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Current Perspectives on Generative SLA - Processing, Influence, and Interfaces: Selected proceedings of the 16th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference
Edited by Marta Velnić, Anne Dahl and Kjersti Faldet Listhaug
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 70] 2024
► pp. 172–196

Chapter 7
Structural change and ambiguity resolution in L2 learners of English

 | 1Purdue University | 2University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | 3University of Pittsburgh
This study investigated the influence of structural changes for verbs in second language (L2) ambiguity resolution. Two types of verbs were examined: those taking a noun phrase (NP) or no complements (Z) (e.g., to type, NP/Z verbs), and those taking either an (NP) or a sentence (S) (e.g., to understand, NP/S verbs). A self-paced reading experiment found that Chinese-speaking learners of English, like first-language (L1) English speakers, took longer to process disambiguating regions in ambiguous sentences compared to corresponding regions in unambiguous sentences. Moreover, NP/Z verbs posed greater difficulty than NP/S verbs, especially in ambiguous sentences, for both speaker groups. This suggests a garden-path effect in learners, indicating that structural information from verbs influences L2 processing similarly to L1 processing.
Keywords: structural change, second language processing, ambiguity resolution
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Structural change and principle-based parsing
  • 3.The present study
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Experimental design and stimuli
      • 4.2.1Sentence completion norming
      • 4.2.2Plausibility norming
      • 4.2.3Main experiment
        • 4.2.3.1Procedure
          • 4.2.3.1.1Language background questionnaire
          • 4.2.3.1.2Self-paced reading
          • 4.2.3.1.3English proficiency test
          • 4.2.3.1.4Acceptability judgment task
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Data treatment
    • 5.2Statistical modeling
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Results of the sentence completion norming task
    • 6.2Results of the plausibility norming task
    • 6.3Results of the main experiment
      • 6.3.1Acceptability judgments
      • 6.3.2Reading times from the SPR task
        • 6.3.2.1Critical region (region 3)
        • 6.3.2.2Spillover region (region 4)
  • 7.General discussion
    • 7.1On the L1 group data
    • 7.2On the L2 group data
  • 8.Conclusion and future directions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 October 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.70.07fan
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