Do non-native languages have an effect on word order processing in first language Turkish?

2019-08-01
Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: Existing studies on sentence processing in bi-/multilinguals are typically centred on the first language (L1) influence on second language sentence processing. However, there is almost no evidence of influence in the other direction. The aim of this study is to find out whether being mono-, bi-, tri- or plurilingual has an effect on reading times (RTs) in the native language. To this end, Turkish native speakers' RTs are measured when processing Turkish canonical subject-object-verb sentences, subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences where constituents move to post-verbal positions and SVO-ki sentences where post-verbal constituents are base generated. Design/Methodology/Approach: A non-cumulative self-paced reading task is used in order to measure the RTs of a sentence. The area of interest contains (i) the critical verb, (ii) the verb of the complement clause and (iii) the argument or adjunct of the complement clause (32 sentences + 12 filler sentences). All elements are matched according to their frequency of occurrence and their syllable structure. Data and Analysis: Analyses of variance are performed on RTs of the area of interest. Findings/Conclusions: One of the main findings in this study is that all three sentence types are processed significantly slower by the monolingual group than by the bi- and multilingual groups. We infer that non-native languages have a positive effect on processing the word order in the L1, which might lead to a faster processing in the three sentence types. The findings are discussed in terms of working memory and the "gap-driven strategy".
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUALISM

Suggestions

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE L1 AND L2 PROCESSING OF MORPHOLOGICALLY COMPLEX WORDS
Kahraman, Hasibe; Kırkıcı, Bilal; Department of English Language Teaching (2022-2-1)
The aim of this study was to examine how native speakers (L1) of Turkish, a morphologically rich language, process a second language (L2) which is morphologically less productive such as English. Critically, the study examined morphological priming effects together with a transposed-letter (TL) methodology using the same target word and compared the processing of derived word forms in L1 English speakers to that of L1 Turkish speakers of L2 English. Two masked primed lexical decision experiments were conduc...
Processing of conditional constructions in Turkish l2 speakers of English
Evcen, Ebru; Özge, Duygu; Department of English Language Teaching (2019)
This thesis aims to examine whether Turkish L2 learners of English process conditional constructions in an incremental and/or predictive manner. An offline grammaticality judgment (GJT) task was devised to test L2 learners’ sensitivity to grammatical violations and an online self-paced reading (SPR) task was designed to find out whether processing patterns of L2 learners would match existing L2 processing accounts. We manipulated the Connector Type (unless, unless…not, if…not) and Context Type (congruent, i...
Disfluency in second language: a study of Turkish speaker of English
Vural, Erkan; Zeyrek Bozşahin, Deniz; Department of Cognitive Sciences (2008)
The purpose of this study is to investigate disfluency and gesture in the second language under specific conditions such as familiarity vs. non-familiarity, concrete topic type vs. abstract topic type and speaking with native speaker vs. speaker with non-native speaker. The sample of this study was sixteen students from the Department of Basic English in Middle East Technical University (DBE), three instructors from DBE and one instructor from Modern Language Department in Middle East Technical University. ...
Extracting, computing, coordination: what does a triphasic ERP pattern say about language processing?
Cedden, Gülay; ÇAKAR, TUNA (2021-11-01)
The current study aims at contributing to the interpretation of the most prominent language-related ERP effects, N400 and P600, by investigating how neural responses to congruent and incongruent sentence endings vary, when the language processor processes the full array of the lexico-syntactic content in verbs with three affixes in canonical Turkish sentences. The ERP signals in response to three different violation conditions reveal a similar triphasic (P200/N400/P600) pattern resembling in topography and ...
Intercultural Sensitivity of EFL Learners at a State University
Gedik Bal, Nur (2020-06-01)
The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed method study was to identify the level of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ intercultural sensitivity (IS) and reveal underlying factors that might have impact on learners’ IS. Participants were 113 EFL learners studying in the preparatory school of a state university. IS scale created by Chen and Starosta (2000) was implemented. Interviews were also conducted with nine volunteer students. Quantitative data were analyzed via SPSS whereas qualitat...
Citation Formats
G. Cedden, “Do non-native languages have an effect on word order processing in first language Turkish?,” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUALISM, pp. 804–816, 2019, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/34933.