Cue Competition between Animacy and Word Order: Acquisition of Chinese Notional Passives by L2 Learners

Abstract

Based on the Competition Model (Bates & MacWhinney, 1978; MacWhinney, 2005; MacWhinney, 2012), the present study investigates L2 cue strategies in the acquisition of Chinese notional passives by English-speaking and Japanese-speaking learners. Two experiments were conducted to examine both the comprehension and production of Chinese notional passives. The main findings included: 1) L2 learners' acceptability of notional passive increased with improved Chinese proficiency but even advanced learners showed significant difference from Chinese native speakers; 2) L2 learners produced more notional passive sentences than bei-passive sentences and advanced learners showed no difference from Chinese native speakers; 3) Cross-linguistic influence seemed to affect L2 learners' comprehension and production of Chinese notional passives. The results support the universality of animacy cue proposed by Gass (1987) but also suggest that word order and pragmatic factors may affect L2 learners' cue strategies. The study also evidences the contribution of the input to the development of L2 cue strategies, which is in line with the predictions of the Competition Model.

Forward and backward transfer of sentence processing cues in English and Mandarin Chinese: A call for approximate replication of Liu, Bates, and Li (1992) and Su (2001)

“…The Liu et al (1992) and Su (2001) studies have important theoretical implications because they provide foundational information regarding the cues Mandarin and English speakers use in determining the thematic roles within a sentence. This information has been used as a baseline for studies defining the standard order of L1 sentence processing cues in Mandarin (Li et al, 1993) as well as examining forward and backward transfer of cues involved in more advanced syntactic constructions, such as passives (Wang & Xu, 2015). Pedagogically, results from studies like these can be applied to meaning-focused approaches to instructed second language acquisition which represent a functional approach to grammar (Keck & Kim, 2014).…”

Things can change: Sentence processing in consecutive translation.

“…Some prior experiments have reported the influence of one of the bilingual’s languages over the other during the processing of syntactic cues (Janssen, Meir, Baker, & Armon-Lotem, 2010; Kilborn, 1989; Liu et al, 1992; Seibert Hanson & Carlson, 2014; Wang & Xu, 2015). Furthermore, those results suggested the existence of four different kinds of sentence interpretation strategies in bilinguals (described in the introduction section); namely, forward transfer , backward transfer , differentiation and amalgamation .…”

“…On the other hand, the competition model suggests the use of different strategies when bilinguals process syntactic information across their languages (Morett & MacWhinney, 2013). Namely, Forward Transfer : the use of L1 sentence interpretation strategies in L2 (Kilborn, 1989; Wang & Xu, 2015); Backward Transfer : the use of L2 sentence interpretation strategies in L1 (Liu, Bates, & Li, 1992; Reyes & Hernández, 2006); Differentiation : the use of the strongest monolingual interpretation strategies of each language separately (Liu et al, 1992; Reyes & Hernández, 2006); and Amalgamation : a combination of strategies from both languages, applied to both of them to the same extent. The use of these strategies seems to depend on several factors such as L2 age of acquisition, frequency of language use, the social context where it is used, the similarity between the strength of the syntactic cues in L1 and L2, cross-language structure similarity, time of exposure to L2, and L2 proficiency.…”

WHODUNNIT? Language interaction in identification of sentential subjects in Wales and Patagonia

“…In addition to these different cues across the three languages, it is possible that speakers of all three languages use animacy as a cue, as has been shown for speakers of other languages (see e.g., Stoops, Luke andChristianson, 2013, for Russian, andWang andXu, 2015, for Chinese). The 'more animate' a noun's referent, the more likely it is to be interpreted as the agent of an action, relative to 'less animate' or inanimate referents.…”