The use of focus markers in second language word processing [Elektronische Ressource] / Anke Sennema-Skowronek

Anke Sennema-Skowronek

Informations

• Publié par: universitat_potsdam
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The use of focus markers

in second language word processing




Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie

vorgelegt von

Anke Sennema-Skowronek






Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät
Universität Potsdam


Potsdam, Juni 2008


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License:
Attribution - Noncommercial - Share Alike 3.0 Germany
To view a copy of this license visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/de/deed.en










































Published online at the
Institutional Repository of the University of Potsdam:
URL http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2009/3723/
URN urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-37237
[http://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-37237]
Acknowledgements


The present thesis developed out of work conducted within the collaborative research enterprise
Sonderforschungsbereich 632 “Informationsstruktur: Die sprachlichen Mittel der Gliederung
von Äußerung, Satz und Text“, project C4 „Prosody and information structure as forms of
'input' in second language acquisition”, at the University of Potsdam.
I thank the principal investigators of this project, Prof. Suzanne E. Carroll and Dr. Ruben van de
Vijver, for their project initiative and their guidance in experimental and thesis work. I also
gratefully acknowledge the funding of project C4 of the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft.

I want to specifically thank Jun.-Prof. Jörg Mayer for his supervision, support and constructive
comments. I also would like to thank Prof. Ulrike Gut for reviewing this dissertation.
Furthermore, I thank my thesis committee, Prof. Shravan Vasishth, Jun.-Prof. Silke Hamann
and Dr. Robin Hörnig.

This thesis strongly benefited from the careful reading and helpful comments by Dr. Bei Wang
and Dr. Sam Hellmuth.

I would also like to warmly thank Anne Zimmer-Stahl for discussions and practical
experimental support. Thanks go also Bernadett Smolibocki and Emily Aydemir for their help
in conducting the experiments. An extra thanks to all participating listeners and speakers of
University of Potsdam, University College London, and University of Essex.







Contents
CHAPTER 1................................................................................ 5
1. Focus marking and second language processing ............................................... 5
1.1. Motive: Efficient processing of a second language ....................................................................5
1.2. Information Structure in L2 processing......................................................................................7
1.3. The concept of focus ..................................................................................................................9
1.4. Parameters of focus marking....................................................................................................12
1.5. Outline of the present study......................................................................................................15
CHAPTER 2...............................................................................16
2. The role of prosodic prominence in L1 and L2 word recognition .........................16
2.1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................16
2.2. Intonational marking of prominence ........................................................................................18
2.2.1. Pitch accents....................................................................................................................18
2.2.2. Language-specific segmentation patterns........................................................................21
2.2.3. Language-specificity and cross-linguistic transfer ..........................................................22
2.3. The influence of word position in the sentence on word processing........................................27
2.4. Word length as a factor in word processing .............................................................................29
2.5. Research hypotheses.................................................................................................................31
2.6. Experiment 1a: Effect of prosodic prominence in native and nonnative listening ...................34
2.6.1. Speech materials ..............................................................................................................34
2.6.2. Speakers and recording procedure...................................................................................38
2.6.3. Participants..........38
2.6.4. Estimating language proficiency: The Oxford Placement Test .......................................39
2.6.5. Procedure and experimental task.....................................................................................40
2.6.5. Results of Experiment 1a.................................................................................................41
2.6.6. Discussion of Experiment 1a...........................................................................................53
2.7. Experiment 1b: Effect of the surrounding prosodic contour on word recognition ...................59
2.7.1. The splicing procedure ....................................................................................................60
2.7.2. Methodology ...................................................................................................................62
2.7.3. Results of Experiment 1b: Spliced conditions.................................................................63

2.7.4 Discussion of Experiment 1b with spliced conditions.....................................................66
2.8. Conclusions ..............................................................................................................................68
CHAPTER 3...............................................................................70
3. Cleft constructions in L1 and L2 word processing and word recall .......................70
3.1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................70
3.2. Cleft constructions as focus marking device ............................................................................72
3.3. Focusing by clefts in German and in English...........................................................................73
3.4. Accent effects...........................................................................................................................75
3.5. Context effects..........................................................................................................................76
3.6. Methodological issues ..............................................................................................................78
3.6.1. The Phoneme Monitoring Technique ..............................................................................78
3.6.2. Explicit and implicit memory in L2 word learning .........................................................79
3.6.3. From word probe detection to multiple choice task ........................................................80
3.6.4. Switching modalities between listening task and recall test............................................80
3.7. Research hypotheses.................................................................................................................84
3.8. Experiment 2: Effect of clefts on L1/L2 word processing85
3.8.1. Speech materials ..............................................................................................................85
3.8.2. Speakers and recording procedure...................................................................................88
3.8.3. Participants..........88
3.8.4. Experimental procedure...................................................................................................89
3.9. Results ......................................................................................................................................91
3.9.1. Results of the phoneme detection task ............................................................................91
3.9.2. Results of the word recall task.......................................................................................103
3.10. Discussion ..............................................................................................................................113
3.11. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................124
4. Focus particles in L1 and L2 word processing and word recall .......................... 126
4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................