Heritage language proficiency does not predict syntactic CLI into L3 English

Lloyd-Smith, Anika; Gyllstad, Henrik; Kupisch, Tanja; Quaglia, Stefano

doi:10.1080/13670050.2018.1472208

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…The test consists of 50 real words and 25 pseudo-words requiring a YES or NO response. In our adaptation (see Lloyd-Smith et al, 2021 ), the items appeared in the center of the screen one at the time, and participants were instructed to press on their keyboard key F if they thought the word existed or key J if they did not. Scoring consisted of simply the sum of all correct answers (i.e., one point for each correctly identified word or non-word).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of markedness in gender processing in Italian as a heritage language: A speed accuracy tradeoff

Pisa

Kubota²,

Rothman³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

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This study examined potential sources of grammatical gender variability in heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with a focus on morphological markedness. Fifty-four adult Italian HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed an online Self-Paced Reading Task and an offline Grammaticality Judgment Task. Both tasks involved sentences with grammatical and ungrammatical noun-adjective agreement, manipulating markedness. In grammatical sentences, both groups showed a markedness effect: shorter reading times (RTs) and higher accuracy for sentences containing masculine nouns as compared to sentences with feminine nouns. In ungrammatical sentences, although both groups were sensitive to ungrammaticality, only HSs showed a markedness effect, that is, they had significantly longer RTs and higher accuracy when violations were realized on feminine adjectives. Proficiency in the HL was a significant predictor of accuracy and RTs at the individual level. Taken together, results indicate that HSs acquire and process gender in a qualitatively similar way to homeland native speakers. However, RT evidence seems to suggest that at least under particular experimental methods, markedness considerations are more prevalent for HSs resulting in a speed-accuracy tradeoff.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of markedness in gender processing in Italian as a heritage language: A speed accuracy tradeoff

Pisa

Kubota²,

Rothman³

et al. 2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…However, all of our participants indicated that Mandarin 7 The DIALANG test served as a proxy for assessing the development on all linguistic areas. The DIALANG test scores have been found to correlate well with self-rated proficiency and general proficiency factors such as age of onset, language use, and language preference (Lloyd-Smith et al, 2020). 8 In the overall data set (N = 55), there were more high-proficient participants from the North and vice versa for the South (Zhao, 2022).…”

Section: Methods Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The participants were grouped into high-vs. low-proficient speakers according to a lexical task (DIALANG), which has been argued to be suited to assess L2 proficiency (Alderson, 2005). Furthermore, it has been shown to correlate well with self-rated proficiency and general proficiency factors such as age of onset, language use, and language preference (Lloyd-Smith et al, 2020). To tap more deeply into phonetic/phonological aspects for the current set of sentences, we further solicited perceived foreign accent ratings (Levi et al, 2007;Hopp and Schmid, 2013).…”

Section: Proficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

How experience with tone in the native language affects the L2 acquisition of pitch accents

2022

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This paper tested the ability of Mandarin learners of German, whose native language has lexical tone, to imitate pitch accent contrasts in German, an intonation language. In intonation languages, pitch accents do not convey lexical information; also, pitch accents are sparser than lexical tones as they only associate with prominent words in the utterance. We compared two kinds of German pitch-accent contrasts: (1) a “non-merger” contrast, which Mandarin listeners perceive as different and (2) a “merger” contrast, which sounds more similar to Mandarin listeners. Speakers of a tone language are generally very sensitive to pitch. Hypothesis 1 (H1) therefore stated that Mandarin learners produce the two kinds of contrasts similarly to native German speakers. However, the documented sensitivity to tonal contrasts, at the expense of processing phrase-level intonational contrasts, may generally hinder target-like production of intonational pitch accents in the L2 (Hypothesis 2, H2). Finally, cross-linguistic influence (CLI) predicts a difference in the realization of these two contrasts as well as improvement with higher proficiency (Hypothesis 3, H3). We used a delayed imitation paradigm, which is well-suited for assessing L2-phonetics and -phonology because it does not necessitate access to intonational meaning. We investigated the imitation of three kinds of accents, which were associated with the sentence-final noun in short wh-questions (e.g., Wer malt denn Mandalas, lit: “Who draws PRT mandalas?” “Who likes drawing mandalas?”). In Experiment 1, 28 native speakers of Mandarin participated (14 low- and 14 high-proficient). The learners’ productions of the two kinds of contrasts were analyzed using General Additive Mixed Models to evaluate differences in pitch accent contrasts over time, in comparison to the productions of native German participants from an earlier study in our lab. Results showed a more pronounced realization of the non-merger contrast compared to German natives and a less distinct realization of the merger contrast, with beneficial effects of proficiency, lending support to H3. Experiment 2 tested low-proficient Italian learners of German (whose L1 is an intonation language) to contextualize the Mandarin data and further investigate CLI. Italian learners realized the non-merger contrast more target-like than Mandarin learners, lending additional support to CLI (H3).

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“…The Italian and German monolingual controls were exposed to the same regional varieties as the HSs. Proficiency in all three languages (Italian, German, and English) was measured using a Yes/No vocabulary task, which consisted of 50 real words (full verbs) and 25 pseudowords taken from the placement test for the DIALANG (Alderson, 2005, p. 80), and adapted for use in a self-directed experiment in Presentation® (see Lloyd-Smith et al, 2021, for details on the test and its scoring). The total score was 75 for this task.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voice Onset Time in Multilingual Speakers: Italian Heritage Speakers in Germany With L3 English

Geiss

Gumbsheimer

Lloyd-Smith

et al. 2021

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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This study brings together two previously largely independent fields of multilingual language acquisition: heritage language and third language (L3) acquisition. We investigate the production of fortis and lenis stops in semi-naturalistic speech in the three languages of 20 heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with German as a majority language and English as L3. The study aims to identify the extent to which the HSs produce distinct values across all three languages, or whether crosslinguistic influence (CLI) occurs. To this end, we compare the HSs’ voice onset time (VOT) values with those of L2 English speakers from Italy and Germany. The language triad exhibits overlapping and distinct VOT realizations, making VOT a potentially vulnerable category. Results indicate CLI from German into Italian, although a systemic difference is maintained. When speaking English, the HSs show an advantage over the Italian L2 control group, with less prevoicing and longer fortis stops, indicating a specific bilingual advantage.

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Heritage language proficiency does not predict syntactic CLI into L3 English

Cited by 10 publications

References 49 publications

Effects of markedness in gender processing in Italian as a heritage language: A speed accuracy tradeoff

Effects of markedness in gender processing in Italian as a heritage language: A speed accuracy tradeoff

How experience with tone in the native language affects the L2 acquisition of pitch accents

Voice Onset Time in Multilingual Speakers: Italian Heritage Speakers in Germany With L3 English

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