Relative clause processing in L1 and L2 English

Abstract

This study investigates the locus of processing difficulty in English object-extracted relative clauses during both native and non-native sentence comprehension. Two L-maze experiments were conducted – one with English native speakers (n = 48) and another with highly proficient Chinese learners of English (n = 20) – to compare the processing of object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) with that of subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs). Both participants groups revealed clear processing costs for ORC sentences. In both cases, this processing difficulty was localized at the beginning of the ORC, and specifically at the article that introduced the ORC subject (The soldier who the sailor roughly pushed….). These findings are taken to indicate that structural expectations play a central role in the first- and second-language processing of English relative clauses and of complex sentences more generally.

Processing clause-internal discourse relations in a second language

“…Our study thus fits in the context of current research that investigates the extent to which processing in a second language differs from processing in a first language (e.g., Jiang, 2021;Taft, Li & Aryanti, 2021;Witzel & Witzel, 2021). In this regard, we conclude that negative cross-linguistic interferences can impact the way readers process discourse.…”

Wanna contraction in first language acquisition, child second language acquisition, and adult second language acquisition

“…Whether L2ers come to know the constraint on wanna contraction is controversial. Some studies report that they do so, or seem to do so (Ito, 2018;Witzel & Witzel, 2008), while other studies demonstrate that they do not (Kweon, 2000;Kweon & Bley-Vroman, 2011).…”

“…On the other hand, there is some evidence for knowledge of wanna contraction in L2 English. For example, Witzel and Witzel (2008) administered an elicited production task to 54 L1-Japanese L2ers of English whose proficiency was said to be intermediate by their instructor; this task aimed to elicit subject questions (k = 6) and object questions (k = 6). In their statistical analysis, Witzel and Witzel first excluded 19 participants who did not produce at least three wh-questions containing either want to or wanna; the average rate of wanna wh-questions from the remaining 35 L2ers was significantly higher in object questions (49%) than in subject questions (39%).…”

“…In sum, the grammatical constraint on wanna contraction involves a learnability issue. Although a number of empirical studies on wanna contraction have attempted to investigate whether knowledge of the constraint might exist among both L1-English children (e.g., Crain & Thornton, 1998;Getz, 2019;Thornton, 1990;Zukowski & Larsen, 2011) and L2ers of English (e.g., Ito, 2018;Kweon, 2000;Kweon & Bley-Vroman, 2011;Witzel & Witzel, 2008), their findings have been inconsistent, making further work necessary.…”

Bi-Directionality in English-Arabic-English translation of relativization

“…The general assumption is that inverse translation (L1 to L2) is more complicated, time-consuming and arduous, although there are conflicting results in many empirical studies. A few studies dealt with bi-directionality from the linguistic perspective [ 19 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ].…”