EAPSI: Investigating the role of prediction in Korean English learners

Johnson Adrienne, Kansas City MO

Investigators

Abstract

While many adults struggle to learn a second language, children have the ability to learn multiple languages very quickly and easily. This project will investigate why some adults may be better at learning languages than others. This project will also address the on-going debate as to whether adult second language (L2) learners truly process language in the same way as native speakers, even according to precise online, or real-time, measurements. These questions are particularly relevant to Korean learners of English because Korean and English have very different language structures. Understanding if adult Korean speakers are able to become fully native-like in their online processing of English sentences can help to inform research-based pedagogical practices and policy decisions in language education. This project will be completed in collaboration with Dr. Yo-An Lee at Sogang University in South Korea. Native speakers of a language do not wait until the end of the sentence to try to understand it or predict upcoming words. However, little is known about whether L2 learners are also predictive processors. The current study tests two competing hypotheses regarding the use of prediction in L2 processing. Whereas one proposal predicts that advanced L2 learners will be able to use prediction similarly to native speakers, a more recent proposal suggests that such native-like processing is not possible even at advanced proficiency levels. Specifically, this project examines pre-verbal gap-filling in wh-dependencies using a moving window, non-cumulative self-paced reading paradigm. In particular, this project will investigate whether manipulating the linguistic distance between the filler and possible gap mediates whether native or nonnative speakers are able to demonstrate subject filled-gap effects. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the National Research Foundation of Korea.