Shrinking Your Deictic System: How Far Can You Go?

Languages around the world differ in terms of the number of adnominal and pronominal demonstratives they require, as well as the factors that impact on their felicitous use. Given this cross-linguistic variation in deictic demonstrative terms, and the features that determine their felicitous use, an open question is how this is accommodated within bilingual cognition and language. In particular, we were interested in the extent to which bilingual language exposure and practice might alter the way in which a bilingual is using deictic demonstratives in their first language. Recent research on language attrition suggests that L2 learning selectively affects aspects of the native language, with some domains of language competence being more vulnerable than others. If demonstratives are basic, and acquired relatively early, they should be less susceptible to change and attrition. This was the hypothesis we went on to test in the current study. We tested two groups of native Spanish speakers, a control group living in Spain and an experimental group living in Norway using the (Spatial) Memory game paradigm. Contra to our expectations, the results indicate a significant difference between the two groups in use of deictic terms, indicative of a change in the preferred number of terms used. This suggests that deictic referential systems may change over time under pressure from bilingual language exposure.

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What is the source of L1 attrition? The effect of recent L1 re-exposure on Spanish speakers under L1 attrition

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728915000152 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 520-532 ◽

Cited By ~ 39

Author(s):

GLORIA CHAMORRO ◽

ANTONELLA SORACE ◽

PATRICK STURT

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

Control Group ◽

Tracking Data ◽

Native Spanish Speakers ◽

Knowledge Representations ◽

Permanent Change ◽

L1 Attrition ◽

Interface Structures

The recent hypothesis that L1 attrition affects the ability to process interface structures but not knowledge representations (Sorace, 2011) is tested by investigating the effects of recent L1 re-exposure on antecedent preferences for Spanish pronominal subjects, using offline judgements and online eye-tracking measures. Participants included a group of native Spanish speakers experiencing L1 attrition (‘attriters’), a second group of attriters exposed exclusively to Spanish before they were tested (‘re-exposed’), and a control group of Spanish monolinguals. The judgement data shows no significant differences between the groups. Moreover, the monolingual and re-exposed groups are not significantly different from each other in the eye-tracking data. The results of this novel manipulation indicate that attrition effects decrease due to L1 re-exposure, and that bilinguals are sensitive to input changes. Taken together, the findings suggest that attrition affects online sensitivity with interface structures rather than causing a permanent change in speakers’ L1 knowledge representations.

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The Effect of Teaching Paragraph Writing in L1 on Iranian Adult EFL Learners’ Writing Ability

International Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.5296/ijl.v8i6.10285 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 8 (6) ◽

pp. 214

Author(s):

Mohammad Daneshvari ◽

Mohammad Davoudi

Keyword(s):

First Language ◽

Text Structure ◽

T Test ◽

Control Group ◽

Control Groups ◽

Writing Ability ◽

Efl Learners ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Structure Knowledge ◽

And Control

Despite the importance of writing in ESL/EFL contexts, too many youngsters do not learn to write well enough to meet the demands of school or the workplace. The present study strives to probe into the effect of teaching paragraph writing styles in the first language on the wiring proficiency of Iranian EFL learners. To conduct the study, a quasi-experimental design was used. The participants of this study were 40 male and female language learners learning English as the foreign language at the Oxford language institute in Bojnourd in the Northern Khorasan province of Iran who were divided into experimental and control groups. There was no treatment for the control group, but the experimental group received the treatment in which four types of paragraphs-descriptive, explanatory, contrastive, comparative- were taught in participants' first language (Farsi). After the treatment, a simplified English proficiency test focusing mainly on English writing skill was used to assess the effectiveness of the treatment. Independent t-test results showed a significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental and control groups on the posttest of writing ability. As for the gender differences, the results of the independent sample t-test revealed that there is a statistical significant difference between writing proficiency of Iranian males and females EFL learners in terms of making use of first language text structure knowledge. The implications of the study are discussed.

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DISCOVERING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONTEXT AND ALLOPHONES IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

Studies in Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1017/s0272263110000276 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 32 (4) ◽

pp. 581-606 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Christine E. Shea ◽

Suzanne Curtin

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

English Learners ◽

First Language ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Native Spanish Speakers ◽

Conditioning Factors ◽

Word Position ◽

Distributional Information ◽

Word Onset

The identification of stressed syllables by adult second-language (L2) Spanish learners was examined for evidence of influence of an allophonic alternation driven by word position and stress. The Spanish voiced stop-approximant alternation, whereby stops occur in stressed-syllable and word onsets, was utilized. If L2 learners track the distribution of this alternation, they should tend to link stops to stressed syllables in word-onset position and approximants to unstressed, word-medial position. Low- and high-intermediate-level first-language English learners of Spanish as well as native Spanish and monolingual English speakers listened to a series of nonce words and determined which of the two consonant-vowel (CV) syllables they perceived as stressed. In Experiment 1, onset allophone and vowel stress were crossed. In Experiment 2, the onset allophone alternated and a vowel unmarked for prominence was used. The results show that the monolingual English and low-intermediate groups were more likely to perceive syllables with stressed vowels as stressed, regardless of the allophone onset. In contrast, listeners with greater Spanish proficiency performed similarly to native Spanish speakers and were more likely to perceive stress on syllables with stop onsets, a pattern that follows the distributional information of Spanish. This finding suggests that learning the interplay between allophonic distributions and their conditioning factors is possible with experience and that knowledge of this relationship plays a role in the acquisition of L2 allophones.

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Comprehension of verb directionality in LIS and LSF

Proceedings of 11th International Conference of Experimental Linguistics ◽

10.36505/exling-2020/11/0008/000423 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Valentina Aristodemo ◽

Beatrice Giustolisi ◽

Carlo Cecchetto ◽

Caterina Donati

Keyword(s):

Sign Language ◽

First Language ◽

Sign Languages ◽

Verb Agreement ◽

Comprehension Task ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Language Exposure ◽

Native Signers

The present work reports the results of a comprehension task on verb directionality in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and French Sign Language (LSF) considering native and non-native signers. Our goals were to study age of first language exposure effects on the comprehension of verb agreement in LIS and LSF, to verify whether a significant difference between forward and backward directionality was found, and see if our results may provide insight about the nature (gestural vs. linguistic) of verb directionality in sign languages. In both languages we found that the ability to comprehend verb agreement is affected in non-native signers. This indicates that delayed first language exposure has long lasting effects in adulthood. We argue that our results support analyses of verb agreement as a fully grammatical phenomenon.

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DO LEARNERS LIGHTEN UP?

Studies in Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1017/s0272263116000279 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 39 (4) ◽

pp. 801-832 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Megan Solon

Keyword(s):

First Language ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Native Spanish Speakers ◽

Learning Situation ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Speech Learning ◽

Phonetic Realization ◽

L1 English

This study explores the second language (L2) acquisition of a segment that exists in learners’ first language (L1) and in their L2 but that differs in its phonetic realization and allophonic patterning in the two languages. Specifically, this research tracks development in one aspect of the production of the alveolar lateral /l/ in the L2 Spanish of 85 native English speakers from various levels of study and compares L2 productions to those of native Spanish speakers as well as to learners’ L1 English. Additionally, laterals produced in specific contexts are compared to examine learners’ acquisition of L2 allophonic patterning, as Spanish contains a subset of the lateral allophones that exist in English. Results suggest development toward nativelike norms in the phonetic details of Spanish /l/ and in allophonic patterning. These findings have implications for existing theoretical accounts of L2 speech learning, which cannot adequately account for the learning situation examined.

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L2 acquisition of Bulgarian clitic doubling: A test case for the Interface Hypothesis

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658312452066 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 345-368 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Ivan P. Ivanov

Keyword(s):

Native Speakers ◽

First Language ◽

Control Group ◽

Test Case ◽

L2 Acquisition ◽

Clitic Doubling ◽

Significant Difference ◽

L2 Learners ◽

Interface Hypothesis ◽

Discourse Interface

The purpose of this study is to expand the testing ground of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2006) by investigating the degree to which second language (L2) learners of Bulgarian with English as their first language (L1) had acquired the pragmatic function of clitic doubling as a topicality marker. Advanced and intermediate L2 speakers of Bulgarian, as well as a control group of Bulgarian native speakers, participated in the experiment. The experimental materials included a proficiency test and a pragmatic felicity task. The results showed that the intermediate participants did not differentiate between the felicitous and the infelicitous options in the pragmatic felicity task in a target-like manner as their responses either did not exhibit a statistically significant difference or favored the response closest to the L1. However, the advanced L2 learners had successfully acquired the pragmatic meaning of clitic doubling in Bulgarian and performed in a native-like manner. The study highlights the fact that successful learning at the syntax–discourse interface cannot be excluded, and more research – exploring as many interface conditions as possible – needs to be carried out in order to validate the Interface Hypothesis as a legitimate constraint that permanently hinders native-like performance.

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The role of the native language in the use of the English nongeneric definite article by L2 learners: A cross-linguistic comparison

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658313493432 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 30 (3) ◽

pp. 351-379 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Anna Chrabaszcz ◽

Nan Jiang

Keyword(s):

Native Speaker ◽

Native Language ◽

First Language ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

Definite Article ◽

Control Group ◽

Elicited Imitation ◽

Russian Speakers ◽

L2 Learners

The study uses an elicited imitation (EI) task to examine the effect of the native language on the use of the English nongeneric definite article by highly proficient first-language (L1) Spanish and Russian speakers and to test the hierarchy of article difficulty first proposed by Liu and Gleason (2002). Our findings suggest that there is a clear influence of L1 on participants’ reproduction of the second-language (L2) definite article in nongeneric contexts, but that various contexts present different levels of difficulty for the two L1 groups. The participants whose L1 is Spanish – a language with an article system – perform at a native-like level of accuracy in the grammatical condition of the test, whereas the participants whose L1 is Russian – a language without articles – demonstrate a tendency to omit definite articles in the same contexts. In the ungrammatical condition, Spanish speakers differ from the native speaker control group in their suppliance of the definite article in conventional and cultural contexts, while Russian participants supply the definite article significantly less than both the Spanish participants and the control group along all article categories. The study offers novel insights into what constitutes article difficulty for L2 learners from different L1s.

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Effects of Spanish pragmatic and lexical constraints in the interpretation of L2 English anaphora

Pragmatics ◽

10.1075/prag.12.3.05fin ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 297-328

Author(s):

Malcolm A. Finney

Keyword(s):

Contextual Information ◽

First Language ◽

Native English Speakers ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Native Spanish Speakers ◽

Advanced Learners ◽

Lexical Rules ◽

Lexical Constraints ◽

Processing Difficulty

This study examined the interpretation of English anaphora by native Spanish speakers and potential transfer of Spanish pragmatic and lexical requirements into English. It further evaluated whether appropriate contextual information might prime the preferred English interpretation of such constructions. Pragmatic and lexical rules governing co-indexation in Spanish and English anaphora constructions differ substantially and operate quite differently in the two languages. Spanish pragmatic rules require obligatory disjoint reference for subject pronominals in finite complement subjunctive clauses and pre-posed adjunct clauses. The lexical properties of verbs and anaphora in reflexive, reciprocal, and intransitive constructions in Spanish require obligatory retention of the anaphora element. English has no such pragmatic or lexical requirements. The study appraised the effects of the different pragmatic co-indexation requirements and different lexical requirements on the interpretation of English anaphora by native Spanish speakers. An act-out task, a corresponding written task, and a grammaticality judgement task in English were administered to adult native English speakers and adult native Spanish speakers categorized as intermediate and advanced learners of English. Subjects were instructed to match pronominals with appropriate referents in English subjunctives and pre-posed adjuncts. They were further required to judge the acceptability of sentences containing anaphora elements in English reflexives, reciprocals, and intransitives. Results indicated that subjects in general ignored pragmatic and lexical requirements of the first language in favour of the second language requirements governing anaphora. Less proficient subjects apparently encountered some processing difficulty when interpretation of sentences with anaphora was required within limited time constraints. The use of contextual information was also evident in the interpretation of some constructions.

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Stress perception

Journal of Second Language Pronunciation ◽

10.1075/jslp.1.2.03rom ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 181-210 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Sofia Romanelli ◽

Andrea Cecilia Menegotto ◽

Ron Smyth

Keyword(s):

Study Abroad ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Control Group ◽

Native Spanish Speakers ◽

Trained Group ◽

Stress Perception ◽

Perceptual Training ◽

Positive Effects

This study assesses the claim that English late learners of Spanish do not perceive stress like native Spanish speakers, and that a short targeted stress perception training intervention during a study abroad Spanish language course has clear positive effects on stress perception. Fifteen English speakers were exposed to 90 hours of Spanish lessons during a three–week study abroad experience in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The trained group (N = 8) received 10 minutes of perceptual training on vowel and stress contrasts with nonce words three days a week, while the L1 English control group (N = 7) received communicative training focused on consonants, and the native Spanish control group (N = 7) received no training. Participants’ perception was assessed at pretest and posttest, both consisting of identification tasks with nonce words. Results indicated that all English speakers experienced difficulties in perceiving Spanish stress when compared to native Spanish speakers in the pretest. At posttest, however, the English trained group performed comparably to the native Spanish group and differed significantly from the control group, indicating an effect of training on the perception of L2 stress. The results show that English speakers evidenced perceptual difficulties when learning Spanish stress, which could be overcome with a small dose of targeted training with nonce words. Even though L2 immersion in a study abroad context was beneficial for the acquisition of Spanish stress, only students receiving stress training performed like native speakers.

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The contribution of prosody to foreign accent: A study of Spanish as a foreign language

Loquens ◽

10.3989/loquens.2017.041 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 041

Author(s):

Cristiane Conceição Silva ◽

Plínio Almeida Barbosa

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Language Instruction ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

Foreign Accent ◽

Control Group ◽

Native Spanish Speakers ◽

Speech Styles ◽

External Data ◽

Perceptual Test ◽

Continuous Scale

The aim of this study is to analyze the contribution of prosody on the perception of foreign accent by Brazilian learners of Spanish. The data were collected from 15 participants and a control group of 5 native Spanish speakers. A perceptual test was performed with two different speech styles (reading and storytelling) and with delexicalized and natural speech. The speech production was judged by 24 native Spanish subjects. First, they had to determine the nationality of the speaker by listening to the delexicalized excerpts in Spanish (storytelling). After that, the listeners used a continuous scale to rate the excerpts (reading and storytelling) for the degree of foreign accent in Spanish. The results suggest that it is possible to identify foreign accent only with the prosodic information provided in the delexicalized stimuli, i.e., f0, duration, and overall intensity. In addition, the perceptual test allowed us to assess the degree of foreign accent of each subject while revealing the great variability of their production. Finally, concerning the external data, the following factors predicted foreign accent among the learners: gender, length of residence in Spain, formal language instruction in Brazil, age of arrival in Spain, and reported use of Brazilian Portuguese in Spain. These results confirm the crucial role of naturalistic learning of a foreign language, as shown by previous studies.

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