Language Comprehension Research Articles

The Study on Sentence Difficulty of the Chinese Components

In recent years, reading comprehension has gradually become a proficiency indicator of interest in lexical and grammar. As sentences are the basic units of discourse structure, sentence difficulty is often applied to the study of text difficulty. Although there have been a number of studies on sentence difficulty, the lack of consistency in the indicators chosen or the discussion of specific grammatical issues have limited the research on sentence difficulty. Therefore, this study adopts a corpus-based approach, using a corpus as an objective and scientific data source. The study utilizes the Digital Platform for Chinese Grammar and the 8000 Chinese Words as important reference sources. Additionally, the CRIE 3.0 is employed to validate the texts and establish sentence difficulty indicators. However, due to the incomplete development of certain indicators in the "Chinese Grammar Digital Platform", the study refers to the Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education and Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi to establish comprehensive sentence structure and sentence component difficulty indicators. Subsequently, the established difficulty indicators are validated by conducting comparative analyses using corpora as the basis. Native speaker corpora are used as benchmarks, while Mandarin learner corpora are used for comparison, and then validate objectively through the machine learning model. These validation aims to examine the validity and reliability of the selected indicators and establish a calculation method involving " level of grammar * point distribution ratio of grammar " to determine the difficulty indicators for Chinese sentences, Additionally, expert reliability is accessed to ensure the credibility of indicators.

EPS mid-career prize: An integrated framework for the learning, recognition and interpretation of words.

In this article, I review the evidence on the involvement of sleep and consolidation in word learning and processing during language comprehension, focusing on implications for theory. The theoretical basis for the review is a complementary systems account of word learning involving flexible (hippocampal) and stable (cortical) pathways to lexical knowledge. I argue that the accumulated data are consistent with a role for both pathways in both learning and recognition of lexical items, with sleep and consolidation supporting the transfer of recent experience between the pathways. The level of involvement of each pathway is dependent on key factors, such as consistency with prior knowledge in the case of learning, and reliance on context and/or automaticity in the case of recognition. As a consequence, the notion of a mental lexicon cannot really be restricted to just the listener's stable knowledge about words: flexible knowledge and recent experiences are also important. Furthermore, I argue that the flexible pathway plays a critical role even in the absence of new lexical items. The available evidence suggests that this pathway encodes (and potentially consolidates) recent linguistic experiences, providing potential benefits to interpretation of subsequent language and the long-term retention of knowledge. In conclusion, I propose that a dual-pathway account incorporating both flexibility and stability is necessary to explain the learning, recognition, and interpretation of words.

Implementing Vocabulary Journals through Digital Narrative Text for EFL Secondary Students in Learning General Vocabulary

Four fundamental language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing are important skills for EFL secondary school students to develop it. Learning English requires fundamental knowledge of vocabulary since it influences these abilities greatly. However, vocabulary instruction is often overlooked in traditional language learning strategies. On the other hand, the use of digital narrative texts, such as videos, provides a modern approach to facilitating students in general vocabulary learning. This study explores the integration of vocabulary journals with digital narrative texts to enhance vocabulary acquisition among EFL secondary students specifically in junior high school students. This study used action research and involved 25 students from a junior high school in Karawang. Data collection methods included vocabulary journal logs, observations, interviews, and reflective journals. The findings revealed that vocabulary journals significantly assist students in understanding and retaining new vocabulary, enhancing overall language comprehension. Students expressed positive attitudes towards this method, highlighting its engaging and interactive learning strategy. This study concludes that combining vocabulary journals with digital narrative texts effectively supports vocabulary acquisition, making learning more enjoyable and impactful. This approach fosters deeper understanding and long-term retention of vocabulary, improving students' language skills and academic performance. The findings suggest that this innovative strategy could be beneficial in educational settings.

Children with Auditory Brainstem Implants: Language Proficiency and Reading Comprehension Process.

Auditory performance and language proficiency in young children who utilize auditory brainstem implants (ABI) throughout the first three years of life is difficult to predict. ABI users have challenges as a result of delays in language proficiency and the acquisition of reading comprehension, even if ABI technology offers auditory experiences that enhance spoken language development. The aim of this study was to evaluate about the impact of language proficiency on reading comprehension skills in children with ABI. In this study, 20 children with ABI were evaluated for their reading comprehension abilities and language proficiency using an Informal Reading Inventory, Test of Early Language Development (TELD-3), Categories of Auditory Performance-II (CAP-II), and Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR). Three distinct aspects of reading comprehension were assessed and analyzed to provide a composite score for reading comprehension abilities. TELD-3, which measures receptive and expressive language proficiency, was presented through spoken language. Studies have shown that there was a relationship between language proficiency and reading comprehension in children with ABI. In the present study, it was determined that the total scores of reading comprehension skills of the children who had poor language proficiency and enrolled in the school for the deaf were also low. The children use short, basic sentences, often repeat words and phrases, and have a restricted vocabulary. In addition, the children had difficulty reading characters and detailed paragraphs and could not remember events in a logical order. Children with ABI may potentially have complicated reading comprehension abilities due to lack of access to all the speech formants needed to develop spoken language. In addition, variables affecting the reading levels of children with ABI include factors such as age at implantation, duration of implant use, presence of additional disability, communication model and access to auditory rehabilitation. The reading comprehension skills of ABI users were evaluated in this study for the first time in the literature and may constitute a starting point for the examination of variables affecting reading comprehension in this area.

Early Oral Language and Cognitive Predictors of Emergent Literacy Skills in Arabic-Speaking Children: Evidence From Saudi Children With Developmental Language Disorder.

Although children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are known to have difficulties with emergent literacy skills, few available studies have examined emergent literacy skills in Arabic-speaking children with DLD. Even though Arabic language characteristics, such as diglossia and orthographic structure, influence the acquisition of literacy in Arabic-speaking children, research shows that oral language skills, such as vocabulary, and cognitive skills, such as verbal short-term memory (VSTM), predict literacy in Arabic-speaking children. Moreover, linguistic and memory abilities are impaired in children with DLD, including Arabic-speaking children. The current study examines the relationships between oral language, VSTM, and emergent literacy skills in Arabic-speaking typically developing (TD) children and children with DLD. Participants were 40 TD children (20 girls; aged 4;0-6;11 [years;months]) and 26 children with DLD (nine girls, aged 4;0-6;11). All participants were monolingual Arabic speakers and matched on age and socioeconomic status. A set of comprehensive Arabic language (vocabulary knowledge, morphosyntactic, and listening comprehension skills), VSTM, and emergent literacy (phonological awareness and letter knowledge skills) tests were administered. The DLD group scored significantly lower than the TD group on language, VSTM, and emergent literacy measures. Results revealed that the contributions of oral language and VSTM to emergent literacy skills across TD and DLD groups were different. In the TD group, VSTM predicted emergent literacy skills, whereas in the DLD groups, both vocabulary knowledge and VSTM predicted emergent literacy skills. This study represents an important first step in understanding emergent literacy skills and their relationships to language and memory in Arabic-speaking children with and without DLD. The implications of these findings for clinical and education provision are discussed.

Comprehension of object relatives in Spanish: the role of frequency and transparency in acquisition and adult grammar

Abstract This study investigates the relative roles of frequency and transparency in native speakers’ comprehension of Spanish object relative sentences by comparing performance with two variants of the construction that differ in these properties. Experiment 1 suggests that seven- to eight-year-old children’s processing of object relative sentences is consistently facilitated by variant frequency and likely relies on separate representations for each variant as two different, although related constructions. Experiment 2 turns to adult comprehension of the two variants, showing similar accuracy and reaction time patterns for both variants for this population. This second outcome could be interpreted as a decrease in frequency effects over time, in line with the power law of practice, as an experience-based increase in the ability to make use of redundant markers, or both.

Pre-Stimulus Activity of Left and Right TPJ in Linguistic Predictive Processing: A MEG Study.

The left and right temporoparietal junctions (TPJs) are two brain areas involved in several brain networks, largely studied for their diverse roles, from attentional orientation to theory of mind and, recently, predictive processing. In predictive processing, one crucial concept is prior precision, that is, the reliability of the predictions of incoming stimuli. This has been linked with modulations of alpha power as measured with electrophysiological techniques, but TPJs have seldom been studied in this framework. The present article investigates, using magnetoencephalography, whether spontaneous oscillations in pre-stimulus alpha power in the left and right TPJs can modulate brain responses during a linguistic task that requires predictive processing in literal and non-literal sentences. Overall, results show that pre-stimulus alpha power in the rTPJ was associated with post-stimulus responses only in the left superior temporal gyrus, while lTPJ pre-stimulus alpha power was associated with post-stimulus activity in Broca's area, left middle temporal gyrus, and left superior temporal gyrus. We conclude that both the right and left TPJs have a role in linguistic prediction, involving a network of core language regions, with differences across brain areas and linguistic conditions that can be parsimoniously explained in the context of predictive processing.

Dual syntax aware graph attention networks with prompt for aspect-based sentiment analysis

Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) is a challenging task due to the presence of multiple aspect words with different sentiment polarities in a sentence. Recently, pre-trained language models like BERT have been widely used as context encoders in ABSA. Graph neural networks have also been employed to extract syntactic and semantic information from sentence parsing trees, resulting in superior results. However, dependency trees may establish irrelevant dependencies for sentences with irregular syntax and complex structures. Additionally, previous methods have not fully utilized recent developments in pre-trained language models. Therefore, we propose a Dual Syntax aware Graph attention networks with Prompt (DSGP) model to address these issues. Our model utilizes prompt templates to maximize the potential of pre-trained models and masked vector outputs of templates as supplementary aspect feature representations. We also leverage both dependency trees and constituent trees with graph attention networks to extract different types of syntactic information. The dependency tree captures syntactic correlation between words, while the constituent tree provides a high-level formation of the sentence. Finally, the output from the prompt and parsing trees is fused and fed into a standard classifier. Experimental results on four public datasets demonstrate the competitive performance of our model.

Connectivity of Fronto-Temporal Regions in Syntactic Structure Building During Speaking and Listening.

The neural infrastructure for sentence production and comprehension has been found to be mostly shared. The same regions are engaged during speaking and listening, with some differences in how strongly they activate depending on modality. In this study, we investigated how modality affects the connectivity between regions previously found to be involved in syntactic processing across modalities. We determined how constituent size and modality affected the connectivity of the pars triangularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and of the left posterior temporal lobe (LPTL) with the pars opercularis of the LIFG, the left anterior temporal lobe (LATL), and the rest of the brain. We found that constituent size reliably increased the connectivity across these frontal and temporal ROIs. Connectivity between the two LIFG regions and the LPTL was enhanced as a function of constituent size in both modalities, and it was upregulated in production possibly because of linearization and motor planning in the frontal cortex. The connectivity of both ROIs with the LATL was lower and only enhanced for larger constituent sizes, suggesting a contributing role of the LATL in sentence processing in both modalities. These results thus show that the connectivity among fronto-temporal regions is upregulated for syntactic structure building in both sentence production and comprehension, providing further evidence for accounts of shared neural resources for sentence-level processing across modalities.

Conflict Adaptation in Aphasia: Upregulating Cognitive Control for Improved Sentence Comprehension.

This study investigated conflict adaptation in aphasia, specifically whether upregulating cognitive control improves sentence comprehension. Four individuals with mild aphasia completed four eye tracking sessions with interleaved auditory Stroop and sentence-to-picture matching trials (critical and filler sentences). Auditory Stroop congruency (congruent/incongruent across a male/female voice saying "boy"/"girl") was crossed with sentence congruency (syntactically correct sentences that are semantically plausible/implausible), resulting in four experimental conditions (congruent auditory Stroop followed by incongruent sentence [CI], incongruent auditory Stroop followed by incongruent sentence [II], congruent auditory Stroop followed by congruent sentence [CC], and incongruent auditory Stroop followed by congruent sentence [IC]). Critical sentences were always preceded by auditory Stroop trials. At the end of each session, a five-item questionnaire was administered to assess overall well-being and fatigue. We conducted individual-level mixed-effects regressions on reaction times and growth curve analyses on the proportion of eye fixations to target pictures during incongruent sentences. One participant showed conflict adaptation indicated by faster reaction times on active sentences and more rapid growth in fixations to target pictures on passive sentences in the II condition compared to the CI condition. Incongruent auditory Stroop also modulated active-sentence processing in an additional participant, as indicated by eye movements. This is the first study to observe conflict adaptation in sentence comprehension in people with aphasia. The extent of adaptation varied across individuals. Eye tracking revealed subtler effects than overt behavioral measures. The results extend the study of conflict adaptation beyond neurotypical adults and suggest that upregulating cognitive control may be a potential treatment avenue for some individuals with aphasia. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.27056149.

Examining modal and amodal language processing in proficient bilinguals: evidence from the modality-switch paradigm.

Recent discussions have emphasized the significance of embodied processing in language comprehension. Nevertheless, continuous debates persist regarding the relative contribution of modal (embodied) and amodal (abstract) processing of language. The current study investigated the contribution of modal processing in the first (L1) and second (L2) language, hypothesizing higher level of abstract amodal symbol processing in L2 than L1, since the correspondence of L1 and L2 (i.e., the symbol-to-symbol assignment) is in the foreground when learning L2. We employed the modality-switch paradigm (Pecher et al., 2003) in both German and French versions with proficient sequential German and French bilinguals (N = 79). Participants were presented with noun-adjective pairs (e.g., keys - jingling) in both languages and decided whether the adjective could be applied to the noun. This task repeatedly requires switching modality between trials, (e.g., from auditory [keys - jingling] to olfactory [soap - perfumed]), typically causing switch costs on response latency as compared to maintaining the modality. Contrary to the hypothesis, we observed modality switch effects (MSE) in both L1 and L2. This result suggests that embodied language processing occurs not only in the first language but also extends to the second language thus challenging the assumption that L2 processing predominantly involves abstract amodal symbol processing. Notably, however, significant L1 and L2 MSEs were found for French, whereas for German already the L1 effect was rather weak (though significant); the corresponding L2 effect was not significant. Thus, the results hinted at differences between languages regarding the relative role of modal and amodal processing.

An fMRI study of phrase structure and subject island violations.

In principle, functional neuroimaging provides uniquely informative data in addressing linguistic questions, because it can indicate distinct processes that are not apparent from behavioral data alone. This could involve adjudicating the source of unacceptability via the different patterns of elicited brain responses to different ungrammatical sentence types. However, it is difficult to interpret brain activations to syntactic violations. Such responses could reflect processes that have nothing intrinsically related to linguistic representations, such as domain-general executive function abilities. In order to facilitate the potential use of functional neuroimaging methods to identify the source of different syntactic violations, we conducted an fMRI experiment to identify the brain activation maps associated with two distinct syntactic violation types: phrase structure (created by inverting the order of two adjacent words within a sentence) and subject islands (created by extracting a wh-phrase out of an embedded subject). The comparison of these violations to control sentences surprisingly showed no indication of a generalized violation response, with almost completely divergent activation patterns. Phrase structure violations seemingly activated regions previously implicated in verbal working memory and structural complexity in sentence processing, whereas the subject islands appeared to activate regions previously implicated in conceptual-semantic processing, broadly defined. We review our findings in the context of previous research on syntactic and semantic violations using event-related potentials. Although our results suggest potentially distinct underlying mechanisms underlying phrase structure and subject island violations, our results are tentative and suggest important methodological considerations for future research in this area.

The how and the when of semantic illusions in native and non-native languages

Abstract The nature and processing of semantic illusions (SI; when speakers fail to notice an anomalous word in a sentence that is contextually perfectly aligned with world knowledge) have been largely studied during first language comprehension. Although this issue is not free of controversy, findings sustain The Node Structure Theory, according to which SI is a phonological and/or semantic priming effect which occurs due to phonological and/or semantic links existing between the correct and the anomalous word. However, the question as to whether the same underlying mechanisms can be found in bilinguals and whether the effect is modulated by age of language acquisition (AoA) and language dominance remains unexplored. The aim of this study was to examine this issue on sequential European Portuguese-German bilinguals (and their respective control groups) using a self-paced reading paradigm. The sentences’ language, AoA (early vs. late), and type of target word used (correct vs. anomalous) were manipulated. Results showed the occurrence of SI, independently of language and AoA. Therefore, findings suggest that SI occur due to a semantic overlap between critical words and are similarly processed in L1 and L2.

How parenting styles affect the development of language skills and reading comprehension in primary school students.

This study examined how parenting styles influence children's language skills and reading comprehension. Six hundred and eighty-five Chinese-speaking third graders (Mage = 9.23 years, SD = .66; 341 girls) were randomly recruited from eight primary schools. We measured students' primary caregivers' parenting styles, parental education, family income, migration status, number of children's extracurricular books in the home and family cohesion at Wave 1 (i.e. grade 3). We also assessed students' reading motivation, language skills (i.e. vocabulary knowledge and syntactic awareness) and reading comprehension at Wave 2 (i.e. grade 4). The structural equation model analysis revealed that parenting styles indirectly affect language and reading comprehension development, with authoritative and authoritarian parenting exerting different influences on the two outcomes. Specifically, authoritative parenting was positively related to the number of children's books, which in turn was directly, or indirectly through reading motivation, associated with children's language skills and reading comprehension. In contrast, authoritarian parenting was negatively related to family cohesion, which was associated with children's reading motivation, and consequently, their language skills and reading comprehension. The multigroup analysis showed that the indirect pathways varied slightly across parental migration statuses. These findings enhance the global understanding of the pathways linking parenting styles to children's language skills and reading comprehension, suggesting that educators and researchers should not overly emphasize the direct role of parenting styles in children's academic performance.

The relationship between white matter architecture and language lateralisation in the healthy brain.

Interhemispheric anatomical differences have long been thought to be related to language lateralisation. Previous studies have explored whether asymmetries in the diffusion characteristics of white matter language tracts are consistent with language lateralisation. These studies, typically with smaller cohorts, yielded mixed results. This study investigated whether connectomic analysis of quantitative anisotropy (QA) and shape features of white matter tracts across the whole brain are associated with language lateralisation. We analysed 1040 healthy individuals (562 females) from the Human Connectome Project database. Hemispheric language dominance for each participant was quantified using a laterality quotient (LQ) derived from fMRI activation in regions of interest (ROIs) associated with a language comprehension task compared against a math task. A linear regression model was used to examine the relationship between structural asymmetry and functional lateralisation. Connectometry revealed a significant negative correlation between LQs and QA of corpus callosum tracts, indicating that higher QA in these regions is associated with bilateral and right-hemisphere language representation in frontal and temporal regions, respectively. Left language laterality in temporal lobe was significantly associated with longer right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) and forceps minor tracts. These results suggest that diffusion measures of microstructural architecture as well as geometrical features of reconstructed white matter tracts play a role in language lateralisation. People with increased dependence on right or both frontal hemispheres for language processing may have more developed commissural fibres, which may support more efficient interhemispheric communication.Significance statement The left cerebral hemisphere is dominant for language functions in most people. In some healthy people, language functions are lateralised to the right hemisphere or distributed across both hemispheres. The anatomy underlying patterns of hemispheric language dominance are not well established. Emerging evidence suggests that white matter connectivity and architecture is an important feature of cortical functional organisation. In this work, we report that people who have language functions distributed across both hemispheres have greater inter-hemispheric connectivity compared to lateralised people. Our findings provide further insights into the anatomical basis of language function and may have wider clinical implications.

How well can simple clinical features predict long-term language recovery after left-hemisphere glioma surgery?

Long-term language recovery after left-hemisphere glioma surgery varies substantially across patients. We investigated how well it can be predicted using clinical variables such as the postoperative decline in language processing, tumor grade, resection volume and location, extent of resection, and intraoperative language mapping. Beyond predicting the overall recovery, we examined which domains of language processing are most prone to persistent deficits. Fifty-nine patients with left-hemisphere gliomas completed the Russian Aphasia Test (RAT) before surgery, immediately after surgery, and at follow-up three to seventeen months after surgery. We modeled their average language score (Generalized Aphasia Quotient, GAQ) at follow-up using a cross-validated multiple linear regression and calculated the number of patients showing persistent deficits in each subtest of the RAT. The difference between GAQ scores at follow-up and before surgery was not significant at the group level but varied substantially across patients (mean -1.3%, range -34.2-9.2%). Our best-performing model predicted the follow-up GAQ scores with the mean absolute error of 3.5% (cross-validated R2 = 0.15). A greater decline in language processing immediately after surgery predicted worse recovery, whereas intraoperative language mapping predicted better recovery. Deficits in sentence repetition, verb production, verb and sentence comprehension, and object naming most often persisted at follow-up. The postoperative decline in language processing and intraoperative language mapping explain a substantial amount of variability in long-term language recovery. Verbal working memory and lexical retrieval, particularly that of verbs, are most prone to persistent deficits.

Oscillatory features of German–English sentence processing: Evidence from an EEG study

Aims and objectives: In this study, we investigated the neural oscillatory patterns occurring during sentence-level overt bilingual processing tasks on 46 German–English bilinguals with the intention of finding out if there were task-specific oscillations for this language pair. Methodology: Four tasks, including Language 2 (L2) listening, Language 1 (L1) speaking, L2 shadowing (i.e., repeating a segment of an utterance), and backward interpreting (i.e., orally translating L2 sentences to L1), were implemented with the technique of electroencephalography (EEG). Data and analysis: Data included demographic indices, neural oscillation metrics, and oral production scores from participants. Static spectral analysis, time–frequency analysis, principal components analysis, cross-frequency coupling, and inferential statistics were applied to the data. Findings: The sensory task and articulatory tasks differed greatly in the delta–theta band and the beta–gamma band in terms of time–frequency dynamics. Analyses also revealed variations in a frontal/prefrontal theta component and a distinct gamma component across the four tasks. Moreover, we found a right fronto-temporal theta–gamma coupling unique to backward interpreting. Originality: The task-wise comparison experiment paradigm has rarely been implemented in neuroimaging research on language, especially so in EEG research on bilingualism. Significance: The findings provide novel insights for the understanding of language conversion mechanism and may benefit the training of professional interpreters.

Getting to the situation: the N400 can indicate meaning integration beyond word priming

ABSTRACT Can integration processes during reading be detected in the N400 time window? Although many results have supported this possibility, recent research controlling for semantic priming concluded that only word-meaning retrieval is detected in the N400 [Delogu, F., Brouwer, H., & Crocker, M. W. (2019). Event-related potentials index lexical retrieval (N400) and integration (P600) during language comprehension. Brain and Cognition, 135, 103569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2019.05.007]. We report three experiments designed to detect N400 integration effects by encouraging situation-level comprehension, manipulating integration difficulty through event congruence. Experiments 1 and 2 created narrative texts and questions targeting attention to event structures, showing priming but no additional integration effects. In Experiment 3, readers formed mental images, updating their mental model with each sentence. The results show integration effects during the N400 window and later around 600 ms, indicating both priming and message-level integration effects can emerge in the N400 when readers engage in situational comprehension.

Lexical interference and prediction in sentence processing among Russian heritage speakers: an individual differences approach

Lexical interference and prediction in sentence processing among Russian heritage speakers: an individual differences approach

Chunk Duration Limits the Learning of Multiword Chunks: Behavioral and Electroencephalogram Evidence from Statistical Learning.

Language comprehension involves the grouping of words into larger multiword chunks. This is required to recode information into sparser representations to mitigate memory limitations and counteract forgetting. It has been suggested that electrophysiological processing time windows constrain the formation of these units. Specifically, the period of rhythmic neural activity (i.e., slow-frequency neural oscillations) may set an upper limit of 2-3 sec. Here, we assess whether learning of new multiword chunks is also affected by this neural limit. We applied an auditory statistical learning paradigm of an artificial language while manipulating the duration of to-be-learnt chunks. Participants listened to isochronous sequences of disyllabic pseudowords from which they could learn hidden three-word chunks based on transitional probabilities. We presented chunks of 1.95, 2.55, and 3.15 sec that were created by varying the pause interval between pseudowords. In a first behavioral experiment, we tested learning using an implicit target detection task. We found better learning for chunks of 2.55 sec as compared to longer durations in line with an upper limit of the proposed time constraint. In a second experiment, we recorded participants' electroencephalogram during the exposure phase to use frequency tagging as a neural index of statistical learning. Extending the behavioral findings, results show a significant decline in neural tracking for chunks exceeding 3 sec as compared to both shorter durations. Overall, we suggest that language learning is constrained by endogenous time constraints, possibly reflecting electrophysiological processing windows.