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USING EYE-TRACKING TO INVESTIGATE TOPICS IN L2 ACQUISITION AND L2 PROCESSING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2013

Leah Roberts  and
Anna Siyanova-Chanturia
Leah Roberts*
Affiliation:
University of York
Anna Siyanova-Chanturia*
Affiliation:
Victoria University of Wellington
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Anna Siyanova-Chanturia, School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, 6140. E-mail: anna.siyanova@vuw.ac.nz
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Abstract

Second language (L2) researchers are becoming more interested in both L2 learners’ knowledge of the target language and how that knowledge is put to use during real-time language processing. Researchers are therefore beginning to see the importance of combining traditional L2 research methods with those that capture the moment-by-moment interpretation of the target language, such as eye-tracking. The major benefit of the eye-tracking method is that it can tap into real-time (or online) comprehension processes during the uninterrupted processing of the input, and thus, the data can be compared to those elicited by other, more metalinguistic tasks to offer a broader picture of language acquisition and processing. In this article, we present an overview of the eye-tracking technique and illustrate the method with L2 studies that show how eye-tracking data can be used to (a) investigate language-related topics and (b) inform key debates in the fields of L2 acquisition and L2 processing.

Type
Articles
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 35 , Issue 2: Eye-Movement Recordings in Second Language Research , June 2013 , pp. 213 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this article.

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