L3 Sentence Processing: Language-Specific or Phenomenon-Sensitive?

Sokolova Sokolova,Slabakova Slabakova

doi:10.3390/languages4030054

Abstract

The article investigates non-native sentence processing and examines the existing scholarly approaches to L2 processing with a population of L3 learners of English, whose native language is Russian. In a self-paced reading experiment, native speakers of Russian and English, as well as (low) intermediate L3 learners of English, read ambiguous relative clauses (RC) and decided on their attachment interpretation: high attachment (HA) or low attachment (LA). In the two-by-two design, linguistic decision-making was prompted by lexical semantic cues vs. a structural change caused by a certain type of matrix verb. The results show that whenever a matrix verb caused a change of syntactic modification, which entailed HA, both native and non-native speakers abandoned the default English-like LA and chose HA. Lexical semantic cues did not have any significant effect in RC attachment resolution. The study provides experimental evidence in favor of the similarity of native and non-native processing strategies. Both native speakers and L3 learners of English apply structural processing strategies and show similar sensitivity to a linguistic prompt that shapes RC resolution. Native and non-native processing is found to be prediction-based; structure building is performed in a top-down manner.

Highlights

The study reported in this article investigates non-native sentence processing in learners of English as a third language (L3)
The experiment was looking for a group effect to distinguish between native and non-native processing patterns; for a verb-type effect to check whether the predictive top-down processing was easier and preferred by the human parser; for an effect of social conventions in the interpretation decision to check whether the L3 groups primarily relied on non-structural information in relative clauses (RC) resolution; and for a group effect to see possible differences between native and non-native speakers
The two main psycholinguistic approaches predict that non-native speakers would either rely more on social conventions to interpret ambiguous RCs or apply structural parsing and process them as monolinguals

Summary

Introduction

The study reported in this article investigates non-native sentence processing in learners of English as a third language (L3). It joins the scholarly investigation of the competence and processing strategies non-native speakers apply in comprehending syntactically complex sentences. At issue is whether L3 learners keep their native processing biases in their second or third languages, or whether they amend those biases faced with the new grammars they are parsing. We explore attachment preferences in Russian and English. The examples in (1), the two answer choices in (2) and the syntactic trees in (3) and (4) The examples in (1), the two answer choices in (2) and the syntactic trees in (3) and (4) (com. 2) illustrate the optionality in parsing preferences

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Results

Conclusion