An ERP study on L2 syntax processing: When do learners fail?

Nienke Meulman,Simone A Sprenger,Monika S Schmid,Laurie A Stowe,Moniek Bresser

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01072

Nienke Meulman, Simone A Sprenger + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01072

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Abstract

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) can reveal online processing differences between native speakers and second language (L2) learners during language comprehension. Using the P600 as a measure of native-likeness, we investigated processing of grammatical gender agreement in highly proficient immersed Romance L2 learners of Dutch. We demonstrate that these late learners consistently fail to show native-like sensitivity to gender violations. This appears to be due to a combination of differences from the gender marking in their L1 and the relatively opaque Dutch gender system. We find that L2 use predicts the effect magnitude of non-finite verb violations, a relatively regular and transparent construction, but not that of gender agreement violations. There were no effects of age of acquisition, length of residence, proficiency or offline gender knowledge. Additionally, a within-subject comparison of stimulus modalities (written vs. auditory) shows that immersed learners may show some of the effects only in the auditory modality; in non-finite verb violations, an early native-like N400 was only present for auditory stimuli. However, modality failed to influence the response to gender. Taken together, the results confirm the persistent problems of Romance learners of Dutch with online gender processing and show that they cannot be overcome by reducing task demands related to the modality of stimulus presentation.

Highlights

Second language (L2) acquisition of many aspects of syntactic structure is known to be difficult, especially when acquisition starts later in life
The present study investigates whether event-related potential (ERP) measures of native-likeness used in this line of research might be partially dependent on stimulus modality, as this might explain some of the inconsistency in the literature
We will investigate the distribution of N400 and P600 effects across individuals, which can be of importance for the interpretation of the grand mean results, as discussed in the Introduction

Summary

Introduction

Second language (L2) acquisition of many aspects of syntactic structure is known to be difficult, especially when acquisition starts later in life. A major question being debated in the literature is to what extent and under what circumstances late L2 speakers can become native-like with respect to syntax processing (e.g., Clahsen and Felser, 2006; White, 2007). A structure that has frequently been used to test native-like attainment in the L2, is grammatical gender, since it has been shown to pose a major challenge to L2 learners (e.g., Hawkins, 2001; White et al, 2001; Sabourin, 2003; Blom et al, 2008). Grammatical gender is a classification system for nouns (e.g., masculine and feminine in French, or masculine, feminine and neuter in German) which allows speakers to establish syntactic cohesion between the elements in a phrase through agreement. The question is (a) whether L2 learners manage to do so, and (b) whether they achieve this using the same processing strategies as native speakers

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