The influence of first language on the processing of wh-movement in English                 as a second language

Juffs, Alan

doi:10.1191/0267658305sr255oa

Cited by 136 publications

(176 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(37 reference statements)

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“…The research on this topic is in its infancy. Preliminary results on individual L2 processing (Juffs, 2004(Juffs, , 2005(Juffs, , 2006 suggest that working memory as measured by the word span and the reading span tests can only account for a fraction of the variation present in experimental data. Undoubtedly, investigating these L2 processing limitations (individual as well as group limitations) and formulating clear proposals about linguistic computation at the interfaces will be among the most exciting topics for research in the next decade.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…First of all, note that there are no proficiency level effects in the data, suggesting that learners are not experiencing any lexical or grammatical difficulties with the structure of the test sentences. Secondly, it is well established in the psycholinguistic literature on L2 acquisition that when learners interpret complex sentences, they demonstrate largely the same parsing decisions and patterns as native comprehenders, but they are significantly slower and less accurate (Juffs, 2004(Juffs, , 2005(Juffs, , 2006Clahsen and Felser, 2006). Researchers argue that the basic mechanisms of grammar remain intact in L2 learners, in spite of inferior performance on judgments and speed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition

Slabakova

2010

Lingua

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition

Slabakova

2010

Lingua

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“…comprehension. Learners' sensitivity to argument structure, thematic and plausibility information during L2 sentence processing is well attested (see, among others, Juffs and Harrington, 1995;Frenck-Mestre and Pynte, 1997;Juffs, 1998;Williams et al, 2001;Papadopoulou and Clahsen, 2003;Felser and Roberts, 2004), and may help compensate for their reduced ability to parse the L2 input in a native-like way.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Processing wh-dependencies in a second language: a cross-modal priming study

Felser

Roberts

2007

Second Language Research

128

156

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This study investigates the real-time processing of wh-dependencies by advanced Greek-speaking learners of English using a cross-modal picture priming task. Participants were asked to respond to different types of picture target presented either at structurally defined gap positions, or at pre-gap control positions, while listening to sentences containing indirect-object relative clauses. Our results indicate that the learners processed the experimental sentences differently from both adult native speakers of English and monolingual English-speaking children. Contrary to what has been found for native speakers, the learners' response pattern was not influenced by individual working memory differences. Adult second language learners differed from native speakers with a relatively high reading or listening span in that they did not show any evidence of structurally based antecedent reactivation at the point of the indirect object gap. They also differed from low-span native speakers, however, in that they showed evidence of maintained antecedent activation during the processing of the experimental sentences. Whereas the localized priming effect observed in the high-span controls is indicative of trace-based antecedent reactivation in native sentence processing, the results from the Greek-speaking learners support the hypothesis that the mental representations built during non-native language processing lack abstract linguistic structure such as movement traces.

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“…Throughout the past few decades a wealth of research on second language (L2) acquisition has focused on the role of the learner's first language (L1) (Clahsen and Muysken 1986;White 1989;Schwartz and Sprouse 1996;Vainikka and Young-Scholten 1996;Slabakova 2000;Sabourin 2001;Juffs 2005). In recent years there has also been an increase in research on the acquisition of morphological aspects of the target L2; specifically, a number of studies have been conducted on the acquisition of grammatical gender in the L2 -see, for example, Hawkins and Franceschina 2004;White, Valenzuela, Kozlowska-MacGregor and Leung 2004;Franceschina 2005;Sabourin, Stowe and De Haan 2006;Blom, Polišenská and Unsworth 2008;Blom, Polišenská and Weerman 2008;Cornips and Hulk 2008;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The acquisition of grammatical gender in L2 German by learners with Afrikaans, English or Italian as their L1

Ellis

Conradie

Huddlestone

2013

Stellenbosch pap. linguist.

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In recent years there has been an increase in research on the acquisition of morphological aspects of a second language (L2). Specifically, a number of studies have been conducted on the acquisition of grammatical gender in the L2. The study reported in this paper investigated the adult L2 acquisition of grammatical gender in German by first language (L1) speakers of Afrikaans, English and Italian, respectively. The aim of the study was to determine how similarities and differences between the L1 and L2 in terms of grammatical gender affect the acquisition of this aspect of the target L2. Two experimental tasks -a picture naming task and a sentence completion task -were designed to determine to what extent the grammatical gender of nouns is accurately reflected on determiners and adjectives. Throughout, the L1 Italian group outperformed the other two groups. Since Italian (like German) expresses grammatical gender on determiners and nouns, while neither English nor Afrikaans does, the results indicate that the acquisition of grammatical gender in an L2 is easier for learners whose L1 also expresses grammatical gender. Specifically, the results provide evidence for so-called "deep transfer" (transfer of abstract grammatical properties) from the L1 to the L2 in this area of L2 acquisition: since the grammatical gender systems of Italian and German are not congruent, the Italian speakers' advantage over the other two L1 groups cannot be the result of simple "surface transfer" (transferring knowledge of the grammatical gender of specific nouns in the L1 to the L2) and must be attributed to deep transfer.

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The influence of first language on the processing of wh-movement in English as a second language

Abstract: To cite this version:Alan Juffs. The influence of first language on the processing of wh-movement in English as a second language.

Cited by 136 publications

References 48 publications

Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition

Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition

Processing wh-dependencies in a second language: a cross-modal priming study

The acquisition of grammatical gender in L2 German by learners with Afrikaans, English or Italian as their L1

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