Can bilinguals see it coming? Word anticipation in L2 sentence reading.

Abstract

Why is it more difficult to comprehend a 2nd (L2) than a 1st language (L1)? In the present article we investigate whether difficulties during L2 sentence comprehension come from differences in the way L1 and L2 speakers anticipate upcoming words. We recorded the brain activity (event-related potentials) of Spanish monolinguals, French-Spanish late bilinguals, and Spanish-Catalan early bilinguals while reading sentences in Spanish. We manipulated the ending of highly constrained sentences so that the critical noun was either expected or not. The expected and unexpected nouns were of different gender so that we could observe potential anticipation effects already on the article. In line with previous studies, a modulation of the N400 effect was observed on the article and the noun, followed by an anterior positivity on the noun. Importantly, this pattern was found in all 3 groups, suggesting that, at least when their 2 languages are closely related, bilinguals are able to anticipate upcoming words in a similar manner as monolinguals.

How robust are prediction effects in language comprehension? Failure to replicate article-elicited N400 effects

“…This slower SOA was used in Martin et al (2013), and is consistent with the use of slower SOAs in ERP studies on nonnative language comprehension than on native language comprehension (e.g. Foucart et al, 2014;Tanner, McLaughlin, Herschensohn, & Osterhout, 2013;Tokowicz & MacWhinney, 2005). Non-native speakers may show more native-like processing when they have more time to comprehend each word.…”

“…The debate about the functional role of prediction extends to current research on non-native language comprehension, where one of the central questions is whether, or under what circumstances, non-native speakers are able to successfully predict upcoming information like native speakers do (Foucart, Martin, Moreno, & Costa, 2014;Hopp, 2015;Martin et al, 2013). It is generally assumed that native speakers are able to pre-activate upcoming information based on the meaning they compute from linguistic input (Kutas, DeLong, & Smith, 2011;Otten, Nieuwland, & Van Berkum, 2007;Otten & Van Berkum, 2008;Van Berkum, Brown, Zwitserlood, Kooijman, & Hagoort, 2005).…”

Putting things in new places: Linguistic experience modulates the predictive power of placement verb semantics

“…In contrast to Martin et al, Foucart et al did find anticipation effects in bilinguals: they found a larger N400 effect on the article when there was a mismatch between the gender of the article and the expected noun. Foucart et al (2014) account for the difference in their findings in terms of typological relatedness between the bilingual's languages: French and Spanish exhibit a similar gender marking system, whereas such typological overlap is absent between English and Spanish. Dussias et al (2013) studied typological distance in morphosyntactic prediction more systematically, comparing native Spanish speakers to both EnglishSpanish and Italian-Spanish bilinguals.…”

“…Despite this commonly acknowledged effect of cross-linguistic influence, only very few studies have put forward the hypothesis that L2 predictive ability is modulated by the cross-linguistic similarity between people's native and second language, hence, their experience with specific forms and/or concepts via the L1. In a follow-up study of Martin et al (2013), Foucart et al (2014) investigated lexical prediction in French-Spanish bilinguals while reading constraining sentences in Spanish. In contrast to Martin et al, Foucart et al did find anticipation effects in bilinguals: they found a larger N400 effect on the article when there was a mismatch between the gender of the article and the expected noun.…”

“…Researchers have addressed to what extent L2 users and bilinguals predict specific lexical forms, as evidenced through event-related potential modulations on articles preceding nouns (Foucart, Martin, Moreno, & Costa, 2014;Martin et al, 2013), as well as their ability to use specific linguistic cues for the generation of anticipatory eye movements, such as grammatical gender, case marking, and semantic information encoded in verbs (Dussias, Valdes Kroff, Guzzardo Tamargo, & Gerfen, 2013;Hopp, 2013Hopp, , 2015. Generally, studies targeting predictions based on semantic cues show that this process is effortless for L2 users, and that there are no critical differences between native and non-native speakers (e.g., Hopp, 2015;Trenkic, Mirkovic, & Altmann, 2014).…”