459 research outputs found
Statistically based chunking of nonadjacent dependencies.
How individuals learn complex regularities in the environment and generalize them to new instances is a key question in cognitive science. Although previous investigations have advocated the idea that learning and generalizing depend upon separate processes, the same basic learning mechanisms may account for both. In language learning experiments, these mechanisms have typically been studied in isolation of broader cognitive phenomena such as memory, perception, and attention. Here, we show how learning and generalization in language is embedded in these broader theories by testing learners on their ability to chunk nonadjacent dependenciesâa key structure in language but a challenge to theories that posit learning through the memorization of structure. In two studies, adult participants were trained and tested on an artificial language containing nonadjacent syllable dependencies, using a novel chunking-based serial recall task involving verbal repetition of target sequences (formed from learned strings) and scrambled foils. Participants recalled significantly more syllables, bigrams, trigrams, and nonadjacent dependencies from sequences conforming to the languageâs statistics (both learned and generalized sequences). They also encoded and generalized specific nonadjacent chunk information. These results suggest that participants chunk remote dependencies and rapidly generalize this information to novel structures. The results thus provide further support for learning-based approaches to language acquisition, and link statistical learning to broader cognitive mechanisms of memory
Thinking About Multiword Constructions: UsageâBased Approaches to Acquisition and Processing
Usageâbased approaches to language hold that we learn multiword expressions as patterns of language from language usage, and that knowledge of these patterns underlies fluent language processing. This paper explores these claims by focusing upon verbâargument constructions (VACs) such as âV(erb) about n(oun phrase).â These are productive constructions that bind syntax, lexis, and semantics. It presents (a) analyses of usage patterns of English VACs in terms of their grammatical form, semantics, lexical constituency, and distribution patterns in large corpora; (b) patterns of VAC usage in childâdirected speech and child language acquisition; and (c) investigations of VAC freeâassociation and psycholinguistic studies of online processing. We conclude that VACs are highly patterned in usage, that this patterning drives language acquisition, and that language processing is sensitive to the forms of the syntagmatic construction and their distributional statistics, the contingency of their association with meaning, and spreading activation and prototypicality effects in semantic reference. Language users have rich implicit knowledge of the statistics of multiword sequences.Ellis & Ogden examine the acquisition, processing and usage of verbâargument constructions in English. They analyze the semantic, grammatical and distributional features of these multiword constructions in a large corpus; describes their use by both L1 and L2 learners; and reviews psycholinguistic findings on their processing by native and nonânative speakers. The findings demonstrate that language users have rich implicit statistical knowledge of multiword patterns and use this knowledge in learning and processing.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137734/1/tops12256.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137734/2/tops12256_am.pd
The Effects of Chunk Reading Training on the Syntactic Processing Skills and Reading Spans of Japanese Learners of English
The present study investigated the impact of chunk reading training (CRT) on the online syntactic processing and verbal working memory (WM) of Japanese EFL (English as a foreign language) learners in secondary school. For four weeks, the treatment group (N = 31) underwent CRT, while the control group (N = 25) participated in reading training in block format. A reading span test (RST) was administered as the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest in this study to assess learnersâ online syntactic processing and verbal WM. The results showed that syntactic processing and verbal WM increased only in the treatment group after training, but the differences between the two groups were not statistically significant. Nevertheless, these results suggest that CRT has the potential to positively affect the development of learnersâ online syntactic processing skills and verbal WM
Multiâ or SingleâWord Units? The Role of Collocation Use in Comprehensible and Contextually Appropriate Second Language Speech
The current study examined the degree to which collocation use (i.e., meaningful coâoccurrences of multiple words) is related to first language (L1) ratersâ intuitive judgments of second language (L2) speech. Speech samples from a picture description task performed by 85 Japanese learners of English with varied L2 proficiency profiles were transcribed for 10 L1 raters to access for global comprehensibility (the extent to which speech can be easily understood) and lexical appropriateness (the extent to which words are used adequately and naturally in context). The samples were then submitted to a range of lexical measures tapping into the collocation (frequency, association), depth (abstractness), and breadth aspects (frequency, range) of L2 vocabulary use. Results of the statistical analyses showed that the ratersâ comprehensibility and lexical appropriateness scores were strongly determined by the L2 speakersâ use of lowâfrequency combinations containing infrequent, abstract, and complex words (i.e., mutual information)
Collocational Processing in L1 and L2: The Effects of Word Frequency, Collocational Frequency, and Association
This study investigated the effects of individual word frequency, collocational frequency, and association on L1 and L2 collocational processing. An acceptability judgment task was administered to L1 and L2 speakers of English. Response times were analyzed using mixedâeffects modeling for 3 types of adjectiveânoun pairs: (a) highâfrequency, (b) lowâfrequency, and (c) baseline items. This study extends previous research by examining whether the effects of individual word and collocation frequency counts differ for L1 and L2 speakersâ processing of collocations. This study also compared the extent to which L1 and L2 speakersâ response times are affected by mutual information and log Dice scores, which are corpusâderived association measures. Both groups of participants demonstrated sensitivity to individual word and collocation frequency counts. However, there was a reduced effect of individual word frequency counts for processing highâfrequency collocations compared to lowâfrequency collocations. Both groups of participants were similarly sensitive to the association measures used
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Chunking and redintegration in verbal short-term memory.
Memory for verbal material improves when words form familiar chunks. But how does the improvement due to chunking come about? Two possible explanations are that the input might be actively recoded into chunks, each of which takes up less memory capacity than items not forming part of a chunk (a form of data compression), or that chunking is based on redintegration. If chunking is achieved by redintegration, representations of chunks exist only in long-term memory (LTM) and help to reconstructing degraded traces in short-term memory (STM). In 6 experiments using 2-alternative forced choice recognition and immediate serial recall we find that when chunks are small (2 words) they display a pattern suggestive of redintegration, whereas larger chunks (3 words), show a pattern consistent with data compression. This concurs with previous data showing that there is a cost involved in recoding material into chunks in STM. With smaller chunks this cost seems to outweigh the benefits of recoding words into chunks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Collocability in Languages for Special Purposes (LSPs): some preliminaries
This paper is concerned with the language professional discourse communities use for their internal communication. The characteristics of these languages for special purposes (LSPs) are many and varied, as well as being underresearched. The focus adopted here is to examine the phenomenon of multiword units, many of which are orthographic pluralities designating conceptual singularities. It is important to recognise at the outset that colocation is not the same as collocation. Analysis and systematisation of these textual "clusterings" is intended to separate them into two radically different types of entity: multiword segments possessing terminological status; and collocative material. The methods used to achieve the above objective are both qualitative, i.e. micro-environmental analysis, and quantitative, i.e. statistical patterning exhibiting a certain level of frequency and constancy. Collocational material quoted here also shows by its configuration that discourse communities use collocations to which the general public are not inured and with which they may not necessarily be familiar at all.Keywords: chunking; co-occurrence; cognitive entity; collocability; concept; corpora; discourse community; distribution; dyad; encyclopaedic competence; language for special purposes; lexicography; mental lexicon; multiword unit; occurrence; sociolect; statistics; terminology; term; tria
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