Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T06:09:37.403Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early language experience facilitates the processing of gender agreement in Spanish heritage speakers*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2013

SILVINA MONTRUL ,
JUSTIN DAVIDSON ,
ISRAEL DE LA FUENTE  and
REBECCA FOOTE
SILVINA MONTRUL*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
JUSTIN DAVIDSON
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
ISRAEL DE LA FUENTE
Affiliation:
Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7
REBECCA FOOTE
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
*
Address for correspondence: Silvina Montrul, Department of Linguistics and Department of Spanish, Italian & Portuguese, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 4080 Foreign Languages Building, MC-176, 707 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USAmontrul@illinois.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We examined how age of acquisition in Spanish heritage speakers and L2 learners interacts with implicitness vs. explicitness of tasks in gender processing of canonical and non-canonical ending nouns. Twenty-three Spanish native speakers, 29 heritage speakers, and 33 proficiency-matched L2 learners completed three on-line spoken word recognition experiments involving gender monitoring, grammaticality judgment, and word repetition. All three experimental tasks required participants to listen to grammatical and ungrammatical Spanish noun phrases (determiner–adjective–noun) but systematically varied the type of response required of them. The results of the Gender Monitoring Task (GMT) and the Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) revealed significant grammaticality effects for all groups in accuracy and speed, but in the Word Repetition Task (WRT), the native speakers and the heritage speakers showed a grammaticality effect, while the L2 learners did not. Noun canonicity greatly affected processing in the two experimental groups. We suggest that input frequency and reduced language use affect retrieval of non-canonical ending nouns from declarative memory in L2 learners and heritage speakers more so than in native speakers. Native-like processing of gender in the WRT by the heritage speakers is likely related to context of acquisition and particular experience with oral production.

Keywords

grammatical genderSpanishheritage speakersprocessingimplicit/explicit tasks
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 118 - 138
Creative Commons
This is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States.
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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.)

Footnotes

*

This study was supported by internal funds from the University of Illinois, for which we are grateful. We thank all the students who participated in our experiments, as well as the undergraduate research assistants Celeste Larkin, Kayla Pennoyer, Adam Bethune and Rachel Pirovano for their help in setting up the experiments and running subjects. Earlier versions of this work were presented at the 2010 Hispanic Linguistics Symposium at Indiana University, at the 2011 Workshop on Heritage Languages at Harvard University, at EUROSLA 2011 in Stockholm, at the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese colloquium at the University of Illinois (November 2011), at the 2012 Heritage Language Summer Institute at UCLA and at the Psycholingusitics Supper series at the CUNY Graduate Center in October 2012. We are grateful to all the audiences in these venues for their helpful comments and feedback. We are also grateful to Carmen Silva-Corvalán and to the three anonymous reviewers who kindly provided very useful comments and suggestions.

References

Abrahamsson, N., & Hyltenstam, K. (2009). Age of onset and nativelikeness in a second language: Listener perception versus linguistic scrutiny. Language Learning, 59, 249–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alarcón, I. (2009). The processing of gender agreement in L1 and L2 Spanish: Evidence from reaction time data. Hispania, 92, 814–828.Google Scholar
Alarcón, I. (2011). Spanish gender agreement under complete and incomplete acquisition: Early and late bilinguals’ linguistic behavior within the noun phrase. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 332–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albirini, A., Benmamoun, E., & Saddah, E. (2011). Grammatical features of Egyptian and Palestinian Arabic heritage speakers’ oral production. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 273–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Au, T., Knightly, L., Jun, S., & Oh, J. (2002). Overhearing a language during childhood. Psychological Science, 13, 238–243.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E., Devescovi, A., Hernández, A., & Pizzamiglio, L. (1996). Gender priming in Italian. Perception & Psychophysics, 58, 992–1004.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E., Devescovi, A., Pizzamiglio, L., D'Amico, S., & Hernández, A. (1995). Gender priming in Italian. Perception & Psychophysics, 57, 847–862.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Ryan, E.B. (1985). A metacognitive framework for the development of first and second language skills. In Forrest-Pressley, D. L., Mackinnon, G. E. & Waller, T. G. (eds.), Meta-cognition, cognition, and human performance, pp. 207–252. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bley-Vroman, R. (2009). The evolving context of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 31, 175–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolonyai, A. (2007). (In)vulnerable agreement in incomplete bilingual L1 learners. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 11, 3–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowles, M. (2011). Measuring implicit and explicit linguistic knowledge: What can heritage language learners contribute? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 247–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruhn de Garavito, J. (2002). Verb raising in Spanish: A comparison of early and late bilinguals. In Skarabela, B., Fish, S. & Do, A. H.-J. (eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, pp. 84–94. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Carroll, S. (1989). Second language acquisition and the computational paradigm. Language Learning, 39, 535–594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carstens, V. (2000). Concord in minimalist theory. Linguistic Inquiry, 31, 319–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C. (2006). Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 3–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeKeyser, R. (2000). The robustness of critical period effects in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 499–534.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, R. (2005). Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language: A psychometric study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 141–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, J. (1978). Linguistics and language: A survey of basic concepts and implications (2nd edn.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Foote, R. (2011). Integrated knowledge of agreement in early and late English–Spanish bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 187–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franceschina, F. (2001). Morphological or syntactic deficits in near-native speakers? An assessment of some current proposals. Second Language Research, 17, 213–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franceschina, F. (2005). Fossilized second language grammars: The acquisition of grammatical gender. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frigo, L., & McDonald, J. (1998). Properties of phonological markers that affect the acquisition of gender-like subclasses. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 218–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gollan, T. H., Montoya, R. I., Cera, C. M., & Sandoval, T. C. (2008). More use almost always means smaller a frequency effect: Aging, bilingualism, and the weaker links hypothesis. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 787–814.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gollan, T. H., Slattery, T. J., Goldenberg, D., van Assche, E., Duyck, W., & Rayner, K. (2011). Frequency drives lexical access in reading but not in speaking: The frequency-lag hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 186–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grüter, T., Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2012). Grammatical gender in the L2: A production or a real time processing problem? Second Language Research, 28, 191–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guillelmon, D., & Grosjean, F. (2001). The gender marking effect in spoken word recognition: The case of bilinguals. Memory & Cognition, 29, 503–511.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Håkansson, G. (1995). Syntax and morphology in language attrition: A study of five bilingual expatriate Swedes. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5, 153–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, J. (1991). The exponence of gender in Spanish. Linguistic Inquiry, 22, 27–62.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R., & Chan, C. (1997). The partial availability of Universal Grammar in second language acquisition: The “failed functional features hypothesis”. Second Language Research, 13, 187–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández Pina, F. (1984). Teorías psicosociolingüísticas y su aplicación a la adquisición del español como lengua maternal [Psychosociolinguistic theories and their application to the acquisition of Spanish as a mother tongue]. Madrid: Siglo XXI.Google Scholar
Hulsen, M. (2000). Language loss and language processing: Three generations of Dutch migrants in New Zealand. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Keating, G. (2009). Sensitivity to violations of gender agreement in native and nonnative Spanish: An eye-movement investigation. Language Learning, 59, 503–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007a). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of grammatical gender in spoken word recognition. Psychological Science, 33, 193–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007b). How first and second language learners use predictive cues in on-line sentence interpretation in Spanish and English. In Caunt-Nulton, H., Kulatilake, S. & Woo, I. (eds.), Proceedings of the 31st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, pp. 382–393. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2010). Real-time processing of gender-marked articles by native and non-native Spanish speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 63, 447–464.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lleó, C. (1998). Proto-articles in the acquisition of Spanish: Interface between phonology and syntax. In Fabri, R., Ortman, A. & Parodi, T. (eds.), Models of inflection, pp. 175–195. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, M. (2007). Problems in SLA. Mahwak, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
López Ornat, S. (1997). What lies in between a pre-grammatical and a grammatical representation? Evidence on nominal and verbal form–function mapping in Spanish from 1;7 to 2;1. In Pérez-Leroux, A. T. & Glass, W. (eds.), Contemporary perspectives on the acquisition of Spanish, pp. 3–20. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Montrul, S. (2002). Incomplete acquisition and attrition of Spanish tense/aspect distinctions in adult bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, 39–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2004a). Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morpho-syntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 125–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2004b). The cquisition of Spanish. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2007). Interpreting Mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language. In Potowski, K. & Cameron, R. (eds.), Spanish contact: Policy, social and linguistic inquiries, pp. 23–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2008). Incomplete acquisition in bilingualism: Re-examining the age factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2009). Incomplete acquisition of Tense–Aspect and Mood in Spanish heritage speakers. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 13, 239–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2010). Current issues in heritage language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 30, 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2011a). Morphological errors in Spanish second language learners and heritage speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 155–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2011b). First language retention and attrition in an adult Guatemalan adoptee. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 2, 276–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (in press). How native are heritage speakers? A look at gender agreement in Spanish. The Heritage Language Journal.Google Scholar
Montrul, S., & Bowles, M. (2009). Back to basics: Differential Object Marking under incomplete acquisition in Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 363–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., de la Fuente, I., Davidson, J., & Foote, R. (2013). The role of experience in the acquisition and production of diminutives and gender in Spanish: Evidence from L2 learners and heritage speakers. Second Language Research, 29, 87–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Foote, R.Age of acquisition interactions in bilingual lexical access: A study of the weaker language in L2 learners and heritage speakers. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 16, doi:10.1177/1367006912443431. Published online by Sage, May 8, 2012.Google Scholar
Montrul, S., Foote, R., & Perpiñán, S. (2008). Gender agreement in adult second language learners and Spanish heritage speakers: The effects of age and context of acquisition. Language Learning, 58, 3–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Ionin, T. (2010). Transfer effects in the interpretation of definite articles by Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 449–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Potowski, K. (2007). Command of gender agreement in school-age Spanish bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11, 301–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mueller Gathercole, V. C. (2002). Grammatical gender in bilingual and monolingual children: A Spanish morphosyntactic distinction. In Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (eds.), Language and literacy in bilingual children, pp. 207–219. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Grady, W. (2009). Assessing heritage language competence. Presented at the Third Heritage Language Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, June 2009.Google Scholar
O'Grady, W., Kwak, H-K., Lee, M., & Lee, O-S. (2011). An Emergentist perspective on partial language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 223–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Grady, W., Lee, M., & Choo, M. (2001). The acquisition of relative clauses by heritage and non-heritage learners of Korean as a second language: A comparative study. Journal of Korean Language Education, 12, 283–294.Google Scholar
Otheguy, R., Zentella, A. C., & Livert, D. (2007). Language and dialect contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the formation of a speech community. Language, 83, 770–802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S. (1999). Words and rules: The ingredients of language. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Pinker, S., & Prince, A. (1994). Regular and irregular morphology and the psychological status of rules of grammar. In Lima, S. D., Corrigan, R. L. & Iverson, G. K. (eds.), The reality of linguistic rules, pp. 321–352. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S., & Ullman, M. T. (2002). The past and future of the past tense. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 456–463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Polinsky, M. (1997). American Russian: Language loss meets language acquisition. In Browne, W. (ed.), Formal approaches to Slavic linguistics, pp. 370–407. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.Google Scholar
Polinsky, M. (2008). Russian gender under incomplete acquisition. The Heritage Language Journal, 6, 40–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polinsky, M. (2011). Reanalysis in adult heritage language: A case for attrition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, 305–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rebuschat, P., & Williams, J. (2011). Implicit and explicit knowledge in second language acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33, 1–28.Google Scholar
Rothman, J. (2007). Heritage speaker competence differences, language change, and input type: Inflected infinitives in heritage Brazilian Portuguese. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 11, 359–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sagarra, N., & Herschensohn, J. (2011). Proficiency and animacy effects on L2 gender agreement processing during comprehension. Language Learning, 61, 98–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sebastián Gallés, N., Martí, M. A., Carreiras, M. F., & Cuetos, F. (2000). LEXESP: Léxico informatizado del español. CD-ROM. Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, C. (1994). Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taraban, R., & Roark, B. (1996). Competition in language-based categories. Applied Psycholinguistics, 17, 125–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taraban, R., & Kempe, V. (1999). Gender processing in native and non-native Russian speakers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 119–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teschner, R., & Russell, W. (1984). The gender patterns of Spanish nouns: An inverse dictionnary-based analysis. Hispanic Linguistics, 9, 157–173.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I. M., & Dimitrakopoulou, M. (2007). The interpretability hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second Language Language Research, 23, 215–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, L., Valenzuela, E., Kozlowska-Macgregor, M., & Leung, Y.-K. I. (2004). Gender agreement in nonnative Spanish: Evidence against failed features. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 105–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar