Distributive Reading and Conceptual Plurality in Second Language Acquisition / J-SLA2024
Tamura, Y., Fukuta, J., & Kimura, T. (2024). Distributive reading and conceptual plurality in second language acquisition. The 24th International Conference of the Japan Second Language Acquisition. Osaka Kyouiku University, Osaka.
Second Language Association (J-SLA2024) Tamura Yu (Kansai University) Fukuta Junya (Chuo University) Takayuki Kimura (Utsunomiya University) Distributive Reading and Conceptual Plurality in Second Language Acquisition
of conceptual number focused on distributive effect on number agreement production • Typical Sentence Completion Task + red The label on the bottles + self-paced 600ms 1800ms (beep) 5
Proficiency • Hoshino et al. (2010) found that English-Spanish bilinguals showed sensitivity to both grammatical and conceptual information in L1, indicating that grammatical agreement is influenced by conceptual number • In L2, the influence of conceptual information on agreement errors was only observed in learners with very high proficiency levels • Learners’ L1 • Wei et al. (2015) found that the presence or absence of required subject-verb agreement in the L1 significantly affects the likelihood of observing a distributive effect in L2 English • When the L1 requires subject-verb agreement (like Uygur), the distributive effect is more likely to occur in L2 English. Conversely, when the L1 lacks subject-verb agreement (like Chinese), the distributive effect is less likely to emerge in L2 English 6
number salience • The way in which the sentence fragments are presented can impact the distributive effect • Presenting pictures that emphasize the conceptual number of the subject phrase (as in Wei et al. 2015, Experiment 3 and Foote, 2010) led to a distributive effect, even in participants whose L1 lacks subject-verb agreement, compared to presenting the fragments alone Wei et al. (2015) Foote (2010) 7
distributive reading • Design: Sentences ending with either a singular or plural noun (e.g., "The bartender served the beer to the man/men"). • Procedure: Participants read sentences presented in chunks and judged whether the final word was one-word or two-word. • Results: Participants were slower to judge that 1 word was on the screen when it was plural (M = 1,133 ms) compared to singular (M = 1,075 ms), confirming the interference hypothesis. 10
with either a singular or plural noun (e.g., "Each of/Together the men carried a large box/some large boxes"). • Procedure: Participants read sentences presented in chunks and judged whether the final word was one-word or two-words. 11
previous studies focusing on distributive effects in number agreement • Explores L2 learners' ability to access and use distributive readings • Identifies potential challenges unique to L2 learners. • Provides a comprehensive view of linguistic and cognitive mechanisms in L2 acquisition • Complements existing research on number agreement errors 13
& Warren (2010) • Revised difficult vocabulary • 36 target items (8 items for each) plus 64 distractors (100 items in total) A. Each of the men carried a large box. B. Together the men carried a large box. C. Each of the men carried some large boxes. D. Together the men carried some large boxes. 17
Experiment Builder • One- or two-word chunks presented randomly • Participants judged the number of words in blue font • Four practice items before the main task • The main task lasted about 20-30 minutes 19
function) • Response variable: Raw RT of number judgment • Explanatory variable: • distributivity (Each; -0.5, Together; 0.5) • number (sg; -0.5, pl; 0.5) • Interaction between distributivity and number 21
nouns • plural: frequency of plural nouns • Base frequency (sum frequency of singular and plural) • Frequency information was obtained from SUBTLEX US Corpus (Brysbaert and New, 2009) • All the frequency measures are in Zipf scale: “log10 (frequency per million words)+3” (Van Heuven, Mandera, Keuleers, & Brysbaert, 2014, p.1179) 22
on comprehension questions were removed from the analysis (M = 84.15; SD = 5.28) • 1 participant with the accuracy of 50% on number judgment was removed (M = 98.8; SD = 2.3) • Due to the technical issue, only 36 of the 96 participants’ TOEFL scores were linked to the experimental data • Therefore, the data from only 36 learners were analyzed and reported today (If we have time, we can show results of the analysis using the data from all the learners) 23
(around 4000ms) was determined as the cut-off point • Responses with reaction times greater than the mean plus three standard deviations (M + 3SD) of individual RTs were removed • In total, 2.49% of the responses were removed 24
Planned pairwise comparison: L2 learners judged singular nouns slower in "each" sentences than in "together" sentences (p = .027) • Suggests distributive reading is available to L2 learners • L2 learners conceptually represent multiple objects when processing singular nouns in distributive reading, interfering with number judgment 27
B. Together the men carried a large box. C. Each of the men carried some large boxes. D. Together the men carried some large boxes. - A(each/sg) = C (each/pl) - B(together/sg) = D(together/pl) - A(each/sg) > B(together/sg) - C(each/pl) = D(together/pl) 29
L2 learners can process conceptual plurality through distributive reading • Our participants' proficiency levels are likely lower compared to those in previous studies (e.g., Wei et al., 2015) • The influence of proficiency is crucial for understanding the effects on number agreement • The effects observed in previous research may be more related to agreement issues rather than purely conceptual number representation 31
influence focused on number agreement (Hoshino et al., 2012; Wei et al., 2015) • The influence of L1 on interpreting "each" and distributive readings remains unexamined • Future research should include participants with different L1 backgrounds for comprehensive insights. 32
number salience was suggested even without visual support, contrary to the explanation offered by Wei et al. (2015) • L2 learners may represent singular items as plural in distributive reading, Indicating the cognitive flexibility in representing number concepts in L2 33
and the number judgment task can be used in future L2 studies • These methods can help explore various aspects of number representation in different L2 contexts • Encourages further research to utilize these approaches for deeper understanding 35
through distributive reading • Provides insights into the processing of conceptual number in L2 acquisition • Further research is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms and factors influencing conceptual plurality processing in L2 learners 37
as factors in language production: Agreement in bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(2), 99–118. https://doi.org/10.1017/S136672890999040X • Hoshino, N., Dussias, P. E., & Kroll, J. F. (2010). Processing subject–verb agreement in a second language depends on proficiency. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(02), 87. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728909990034 • Hoshino, N., Kroll, J. F., & Dussias, P. E. (2012). Psycholinguistic Perspectives on Second Language Speech Production. In M. Sanz & J. M. Igoa González (Eds.), Applying language science to language pedagogy. Contributions of linguistics and psycholinguistics to language teaching (pp. 107–130). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. • Patson, N. D., & Warren, T. (2010). Evidence for distributivity effects in comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 782–789. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018783 • Wei, X., Chen, B., Liang, L., & Dunlap, S. (2015). Native Language Influence on the Distributive Effect in Producing Second Language Subject–Verb Agreement. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(12), 2370–2383. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2015.1014821 38
B. Together the men carried a large box. C. Each of the men carried some large boxes. D. Together the men carried some large boxes. - A(each/sg) > C (each/pl) - B(together/sg) = D(together/pl) - A(each/sg) = B(together/sg) - C(each/pl) = D(together/pl) 40
than for C (each/pl). • Without considering distributivity, plural nouns typically result in slower judgments due to inherent complexity. • Both singular and plural nouns should induce conceptual plurality, potentially equalizing reaction times. Slower responses to singular nouns (A) might be due to participants' difficulty interpreting "each" + singular nouns as creating a distributive reading. 41