The effects of information structure in the processing of word order variation in the second language

Abstract

Traditionally, it has been claimed that the non-canonical word order of passives makes them inherently more difficult to comprehend than their canonical active counterparts both in the first (L1) and second language (L2). However, growing evidence suggests that non-canonical word orders are not inherently more difficult to process than canonical counterparts when presented with discourse contexts that license their information structure constraints. In an eye-tracking experiment, we investigated the effect of information structure on the online processing of active and passive constructions and whether this effect differed in monolinguals and L1-Spanish–L2-English speakers. In line with previous corpus studies, our results indicated that there was an interaction between word order and information structure according to which passive sentences were much more costly to process with new–given information structure patterns. Crucially, we failed to find evidence that the effect of information structure on word order constraints in comprehension differed between monolingual and L2 speakers.

Problems of teaching foreign students in mixed groups

“…In order to implement the aim and tasks, the following methods were used: theoretical analysis of psychological and pedagogical, sociological, linguistic literature on the research problem; a study of the survey bilinguals (children and adults) in Russia and abroad [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]; questionnaires, testing, surveys of bilingual students studying at Moscow universities and St. Petersburg universities; analysis of expert opinions and procedures for assessing the quality of education in groups; analysis of statistical data. The diagnostic measures are based on projective research methods: the method of semantic differential [15], which allows determining the emotional attitude of the subjects to the manifestations of language attrition; the method of unfinished sentences (MUS), which provided material for analyzing the status characteristics of languages in the minds of bilingual speakers.…”

Interaction between syntactic and information structure in the second language processing of Korean dative sentences

“…While previous studies have reported varying findings regarding L2 acquisition of the linguistic properties at the syntax–discourse interface, most evidence comes from offline judgment or production tasks, rendering it difficult to draw firm conclusions about whether L2 learners are able to use this knowledge during online processing. A recent study by López-Beltrán et al (2022) addressed this issue in part by investigating Spanish-speaking learners’ processing of English active and passive sentences under different contexts. Based on the well-known discourse constraint on passives that a referent represented as given information is more likely to occupy the subject position in a passive sentence, López-Beltrán et al (2022) used a self-paced reading task to examine whether L2 learners would show sensitivity to this constraint during online processing.…”

“…A recent study by López-Beltrán et al (2022) addressed this issue in part by investigating Spanish-speaking learners’ processing of English active and passive sentences under different contexts. Based on the well-known discourse constraint on passives that a referent represented as given information is more likely to occupy the subject position in a passive sentence, López-Beltrán et al (2022) used a self-paced reading task to examine whether L2 learners would show sensitivity to this constraint during online processing. Their results showed that L2 learners’ reading speed in passive sentences significantly slowed when the subject referent was newly introduced in the target sentence (new theme subject condition) compared to when the subject referent had been mentioned in a prior context (given theme subject condition).…”

“…Therefore, the passive sentence The deer was chased by the hunter can be processed with less difficulty when it is preceded by a context sentence that presents the deer as a topic, thus making it given information in the following sentence (e.g. Gordon and Chan, 1995; López-Beltrán et al, 2022).…”

“…It is well attested in the first language (L1) processing literature that native speakers process word order variation in pragmatically constrained ways such that noncanonical structures are read faster when they are aligned in given–new than in new–given ordering in a discourse context (e.g. Brown et al, 2012; Clifton and Frazier, 2004; Kaiser and Trueswell, 2004; Koizumi and Imamura, 2017; López-Beltrán et al, 2022). However, L2 learner sensitivity to the discourse constraints imposed on different syntactic structures during processing has not been sufficiently explored.…”