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Native language influence on the distributive effect in producing second language subject-verb agreement.
Xiaoyan Wei1,2, Baoguo Chen1, Lijuan Liang3
1a School of Psychology , Beijing Normal University , Beijing , China.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|February 12, 2015
Summary
The first language's (L1) subject-verb agreement rules significantly impact English second language (L2) production. L2 learners whose L1 requires subject-verb agreement show distributive effects, unlike those whose L1 does not.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
- Second Language Acquisition
Background:
- Subject-verb agreement is a key grammatical feature in many languages.
- The distributive effect in language production refers to how grammatical features are applied across sentence elements.
- Understanding how first language (L1) features influence second language (L2) acquisition is crucial for effective pedagogy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of L1 subject-verb agreement rules on the production of subject-verb agreement in English as a second language (L2).
- To determine if the presence or absence of mandatory subject-verb agreement in the L1 affects the distributive effect in L2.
- To explore the role of L2 proficiency and stimulus presentation in observing the distributive effect.
Main Methods:
- Three experiments were conducted with bilingual participants (Chinese-English and Uygur-English).
- Experiment 1 compared L2 subject-verb agreement production between participants whose L1 does (Uygur) and does not (Chinese) require subject-verb agreement.
- Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated L2 proficiency and stimulus presentation, respectively, to further probe the distributive effect.
Main Results:
- The distributive effect was observed in Uygur-English bilinguals but not in Chinese-English bilinguals in Experiment 1.
- Higher L2 proficiency did not induce the distributive effect in Chinese-English bilinguals (Experiment 2).
- Altering stimulus presentation to emphasize singular or distributive subjects elicited the distributive effect in Chinese-English bilinguals (Experiment 3).
Conclusions:
- The L1 syntactic feature of subject-verb agreement is a significant factor influencing the distributive effect in L2 subject-verb agreement production.
- Distributive effects are less common in L2 acquisition when the L1 lacks subject-verb agreement requirements.
- The findings highlight the critical role of L1 typology in shaping L2 grammatical processing and production.
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