-learners and native speakers while they read sentences in which the syntactic context did or did not allow noun-ellipsis (Lau, E., Stroud, C., Plesch, S., & Phillips, C. (2006). The role of structural prediction in rapid syntactic analysis. Brain and Language, 98, 74–88.) Both native and L2-speakers were sensitive to the context when integrating words after the potential ellipsis-site. However, native, but not L2-speakers, anticipated the ellipsis, as suggested by an ERP difference between elliptical and non-elliptical contexts preceding the potential ellipsis-site. In addition, L2-learners displayed a late frontal negativity for ungrammaticalities, suggesting differences in repair strategies or resources compared with native speakers.


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