ERIC Number: EJ937974
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 4
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7164
EISSN: N/A
Dominance, Proficiency, and Second Language Grammatical Processing
Birdsong, David
Applied Psycholinguistics, v27 n1 p46-49 2006
Clahsen and Felser (CF) deserve praise for their superlative synthesis of literature relating to grammatical processing, as well as for their original contributions to this area of research. CF "explore the idea that there might be fundamental differences between child L1 and adult L2 processing." The researchers present evidence that adult second language (L2) processing is often less automatic and less efficient than first language (L1) processing. Qualitative differences are suggested as well. Adult L2 processing may be restricted to shallow computations, whereas L1 processing typically involves detailed representations. These conclusions are reached in large part by comparing highly proficient L2 learners with natives on various neurological and behavioral dimensions of processing. I propose that additional comparisons might be carried out that involve an understudied population: learners whose L2 is their dominant language.
Descriptors: Evidence, Language Dominance, Grammar, Second Languages, Second Language Learning, Language Processing, Comparative Analysis, Children, Adults, Individual Differences, Computation
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: Adult Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A