Why swimming is just as difficult as dying for japanese learners of english

While both Japanese and English have a grammatic al form denoting the progressive, the two forms (te-iru & be+ing) interact differently with the inherent semantics of the verb to which they attach (Kindaichi, 1950; McClure, 1995; Shirai, 2000). Japanese change of state verbs are incompatible with a progressive interpretation, allowing only a resultative interpretation of V+ te-iru, while a progressive interpretation is preferred for activity predicates. English be+ing denotes a progressive interpretation regardless of the lexical semantics of the verb. The question that arises is how we can account for the fact that change of state verbs like dying can denote a progressive interpretation in English, but not in Japanese. While researchers such as Kageyama (1996) and Ogihara (1998, 1999) propose that the difference lies in the lexical semantics of the verbs themselves, others such as McClure (1995) have argued that the difference lies in the semantics of the grammatical forms, be+ing and te-iru. We present results from an experimental study of Japanese learners’ interpretation of the English progressive which provide support for McClure’s proposal. Results indicate that independent of verb type, learners had significantly more difficulty with the past progressive. We argue that knowledge of L2 semantics-syntax correspondences proceeds not on the basis of L1 lexical semantic knowledge, but on the basis of grammatical forms

Use of the first-acquired language modulates pupil size in the processing of island constraint violations

IntroductionTraditional studies of the population called “heritage speakers” (HS) have treated this group as distinct from other bilingual populations, e.g., simultaneous or late bilinguals (LB), focusing on group differences in the competencies of the first-acquired language or “heritage language”. While several explanations have been proposed for such differences (e.g., incomplete acquisition, attrition, differential processing mechanisms), few have taken into consideration the individual variation that must occur, due to the fluctuation of factors such as exposure and use that characterize all bilinguals. In addition, few studies have used implicit measures, e.g., psychophysiological methods (ERPs; Eye-tracking), that can circumvent confounding variables such as resorting to conscious metalinguistic knowledge.MethodologyThis study uses pupillometry, a method that has only recently been used in psycholinguistic studies of bilingualism, to investigate pupillary responses to three syntactic island constructions in two groups of Spanish/English bilinguals: heritage speakers and late bilinguals. Data were analyzed using generalized additive mixed effects models (GAMMs) and two models were created and compared to one another: one with group (LB/HS) and the other with groups collapsed and current and historical use of Spanish as continuous variables.ResultsResults show that group-based models generally yield conflicting results while models collapsing groups and having usage as a predictor yield consistent ones. In particular, current use predicts sensitivity to L1 ungrammaticality across both HS and LB populations. We conclude that individual variation, as measured by use, is a critical factor tha must be taken into account in the description of the language competencies and processing of heritage and late bilinguals alike

Measuring Cross-Linguistic Influence in First- and Second-Generation Bilinguals: ERP vs. Acceptability Judgments

Two types of Spanish-English bilinguals were tested in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment on a contrast in the two languages exemplified in (1) and (2) in order to investigate linguistic permeability during processing of Spanish (1a and 2a). In Spanish, but not English, absence of the complementizer que is ungrammatical. (1) a. Qué hermana confesó Inés que había comido la tarta? b. *What sister did Inés confess that had eaten the cake? (2) a. *Qué hermana confesó Inés Ø había comido la tarta? b. What sister did Inés confess Ø had eaten the cake? In a first analysis, we grouped subjects by generation and compared ERP responses to que-less vs. que-full sentences. A significant N400 effect was found for first-, but not second-generation, suggesting reduced sensitivity to missing que for the latter. However, a second analysis, using linear mixed modeling to test predictiveness of individual speaker variables revealed generation to be non-predictive of N400 amplitude. Instead, current language use, cumulative exposure to English, and socioeconomic status (SES) were significant predictors for all subjects: increased English use, exposure, and SES resulted in smaller N400 amplitude to the anomaly in Spanish shown in (2a). Our results show that a priori classification of bilinguals masks gradient cross-linguistic effects, and processing is permeable in all bilinguals depending on amount of language use. Results from an acceptability judgment task administered to the same subjects using a subset of the same stimuli show that both subject groups judge que-less and que-full to be equally natural. These results suggest that behavioral measures that rely on metalinguistic judgments may not be good indicators of processing, and that having to appeal to metalinguistic knowledge may mask intrinsic knowledge

Syntactic and Semantic Influences on the Time Course of Relative Clause Processing: The Role of Language Dominance

We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English bilingual adults to investigate the effects of relative language dominance, operationalized as a continuous, multidimensional variable, on the time course of relative clause processing in the first-learned language, Spanish. We found that participants exhibited two distinct processing preferences: a semantically driven preference to assign agency to referents of lexically animate noun phrases and a syntactically driven preference to interpret relative clauses as subject-extracted. Spanish dominance was found to exert a distinct influence on each of these preferences, gradiently attenuating the semantic preference while gradiently exaggerating the syntactic preference. While these results might be attributable to particular properties of Spanish and English, they also suggest a possible generalization that greater dominance in a language increases reliance on language-specific syntactic processing strategies while correspondingly decreasing reliance on more domain-general semantic processing strategies

Supporting Language Skills in Immigrant Pre-Schoolers: An Intervention Study

Abstract: New York City has a large Spanish-speaking immigrant population coming from Latin American countries, especially from Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador. The children of these immigrant families grow up bilingual but attain lower levels of skills in their L1 and L2 than those expected in children their age. In addition, they show comparatively low literacy achievements as early as first grade, and continue to lag behind their English-speaking peers. The purpose of the study reported here is to support and reinforce the development of the cognitive-linguistic skills central to the acquisition of reading, by enhancing the language input to which Spanish/English bilingual pre-kindergarten children are exposed. This intervention was designed to bring this population to higher levels of linguistic proficiency and skills, thus fostering children's optimal reading readiness levels

The Role of Syntax in Reading Comprehension: A Study of Bilingual Readers

English language learners (ELLs) from Spanish speaking homes tend to have comparatively low literacy achievements as early as first grade and continue to lag behind their English speaking peers throughout the school years, even when instructed and assessed in Spanish (CTB/McGraw Hill, 1982, 1988; De la Rosa and Maw, 1990; Orfield, 1986). This lag in reading skills manifested in the earlier grades is exacerbated at the middle school and high school levels when it is critical for students to understand and manipulate large volumes of written text to learn subject matter. The cognitive prerequisites for successful reading comprehension are already complex even when we consider this process for monolingual children reading in their native language, particularly when they come from low income families. In a widely cited study, Chall and Jacobs (1996) reported that by the time these children reach fourth grade, their reading scores begin to decrease and continue to do so for the next five years, a phenomenon that has been termed “the fourth grade slump.” For inner city bilingual and bidialectal children, learning to read is even more complex, as they have to negotiate two linguistic systems, acquire reading skills in a language not spoken at home, and face the challenges of an overburdened public school system (NYT, March 28, 2002). In a report on the necessity of research on reading comprehension (Snow 2002), the Rand Reading Study Grou