Annika Andersson, Associate Professor at Linnaeus University, will present “Cross-linguistic influence on processing of fine-grained placement verb semantics as recorded by ERPs and appropriateness ratings” and talk about some of her research with second language learners on Wednesday March 18th 12:00 in ILC N400. An Abstract follows.
Abstract
Second language (L2) learners typically experience challenges when semantics differ across source and target languages, and often display CLI in speech production and behavioral comprehension studies (e.g., Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008). However, in studies using ERPs, CLI has rarely been reported, probably because these studies typically examine the processing of gross semantic violations (e.g., Kutas & Hillyard, 1980). We explored how English and German learners of Swedish process fine-grained L2 verb semantics that are either shared or not shared with their first language. Three Swedish placement verbs (sätta ‘set’, ställa ‘stand’, lägga ‘lay’), obligatory for describing placement on a surface with support from below (Viberg 1998) were examined. In difference to Swedish, English has one general placement verb (put), whereas German has specific verbs similar to Swedish (Narasimhan et al., 2012). In contrast to previous ERP studies of semantic processing qualitative differences in semantic processing were related to non-native processing. However, more interestingly neurophysiological processing of fine-grained semantics was strongly related to CLI both offline and online.