Abstract
The role of prosody in sentence processing has received little attention in L2 spoken-language comprehension research, and studies of prosodic disambiguation of PP-attachment ambiguity by L2 learners are rare. We investigated the effects of prosody (accompanied by visual context from the pictures) on PP-attachment ambiguity resolution by native Australian English speakers and Chinese-speaking learners of English, comparing their attachment preferences to examine L1-L2 sentence processing differences. Our results show that prosody can guide both native speakers and L2 learners towards the resolution of sentence-level ambiguity. However, the observed effects varied. For native speakers, prosody overrode bias for the NP-attachment induced by the visual context; L2 learners in contrast showed a preference for the VP-attachment independent of prosodic cues, indicating that they did not detect the ambiguity within the structure from the visual context and that it is difficult for them to effectively integrate different domains of information in ambiguity resolution. These L1-L2 differences might reflect L2 learners’ limited processing capacity for detecting ambiguity and integrating multiple domains of information during L2 sentence processing.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Speech Prosody |
Subtitle of host publication | Speech Prosody 2022 Lisbon, Portugal 23-26 May 2022 |
Editors | Sónia Frota, Marisa Cruz, Marina Vigário |
Publisher | International Speech Communication Association |
Pages | 659-663 |
Number of pages | 5 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - May 2022 |
Event | 11th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Speech Prosody 2022 - Lisbon, Portugal Duration: 23 May 2022 → 26 May 2022 |
Publication series
Name | Proceedings of the International Conference on Speech Prosody |
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Publisher | International Speech Communication Association |
ISSN (Print) | 2333-2042 |
Conference
Conference | 11th International Conference on Speech Prosody, Speech Prosody 2022 |
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Country/Territory | Portugal |
City | Lisbon |
Period | 23/05/22 → 26/05/22 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 International Speech Communications Association. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- L2 learners
- PP-attachment ambiguity
- prosody
- sentence processing
- syntax