ERIC Number: EJ1134386
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Mar
Pages: 32
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0272-2631
EISSN: N/A
Processing of Gender and Number Agreement in Russian as a Second Language: The Devil Is in the Details
Romanova, Natalia; Gor, Kira
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, v39 n1 p97-128 Mar 2017
The study investigated the processing of Russian gender and number agreement by native (n = 36) and nonnative (n = 36) participants using a visual lexical decision task with priming. The design included a baseline condition that helped dissociate the underlying components of priming (facilitation and inhibition). The results showed no differences in the magnitude of priming between native and nonnative participants, and between gender and number agreement. However, whereas the priming effect in native participants consisted of both facilitation and inhibition, in second language (L2) learners it was characterized by facilitation in the absence of inhibition. Furthermore, the nonnative processing failed to demonstrate the default form bias, which optimized gender and number processing in native participants. Taken together, the findings indicate that although highly proficient L2 learners are able to demonstrate nativelike priming effects, their processing of morphosyntactic information engages different processing mechanisms.
Descriptors: Language Processing, Second Language Learning, Language Proficiency, Morphology (Languages), Russian, Grammar, Priming, Syntax
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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