Planning Sentences in Second Language English : Effects of Language Similarity and Language Proficiency
Master thesis
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2617535Utgivelsesdato
2019Metadata
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Sammendrag
This experiment examines the effects of syntactic structure, interlingual word similarity, and semantic relationships on second-language English sentence production and planning scope. Syntactic structure was manipulated by the two target lexical nouns either occurring together in the same phrase (i.e. the initial phrase of the utterance) or in different phrases. A second goal of the experiment was to examine how bilingual language profile, defined as vocabulary-size paired with self-reported proficiency and exposure measures, affects sentence production and planning scope. Twenty-nine Norwegian-English bilinguals performed a sentence production task using a picture-word interference paradigm where picture- and word-movement determined syntactic structure with reaction times being taken. The results showed significant effects of semantic interference in both phrasal conditions with the effect being significantly larger when both nouns appeared in the same phrase. The results further showed a significant effect of initial-phrase size with participants being faster to onset speech when the two lexical nouns appeared in different phrases. There was also a significant predictionary effect of elements of participants’ bilingual language profile on the magnitude of the same phrase condition semantic interference effect. The results suggest that bilingual sentence production and planning scope differs from that of monolinguals, and that bilingual language profile affects bilingual language performance.
Beskrivelse
Master's thesis English EN501 - University of Agder 2019