Learning to Process and Processing to Learn: Linguistic and cognitive processing in language acquisition.

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Holger Hopp, since 6/2020; Professorin Dr. Sarah Schimke
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 436221639

The proposed project investigates linguistic processing and general cognitive processing (cognitive control) in (second) language (L2) acquisition. We focus on wh-questions and relative clauses in German and English, both of which are acquired late. They are also difficult to process, since they require inhibition and revision of an initial syntactic analysis and suppression of potential L1 influence. At the same time, successfully processing and thereby accessing a structure contributes to the gradual consolidation of its underlying grammatical representation and thus leads to acquisition. Theoretical approaches differ in the weights they assign to different factors that facilitate successful processing and acquisition. The current project aims at delineating the relative influences of three such factors in the L2 acquisition of complex syntax: linguistic processing experience with the equivalent structure in the L1, with similar structures in the L2, or language-independent cognitive control abilities that may aid sentence revision and the suppression of L1 influence.In the first phase of the project, we conduct a cross-sectional study testing how L2 learners Learn to Process complex grammar. Participants will be 11-to 13-year old German-speaking instructed learners of English. We assess correlations between participants´ processing and offline interpretation of WH-questions in L1 German, their processing and offline interpretation of WH-questions and relative clauses in L2 English, and their cognitive control abilities. In the second phase, we build on the correlational evidence from phase I and uncover how learners Process to Learn, i.e., which types of cognitive and linguistic processing have causal impacts on the processing and interpretation of non-canonical structures in the L2. We conduct a pre-post-test implicit learning study on L2 English. In the implicit learning part, we present participants with complex sentences that either follow congruent or incongruent trials of a Stroop task, or subject or object WH-questions or relative clauses. We expect that, after target processing a complex structure or an incongruent Stroop task trial requiring inhibition, learners will show more successful processing of complex structures in the following trial (short-term effects). We also test how implicit learning in the different conditions translates to improved accuracy in a post-test and whether learners generalize their learning to other linguistic structures. This way, the project assesses how processing leads to learning in (longer-term) acquisition.In sum, the project delineates the relations between processing and acquisition of grammar and will thus define and situate the roles of linguistic and cognitive processing in current models of language acquisition.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Greg Poarch, Ph.D., until 5/2020