ERIC Number: EJ1167923
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Mar
Pages: 29
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0023-8333
EISSN: N/A
Late Bilinguals Share Syntax Unsparingly between L1 and L2: Evidence from Crosslinguistically Similar and Different Constructions
Hwang, Heeju; Shin, Jeong-Ah; Hartsuiker, Robert J.
Language Learning, v68 n1 p177-205 Mar 2018
Languages often use different constructions to convey the same meaning. For example, the meaning of a causative construction in English ("Jen had her computer fixed") is conveyed using an active structure in Korean ("Jen-NOM her computer-ACC fixed"), and yet little is known about how bilinguals represent and process such constructions. The present study investigated whether late bilinguals develop shared or language-specific representations for crosslinguistically different (causatives) and similar (transitives) constructions. Using between-language structural priming, Experiment 1 showed that proficient Korean-English bilinguals exhibited a stronger priming effect for transitives than did less proficient bilinguals. Using a picture-sentence verification task, Experiment 2 showed that proficient bilinguals were more likely to apply the rules of Korean causatives to the processing of English causatives than were less proficient bilinguals. Our results suggest that Korean-English bilinguals share syntactic representations for both similar and different constructions, indicating that the bilingual system is highly integrated.
Descriptors: Bilingualism, Syntax, Language Processing, Korean, Contrastive Linguistics, English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Task Analysis, Pictorial Stimuli, Transfer of Training, Language Proficiency
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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