Doctoral Dissertation Research: Facilitation Effects of Structural Priming on Second Language Learning and Prediction of the Dative Alternation

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates the role of prediction during language processing, which has been proposed as a mental operation that drives language learning. Correct predictions confirm and enhance prior knowledge, whereas incorrect predictions can provide learners with error signals that allow them to adjust their knowledge so as to make more accurate predictions in the future. This mechanism is known as error-based learning. Young adult native speakers are found to engage in prediction in many processing situations. By contrast, second language (L2) learners tend to show reduced, delayed or even no effects of active prediction during real-time processing. As a result, L2 learners may have less opportunity to learn from prediction error. Studies on the connection between L2 learning and prediction are thus crucial for a better understanding of how error-based learning can contribute to successful outcomes in language learning and teaching. This goal of this project is to determine whether structural priming can facilitate L2 learning and predictive processing of a specific type of grammatical construction. Structural priming is a research technique that provides participants with language input against which they can check whether their predictions are correct or not. The project consists of two experiments. Experiment 1 asks whether structural priming facilitates L2 learning of the constructions. It employs a written structural priming paradigm together with acceptability judgment tasks before and after priming. Preliminary results indicate increased use and higher ratings of correct constructions by classroom learners after priming. Experiment 2 asks whether structural priming facilitates predictive processing. Through two visual world eye tracking (VWP) tasks, this experiment examines to what extent learners engage in predictive processing while listening to sentences containing the relevant constructions, and to what extent they may adapt their predictive processing in response to recent input (priming). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.