1. Lack of adjustment in L2 English?
Eunjin Chun, Martha Hinrichs, and Edith Kaan
Department of Linguistics, University of Florida
Native speakers show adjustment to recently used syntactic structures.
This has been explained by implicit, error-based learning based on predictive processing (Cheng, et al. 2006).
The larger the prediction error (e.g., the infrequent the structure), the larger the adjustment.
If second-language processing involves error-based learning, we expect L2 speakers to adjust to the preceding structures, and more strongly to structures that are infrequent to them.
INTRODUCTION
Both Native English and L2 group show cumulative adjustment:
- Increased production of PO (in neutral prime trials) after having encountered
more PO sentences
- Decreased likelihood of producing PO after having encountered more DO
structures
Steeper slopes for infrequent structures (PO for English; DO for L2)
RESULTS: Cumulative adjustment
RESULTS: Verb-based surprisal
Prime verb bias:
- No effect of prime verb bias (no verb-based surprisal, contra Jaeger & Snider,
2013, but see Peter et al., 2015, for absence of surprisal effects in adults)
Target verb bias:
- Both native and L2 group show effects of target verb bias, regardless of
priming: fewer POs produced with verbs that are less biased towards a PO
- Responses in priming study pattern with responses obtained in an independent
norming study
Do L2-learner show adaptation to recently used syntactic structures?
Cumulative adjustment (over the course of the study)?
Immediate priming effects?
Verb-surprisal effects: stronger priming if the prime has a structure that is unusual given the prime verb (Jaeger & Snider, 2013)?
QUESTIONS
Participants:
Native group: 72 native speakers of American-English (age 18-52)
L2 group: 62 Korean intermediate English learners, recruited in South Korea (age 18-27; started learning English at age 6, mean 9.7)
Task and Materials:
Web-based written priming study: describe pictures by completing a sentence fragment
Prepositional object (PO), Double object (DO) or neutral primes (9/ condition)
Verb bias information collected in an independent completion study without priming with a different group of native English and Korean L2 English
Analysis (logistic mixed-effects model):
Dependent Variable: Likelihood of PO response (versus DO and Transitive responses)
As a function of the number previously completed PO (DO) structures as prime or target, prime condition, language group
METHODS
Korean L2 English: use more PO than DO, use more Transitive
Native English: use more DO than PO, use hardly any Transitive
Native English
- Priming for less frequent structure (PO):
- More PO produced after a PO
prime than after neutral
- Only for first few trials
 Expected under error-based learning
Korean L2 English
- No significant effects of priming
- No modulation of priming by
cumulative persistence
- …even though DO is infrequent
 Not expected under error-based
learning
RESULTS: Immediate priming
DISCUSION AND CONCLUSION
Do L2-learners show adaptation to recently used syntactic structures?
Cumulative adjustment? (over the course of the study)
- Yes
- More so for infrequent structures
- Suggest increased baseline activation of abstract structures
Verb-surprisal effects?
- No, but Native English do not show surprisal effects, either
- L2-learners are sensitive to Target verb bias  have verb-specific
representations
Immediate priming effects?
- No, not even for infrequent DO structure
- Could be due to underspecified representation of DO structure
- Korean L2 English learners mostly use transitives as non-PO alternative:
[V …NPtheme] instead of [V NPpatient NPtheme]
- If the prediction for a PO is not met (i.e. if input is [V NPrecipient…] rather than expected PO [V NPtheme…]), it is not immediatelty clear that the non-PO structure needs to be boosted.
Adaptation effects in L2 speakers can be accounted for by error-based learning. Lack of immediate adjustment in L2 processing can be explained by differences in representation and frequency of the structures involved.
CONTACT