Second language processing: when are first and second languages processed similarly?

Sabourin, Laura; Stowe, Laurie A.

doi:10.1177/0267658308090186

Cited by 191 publications

(258 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…One possible explanation is that there might be differences in Dutch as opposed to German gender agreement processing-note that Sabourin and Stowe (2008) and Hagoort (2003) also did not observe a LAN for gender agreement violations between determiner and nouns (in midsentence position) in Dutch native speakers, whereas Gunter et al (2000) did observe a LAN for similar gender violations in Germans. If this was the case, our German participants might have transferred their German "processing mode" to Dutch.…”

Section: Gender Agreement Condition and The Role Of Incorrect Subjectmentioning

confidence: 77%

Idiosyncratic Grammars: Syntactic Processing in Second Language Comprehension Uses Subjective Feature Representations

Lemhöfer

Schriefers

Indefrey

2014

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Abstract■ Learning the syntax of a second language (L2) often represents a big challenge to L2 learners. Previous research on syntactic processing in L2 has mainly focused on how L2 speakers respond to "objective" syntactic violations, that is, phrases that are incorrect by native standards. In this study, we investigate how L2 learners, in particular those of less than near-native proficiency, process phrases that deviate from their own, "subjective," and often incorrect syntactic representations, that is, whether they use these subjective and idiosyncratic representations during sentence comprehension. We study this within the domain of grammatical gender in a population of German learners of Dutch, for which systematic errors of grammatical gender are well documented. These L2 learners as well as a control group of Dutch native speakers read Dutch sentences containing gender-marked determinernoun phrases in which gender agreement was either (objectively) correct or incorrect. Furthermore, the noun targets were selected such that, in a high proportion of nouns, objective and subjective correctness would differ for German learners. The ERP results show a syntactic violation effect (P600) for objective gender agreement violations for native, but not for nonnative speakers. However, when the items were re-sorted for the L2 speakers according to subjective correctness (as assessed offline), the P600 effect emerged as well. Thus, rather than being insensitive to violations of gender agreement, L2 speakers are similarly sensitive as native speakers but base their sensitivity on their subjectivesometimes incorrect-representations. ■

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Section: Gender Agreement Condition and The Role Of Incorrect Subjectmentioning

confidence: 77%

Idiosyncratic Grammars: Syntactic Processing in Second Language Comprehension Uses Subjective Feature Representations

Lemhöfer

Schriefers

Indefrey

2014

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…We expected gender agreement with these nouns to be more challenging for adult L2ers, based on previous studies (e.g., Foucart and Frenck-Mestre, 2012;Franceschina, 2005;Grüter et al, 2012;Meulman et al, 2016;Montrul et al, 2008;Sabourin, 2003;Sabourin and Stowe, 2008). Experiment 2 used a spot-the-difference task to examine similar dependencies (determiner-noun-adjective number and gender agreement) in elicited spoken production.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One possibility is that the lack of strong distributional cues to gender made it difficult for the L2ers in the Foucart and Frenck-Mestre study to retrieve gender information online, at least in contexts that can be considered more taxing (in line with Grüter et al, 2012 andHopp, 2013). Sabourin (2003) and Sabourin and Stowe (2008) Their results revealed that only the L1-German group showed robust offline knowledge of lexical gender (mean accuracy rate: 93%) and native-like processing for gender violations (i.e., P600). In contrast, both the L1-Romance and L1-English groups scored below 80% accuracy with offline gender assignment, and neither group showed native-like processing for gender violations.…”

Section: L2 Learnersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological variability in second language learners: An examination of electrophysiological and production data.

Bañón¹,

Miller²,

Rothman³

2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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We examined sources of morphological variability in second language (L2) learners of Spanish whose native language (L1) is English, with a focus on L1-L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event-related potentials to examine noun-adjective number (present in L1) and gender agreement (absent in L1) in online sentence comprehension (receptive knowledge). For each feature, markedness was manipulated, such that half of the critical noun-adjective combinations were feminine (marked) and the other half were masculine; half were used in the plural (marked) and the other half were used in the singular. With this setup, we examined learners' potential overreliance on unmarked forms or "defaults" (singular/masculine). Experiment 2 examines similar dependencies in spoken sentence production (expressive knowledge). Learners (n ϭ 22) performed better with number than gender overall, but their brain responses to both features were qualitatively native-like (i.e., P600), even though gender was probed with nouns that do not provide strong distributional cues to gender. In addition, variability with gender agreement was better accounted for by lexical (as opposed to syntactic) aspects. Learners showed no advantage for comprehension over production, and no systematic evidence of reliance on morphological defaults, although their online processing was sensitive to markedness in a native-like manner. Overall, these results suggest that there is facilitation for L2 properties that exist in the L1 and that markedness impacts L2 processing, but in a native-like manner. These results also speak against proposals arguing that adult L2ers have deficits at the level of the morphology or the syntax.

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“…Our hypothesis was also based on several studies that showed that learners can come to process L2 structures in nativelike ways (e.g., Dussias, 2013;Osterhout et al, 2006;Osterhout et al, 2008;Sabourin & Stowe, 2008;Tokowicz & Warren, 2010) and on studies showing that metalinguistic information can help learners to process their L2 in more nativelike ways (Davidson & Indefrey, 2009). It should be reiterated that the use of ERPs and eye-tracking measures does not ensure that a particular structure is processed implicitly.…”

Section: How Explicit Knowledge Affects Online L2 Processing 29mentioning

confidence: 99%

How Explicit Knowledge Affects Online L2 Processing

Andringa

Curcic

2015

Stud Second Lang Acquis

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Form-focused instruction studies generally report larger gains for explicit types of instruction over implicit types on measures of controlled production. Studies that used online processing measures—which do not readily allow for the application of explicit knowledge—however, suggest that this advantage occurs primarily when the target structure is similar in the first language (L1) and the second language (L2). This study investigated how explicit knowledge of a structure that does not exist in the L1 affects the initial stage of adult L2 acquisition. Fifty-one Dutch L1 speakers received a short auditory exposure (instruction) to a new language that included differential object marking (DOM), in which animate but not inanimate direct objects are preceded by a preposition. For 26 learners, the instruction was complemented by a brief rule explanation. Afterward, learners’ online processing and explicit knowledge of DOM were measured by means of eye-tracking (visual world paradigm) and oral grammaticality judgments. Results show that metalinguistic information promoted learners’ performance on the grammaticality judgment task. Although differences between the groups were also found on the eye-tracking measure, learners were not able to use DOM to predict the following object.

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Second language processing: when are first and second languages processed similarly?

Abstract: . Second language processing: when are first and second languages processed similarly?.

Cited by 191 publications

References 33 publications

Idiosyncratic Grammars: Syntactic Processing in Second Language Comprehension Uses Subjective Feature Representations

Idiosyncratic Grammars: Syntactic Processing in Second Language Comprehension Uses Subjective Feature Representations

Morphological variability in second language learners: An examination of electrophysiological and production data.

How Explicit Knowledge Affects Online L2 Processing

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