Pub Date : 2023-06-17DOI: 10.1177/02676583231176379
Clara Fridman, Maria Polinsky, N. Meir
While it is known that heritage speakers diverge from the homeland baseline, there is still no consensus on the mechanisms triggering this divergence. We investigate the impact of two potential factors shaping adult heritage language (HL) grammars: (1) cross-linguistic influence (CLI), originally proposed for second language acquisition (SLA), and (2) background factors associated with input. To assess the role of CLI and input we compared two groups of adult heritage speakers of Russian ( n = 66) with two typologically distinct societal languages (SLs), Hebrew and American English. Their production was evaluated for three morphosyntactic phenomena: adjective–noun agreement, accusative case morphology, and numerical phrases. Using self-rating and baseline vocabulary tasks as proficiency measures, we conducted controlled experiments to assess mastery of the target phenomena. Our results show that, while CLI is the main mechanism behind HL grammar maintenance, increased input and proficiency can modulate performance in the absence of grammatical similarities between the HL and SL. An analysis of non-target responses revealed systematic patterns, including reliance on default, or unmarked, forms in both groups, in line with previous research. These findings contribute to the literature on the mechanisms of HL grammar formation and maintenance.
{"title":"Cross-linguistic influence meets diminished input: A comparative study of heritage Russian in contact with Hebrew and English","authors":"Clara Fridman, Maria Polinsky, N. Meir","doi":"10.1177/02676583231176379","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231176379","url":null,"abstract":"While it is known that heritage speakers diverge from the homeland baseline, there is still no consensus on the mechanisms triggering this divergence. We investigate the impact of two potential factors shaping adult heritage language (HL) grammars: (1) cross-linguistic influence (CLI), originally proposed for second language acquisition (SLA), and (2) background factors associated with input. To assess the role of CLI and input we compared two groups of adult heritage speakers of Russian ( n = 66) with two typologically distinct societal languages (SLs), Hebrew and American English. Their production was evaluated for three morphosyntactic phenomena: adjective–noun agreement, accusative case morphology, and numerical phrases. Using self-rating and baseline vocabulary tasks as proficiency measures, we conducted controlled experiments to assess mastery of the target phenomena. Our results show that, while CLI is the main mechanism behind HL grammar maintenance, increased input and proficiency can modulate performance in the absence of grammatical similarities between the HL and SL. An analysis of non-target responses revealed systematic patterns, including reliance on default, or unmarked, forms in both groups, in line with previous research. These findings contribute to the literature on the mechanisms of HL grammar formation and maintenance.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41891602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-15DOI: 10.1177/02676583231176371
Agnieszka Otwinowska
Third language (L3) lexical acquisition is still underexplored. In this article I overview theoretical and empirical evidence on L3 lexical acquisition and the role of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in learning L3 words. I explain the mechanism of CLI as resulting from language co-activation in the multilingual learner’s/user’s mind. Consequently, I aim to ground L3 lexical studies in previous research on second language (L2) word processing and learning, and to emphasize the role of cross-linguistic similarity (cognates and false cognates) in the process. While capitalizing upon similarity predominantly facilitates acquiring L2 and L3 words, the precise mechanisms of L3 lexical acquisition are still obscured. It is unclear whether any overlap of an L3 form with the native or L2 form suffices to boost learning, or whether all previous languages influence L3 lexical acquisition cumulatively. To seek answers to this issue, I review empirical evidence for CLI and cross-linguistic similarity in L3 vocabulary acquisition from three research strands: L3 word processing experiments, L3 cognate guessing tasks, and L3 word learning experiments. Overall, this article aims to bridge the gap between psycholinguistic and applied linguistic research on L3 lexical acquisition, and argues for controlling an array of variables modulating research outcomes.
{"title":"Cross-linguistic influence and language co-activation in acquiring L3 words: What empirical evidence do we have so far?","authors":"Agnieszka Otwinowska","doi":"10.1177/02676583231176371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231176371","url":null,"abstract":"Third language (L3) lexical acquisition is still underexplored. In this article I overview theoretical and empirical evidence on L3 lexical acquisition and the role of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in learning L3 words. I explain the mechanism of CLI as resulting from language co-activation in the multilingual learner’s/user’s mind. Consequently, I aim to ground L3 lexical studies in previous research on second language (L2) word processing and learning, and to emphasize the role of cross-linguistic similarity (cognates and false cognates) in the process. While capitalizing upon similarity predominantly facilitates acquiring L2 and L3 words, the precise mechanisms of L3 lexical acquisition are still obscured. It is unclear whether any overlap of an L3 form with the native or L2 form suffices to boost learning, or whether all previous languages influence L3 lexical acquisition cumulatively. To seek answers to this issue, I review empirical evidence for CLI and cross-linguistic similarity in L3 vocabulary acquisition from three research strands: L3 word processing experiments, L3 cognate guessing tasks, and L3 word learning experiments. Overall, this article aims to bridge the gap between psycholinguistic and applied linguistic research on L3 lexical acquisition, and argues for controlling an array of variables modulating research outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49636564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-14DOI: 10.1177/02676583231164356
Elisa De Cristofaro, Linda Badan, A. Belletti
This article compares the use of discourse markers (DMs) in Italian as a second language (L2) produced by Belgian-Dutch learners, with the DMs produced by Italian native (L1) speakers. The quantitative analysis of the data shows that L1 speakers produce more DMs than L2 speakers, whereas the comparison between the levels of proficiency in L2 reveals an effect of the type of task on the frequency of DMs. From the qualitative analysis, interesting discrepancies emerge between the L1 and the L2 use of DMs, especially those uttered in sentence-internal position. We offer an analysis within the cartographic approach and we demonstrate that the sentence-internal DMs with an epistemic value realize specific syntactic positions dedicated to the expression of modality within the IP layer. We also show that the L2 learners, despite projecting the correct syntactic structure, realize it with pragmatically infelicitous forms as a result of linguistic interference with their L1. Our study brings original evidence on the syntactic status of DMs: given their multifunctionality, more syntactic options are available depending on the markers’ discursive and pragmatic import. Furthermore, sentence-internal DMs reveal intriguing properties of the L2 acquisition at the syntax and discourse–pragmatics interface.
{"title":"Discourse markers in L1 and L2 Italian: A cartographic analysis of the sentence-internal position","authors":"Elisa De Cristofaro, Linda Badan, A. Belletti","doi":"10.1177/02676583231164356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231164356","url":null,"abstract":"This article compares the use of discourse markers (DMs) in Italian as a second language (L2) produced by Belgian-Dutch learners, with the DMs produced by Italian native (L1) speakers. The quantitative analysis of the data shows that L1 speakers produce more DMs than L2 speakers, whereas the comparison between the levels of proficiency in L2 reveals an effect of the type of task on the frequency of DMs. From the qualitative analysis, interesting discrepancies emerge between the L1 and the L2 use of DMs, especially those uttered in sentence-internal position. We offer an analysis within the cartographic approach and we demonstrate that the sentence-internal DMs with an epistemic value realize specific syntactic positions dedicated to the expression of modality within the IP layer. We also show that the L2 learners, despite projecting the correct syntactic structure, realize it with pragmatically infelicitous forms as a result of linguistic interference with their L1. Our study brings original evidence on the syntactic status of DMs: given their multifunctionality, more syntactic options are available depending on the markers’ discursive and pragmatic import. Furthermore, sentence-internal DMs reveal intriguing properties of the L2 acquisition at the syntax and discourse–pragmatics interface.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41937623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-02DOI: 10.1177/02676583231169127
Yu-An Lu, Cheng-Huan Lee
This article provides a review of previous studies that have examined the effects of orthography on establishing contrastive phonological representations in second language acquisition and presents results from an original study on Mandarin speakers’ production of English stops investigating how the presence of orthography affects the production of phonological categories that involve allophony. English voiceless stops are canonically represented as aspirated [ph, th, kh] in word-initial/stressed onset positions but are realized as unaspirated [p, t, k] following /s/ and in unstressed, non-initial onset positions. The results of our imitation experiment showed that Mandarin speakers failed to correctly imitate the unaspirated allophones when presented with written input, and this orthographic effect was stronger with nonwords than with real words. These results are best explained by an orthography effect mediated by phonological awareness and prior linguistic experience.
{"title":"The effect of orthography in Mandarin speakers’ production of English voiceless stops","authors":"Yu-An Lu, Cheng-Huan Lee","doi":"10.1177/02676583231169127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231169127","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides a review of previous studies that have examined the effects of orthography on establishing contrastive phonological representations in second language acquisition and presents results from an original study on Mandarin speakers’ production of English stops investigating how the presence of orthography affects the production of phonological categories that involve allophony. English voiceless stops are canonically represented as aspirated [ph, th, kh] in word-initial/stressed onset positions but are realized as unaspirated [p, t, k] following /s/ and in unstressed, non-initial onset positions. The results of our imitation experiment showed that Mandarin speakers failed to correctly imitate the unaspirated allophones when presented with written input, and this orthographic effect was stronger with nonwords than with real words. These results are best explained by an orthography effect mediated by phonological awareness and prior linguistic experience.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48873652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-24DOI: 10.1177/02676583231162786
Panagiota Margaza, A. Gavarró
Greek and Spanish are two languages that display a similar subject distribution with unergative/unaccusative verbs, but different word orders with focused subjects (SV in Greek and VS in Spanish). Here we consider subject–verb word order in second language (L2) Greek and L2 Spanish in order to test the Interface Hypothesis (IH). To this end, we report a word-order selection task, with a Greek and a Spanish version. The two versions of the task were administered to L2 intermediate and advanced learners and native speakers of Greek and Spanish. The results show that the first language (L1) Spanish learners of Greek approximated more closely native word orders than the L1 Greek learners of Spanish. For the Spanish learners of Greek, the advanced group performed at ceiling, while the intermediate group performed native-like only with unergatives in neutral and direct interrogative subject-focused contexts. On the other hand, for the Greek learners of Spanish, the intermediate group failed in all contexts, while the advanced group performed native-like with unaccusatives in neutral contexts. This asymmetry between L2 Greek and L2 Spanish reveals that the L1–L2 combination determines the learners’ performance, and this is unexpected under the IH.
{"title":"Subject position and verb class in L2 Greek and L2 Spanish","authors":"Panagiota Margaza, A. Gavarró","doi":"10.1177/02676583231162786","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231162786","url":null,"abstract":"Greek and Spanish are two languages that display a similar subject distribution with unergative/unaccusative verbs, but different word orders with focused subjects (SV in Greek and VS in Spanish). Here we consider subject–verb word order in second language (L2) Greek and L2 Spanish in order to test the Interface Hypothesis (IH). To this end, we report a word-order selection task, with a Greek and a Spanish version. The two versions of the task were administered to L2 intermediate and advanced learners and native speakers of Greek and Spanish. The results show that the first language (L1) Spanish learners of Greek approximated more closely native word orders than the L1 Greek learners of Spanish. For the Spanish learners of Greek, the advanced group performed at ceiling, while the intermediate group performed native-like only with unergatives in neutral and direct interrogative subject-focused contexts. On the other hand, for the Greek learners of Spanish, the intermediate group failed in all contexts, while the advanced group performed native-like with unaccusatives in neutral contexts. This asymmetry between L2 Greek and L2 Spanish reveals that the L1–L2 combination determines the learners’ performance, and this is unexpected under the IH.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44969419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-02DOI: 10.1177/02676583231167790
Yen-Chen Hao
The current study examined the phonolexical processing of Mandarin segments and tones by English speakers at different Mandarin proficiency levels. Eleven English speakers naive to Mandarin, 15 intermediate and 9 advanced second language (L2) learners participated in a word-learning experiment. After learning the sound and meaning of 16 Mandarin disyllabic words, they judged the matching between sound and meaning pairs, with half of the pairs being complete matches while the other half contained segmental or tonal mismatches. The results showed that all three groups were more sensitive to segmental than tonal mismatches. The two learner groups outperformed the Naive group on segmental mismatches but not on tonal mismatches. However, their reaction times revealed that the learners but not the Naive group attended to tonal variations. The current findings suggest that increasing L2 experience has limited benefit on learners’ phonolexical processing of L2 tones, probably due to their non-tonal native language background. Experience in a tonal L2 may enhance learners’ attention to the tonal dimension but may not necessarily improve their accuracy.
{"title":"Phonolexical processing of Mandarin segments and tones by English speakers at different Mandarin proficiency levels","authors":"Yen-Chen Hao","doi":"10.1177/02676583231167790","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231167790","url":null,"abstract":"The current study examined the phonolexical processing of Mandarin segments and tones by English speakers at different Mandarin proficiency levels. Eleven English speakers naive to Mandarin, 15 intermediate and 9 advanced second language (L2) learners participated in a word-learning experiment. After learning the sound and meaning of 16 Mandarin disyllabic words, they judged the matching between sound and meaning pairs, with half of the pairs being complete matches while the other half contained segmental or tonal mismatches. The results showed that all three groups were more sensitive to segmental than tonal mismatches. The two learner groups outperformed the Naive group on segmental mismatches but not on tonal mismatches. However, their reaction times revealed that the learners but not the Naive group attended to tonal variations. The current findings suggest that increasing L2 experience has limited benefit on learners’ phonolexical processing of L2 tones, probably due to their non-tonal native language background. Experience in a tonal L2 may enhance learners’ attention to the tonal dimension but may not necessarily improve their accuracy.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47981250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-28DOI: 10.1177/02676583231160329
Eun Hee Kim
This study investigates pronoun interpretation by second language (L2) learners of English, focusing on whether first language (L1) transfer and/or processing difficulty affect L2 learners’ pronoun resolution. It is hypothesized that L2 learners’ non-target performance in L2-pronoun interpretation is attributable to two sources. The first is the computational complexity required for pronoun resolution, as argued in L1 acquisition by Grodzinsky and Reinhart and L2 acquisition by Slabakova et al. The second is how pronoun interpretation operates in L1. The hypothesis is tested by comparing Korean and Spanish L2-English learners’ interpretation of English pronouns using a Truth Value Judgment Task. Both groups had difficulty rejecting pronouns with local-referential antecedents when their proficiency levels were low. Additionally, Korean speakers showed more non-target responses than Spanish speakers due to their knowledge of pronoun interpretation in Korean. These results indicate that both L1 transfer and processing difficulty may be sources of L2 learners’ non-target pronoun interpretation, supporting the hypothesis of the study.
{"title":"L1-transfer effects and the role of computational complexity in L2 pronoun interpretation","authors":"Eun Hee Kim","doi":"10.1177/02676583231160329","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231160329","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates pronoun interpretation by second language (L2) learners of English, focusing on whether first language (L1) transfer and/or processing difficulty affect L2 learners’ pronoun resolution. It is hypothesized that L2 learners’ non-target performance in L2-pronoun interpretation is attributable to two sources. The first is the computational complexity required for pronoun resolution, as argued in L1 acquisition by Grodzinsky and Reinhart and L2 acquisition by Slabakova et al. The second is how pronoun interpretation operates in L1. The hypothesis is tested by comparing Korean and Spanish L2-English learners’ interpretation of English pronouns using a Truth Value Judgment Task. Both groups had difficulty rejecting pronouns with local-referential antecedents when their proficiency levels were low. Additionally, Korean speakers showed more non-target responses than Spanish speakers due to their knowledge of pronoun interpretation in Korean. These results indicate that both L1 transfer and processing difficulty may be sources of L2 learners’ non-target pronoun interpretation, supporting the hypothesis of the study.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46105061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-22DOI: 10.1177/02676583231162783
E. Solaimani, F. Myles, L. Lawyer
Many studies have explored the second language (L2) acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) and whether L2 speakers transfer a resumptive strategy from first language (L1) to L2. While evidence seems to suggest that there are significant L1–L2 differences in the processing of RCs, relatively little is known about the source of non-target-like L2 behaviour. The present study investigates the grammatical acceptability of different RC types in L2 English and whether reliance on a resumptive strategy is a syntactic or processing issue. The participants included 71 L1-Persian L2-English, 52 L1-French L2-English, and 44 native English speakers, who completed a proficiency c-test, a grammaticality judgment task, and a reading span working memory (WM) task. Unlike French, which is similar to English in the syntactic derivation of RCs, Persian is a structurally wh-in-situ language that syntactically allows resumption in direct object and object-of-preposition RCs. The results showed that unlike L1-French speakers, L1-Persian speakers were more likely to accept resumptive pronouns in L2-English RCs; however, both L1 and L2 groups overwhelmingly preferred a gap over a resumptive strategy. The results suggest that given sufficiently high proficiency and long immersion experience, L2 speakers can match native speakers in terms of RC syntactic representations, suggesting that the issue faced by learners is a processing issue rather a representational one as suggested by the Interpretability Hypothesis.
{"title":"Testing the Interpretability Hypothesis: Evidence from acceptability judgments of relative clauses by Persian and French learners of L2 English","authors":"E. Solaimani, F. Myles, L. Lawyer","doi":"10.1177/02676583231162783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231162783","url":null,"abstract":"Many studies have explored the second language (L2) acquisition of relative clauses (RCs) and whether L2 speakers transfer a resumptive strategy from first language (L1) to L2. While evidence seems to suggest that there are significant L1–L2 differences in the processing of RCs, relatively little is known about the source of non-target-like L2 behaviour. The present study investigates the grammatical acceptability of different RC types in L2 English and whether reliance on a resumptive strategy is a syntactic or processing issue. The participants included 71 L1-Persian L2-English, 52 L1-French L2-English, and 44 native English speakers, who completed a proficiency c-test, a grammaticality judgment task, and a reading span working memory (WM) task. Unlike French, which is similar to English in the syntactic derivation of RCs, Persian is a structurally wh-in-situ language that syntactically allows resumption in direct object and object-of-preposition RCs. The results showed that unlike L1-French speakers, L1-Persian speakers were more likely to accept resumptive pronouns in L2-English RCs; however, both L1 and L2 groups overwhelmingly preferred a gap over a resumptive strategy. The results suggest that given sufficiently high proficiency and long immersion experience, L2 speakers can match native speakers in terms of RC syntactic representations, suggesting that the issue faced by learners is a processing issue rather a representational one as suggested by the Interpretability Hypothesis.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43725738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-13DOI: 10.1177/02676583231161164
Yunchuan Chen, Tingting Huan
Quantifier-Negation sentences allow an inverse scope reading in Tibetan but not in Chinese. This difference can be attributed to the underlying syntactic difference: the negation word can be raised at Logical Form in Tibetan but not in Chinese. This study investigated whether Chinese-dominant Tibetan heritage speakers know such difference. We conducted a sentence–picture matching truth value judgment task with 28 Chinese-dominant Tibetan heritage speakers, 25 baseline Tibetan speakers and 31 baseline Chinese speakers. Our baseline data first confirmed the difference between Tibetan and Chinese: the inverse scope reading is allowed in Tibetan but prohibited in Chinese. Our heritage participants’ data showed a divergence: one group of heritage speakers allow the inverse scope reading in both Tibetan and Chinese while another group prohibit it in both languages. There is a third group of heritage speakers who are aware of the difference between Tibetan and Chinese. Our findings suggest that while it is possible for heritage speakers to attain nativelike knowledge of an interface phenomenon that differs in their two languages, they may also be subject to crosslinguistic influence and adopt one of two opposite strategies. Both strategies can minimize syntactic differences between their two grammars so an economy of syntactic representations in their repository of grammars can be achieved.
{"title":"Scope assignment in Quantifier-Negation sentences in Tibetan as a heritage language in China","authors":"Yunchuan Chen, Tingting Huan","doi":"10.1177/02676583231161164","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231161164","url":null,"abstract":"Quantifier-Negation sentences allow an inverse scope reading in Tibetan but not in Chinese. This difference can be attributed to the underlying syntactic difference: the negation word can be raised at Logical Form in Tibetan but not in Chinese. This study investigated whether Chinese-dominant Tibetan heritage speakers know such difference. We conducted a sentence–picture matching truth value judgment task with 28 Chinese-dominant Tibetan heritage speakers, 25 baseline Tibetan speakers and 31 baseline Chinese speakers. Our baseline data first confirmed the difference between Tibetan and Chinese: the inverse scope reading is allowed in Tibetan but prohibited in Chinese. Our heritage participants’ data showed a divergence: one group of heritage speakers allow the inverse scope reading in both Tibetan and Chinese while another group prohibit it in both languages. There is a third group of heritage speakers who are aware of the difference between Tibetan and Chinese. Our findings suggest that while it is possible for heritage speakers to attain nativelike knowledge of an interface phenomenon that differs in their two languages, they may also be subject to crosslinguistic influence and adopt one of two opposite strategies. Both strategies can minimize syntactic differences between their two grammars so an economy of syntactic representations in their repository of grammars can be achieved.","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46407090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-01DOI: 10.1177/02676583211030604
Félix Desmeules-Trudel, Tania S Zamuner
Spoken word recognition depends on variations in fine-grained phonetics as listeners decode speech. However, many models of second language (L2) speech perception focus on units such as isolated syllables, and not on words. In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated how fine-grained phonetic details (i.e. duration of nasalization on contrastive and coarticulatory nasalized vowels in Canadian French) influenced spoken word recognition in an L2, as compared to a group of native (L1) listeners. Results from L2 listeners (English-native speakers) indicated that fine-grained phonetics impacted the recognition of words, i.e. they were able to use nasalization duration variability in a way similar to L1-French listeners, providing evidence that lexical representations can be highly specified in an L2. Specifically, L2 listeners were able to distinguish minimal word pairs (differentiated by the presence of phonological vowel nasalization in French) and were able to use variability in a way approximating L1-French listeners. Furthermore, the robustness of the French "nasal vowel" category in L2 listeners depended on age of exposure. Early bilinguals displayed greater sensitivity to some ambiguity in the stimuli than late bilinguals, suggesting that early bilinguals had greater sensitivity to small variations in the signal and thus better knowledge of the phonetic cue associated with phonological vowel nasalization in French, similarly to L1 listeners.
{"title":"Spoken word recognition in a second language: The importance of phonetic details.","authors":"Félix Desmeules-Trudel, Tania S Zamuner","doi":"10.1177/02676583211030604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583211030604","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spoken word recognition depends on variations in fine-grained phonetics as listeners decode speech. However, many models of second language (L2) speech perception focus on units such as isolated syllables, and not on words. In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated how fine-grained phonetic details (i.e. duration of nasalization on contrastive and coarticulatory nasalized vowels in Canadian French) influenced spoken word recognition in an L2, as compared to a group of native (L1) listeners. Results from L2 listeners (English-native speakers) indicated that fine-grained phonetics impacted the recognition of words, i.e. they were able to use nasalization duration variability in a way similar to L1-French listeners, providing evidence that lexical representations can be highly specified in an L2. Specifically, L2 listeners were able to distinguish minimal word pairs (differentiated by the presence of phonological vowel nasalization in French) and were able to use variability in a way approximating L1-French listeners. Furthermore, the robustness of the French \"nasal vowel\" category in L2 listeners depended on age of exposure. Early bilinguals displayed greater sensitivity to some ambiguity in the stimuli than late bilinguals, suggesting that early bilinguals had greater sensitivity to small variations in the signal and thus better knowledge of the phonetic cue associated with phonological vowel nasalization in French, similarly to L1 listeners.</p>","PeriodicalId":47414,"journal":{"name":"Second Language Research","volume":"39 2","pages":"333-362"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/31/b0/10.1177_02676583211030604.PMC10052416.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9241395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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