Abstract
Within VanPatten’s (1990, 2004) framework of input processing, this study investigates how different types of form-meaning attentional conditions affect comprehension of written input. VanPatten’s (1990, 2004) views learners as limited capacity processors, attending to content before grammatical form, and argues that attention to form takes away some processing capacity, resulting in lower content intake. Recent research contradicts these findings (e.g., Leow, Hsieh, & Moreno 2008). However, most evidence on form-meaning connections comes from L2 Spanish (e.g., VanPatten 1990, Leow et al. 2008), which calls for evaluating the generalizability of PMP cross-linguistically. Addressing this drawback, this research assesses how intake is affected by 1) simultaneous attention to form and meaning in L2 German and 2) L2 proficiency for different attentional conditions. Results indicate that processing for form in L2 German has no significant effect on simultaneous processing for meaning and on subsequent intake, regardless of the proficiency level.
Highlights
One of the assumptions in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA) and cognitive science is that L2 learners must pay attention to input in order for it to be processed beyond short-term memory (e.g., Schmidt 1990, 2001)
The alternative two-tailed hypothesis was that reading for general comprehension or for both general comprehension and the lexical item will lead to a different performance on the post-test as compared to reading for both general comprehension and the syntactic item for both proficiency levels
The initial prediction for both proficiency levels was that reading for general comprehension or for both general comprehension and the lexical item will result in a different performance on the post-test as compared to reading for both general comprehension and the syntactic item, due to the attentional load caused by focusing on a grammar item
Summary
One of the assumptions in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA) and cognitive science is that L2 learners must pay attention to input in order for it to be processed beyond short-term memory (e.g., Schmidt 1990, 2001). Attention is viewed as selective, limited and necessary for transferring information into long-term memory storage (e.g., McLaughlin 1987, Schmidt 2001, Tomlin & Villa 1994). The current study is premised on the psycholinguistic notion of learners as limited capacity processors (cf McLaughlin 1987). This presupposes that adult L2 learners have limited attentional resources while processing input, which results in inevitable competition between attention to certain aspects of the input
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