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Acquiring L2 sentence comprehension: A longitudinal study of word monitoring in noise*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2012

GEORGINA OLIVER ,
MARIANNE GULLBERG ,
FRAUKE HELLWIG ,
HOLGER MITTERER  and
PETER INDEFREY
GEORGINA OLIVER
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen & University College London, Department for Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences
MARIANNE GULLBERG
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen & Lund University, Centre for Languages and Literature
FRAUKE HELLWIG
Affiliation:
Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour & Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Institut für Sprache und Information
HOLGER MITTERER
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen
PETER INDEFREY*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen & Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour & Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Institut für Sprache und Information
*
Address for correspondence: Peter Indefrey, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Institut für Sprache und Information, Universitätsstr. 1, D-40225 Düsseldorf, GermanyPeter.Indefrey@phil.uni-duesseldorf.de
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Abstract

This study investigated the development of second language online auditory processing with ab initio German learners of Dutch. We assessed the influence of different levels of background noise and different levels of semantic and syntactic target word predictability on word-monitoring latencies. There was evidence of syntactic, but not lexical-semantic, transfer from the L1 to the L2 from the onset of L2 learning. An initial stronger adverse effect of noise on syntactic compared to phonological processing disappeared after two weeks of learning Dutch suggesting a change towards more robust syntactic processing. At the same time the L2 learners started to exploit semantic constraints predicting upcoming target words. The use of semantic predictability remained less efficient compared to native speakers until the end of the observation period. The improvement and the persistent problems in semantic processing we found were independent of noise and rather seem to reflect the need for more context information to build up online semantic representations in L2 listening.

Keywords

sentence processingsecond languagenoiseword monitoringlongitudinal
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 2012 , pp. 841 - 857
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO). We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer and Jan Hulstijn for their helpful comments.

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