Danijela Trenkic

The representation of English articles in second language grammars: determiners or adjectives?

An article-choice study involving L1 Mandarin/L2 English bilinguals is reported. It tested two recent accounts on the representation of English articles in L2 grammars (where L1 has no articles). The Fluctuation Hypothesis (Ionin, Ko and Wexler, 2004) predicts that L2 speakers will have full access to UG, but will fluctuate between the settings of the postulated Article Choice Parameter; article choices will be influenced by [±specificity]. The syntactic misanalysis account, on which L2 articles are treated as adjectives (Trenkic, 2007), predicts that article choices will be influenced by the objective identifiability of referents. By discussing the notion of specificity and emphasising problems in its operationalisation, the current study introduces an innovative design to reveal that what was previously observed as the effect of specificity on L2 article choices (full UG access) is better described as an effect of the stated/denied familiarity with the referent (an extra-linguistic factor).

Variability in second language article production: beyond the representational deficit vs. processing constraints debate

This article addresses the debate on the causes of variability in production of second language functional morphology. It reports a study on article production by first language (L1) Serbian / second language (L2) English learners and compares their behaviour to that of a Turkish learner of English, reported in Goad and White (2004). In particular, it focuses on the tendency of these learners to omit articles more in adjectivally pre-modified (Art + Adj + N) than in non-modified contexts (Art + N). The asymmetry is found in both spoken and written production. The article argues that the pattern of results is not consistent with models assuming target-like syntax: the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis cannot predict the asymmetry at all, and the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis cannot extend its explanatory power to spoken production of L1 Serbian/L2 English learners, or to written production in general. An alternative account, with broader empirical coverage, is proposed, on which L2 learners whose L1s do not grammaticalize definiteness misanalyse English articles as nominal modifiers, and treat them in production as such. The model goes beyond the representational deficit vs. processing constraints debate, in that it suggests that variability is caused by processing limitations, but precisely because the production of misanalysed elements cannot be (directly) syntactically motivated, and has to rely on general cognition instead.

Real-time grammar processing by native and non-native speakers: Constructions unique to the second language

We investigated second language (L2) comprehension of grammatical structures that are unique to the L2, and which are known to cause persistent difficulties in production. A visual-world eye-tracking experiment focused on online comprehension of English articles by speakers of the article-lacking Mandarin, and a control group of English native speakers. The results show that non-native speakers from article-lacking backgrounds can incrementally utilise the information signalled by L2 articles in real time to constrain referential domains and resolve reference more efficiently. The findings support the hypothesis that L2 processing does not always over-rely on pragmatic affordances, and that some morphosyntactic structures unique to the target language can be processed in a targetlike manner in comprehension – despite persistent difficulties with their production. A novel proposal, based on multiple meaning-to-form, but consistent form-to-meaning mappings, is developed to account for such comprehension–production asymmetries.

Referent salience affects second language article use

The effect of referent salience on second language (L2) article production in real time was explored. Thai (–articles) and French (+articles) learners of English described dynamic events involving two referents, one visually cued to be more salient at the point of utterance formulation. Definiteness marking was made communicatively redundant with all referents. Thai groups omitted articles more with more than with less salient referents. The results corroborate previous offline data suggestive of the salience effect for L2 users from article-less L1 backgrounds, but point against the view that this is due to the redundancy of definiteness marking. The results seem better explained by persistent grammatical competition between L1 and L2 structures, consistent with the view that language systems within a bilingual mind cannot be kept fully apart.

Is the superior verbal memory span of Mandarin speakers due to faster rehearsal

It is well established that digit span in native Chinese speakers is atypically high. This is commonly attributed to a capacity for more rapid subvocal rehearsal for that group. We explored this hypothesis by testing a group of English-speaking native Mandarin speakers on digit span and word span in both Mandarin and English, together with a measure of speed of articulation for each. When compared to the performance of native English speakers, the Mandarin group proved to be superior on both digit and word spans while predictably having lower spans in English. This suggests that the Mandarin advantage is not limited to digits. Speed of rehearsal correlated with span performance across materials. However, this correlation was more pronounced for English speakers than for any of the Chinese measures. Further analysis suggested that speed of rehearsal did not provide an adequate account of differences between Mandarin and English spans or for the advantage of digits over words. Possible alternative explanations are discussed.

The linguistic transparency of first language calendar terms affects calendar calculations in a second language

Calendar calculations - e.g., calculating the nth month after a certain month - are an important component of temporal cognition, and can vary cross-linguistically. English speakers rely on a verbal list representation-processing system. Chinese speakers - whose calendar terms are numerically transparent - rely on a more efficient numerical system. Does knowing a numerically transparent calendar lexicon facilitate calendar calculations in an opaque second language? Late Chinese-English bilinguals and English native speakers performed a Month and a Weekday Calculation Task in English. Directionality (forward/backward) and boundary-crossing (within/across the year/week boundary) were manipulated. English speakers relied on verbal list processing, and were slower in backward than forward calculations. In spite of the English calendar systems opaqueness, bilinguals relied on numerical processing, were slower in across- than within-boundary trials, and under some conditions had faster RTs than the native speakers. Results have implications for research on temporal cognition, linguistic relativity and bilingual cognition.