Late Bilinguals Share Syntax Unsparingly Between L1 and L2: Evidence From Crosslinguistically Similar and Different Constructions

Abstract

Languages often use different constructions to convey the same meaning. For example, the meaning of a causative construction in English (Jen had her computer fixed) is conveyed using an active structure in Korean (Jen-NOM her computer-ACC fixed), and yet little is known about how bilinguals represent and process such constructions. The present study investigated whether late bilinguals develop shared or language-specific representations for crosslinguistically different (causatives) and similar (transitives) constructions. Using between-language structural priming, Experiment 1 showed that proficient Korean-English bilinguals exhibited a stronger priming effect for transitives than did less proficient bilinguals. Using a picture-sentence verification task, Experiment 2 showed that proficient bilinguals were more likely to apply the rules of Korean causatives to the processing of English causatives than were less proficient bilinguals. Our results suggest that Korean-English bilinguals share syntactic representations for both similar and different constructions, indicating that the bilingual system is highly integrated.

Cross-linguistic syntactic priming in Korean learners of English

“…The results support the argument that cross-linguistic syntactic priming is possible despite different word orders (Chen et al, 2013;Desmet & Declecq, 2006;Hwang et al, 2018;Shin & Christianson, 2009;Song & Do, 2018), in contrast to Bernolet et al (2007) and Loebell and Bock (2003). Although Korean and English have different surface word orders (SOV in Korean, SVO in English), the Korean learners of English tended to produce an English PO (or DO) after they encountered a Korean PO (or DO).…”

“…This study also found that the magnitude of syntactic priming may differ across alternating syntactic pairs, suggesting that having a shared representations does not necessarily mean that each element of syntactic pair has identical power or strength (Bernolet et al, 2009;Chan et al, 2013;Jackson, 2018;McDonough, 2006;Shin & Christianson, 2009;Song & Do, 2018). The study explored the extent to which each of the dative alternating pairs primed L2 production, as in Chen et al 2013, Hwang et al (2018), and Shin and Christianson (2009). The results revealed that more English DOs were produced after reading Korean DOs than Korean POs and more English POs were produced after reading Korean POs than Korean DOs.…”

“…Three cross-linguistic syntactic priming studies (Bernolet et al, 2013;Hartsuiker & Bernolet, 2017;Hwang et al, 2018) explicitly support the claim that only advanced L2 learners have stored shared-syntactic representations between their L1 and L2. The cross-linguistic priming effects reported by Bernolet et al (2013) were significantly modulated by L2 proficiency, leading the authors to conclude that L2 learners with low proficiency did not share grammatical representations between Dutch and English, but had separate representations for the two languages.…”

“…Similarly, Hartsuiker and Bernolet (2017), who reanalyzed the data from Schoonbaert et al's (2007) study of cross-linguistic syntactic priming from Dutch (L1) to English (L2) dative constructions, found an interaction between priming and L2 proficiency (self-rated). Hwang et al (2018) demonstrated that Korean and English bilinguals displayed greater cross-linguistic syntactic priming of transitive structures if they had higher English proficiency, based on cloze test results. Taking these studies' results together, we can predict that L2 learners will experience syntactic priming across languages, but the magnitude of the effects will depend on their proficiency.…”

“…Tom thought that (gave, a candy, Sam, Bill) the target sentence (e.g., Hwang et al, 2018;Jackson & Ruf, 2017;Song & Do, 2018). The order of the words in parentheses was randomized.…”