Integrating meaning and structure in L1–L2 and L2–L1 translations

Abstract

This article examined the integration of semantic and morphosyntactic information by Korean learners of English as a second language (L2). In Experiment 1, L2 learners listened to English active or passive sentences that were either plausible or implausible and translated them into Korean. A significant number of Korean translations maintained the original passive/active structure, but switched the thematic roles of the actors in the sentences. In Experiment 2, the direction of translation was reversed and participants made very few translation errors, showing that the errors in Experiment 1 were not due to participants' lack of control over the English passive morphosyntax. The results are strikingly similar to previous results in the first language (L1) psycholinguistics literature, and support a view of L2 processing (like L1 processing) that is 'good enough' in nature: misinterpretations arise from only a 'good enough' integration of semantic and morphosyntactic information in the input. KeywordsGood-enough processing, integration of syntax and meaning, L2 psycholinguistics, L2 sentence processing, L2 sentence translation, translation paradigm I IntroductionIt has often been reported that it is common for adult second language (L2) learners to face difficulties in ultimate attainment, unlike first language (L1) acquisition. A great deal of second language acquisition (SLA) research has focused on understanding what

When Structure Competes with Semantics: Reading Chinese Relative Clauses

“…The results suggest that readers rely on a word-order heuristic as well as a plausibility heuristic, which conspire to cause miscomprehension. The same processing pattern has been observed in second language (L2) English speakers' comprehension as well (Jacob & Felser, 2016;Lim & Christianson, 2013a).…”

“…The results suggest that readers rely on a word-order heuristic as well as a plausibility heuristic, which conspire to cause miscomprehension. The same processing pattern has been observed in second language (L2) English speakers' comprehension as well (Jacob & Felser, 2016;Lim & Christianson, 2013a).Recently, Zhou and Christianson (2016a) found that readers engage in good-enough processing when reading unambiguous RCs with similarly competing syntactic and semantic information. Computation of the more challenging ORC structure in (3a) is interfered by the implausible semantic information, causing longer fixation durations, longer whole sentence reading times, more regressions in sentence processing, and lower comprehension accuracy in a paraphrase verification task (3b).…”

“…It suggests that readers often rely on a heuristic processing route to build representations that are judged to be good enough to handle the current language comprehension task, but often not good enough to reach an accurate interpretation of the actual language input. GE processingrelated phenomena have been observed when readers (both native and non-native speakers) process garden-path sentences (Christianson et al, , 2006Lassotta, Omaki, & Franck, 2016), active/passive sentences (Christianson et al, 2010;Christianson & Lim, 2013a;Ferreira, 2003), and plausible/implausible relative clauses (RCs) (Lim & Christianson, 2013b; Zhou & Christianson, 2016a, b).When native English speakers read garden-path sentences, such as (2a), they often misinterpret deer as the object of the subordinate verb hunted and answer "yes" to (2b).(2) a. While the man hunted the deer ran into the woods.…”

I “hear” what you're “saying”: Auditory perceptual simulation, reading speed, and reading comprehension

“…I "hear" what you're "saying": Auditory perceptual simulation, reading speed, and reading comprehension Syntactic structure is fragile, susceptible to both decay in memory (Sachs, 1967) and interference from competing lexical-semantic information (Christianson, Luke, & Ferreira, 2010;Ferreira, 2003;Lim & Christianson, 2013a, 2013b. Consequently, misinterpretations often arise when noncanonical syntactic structure is used to convey semantically implausible information.…”

“…Rather, the syntax is fragile and, under certain circumstances, is overridden by competing plausibility and heuristic-based processing. Substantial related research on visual language processing (i.e., reading) shows that readers often misinterpret sentences like Examples 1-2 as well as other difficult structures (such as so-called garden-path sentences, Example 3), despite signs of both rereading and coexisting partially correct interpretations (Christianson, 2008;Christianson, Hollingworth, Halliwell, & Ferreira, 2001;Christianson & Luke, 2011;Christianson, Williams, Zacks, & Ferreira, 2006;Lim & Christianson, 2013a, 2013bPatson, Darowski, Moon, & Ferreira, 2009;Slattery, Sturt, Christianson, Yoshida, & Ferreira, 2013;Swets, Desmet, Clifton, & Ferreira, 2008;van Gompel, Pickering, Pearson, & Jacob, 2006).…”