Native-like processing of prominence cues in L2 written discourse comprehension: Evidence from font emphasis

Abstract

Understanding alternatives to prominent information contributes to successful native language discourse comprehension. Several past studies have suggested that the way second language (L2) learners encode and represent an alternative set in L2 speech is not exactly native-like. However, because these studies involved contrastive pitch accents in running speech, these native language–second language differences may reflect the demands of comprehending running speech in L2 rather than intrinsic deficit in discourse processing per se. Here, we tested L2 learners’ discourse encoding and representation using a different cue to prominence: font emphasis in self-paced reading. We found that, in this temporally less demanding modality, L2 learners’ encoding of salient alternatives became native-like. Font emphasis facilitated L2 learners’ memory for the discourse by ruling out salient alternatives, just as how it facilitates native speakers’. L2 learners were also similar to native speakers in using the situation model to constrain an alternative set. The results suggest that L2 learners can show native-like processing of prominence and that previous underuse of contrastive accents in L2 comprehension could reflect cognitive demands of processing running speech in L2.

Do L1-L2 Differences in Discourse Processing Reflect Processing Demands or Difficulty of Form-Function Mapping?

“…Our results demonstrate that higher proficiency Korean-speaking L2 learners of English show some sensitivity to contrastive pitch accents during spoken discourse comprehension, but still fail to fully integrate into memory which was the salient alternative even when online-processing demands are reduced. This finding, combined with previous evidence for nativelike comprehension of font emphasis (Lee & Fraundorf, 2019), suggests that what might underlie nonnativelike processing of contrastive pitch accents is L2 learners' failure to fully acquire the difficult mapping between pitch accent and information status rather than the lack of the online-processing capability to encode and represent the salient alternative in response to prominence cues. More generally, this work supports the complex-mapping hypothesis (Patterson et al, 2017;Schafer et al, 2015) that L2 leaners' ability to acquire and use cues to L2 discourse processing depends in part on the complexity of the required form-meaning mapping.…”

“…This suggests that, at least, there is no a priori reason for participants to be more familiar with the correct target than the salient alternative. Second, Lee and Fraundorf (2019) used similar critical words to those used in the present study, and found that L2 learners represented a written discourse in response to font emphasis in the same way as native speakers did. Third, the current results demonstrated that higher proficiency L2 participants had some degree of veridical memory for the discourse: both types of incorrect probes were less likely to be judged as being true compared to their overall rate of "true" response.…”

Mapping Pitch Accents to Memory Representations in Spoken Discourse Among Chinese Learners of English: Effects of L2 Proficiency and Working Memory

“…L2 listeners adopt different prosodic processing strategies or mechanisms than L1 listeners ( Pennington and Ellis, 2000 ; Akker and Cutler, 2003 ; Baker, 2010 ; Braun and Tagliapietra, 2011 ). When prosodic cues match the content of speech, they enhance L2 speakers’ discourse comprehension and memory ( Lee and Fraundorf, 2019 , 2021 ). For L1 speakers, when prosodic cues fail to match the content of speech, they interfere with discourse content and memory ( Harrington, 1992 ; van den Noort et al, 2006 ; Morett and Fraundorf, 2019 ; Morett et al, 2020 , 2021 ).…”

The effects of different learning conditions on the development of collocational knowledge in a second language

“…Button boxes were not used in this experiment to measure RTs; I wanted to run experimental sessions with groups of four or more participants at a time for the sake of time efficiency, but only two button boxes were available in the department. Therefore, keyboards, which have been previously employed in published research to measure RTs in SPRTs (e.g., Kember, Choi, & Cutler, 2016;Lee & Fraundorf, 2019;Schoot, Reijntes, & van Lieshart, 2012), were used instead of button boxes as input devices. After doing eight practice trials, participants were exposed to the 80 trials of the SPRT proper-divided into one block of 40 trials containing the V+N collocations and a second block containing the prep+N collocations 17 .…”

“…The non-cumulative moving window format was used (Juffs & Harrington, 1995;Just et al, 1982). Participants read short sentences onscreen: each sentence was presented one word at a time with the participant advancing the text at the push of a keyboard key (e.g., Fraundorf, Watson, & Benjamin, 2010;Kember, Choi, & Cutler, 2016;Lee & Fraundorf, 2019;Millar, 2011; see Jegerski's 2013 review). I chose this method over the less-frequently-used cumulative moving window method, in which all the words of the sentence remain onscreen after they appear and participants can re-read them; this is a more natural technique of reading.…”