Investigation of Individual Factors Affecting Second Language Processing

Abdolnoor Khaleghi

Abstract


In psycholinguistic research, the interpretation of ambiguous sentences as an area of concern has always received much attention, while less study has been done on factors having the most effect on ambiguous sentence comprehension. This study therefore aims to examine individual factors influencing second language (L2) processing in a sample of 18 adult Persian L2 learners of English and 15 English native speakers, employing both online and offline tasks. The findings from the simple regression model and correlation tests indicated that group effects were significant, showing native speakers’ overall faster reading time. Moreover, the results showed that for participants, online processing of L2 relative clause (RC) and offline choice of RC attachment were not significantly affected by working memory, proficiency, and age. However, sentence readers are more likely to choose high attachment (first noun) as an earlier good-enough linguistic representation than to choose low attachment (second noun) to resolve or minimize RC attachment ambiguity online, which is likely modulated by their working memory capacity.

Keywords


L2 relative clause, online processing, offline attachment choice, working memory, proficiency, age

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References


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