Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-wxk4p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T09:33:55.122Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LINGUISTIC ALIGNMENT, LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS, AND THE PRODUCTION OF STRANDED PREPOSITIONS IN RELATIVE CLAUSES

COMPARING FTF AND SCMC CONTEXTS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2019

YouJin Kim ,
YeonJoo Jung  and
Stephen Skalicky
YouJin Kim*
Affiliation:
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
YeonJoo Jung
Affiliation:
Pusan National University
Stephen Skalicky
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to YouJin Kim, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, South Korea. E-mail: youjin1206@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The current study examined the occurrence and benefits of linguistic alignment in two modalities, face-to-face (FTF) and synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC), focusing on stranded prepositions in relative clauses. It further examined how learner characteristics (i.e., working memory, language proficiency, previous knowledge of the target structure) mediate the effects of linguistic alignment. Ninety-four Korean students were assigned to one of the following groups: FTF alignment, SCMC alignment, FTF control, and SCMC control. The alignment experimental groups completed two alignment sessions, finished three stranded preposition tests, and carried out a running span test and cloze test over three weeks. Results indicated not only that linguistic alignment occurred in both FTF and SCMC modes but also that alignment was facilitated significantly more in the SCMC than FTF interactions. Furthermore, the findings suggest immediate and delayed learning effects in both modalities, and that learners’ prior knowledge of the target structure was significantly associated with the occurrence of alignment.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 41 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 937 - 969
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

The project was funded by Language Learning Small Research Grant which was awarded to the first author.

References

REFERENCES

Atkinson, D., Churchill, E., Nishino, T., & Okada, H. (2007). Alignment and interaction in a sociocognitive approach to second language acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 91, 169–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 390–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baguley, T. (2012). Serious stats: A guide to advanced statistics for the behavioral sciences. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2015). lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4 (Version 1.1-7) [Computer software]. Retrieved from http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4.Google Scholar
Behney, J., & Gass, S. (2013). Interaction and noun phrase accessibility hierarchy: A study using syntactic priming. In Schwieter, J. W. (Ed.), Innovative research and practices in second language acquisition and bilingualism (pp. 43–62). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernolet, S., Hartsuiker, R. J., & Pickering, M. J. (2013). From language-specific to shared syntactic representations: The influence of second language proficiency on syntactic sharing in bilinguals. Cognition, 127, 287–306.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Biber, B., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English . Harlow, UK: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Branigan, H. P., Garrod, S., & Pickering, M. J. (2014). Alignment (interactive). In Brooks, P. J. & Kempe, V. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language development (pp. 13–16). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., & Cleland, A. A. (2000). Syntactic co-ordination in dialogue. Cognition, 75, B13–B25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., McLean, J. F., & Cleland, A. A. (2007). Syntactic alignment and participant role in dialogue. Cognition, 104, 163–197.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., Pearson, J., & McLean, J. F. (2010). Linguistic alignment between people and computers. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 2355–2368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadway, J. M., & Engle, R. W. (2010). Validating running memory span: Measurement of working memory capacity and links with fluid intelligence. Behavior Research Methods, 42, 563–570.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, J. D. (1980). Relative merits of four methods for scoring cloze tests. The Modern Language Journal, 64, 311–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. D. (2002). Do cloze tests work? Or, is it just an illusion? Second Language Studies, 21, 79–125.Google Scholar
Chang, F., Dell, G. S., & Bock, K. (2006). Becoming syntactic. Psychological Review, 113, 234–272.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cleland, A. A., & Pickering, M. J. (2006). Do writing and speaking employ the same syntactic representations? Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 185–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collentine, J., & Collentine, K. (2013). A corpus approach to studying structural convergence in task-based Spanish L2 interactions. In McDonough, K. & Mackey, A. (Eds.), Second language interaction in diverse educational contexts (pp. 167–188). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conroy, M. A., & Antón-Méndez, I. (2015). A preposition is something you can end a sentence with: Learning English stranded prepositions through structural priming. Second Language Research, 31, 211–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimitriadis, E. (2007). A preposition is something which you should never end a sentence with: A corpus-based study on preposition stranding. Retrieved from http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:205546/FULLTEXT01.pdf.Google Scholar
Foltz, A., Gaspers, J., Meyer, C., Thiele, K., Cimiano, P., & Stenneken, P. (2015). Temporal effects of alignment in text-based, task-oriented discourse. Discourse Processes, 52, 609–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrod, S., & Pickering, M. J. (2007). Alignment in dialogue. In Gaskell, G. (Ed.), Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 443–451). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gómez, R. L. (2002). Variability and detection of invariant structure. Psychological Science, 13, 431–436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hartsuiker, R. J., & Bernolet, S. (2017). The development of shared syntax in second language learning. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20, 219–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartsuiker, R. J., Bernolet, S., Schoonbaert, S., Speybroeck, S., & Vanderelst, D. (2008). Syntactic priming persists while the lexical boost decays: Evidence from written and spoken dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 214–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinofotis, F. B. (1980). Cloze as an alternative method of ESL placement and proficiency testing. In Oller, J. W. Jr. & Perkins, K. (Eds.), Research in language testing (pp. 121–128). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.Google Scholar
Hokari, T., & Wakabayashi, S. (2009). Null prepositions in wh-questions and passives. In Bowles, M., Ionin, T., Montrul, S., & Tremblay, A. (Eds.), Proceedings: Paper presented at the 10th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2009), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, 13–15 March (pp. 35–45). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Jaeger, T. F. (2008). Categorical data analysis: Away from ANOVAs (transformation or not) and towards logit mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 434–446.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kim, C. E., & O’Grady, W. (2016). Asymmetries in children’s production of relative clauses: Data from English and Korean. Journal of Child Language, 43, 1038–1071.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kim, Y., & McDonough, K. (2008). Learners’ production of passives during syntactic priming activities. Applied Linguistics, 29, 149–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, E. C. (1993). Toward second language acquisition: A study of null prep. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, A., Brockhoff, B., & Christensen, H. B. (2015). lmerTest: Tests for random and fixed effects for linear mixed effect models (lmer objects of the lme4 package).Google Scholar
Lenth, R. (2018). emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means. R Package Version 1.2.2. Retrieved from https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=emmeans.Google Scholar
Levshina, N. (2015). How to do linguistics with R: Data exploration and statistical analysis. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackey, A., Abbuhl, R., & Gass, S. M. (2012). Interactionist approach. In Gass, S. M. & Mackey, A. (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 7–23). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Markee, N., & Kunitz, S. (2013). Doing planning and task performance in second language acquisition: An ethnomethodological respecification. Language Learning, 63, 629–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marsden, E., Altmann, G., & St. Claire, M. (2013). Priming of verb inflections in L1 and L2 French: A comparison of redundant versus non-redundant training conditions. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 51, 271–298.Google Scholar
Marsden, E., Williams, J., & Liu, X. (2013). Learning novel morphology: The role of meaning and orientation of attention at initial exposure. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 35, 619–654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K. (2005). Identifying the contributions of negative feedback and learners’ responses to L2 development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 79–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K. (2006). Interaction and syntactic priming: English L2 speakers’ production of dative constructions. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 179–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., & Chaikitmongkol, W. (2010). Collaborative syntactic priming activities and EFL learners’ production of wh-questions. Canadian Modern Language Review, 66, 817–841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., & De Vleeschauwer, J. (2012). Prompt-type frequency, auditory pattern discrimination, and EFL learners’ production of wh-questions. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 34, 355–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., & Fulga, A. (2015). The detection and primed production of novel constructions. Language Learning, 65, 326–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., Kielstra, P., Crowther, D., & Smith, G. (2016). Structural priming in L2 speech production: Examining relationships among English L2 speakers’ production, cognitive abilities, and awareness. In Mackey, A. & Marsden, E. (Eds.), Instruments for research into second languages: Empirical studies advancing methodology (pp. 112–131). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
McDonough, K., & Kim, Y. (2009). Syntactic priming, type frequency, and EFL learners’ production of wh-questions. Modern Language Journal, 93, 386–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., & Kim, Y. (2016). Working memory and L2 English speakers’ primed and subsequent production of passives. In Granena, G., Jackson, D. O., & Yilmaz, Y. (Eds.), Cognitive individual differences in second language processing and acquisition (pp. 205–222). Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., & Mackey, A. (2006). Responses to recasts: Repetitions, primed production, and linguistic development. Language Learning, 56, 693–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., & Mackey, A. (2008). Syntactic priming and ESL question development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30, 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K., & Trofimovich, P. (2009). Using priming methods in second language research. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
McDonough, K., Neumann, H., & Trofimovich, P. (2015). Eliciting production of L2 target structures through priming activities. Canadian Modern Language Review, 71, 75–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKee, C., & McDaniel, D. (2001). Resumptive pronouns in English relative clauses. Language Acquisition, 9, 113–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michel, M., & Smith, B. (2017). Eye-tracking research in computer-mediated language learning. In Thorne, S., May, S. (Eds.), Language, Education and Technology (pp. 1–12). New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Michel, M., & Smith, B. (2018). Measuring lexical alignment during L2 chat interaction: An eye-tracking study. In Gass, S., Spinner, P., & Behney, J. (Eds.), Salience in second language acquisition (pp. 244–267). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nakagawa, S., & Schielzeth, H. (2013). A general and simple method for obtaining R2 from generalized linear mixed-effects models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 4, 133–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Grady, W. (2011). Relative clauses: Processing and acquisition. In Kidd, E. (Ed.), The acquisition of relative clauses: Processing, typology and function (pp. 13–38). Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oiler, J. W., & Conrad, C. A. (1971). The cloze technique and ESL proficiency. Language Learning, 21, 183–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, M. J., & Ferreira, V. S. (2008). Structural priming: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 427–459.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2004). The interactive-alignment model: Developments and refinements. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 212–225.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plonsky, L., & Gass, S. (2011). Quantitative research methods, study quality, and outcomes: The case of interaction research. Language Learning, 61, 325–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Psychological Corporation. (1997). WMS-III administration and scoring manual. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Brace & Company.Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2016). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from http://www.R-project.org/.Google Scholar
Redick, T. S., & Lindsey, D. R. (2013). Complex span and n-back measures of working memory: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 20, 1102–1113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sadighi, F., Parhizgar, M. R., & Saadat, M. (2004). Preposition pied-piping and preposition stranding constructions in the interlanguage grammar of Iranian EFL learners. Asian EFL Journal, 6, 1–33.Google Scholar
Sauro, S. (2011). SCMC for SLA: A research synthesis. CALICO Journal, 28, 369–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In Robinson, P. (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 1–32). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shin, J.-A., & Christianson, K. (2012). Structural priming and second language learning. Language Learning, 62, 931–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trofimovich, P. (2016). Interactive alignment: A teaching-friendly view of second language pronunciation learning. Language Teaching, 49, 411–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trofimovich, P., McDonough, K., & Foote, J. A. (2014). Interactive alignment of multisyllabic stress patterns in a second language classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 48, 815–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trofimovich, P., McDonough, K., & Neumann, H. (2013). Using collaborative tasks to elicit auditory and structural priming. TESOL Quarterly, 47, 177–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uzum, B. (2010). An investigation of alignment in CMC from a sociocognitive perspective. CALICO Journal, 28, 135–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziegler, N. (2016). Synchronous computer-mediated communication and interaction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 38, 553–586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zwaan, R. A., & Radvansky, G. A. (1998). Situation models in language comprehension and memory. Psychological Bulletin, 123, 162–185.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed