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Grammatical gender processing in L2: Electrophysiological evidence of the effect of L1–L2 syntactic similarity*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2010

ALICE FOUCART  and
CHERYL FRENCK-MESTRE
ALICE FOUCART*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
CHERYL FRENCK-MESTRE
Affiliation:
CNRS, Université de Provence
*
Address for correspondence: Alice Foucart, University of Edinburgh, 21, Hill Place, Edinburgh EH8 9DP, Scotlandalfoucart@googlemail.com
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Abstract

This study examines the effect of proficiency and similarity between the first and the second language on grammatical gender processing in L2. In three experiments, we manipulated gender agreement violations within the determiner phrase (DP), between the determiner and the noun (Experiment 1), the postposed adjective and the noun (Experiment 2) and the preposed adjective and the noun (Experiment 3). We compared the performance of German advanced learners of French to that of French native controls. The results showed a similar P600 effect for native and non-native speakers for agreement violations when agreement rules where similar in L1 and L2 (Experiment 1, depending on proficiency), whereas no effect was found for L2 learners when agreement rules varied across languages. These results suggest that syntactic processing in L2 is affected by the similarity of syntactic rules in L1 and L2.

Keywords

second language acquisitiongrammatical genderERPs
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 379 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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Footnotes

*

This study was supported by a grant from the French Ministry of Foreign affairs.

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