A Statistical Modeling of the Correlation between Island Effects and Working-memory Capacity for L2 Learners

The cause of island effects has evoked considerable debate within syntax and other fields of linguistics. The two competing approaches stand out: the grammatical analysis; and the working-memory (WM)-based processing analysis. In this paper we report three experiments designed to test one of the premises of the WM-based processing analysis: that the strength of island effects should vary as a function of individual differences in WM capacity. The results show that island effects present even for L2 learners are more likely attributed to grammatical constraints than to limited processing resources.

More is more in language learning:reconsidering the less-is-more hypothesis

The Less-is-More hypothesis was proposed to explain age-of-acquisition effects in first language (L1) acquisition and second language (L2) attainment. We scrutinize different renditions of the hypothesis by examining how learning outcomes are affected by (1) limited cognitive capacity, (2) reduced interference resulting from less prior knowledge, and (3) simplified language input. While there is little-to-no evidence of benefits of limited cognitive capacity, there is ample support for a More-is-More account linking enhanced capacity with better L1- and L2-learning outcomes, and reduced capacity with childhood language disorders. Instead, reduced prior knowledge (relative to adults) may afford children with greater flexibility in inductive inference; this contradicts the idea that children benefit from a more constrained hypothesis space. Finally, studies of childdirected speech (CDS) confirm benefits from less complex input at early stages, but also emphasize how greater lexical and syntactic complexity of the input confers benefits in L1-attainment

Distributional effects and individual differences in L2 morphology learning

Second language (L2) learning outcomes may depend on the structure of the input and learners’ cognitive abilities. This study tested whether less predictable input might facilitate learning and generalization of L2 morphology while evaluating contributions of statistical learning ability, nonverbal intelligence, phonological short-term memory, and verbal working memory. Over three sessions, 54 adults were exposed to a Russian case-marking paradigm with a balanced or skewed item distribution in the input. Whereas statistical learning ability and nonverbal intelligence predicted learning of trained items, only nonverbal intelligence also predicted generalization of case-marking inflections to new vocabulary. Neither measure of temporary storage capacity predicted learning. Balanced, less predictable input was associated with higher accuracy in generalization but only in the initial test session. These results suggest that individual differences in pattern extraction play a more sustained role in L2 acquisition than instructional manipulations that vary the predictability of lexical items in the input

De-centering the Monolingual: A Psychophysiological Study of Heritage Speaker Language Processing

Models of grammar, processing and acquisition are primarily built on evidence from monolinguals and adult learners of a second language. Heritage speakers, who are bilinguals of a societal minority language, acquire and use their heritage language in informal settings; but who live, work, and are educated in the societal majority language. The differences between heritage speakers and both monolinguals and adult second language learners are extensive: heritage speakers are not educated in the heritage language, their input is typically not from a prestige variety of the heritage language, and they are dominant in the majority language, using it more frequently (Valdés, 1989). Previous research of heritage speaker characterized their grammars as simple, decayed/attrited, and incomplete (Benmamoun, Montrul, & Polinsky, 2010; Scontras, Fuchs, & Polinsky, 2015), and are compared to intermediate second language learner grammars (Montrul, 2005). The present study: 1) explores the language use and exposure of heritage speakers, 2) examines their performance on metalinguistic tasks, and 3) measures language processing using implicit measures (event-related potentials and pupillometry). Heritage speakers are compared to adult late second language learners living and working in a second language dominant society from the same community. The study focuses on fluent Spanish and English Latinx bilinguals living in the anglophone US. Spanish heritage speakers are appropriately compared to their time-apparent parents (English speaking Latinx immigrants who moved to the anglophone US in adulthood). Online language processing of subject- and object-relative clauses are examined as the subject-object relative clause processing asymmetry has been well-established in both Spanish and English, is early acquired, and is not confounded by prescriptive rules or literacy

The Role of Individual Differences in the Acceptability of Island Violations in Native and Non-native Speakers

This study examines the acquisition of syntactic island constraints on wh-movement in English by native speakers of Najdi Arabic to test whether it is possible for second language learners (L2) to acquire syntactic constraints that are not present in their first language (L1). According to the Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis (Schwartz & Sprouse, 1996), L2 properties are potentially acquirable by adult L2 learners regardless of L1. However, according to the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007), adult L2 learners cannot acquire uninterpretable features in the L2 if those features were not selected in the L1 during the critical period. The study tested 82 English native speakers and 72 Arabic learners of English, using a grammaticality judgment task. The results showed that Arabic learners, like English native speakers, were sensitive to syntactic island constraints on wh-movement as reflected in their lower acceptability judgments of ungrammatical island violation sentences (e.g., *what does the worker worry if the boss leaves__?), supporting the Full Transfer/ Full Access Hypothesis. This study also investigates the source of island effects that cause low acceptability judgments of ungrammatical island violation sentences. Under grammatical syntactic theories, island effects are due to violations of syntactic constraints that prohibit wh-extraction from islands. Under the resource-limitation theory (Kluender & Kutas, 1993; Hofmeister & Sag, 2010), however, island effects are due to processing difficulty because islands are complex and require additional processing resources that are beyond the capacity of most native speakers. To tease apart these contrasting theories of island effects, the present study, like Sprouse et al. (2012), focused on individual differences in processing resources, which play a crucial role in sensitivity to island effects under the resource-limitation theory but not under grammatical theories of island effects. Specifically, this study tests the relationship between working-memory capacity and sensitivity to island effects by using two measures for each individual, a measure of working-memory capacity (i.e., the operation span scores) and a measure of sensitivity to island effects (i.e., the DD scores). Neither English native speakers nor learners provided evidence of a relationship between operation span scores, which measure working-memory capacity, and DD scores, which measure sensitivity to island effects, contrary to the prediction of the resource-limitation theory. These results suggest that island effects are not driven by limited processing resources and are more likely due to syntactic constraints

Cognitive Factors Contributing to Chinese EFL Learners’ L2 Writing Performance in Timed Essay Writing

This study investigated cognitive factors that might influence Chinese EFL learners’ argumentative essay writing in English. The factors that were explored included English (L2) language proficiency, Chinese (L1) writing ability, genre knowledge, use of writing strategies, and working memory capacity in L1 and L2. Data were collected from 136 university students who received a battery of tests in two sessions. The tests consisted of timed essay writing tasks in L1 and L2, post-writing questionnaires for genre knowledge and use of strategies in the writing process, a timed grammaticality judgment task for L2 grammar knowledge, a receptive vocabulary test and a controlled-production vocabulary test for L2 vocabulary knowledge, and working memory span tasks in L1 and L2. Quantitative analyses using correlations, paired-samples t-test, analysis of variance and multiple regression revealed that L2 language proficiency is the most important predictor of L2 writing, followed by genre knowledge and L2 writing strategies. L1 writing ability and working memory capacity have slight impact as explanatory variables for L2 writing performance in the timed essay writing task

Second Language Sentence Processing: Is it fundamentally different?

In this dissertation, the main assumptions in the Shallow Structure Hypothesis, developed by Clahsen & Felser (2006), are evaluated to determine whether the performance of second language (L2) learners when parsing sentences in the target language is fundamentally different. First, the claim that L2 learners do not employ phrase structure heuristics is assessed with stimuli made up of transitively- and intransitively-biased verbs followed by a noun phrase (Traxler, 2005). The second claim evaluated is that L2 learners do not use structurally defined gaps. This hypothesis is tested by comparing the learners' reading performance of intermediate gaps, stimuli with garden path effects and genitive nominalizations. The third assumption tested involves the use of configurational (binding) principles (Chomsky, 1981) in the parsing of cataphoric reference. The performance of L2 learners of English from Spanish and Chinese backgrounds is compared to that of native English speakers using the moving window paradigm. The relative influence of WM on the processing of these structures was also measured. Results show that both native and non-native speakers present similar parsing profiles and do make use of parsing heuristics. At the same time, both native speakers and L2 learners present difficulties accessing other kinds of structural information and resort instead to other clues that may render 'good-enough' representations (Ferreira et al., 2002). A pervasive finding as regards the WM capacity in L2 learners is the relationship found between the ability to store words and grammatical proficiency in a version of the reading span task (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980)

Working memory capacity and L2 speech production: an exploration study /

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão.Este estudo investiga se há relação entre a capacidade da memória operacional e produção oral em L2 e se esta relação é específica à tarefa de produção da fala ou de natureza geral, independente da tarefa que está sendo desempenhada. Os participantes deste estudo foram 13 alunos de inglês como segunda língua na Universidade de Minnesota. A capacidade de memória operacional foi medida através do speaking span test (Daneman, 1991) e do operation-word span test (Turner & Engle, 1989), ambos aplicados em inglês. Duas tarefas foram usadas para elicitar a produção oral em L2: descrição de uma gravura e narrativa. Quatro aspectos da produção oral foram medidos: fluência, precisão, complexidade e densidade lexical. Análises estatísticas mostram que a capacidade de memória operacional, quando medida pelo speaking span test, se correlaciona de forma positiva com fluência, precisão e complexidade e, de forma negativa, com a densidade lexical, em ambas as tarefas. As análises revelam, também, que o speaking span test pode prever o desempenho oral em L2 nos aspectos de fluência, precisão e complexidade gramatical, explicando parcialmente diferenças de desempenho nestes aspectos. As análises revelam, ainda, que há uma tendência para uma interação entre pausas e hesitações, e entre fluência, precisão, complexidade e densidade lexical durante a produção oral em L2. Por fim, as análises mostram que o operation-word span test sofreu um erro metodológico na sua aplicação, comprometendo, assim, os dados gerados pelo teste. Consequentemente, este estudo não apresenta dados adequados para determinar se a relação entre a capacidade de memória operacional e produção oral em L2 é específica à tarefa em questão ou se é de caráter geral. Para explicar a relação entre a capacidade de memória, quando medida pelo speaking span test, e produção oral em L2, propõe-se que a codificação gramatical é uma sub-tarefa complexa no processo hierárquico de produção da fala que exige o controle e regulação da atenção

Fluency Strategy Training and the L2 Oral Task Performance of Indonesian EFL Classroom Learners

This quasi-experimental study investigated the impacts of two instructional conditions, explicit fluency strategy training and implicit task-based instruction, on university English learners in Indonesia. The results revealed that both instructional conditions could not significantly improve participants’ speech fluency, but improvement on oral proficiency reached statistical significance. A degree of variability in participants’ speech fluency development was also found. Both instructional conditions could be applied with potentially complementary effects in Indonesian EFL classrooms