Dutch–Mandarin learners’ online use of syntactic cues to anticipate mass vs. count interpretations

It remains unclear whether late second language learners (L2ers) can acquire sufficient knowledge about unique-to-L2 constructions through implicit learning to build anticipations during real-time processing. To tackle this question, we conducted a visual world paradigm experiment to investigate hig...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Second language research 2024-10, Vol.40 (4), p.803-831
Main Authors: Yao, Panpan, Hall, David, Borer, Hagit, Stockall, Linnaea
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cues
Dutch language
Mandarin
Second language learning
Syntactic processing
Syntactic structures
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:It remains unclear whether late second language learners (L2ers) can acquire sufficient knowledge about unique-to-L2 constructions through implicit learning to build anticipations during real-time processing. To tackle this question, we conducted a visual world paradigm experiment to investigate high-proficiency late first-language Dutch second-language Mandarin Chinese learners’ online processing of syntactic cues to count vs. mass interpretations in Chinese which are unique-to-L2 and never explicitly taught. The results showed that late Dutch–Mandarin learners were sensitive to a mass-biased syntactic cue in real-time processing, and exhibited some native-like anticipatory behaviour. These findings indicate that late L2ers can acquire unique-to-L2 constructions through implicit learning, and can automatically use this knowledge to make predictions.
ISSN:0267-6583
1477-0326
DOI:10.1177/02676583231175106