Linguistics Colloquium: Phd proposals
a public event to hear students' phd proposal work
Thursday, April 17, 2014 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM EDT
#3300
- Kelly Enochson: Do individual differences in statistical learning predict linguistic adaptation?
Studies have shown that individual differences in statistical learning predict differences in syntactic processing (Misyak et al. 2011, 2012). It has also been demonstrated that language comprehenders are able to use statistical information available in the input actively as they process language, and that this information leads to syntactic adaptation (Fine et al 2010, 2011, 2013). This dissertation seeks to merge these two lines of research by exploring whether individual differences in statistical learning correlate with differences in linguistic adaptation. The presentation will report the results of a pilot study and present plans for further research.
- Baraa Rajab: Morphological Variability in Second Language Arabic
The results of the study by Rajab (N.d) on morphological variability in L2 Arabic NPs found morphological variability in gender and number are persistent even at advanced levels of proficiency. This variability is particularly apparent in L2ers production, and can be seen clearly in their responses to dual targets. Although variability was found to extend to comprehension, replicating the result for L2 learners of Spanish found by McCarthy (2008), it was markedly lower. This asymmetry between production and comprehension suggests that variability may indeed be due to performance limitations, supporting the MSIH (Prevost & White, 2000). Though, it is important to note that the asymmetry in results between production and comprehension in Rajab’s (N.d) study could be attributed to the type of pictures used in the tasks themselves. The production task used non-human inanimate objects and in the comprehension task the pictures were all human. According to Moawad (2006), in child language acquisition, animate human plurals, duals and feminine are acquired before non-human or inanimate plurals, duals and feminine. If the L2ers are following the same trajectory as Arabic-learning children, this could explain why they are particularly poor with non-human inanimates (in production). Previous research on L2 Spanish acquisition of gender supports the above claim and has found that L2 learners are sensitive to linguistics cues (i.e. semantic gender or animacy effects). They found that learners acquire animate nouns at higher accuracy rates than inanimate nouns (Alarcorn, 2012; Andersen 1984; Ayres, 2012; Finnemann 1992 and Sagarra and Herschensohn, 2011). The current study is investigating the acquisition of gender in L2 Arabic and test whether animacy plays a role in the acquisition process. Also, the study is investigating the complete number system (singular, dual and plural) in L2 Arabic and native Arabic to investigate if similar patterns in dual number emerge between L2ers and Natives.
- Justin Voigt: Measuring the Syntactic Complexity of Developing L2 Academic Writers: Complex Noun Phrases as an Index of Writing Acquisition
To understand and explain how learners acquire language, second language acquisition (SLA) researchers rely on (among other things) measurements of syntactic complexity in learners' production because such measurements can provide a snapshot of learners' interlanguage and can reveal important changes as L2 learners progress toward target-like competency (Norris & Ortega, 2009). However, the relative complexity of various syntactic constructions as well as their developmental patterns remains difficult to quantify.
Despite these complications, clause-based measurements (e.g. subordination and mean clause length) remain popular indices of L2 writing acquisition despite growing evidence that many of these measures are unreliable and too broad to capture the phrasal complexity that characterizes writing (Biber, Gray, & Poonpon, 2011; Rimmer, 2006; cf. Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki, & Kim, 1998). For example, writing differs dramatically from speech in the frequency, variety, and embedded depth of noun-phrase modifiers (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999). However, because complex noun phrases characterize and distinguish writing, they may prove a better syntactic structure with which to measure L2 writing acquisition.
For these reasons, the current study seeks to answer the question, Are complex noun phrases a more valid and reliable complexity index of L2 writing development than current clausal measures? To answer this question, this study will adapt an open-source natural language processor to measure syntactic differences among L2 writers at various proficiency levels.
