Knowledge of indefinite articles in L2-English: Online vs. offline performance

Ionin, Tania; Choi, Sea Hee; Liu, Qiufen

doi:10.1177/0267658319857466

Cited by 16 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Spontaneous spoken production often exerts performance pressure since it allows little time for planning and no possibility for changing what has been said ( Pullum and Huddleston, 2002 :12). This factor is important in L2 research: for instance, Ionin et al (2021) argue for testing article knowledge of L2 speakers in comprehension rather than production in order to avoid the performance pressure and to evaluate speakers’ implicit sensitivity to (in)definiteness. In our study, performance pressure in the spoken mode might have led the speakers to only consider their own perspective (familiarity with the referent) and, consequently, use the definite article, while ignoring the addressee’s perspective (unfamiliarity with a new referent), which would require the indefinite article.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritage Speakers as Part of the Native Language Continuum

et al. 2022

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We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. (1) We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. (2) We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. (3) In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritage Speakers as Part of the Native Language Continuum

et al. 2022

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“…The category “native speaker” has been used to characterize a particular speaker population for many years (see Hopp, 2016 ; Azar et al, 2019 ; Ionin et al, 2021 ; Redl et al, 2021 as recent cases in point). What most researchers seem to agree on is that a native speaker is defined as a speaker who acquires their language naturalistically in early childhood ( Cook, 1999 ; Davies, 2004 , 2013 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!

et al. 2021

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The category “native speaker” is flawed because it fails to consider the diversity between the speaker groups falling under its scope, as highlighted in previous literature. This paper provides further evidence by focusing on the similarities and differences between heritage speakers (HSs) and monolingually-raised speakers (MSs) of their heritage and majority languages. HSs are bilinguals who acquire a family (heritage) language and a societal (majority) language in early childhood. Naturalistic exposure from early childhood qualifies them as native speakers of their heritage language. Some HSs are simultaneous bilinguals, which makes them native speakers of their majority language as well. Others are early second language acquirers who may be indistinguishable from simultaneous bilinguals. Previous research shows that the heritage language productions of German HSs in the United States do not completely overlap with those of German MSs, who are, by default, native speakers. In overall clause type selection (independent main, coordinate main, and subordinate), the HSs differ from German MSs in German but are similar to English MSs in English. The present study examines the distribution of finite subordinate clauses and their types (relative, complement, and adverbial) across registers in 27 adolescent HSs of German in the United States, compared to 32 adolescent MSs of German and 32 MSs of English. All participants described a short video in two settings (formal/informal) and two modes (spoken/written). Results demonstrate that, even with respect to a specific phenomenon (subordinate clauses), HSs show similarities and differences to MSs of both languages. Concerning the distribution of subordinate clause types, HSs behave similarly to both English and German MSs. Concerning subordinate clauses in general, HSs use them less frequently than MSs in German. In English, the difference is more nuanced: HSs differentiate between settings in both modes, while MSs do so only in the written mode. This indicates that the category “native speaker” is not a meaningful descriptor since it covers speakers with varying production patterns. We propose that studies including native speakers should assure transparency and replicability of research by specifying and taking into account speaker characteristics such as bilingualism, proficiency, exposure and dominance.

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“…In contrast, the L2-groups showed significant slowdowns in the critical region rather than the spillover region. We speculate that the earlier slowdown of the L2-groups relative to the native speaker group is an indirect result of the overall longer RTs on the part of the learners (see Ionin, Choi, and Liu, 2019 for similar findings in the online reading of articles). What concerns us more is the difference between the two L2-groups.…”

Section: Gjt Resultsmentioning

confidence: 66%

Plural marking in the second language: Atomicity, definiteness, and transfer

Choi

Ionin

2021

Applied Psycholinguistics

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This paper examines whether second language (L2)-English learners whose native languages (L1; Korean and Mandarin) lack obligatory plural marking transfer the properties of plural marking from their L1s, and whether transfer is manifested both offline (in a grammaticality judgment task) and online (in a self-paced reading task). The online task tests the predictions of the morphological congruency hypothesis (Jiang 2007), according to which L2 learners have particular difficulty automatically activating the meaning of L2 morphemes that are incongruent with their L1. Experiment 1 tests L2 learners’ sensitivity to errors of –s oversuppliance with mass nouns, while Experiment 2 tests their sensitivity to errors of –s omission with count nouns. The findings show that (a) L2 learners detect errors with nonatomic mass nouns (sunlights) but not atomic ones (furnitures), both offline and online; and (b) L1-Korean L2-English learners are more successful than L1-Mandarin L2-English learners in detecting missing –s with definite plurals (these boat), while the two groups behave similarly with indefinite plurals (many boat). Given that definite plurals require plural marking in Korean but not in Mandarin, the second finding is consistent with L1-transfer. Overall, the findings show that learners are able to overcome morphological incongruency and acquire novel uses of L2 morphemes.

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Knowledge of indefinite articles in L2-English: Online vs. offline performance

Cited by 16 publications

References 36 publications

Heritage Speakers as Part of the Native Language Continuum

Heritage Speakers as Part of the Native Language Continuum

Deconstructing the Native Speaker: Further Evidence From Heritage Speakers for Why This Horse Should Be Dead!

Plural marking in the second language: Atomicity, definiteness, and transfer

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