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BILINGUAL SENTENCE PROCESSING EVA M. FERNÁNDEZ QUEENS COLLEGE & GRADUATE CENTER CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
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MY INTEREST IN THE MUNDANE Or: “I’m bilingual—am I normal?” Humans are genetically predisposed to use Language: we do so by design BILINGUALISM & THE INDIVIDUAL But bilingualism is a product of the environment BILINGUALISM & ENVIRONMENT
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BILINGUALISM & ENVIRONMENT Q: Most of the world’s children today grow up exposed to… one language more than one language The building of the tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel, 1563 Oil on oak panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien http://www.khm.at/homeE3.html
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BILINGUALISM & ENVIRONMENT Bilingualism is widespread, perhaps not so much in so-called BILINGUAL NATIONS: Canada, Belgium… It’s pervasive even in places where there is an OFFICIAL LANGUAGE, e.g., Spain: 1 official language 6 (recognized) regional languages 13 local languages 9 immigrant languages bilingualism and bidialectalism are common (Source: http://www.ethnologue.com)
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2000, UNITED STATES:… AND QUEENS COUNTY, NY: 18% speak a LOTE* at home, and speak English… 54% speak a LOTE* at home, and speak English… (Source: http://factfinder.census.gov) * LOTE = language other than English
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BILINGUALISM & THE INDIVIDUAL Bilingual communities are stable if there is a mutually exclusive need for Lx and Ly: “functional compartmentalization” Functional compartmentalization doesn’t apply But a great deal of research focuses on precisely the opposite problem: How does a bilingual compare to the ideal speaker of two languages?
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BILINGUALISM & THE INDIVIDUAL Monolingual processing The range of bilingual linguistic behavior Bilingual competence Bilingual performance
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SIGNAL MEANING LANGUAGE: COMPETENCE & PERFORMANCE monolingual processing logic knowledge about the real world math music … …
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grammar & lexicon PERCEPTION PRODUCTION monolingual processing
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production: lexical retrieval structural assignment phonological encoding I’ll give you my undevoted attention! You’ll earn her eternal grapefruit. Put the oven on at a very low speed. They roasted a cook. If you give the nipple an infant… You ordered up ending. taddle tennis a glear plue sky
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perception: structure building lexical access phonological decoding lexical retrieval structural assignment phonological encoding
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2 ?? and for the bilingual…
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BILINGUAL BEHAVIOR ABILITIES TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR: Separate use of Lx and Ly (unilingual mode) Use of both Lx and Ly in the same discourse or same sentence (code-switching, bilingual mode) Translation Lx Ly (a specialized bilingual mode) Accuracy in grammaticality judgments in Lx and Ly
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BILINGUAL SPEECH “Accent” in Lx or Ly, or both! (phonological transfer): or or Structures taken from the other language (syntactic transfer): Hans fängt um drei Uhr an zum Arbeiten jeden Tag. (Hans fängt um drei Uhr zum Arbeiten jeden Tag an.) Yo me gusta esa casa, mami. (A mí me gusta esa casa, mami.) “Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob.” The Speech Accent Archive, http://accent.gmu.edu/ Hans goes to work at three o’clock every day. (Myers-Scotton, 2006) I like that house, mom. (Myers-Scotton, 2006)
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BILINGUAL SPEECH UNINTENTIONAL? (incomplete acquisition, attrition) Transfer (phonological, syntactic) INTENTIONAL! (part of communicative repertoire) Lexical borrowing and calquing Mi building es el más grande del bloque. Code-switching J’étais certain que c’était pas la real thing. No porque quiera dispressare a mi language Italian I was certain that it wasn’t the real thing (M-S, 2006) My building is the biggest on the block. (EMF) Not that I want to undervalue my Italian language (M-S, 2006)
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BILINGUAL SPEECH A: Ya no están, están en special B: You know what I saw by Burger King? ¿Ahí no dice free cellulars, free pagers and everything? A: Pos ya habíamos ido ahí ¿no? B: No, we didn't go there A: Which one do you say? B: Nex--- it's in between Taco Palenque and Burger King. A: ¿Cuánto valen? ¿no sabes? B: No sé --- it says there free cellulars, free pagers, pero I don't know A: When are you gonna go? B: Pues, ouch, pues what is, what is... it tomorrow is Wednesday, tomorrow es cuando tienes más tiempo tú ¿no? A: Yes, but I have to do some homework I don’t know if we have time pos we can go B: Ahí para comprarlo para este weekend; pa este weekend A: Pero antes de la semana que entra Language in Laredo: A South Texas border community http://www.tamiu.edu/~kdegarcia/texmex/ A: They’re no longer on special B: You know what I saw by Burger King? Doesn’t it say there free cellulars, free pagers and everything? A: We’d already gone there, right? B: No, we didn't go there A: Which one do you say? B: Nex--- it's in between Taco Palenque and Burger King. A: How much do they cost, do you know? B: I don’t know --- it says there free cellulars, free pagers, but I don't know A: When are you gonna go? B: Well, ouch, well what is, what is… it tomorrow is Wednesday, tomorrow is when you have more time, right? A: Yes, but I have to do some homework otherwise, if we have time so we can go B: There to buy it this weekend; for this weekend A: But before the coming week
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bilingual processing PERCEPTION PRODUCTION grammar & lexicon grammar & lexicon Lx Ly Size (=proficiency?) based on: age of acquisition frequency of use etc. The two competence repositories are connected: Lx may have Ly-like rules Lx lexical items will be linked to Ly lexical items
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Exploring the model empirically Separate but interconnected competence repositories: Is Lx active during unilingual Ly processing? Do Lx lexical representations affect structural decisions during Ly processing? Unitary and language-independent performance mechanisms: Exploit cross-linguistic differences in monolingual processing to examine processing in Lx and Ly, in bilinguals
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DATA COLLECTION “Off-line”, UNTIMED techniques (questionnaires) Grammaticality judgment tasks Sentence comprehension tasks “On-line”, TIMED techniques Behavioral methods: Cross-modal priming, probe recognition, rapid-serial visual presentation, self-paced reading, self-paced listening, etc. Eyetracking techniques (“eyes are the windows to the world”): Reading; Visual world paradigm Neurophysiological techniques: ERP; fMRI
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DATA COLLECTION Variables to consider: Cost & availability Degree of invasiveness Ecological validity (?!) Contrasts to manipulate Participants: Language history, working memory, reading skill, sex, handedness Materials: Phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic contrasts Visual world contrasts
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FRENCK-MESTRE & PYNTE, 1997 One example (among others) of how sentence processing routines can be compared in monolinguals and bilinguals Indeterminate terminology: Native speakers, L1 speakers, monolinguals v. non-native speakers, L2 speakers, bilinguals: what’s the difference? Two experiments: Experiment 1: syntactic ambiguity similar in L1 & L2 Experiment 2: ambiguity only in one language
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E1: Similar construction, L1 and L2 They accused the ambassador… of espionage but nothing came of it. of Indonesia but nothing came of it. He rejected the manuscript… on purpose because he hated its author. on horses because he hated its author. N = 16 x 2 participantsN = 24 x 2 items L1 v. L2 French speakersattachment & transitivity
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Empirical questions Does the structural processor (parser) operate the same way in L1 and L2? Will L2-ers produce similar patterns of eye movements as L1-ers? (Qualitative differences) Is there a cost in processing L2? Will L2-ers take more time than L1ers? (Quantitative differences)
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Apparatus
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Eye movements Visual span: 9 letters, + periphery Focus (fixations) & move (saccades: eyetracker records focus Measurements: First pass gazes First pass fixations Regressions Second pass gazes http://gandalf.psych.umn. edu/~gellab/mrchips/chip s2d.html animation by Steve Mansfield & Tim Klitz
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Data to discuss First pass gazes: “left-to-right fixations within a region that had not been previously read, plus all within-zone regressions” (p. 126) Second pass gazes: “all fixations not included in the first pass analysis and often compris[ing] more than one re-reading of the sentence” (p. 130) They accused the ambassador of / espionage / but / nothing / came of it. / Noun of PP / N + 1 / N + 2 /
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E1: First pass gaze durations Monolinguals Bilinguals Mean * *
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E1: Second pass reading times Monolinguals Bilinguals Mean *
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E1: Main findings Processing is qualitatively similar in L1 and L2, particularly in first-pass measures Processing time is quantitatively different: increased reading times in L2, particularly in second-pass measure
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E2: Ambiguity in English only Every time the dog obeyed the pretty little girl showed her approval. Chaque fois que le chien obéissait la jolie petite fille montrait sa joie. Every time the dog barked the pretty little girl showed her approval. Chaque fois que le chien aboyait la jolie petite fille montrait sa joie. N = 16 x 2 participantsN = 16 x 2 items Edom v. Fdom bilingualsTransitive (EN) v. intransitive verb
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E2: Ambiguity in English only Every time the dog obeyed the pretty little girl showed her approval. Chaque fois que le chien obéissait la jolie petite fille montrait sa joie. Every time the dog barked the pretty little girl showed her approval. Chaque fois que le chien aboyait la jolie petite fille montrait sa joie. N = 16 x 2 participantsN = 16 x 2 items Edom v. Fdom bilingualsTransitive (EN) v. intransitive verb
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First pass, at subordinate verb * *-ish
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First pass, at beginning of matrix NP ? * *
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Second pass, means * * * *
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E2: Main findings Influence of language not being processed, if non-dominant, during lexical access (first-pass gazes at subordinate verb) Otherwise, very similar patterns of eye movement behavior reflecting operations at work during syntactic ambiguity resolution (first-pass gazes at beginning of NP, second pass times) How should findings like this inform a model for the bilingual linguistic architecture?
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bilingual processing PERCEPTION PRODUCTION grammar & lexicon grammar & lexicon Lx Ly
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