Languages, Literatures, & Cultures
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Item THE COMPARISON OF L1 AND L2 CASE PROCESSING: ERP EVIDENCE FROM TURKISH(2019) KARATAS, NUR BASAK; Gor, Kira; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation investigates the morphological and morphosyntactic processing of case-marking by native and nonnative speakers of Turkish, through behavioral and electrophysiological responses. The study explores the locus of case processing costs during first (L1) and second language (L2) word recognition both in isolation and in sentences. It identifies the factors leading to persistent problems that late L2 learners face in attaining native-like processing of case assignment. To this end, the first experiment (a visual lexical decision task) examines whether different case forms generate differential processing costs, based on four main comparisons that reflect case properties and its status in the inflectional paradigm: 1) structural (genitive, accusative) vs. lexical (dative) case; 2) argument (accusative, dative) vs. non-argument (genitive); 3) higher (genitive) vs. lower type frequency (accusative, dative), and 4) citation form (nominative) vs. oblique cases (genitive, accusative, dative). The behavioral findings show significantly larger processing costs (i.e., longer reaction times and lower accuracy rates) for the genitive than the nominative case (citation form) across both subject groups, and than other oblique cases in L2 group only. ERP findings show significantly larger processing costs for the genitive than the accusative, and for the dative than the accusative only in L2 group. When the same case-inflected nouns were placed in a sentence context, larger N400 effects were found for the genitive, compared to the nominative and accusative in L1 group only. Together, these results suggest that different case forms generate differential processing costs in both subject groups, and L2 learners’ difficulty with the non-argument genitive and lexical dative oblique cases are at the level of form rather than sentence structure. The second (sentence) experiment also examined the processing of case errors (i.e., substitution of the accusative for the dative or vice versa on the object). ERP findings show a qualitative difference between L1 and L2 morphosyntactic patterns: P600 was missing while early negativities (N400 and left anterior negativity, LAN) were present in L2 group. These results suggest that advanced L2 learners evaluate the verb argument structure (LAN) and semantic fit (N400), but do not attempt to reparse the sentence (P600), unlike native speakers.Item SECOND LANGUAGE LEXICAL REPRESENTATION AND PROCESSING OF MANDARIN CHINESE TONES(2018) Pelzl, Eric; DeKeyser, Robert; Second Language Acquisition and Application; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation investigates second language (L2) speech learning challenges by testing advanced L2 Mandarin Chinese learners’ tone and word knowledge. We consider L2 speech learning under the scope of three general hypotheses. (1) The Tone Perception Hypothesis: Tones may be difficult for L2 listeners to perceive auditorily. (2) The Tone Representation Hypothesis: Tones may be difficult for L2 listeners to represent effectively. (3) The Tone Processing Hypothesis: Tones may be difficult for L2 listeners to process efficiently. Experiments 1 and 2 test tone perception and representation using tone identification tasks with monosyllabic and disyllabic stimuli with L1 and advanced L2 Mandarin listeners. Results suggest that both groups are highly accurate in identification of tones on isolated monosyllables; however, L2 learners have some difficulty in disyllabic contexts. This suggests that low-level auditory perception of tones presents L2 learners with persistent long-term challenges. Results also shed light on tone representations, showing that both L1 and L2 listeners are able to form abstract representations of third tone allotones. Experiments 3 and 4 test tone representation and processing through the use of online (behavioral and ERP) and offline measures of tone word recognition. Offline results suggest weaknesses in L2 learners’ long-term memory of tones for specific vocabulary. However, even when we consider only trials for which learners had correct and confident explicit knowledge of tones and words, we still see significant differences in accuracy for rejection of tone compared to vowel nonwords in lexical recognition tasks. Using a lexical decision task, ERP measures in Experiment 3 reveal consistent L1 sensitivity to tones and vowels in isolated word recognition, and individual differences among L2 listeners. While some are sensitive to both tone and vowel mismatches, others are only sensitive to vowels or not at all. Experiment 4 utilized picture cues to test neural responses tied directly to tone and vowel mismatches. Results suggest strong L1 sensitivity to vowel mismatches. No other significant results were found. The final chapter considers how the three hypotheses shed light on the results as a whole, and how they relate to the broader context of L2 speech learning.