Language Processing - Case Study Example

Language Processing Language Processing Language can be defined as a body of words whose system ofuse is common to people who are either from the same nation, community, geographical region or with similar cultural tradition. Learning a new language is certainly challenging especially since it is not one’s native language. The learner starts from scratch since there is no other way. A learner should use the language on a daily basis in order to make the language natural to them (Ellis 1997). Whatever the language is, vocabulary is one of the important components, which enhances deeper understanding. Use of new words in sentences and phrases helps the learner deeply understand the words. Contextual factors such as societal, individual and social affects the students’ learning of a second language. The level of proficiency in the native language is an equally important factor (Ying 1996). Second language learners do not process sentences in ways similar to the native speakers. This is because there are differences in phrase structure application and preposition linking of antecedent nouns. The same learners may at times transfer-processing strategies that are non-target like from their native language, which could be a barrier to full native like performance acquisition. The sentence processing of learners differs in ways that are fundamental from adult processing (VanPatten 1996). Adult native speakers usually associate related second clauses other than the first. Within sentence processing models, there are those with multiple constraints and the preference of attachments is determined by relative strength of non-structural and structural factors interaction in a specific given language. Native speakers usually prefer the preferential association of relative clauses (Traxler, Pickering and Clifton 1998). A study was carried out in the Essex University in an online reading experiment that involved long distance wh-dependencies. The native speakers showed proof of utilizing intermediate syntactic gaps while processing sentences whereas the second language learners associated fronted wh-phrase with its direct lexical subcategories. This was regardless of whether or not the constraint of subjacency was operative in their own native language. It is argued that this finding supports the hypothesis, which states that, there is an under-use of syntactic information in the processing of the second language learners and it prevents them from processing like the natives (Ellis 1997). The ‘filler-gap dependencies’ study focused on psycholinguistic research regarding the comprehension of the monolingual sentences. Sentence processing that is real-time involved displaced constituents. A constituent that is syntactically dislocated, as wh-phrase becomes a challenge to the mechanism of sentence processing by a human being. This is because it cannot be immediately integrated fully into discourse representation or emerging semantic, instead, it is retained in the memory that is short-term until its linked to thematic role assigner or its subcategoriser (VanPatten 1996). Its the filler and the gap associated distance increases, the mechanism of sentence processing in human beings normally attempts to integrate dislocated elements during parsing at the appropriate and the earliest grammatical possible point. This preference to keep filler-gap dependencies within the shortest possible period is referred to as the Active Filler Hypothesis. However, theories of linguistics differ in terms of the filler-gap dependency analysis (Hemforth, Konieczny and Scheepers 2000). The study’s purpose was to investigate if the second language learners and the native speakers both use intermediate gaps during processing or not. The results were that, both groups were good at understanding the sentences that involved wh-dependencies that were long-distance and that both attempted to integrate displaced wh-phrase with a verb that categorizes during parsing and this is referred to as filler-integration effect. Filler integration of the natives was facilitated by the presence of intermediate gaps found in sentences that involve a clause boundary extraction (VanPatten 1996). Several other studies of sentence processing of the filler-gap dependencies have proved that the English native speakers reactivate displaced wh-constituents at its associated syntactic gap position. The location of the said gaps is usually after other English lexical subcategoriser or the verb. These studies do not provide evidence for Trace Reactivation Hypothesis and the explanation can only be via lexical association that is direct (Gass and Selinker 2008). Second language learners employ strategies that are filler-driven when processing the wh-dependencies. They try to integrate fronted wh-phrase with a potential subcategoriser like the native speakers as soon as possible. However, second language learners have difficulties recovering from initial misanalysis as compared to native speakers. In relation to the syntactic theory, this study found that, the presence of the evaluated gaps facilitates the integration of wh-fillers with its subcategoriser and it only applies to native speakers and not learners (Ying 1996). Suggestions are that, the second language learners do not postulate either of syntactic gaps that are immediate during processing. Instead, they tried to directly link the filler to the lexical sub-categorizer regardless of intermediate landing site availability. Linguistic performance differences between second language learners and native speakers may be because of differences between target grammar and the interlanguage grammar of the learner (Ellis 1997). The summary of this study is that, native speakers as opposed to second language learners use a version that is successively cyclic of active filler strategies while processing English wh-dependences that are long. The learners’ failure to use the structure of intermediate syntactic during parsing proves it or not they are conversant with the successive-cyclic wh-movement. Such findings support the hypothesis that second language learners’ sensitivity in relation to syntactic information while processing is relatively restricted to that of the native speakers. Learners understand sentences but they do not apply native-like mechanisms of phrase structure-based processing (VanPatten 1996). Another study regarding the sentence processing showed that the processing of second language learner differs with the native processing in various ways. The major difference is that second language learners only construct sort of shallow representations without structural details. This study challenges the stated hypothesis by analysing the extent to which native speakers and learners utilize constraint of relative clause island in filler-gap dependencies construction (Hemforth, Konieczny and Scheepers 2000). Suggestions are that learners do not only make abstract structural representations but they rapidly constrain active gap location search. There is also a proposal that second language learners have inabilities in building structural representation with precision that is grammatical. Successful language understanding requires the parser’s generation of grammatical accurate structural representation of incoming input of linguistic (MacWhinney 2002). During language comprehension that is real-time, second language learners only construct structure representation that is shallow and contain relations of basic argument-predicate but lacks syntactic information that is detailed. It therefore follows that their understanding almost exclusively relies on semantic and lexical information. If second language learners are unable to utilize grammatical information in sentence processing that is online, the mechanism of learning the language must be impoverished in structural details (Ying 1996). This study tested the capability of second language learners to construct a structural representation by a precision that is grammatical. This was done by comparing native speakers and learners use of the constraint relative clause island to construct filler-gap dependency. The experiment constituted an off-line task of acceptability judgment in order to establish that learners had pre-requisite knowledge of grammar (Gass and Selinker 2008). On the measures of on-line self-paced reading, both native speakers and learners demonstrated mismatch effects of plausibility when the verb that is critical was not in the original language domain. The findings regarding this study suggest that learners do not only construct structural representations defining the language being studied but rapidly constrained active gap location search. Processing of sentences is a cognitive task that is complex involving structure building, lexical access, discourse integration and semantic composition (Ellis 1997). It would seem reasonable thinking the parser might attempt to decrease some processing burden by adoption of less complex representational options for comprehension of a native’s sentence. As the overall proficiency of the learner increases, predictions are that, adoption of shallow structures will lessen. Adult learners can also make use of the pragmatic competence in order to infer intended messages efficiently and rely less on grammatical structures that is precise in the process of their understanding (Hemforth, Konieczny and Scheepers 2000). Language comprehension of second language learners differs from the native speakers in many ways. However, this study’s suggestion is that, the learner parser is non-deficient in its capacity to represent. The study of on-line self-paced reading draws the same conclusion. There is active creation of gaps with the critical verb. However, there are doubts regarding the views that second language learners have an inability to build structural representations in processing that is real-time (Traxler, Pickering and Clifton 1998). There are doubts that the on-line and off-line data convergence reaffirms importance of measures that are on-line like acceptability judgment data as a grammatical knowledge probe in learners. There are also disputes that previously found differences between natives and learners processing might be restricted to the domains of section of structure and various information sources ranking in resolving ambiguity (Ellis 1997). Another study concentrates on investigating how learners of second language resolve attachment ambiguities on relative clauses in sentences. The results were that the learner does not process sentences in ways similar to those of native speakers. The performance of the learners markedly differs from monolingual English children. Therefore, arguments are that adult learners, children and monolingual adults differ in extents of lexical-semantic information and phrase structure guidelines in sentence processing (MacWhinney 2002). An evaluation of the question regarding sentence-processing differences amongst learners and native speakers can be conducted by examining how English advanced learners from different language backgrounds solve attachments of relative clauses. This is done in the context of two sites; one whose phenomenon has been studied extensively with past monolingual speakers and another that is known as subject to variation that is cross linguistic (Gass and Selinker 2008). Cross linguistics, differences that are between solutions regarding structural ambiguities indicate that strategies for parsing are specific of a language other than universal. English native speakers associate relative clauses with second noun phrase instead of the first. A native speaker has an influence on a learner’s interpretation. This study showed that, learners although slow, processed experimental sentences like native speakers. During processing, the learner is guided by information from the argument structure (Hemforth, Konieczny and Scheepers 2000). Second language learners like native speakers, are influenced by the type of the linking preposition while processing attachment of ambiguities of relative clauses. This is an indicator that an adult second language learner can access and utilize semantic-lexical information in the on-line comprehension of sentences. This is in line with a conclusion that, learners are sensitive to verb argument structures information while processing (Ellis 1997). Second language learners have difficulties integrating different information types during processing probably because of the increased demands of a working memory posed by nonnative language reading. If problems of processing arise from resource limitations, then predictions would be to give more time for ambiguous sentence interpretation. However, advanced second language learners are supposed to exhibit same preferences on disambiguation as the native speakers (MacWhinney 2002). Learners have problems with lexical-semantic and phrase-structure information integration only in the situations where memory resources or processing are short. Learners are sensitive to lexical biases that are provided by linking prepositions but display systematic deficiency of attachment preferences regarding relative clauses that are preceded by complex noun phrases that are genitive. This is usually irrespective of preferences that are found in learner’s first language or the target language (Gass and Selinker 2008). In conclusion, the second language learners do not process ambiguous relative clauses with the same complex genitive antecedent like the natives. The field of the second language learning needs to take in consideration assumptions and current strategies in other linguistic fields. For successful second language acquisition, the ability for linguistic input processing is very crucial. Second language learners should work on comprehension and language production in real-time. References Ellis, R., 1997.Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press Gass, S.M. and Selinker, L., 2008. Second Language Acquisition. London,UK: Taylor & Francis, Jan 31, 2008 - Hemforth, B., Konieczny, L. and Scheepers, C., 2000. Architectures and mechanisms for language processing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacWhinney, B., 2002. Bilingual sentence processing. New York: Elsevier. Traxler, M., Pickering, and M, Clifton., 1998. Adjunct attachment is not a form of lexical ambiguity resolution. Journal of Memory and Language, 39 (8), pp. 558–592. VanPatten, B., 1996. Input processing and grammar instruction in second language acquisition. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Ying, H., 1996. Multiple constraints on processing ambiguous sentences: Evidence from adult learners. Language Learning, 46 (7), pp. 681–711 Read More