Working Memory as an Independent Predictor of Second Language Sentence Comprehension

백순도 한국응용언어학회 2013 응용 언어학 Vol.29 No.4

The present study investigates how working memory capacity in a second language (L2) is associated with individual differences in L2 sentence comprehension and assesses whether its predictive power is independent of proficiency in the L2. Working memory capacity was operationalized as reading span, and proficiency as cloze test performance. Thirty-two advanced L1-Korean L2-English learners read sentences on a word by word basis that contained a subject-modifying relative clause (e.g., The banker that irritated the lawyer played tennis every Saturday). Comprehension was checked for each sentence. The participants were also administered a reading span task and a cloze test. The results show that the two individual differences measures both reliably predict learners’ sentence comprehension accuracy independently of each other, suggesting the possibility that working memory capacity and proficiency reflect different components of the ability to interpret L2 sentences. These findings are discussed in terms of the potential implications for better understanding of individual differences in L2 sentence comprehension.

The Effect of Noun Animacy on L2 Processing of the English Plural Morpheme –s by Korean and Chinese Learners

백순도 한국외국어대학교 영미연구소 2022 영미연구 Vol.54 No.-

This study investigates the effect of noun animacy on second language processing of the English nominal plural morpheme –s by Korean- and Chinese-speaking learners of English. Unlike English, the plural markers in Korean and Chinese are largely optional, and are subject to distributional constraints contingent on the animacy of the host nouns, such that in Korean, pluralization is more readily available for the nouns that denote humans than those that denote objects, while in Chinese, only human nouns can take the plural marker. Based on these observations, the present study tested whether and how the animacy of nouns affects second language acquisition and processing of the English plural morpheme. To that end, the sensitivity of Korean and Chinese learners of English to the ungrammaticality of the singular human vs. object nouns occurring in obligatory plural contexts was measured in a self-paced sentence reading task. The results showed that both groups of learners were sensitive to number violation on human nouns but not on inanimate nouns, suggesting an important role of noun animacy in the L2 processing of the English plural morpheme. The implications are discussed in terms of theory development and pedagogical application in second language acquisition.

Locus of difficulty in processing L2 English object relative clauses: A study with Korean university students

백순도 한국외국어대학교 언어연구소 2019 언어와 언어학 Vol.0 No.83

Previous work on L2 sentence processing shows that L2 learners are sensitive to the greater processing complexity of object relative clauses as compared with subject relative clauses in English as are native speakers of the language. The exact locus of this effect within the relative clause, however, is yet to be empirically determined. In a self-paced reading paradigm with 27 Korean university students, English object relative clauses with an animate subject were contrasted with those that contained an inanimate subject (e.g. The woman that the teenager on the car injured ... vs. The woman that the accident on the road inured ...). Comparable simple sentences embedded as an extraposed that-clause were also tested as a control (e.g., It was verified that the teenager/accident on the road injured the woman ...). The results suggest that the processing difficulty of object relative clauses materializes before the relative clause verb, and that animacy effects appear at both the subject and verb of the relative clause but in different patterns. The findings are discussed in relation to sentence processing theories.

The Association Between Syntactic Complexity and Proficiency Level in Korean EFL Learner Writings: An Automated Analysis with TAASSC

백순도 한국중등영어교육학회 2023 중등영어교육 Vol.16 No.3

Recent applications of natural language processing technologies to learner corpus analysis have begun to shed new light on syntactic development in second language (L2) written production. The present study aims to further our understanding of syntactic complexity development in Korean EFL learners by analyzing their writings with an automated tool for syntactic feature extraction. Stepwise linear regression is used to determine unique predictors of proficiency level among the clause and noun phrase complexity indices extracted from 560 argumentative essays sampled from the Yonsei English Learner Corpus. The results suggest that syntactic complexity increases at various levels of specificity both in clauses and noun phrases along with proficiency levels, and that features reflecting noun phrase complexity are overall stronger predictors of proficiency level than clause complexity features. These findings may help researchers to present a more fine-grained description of L2 syntactic development and teachers to make better informed decisions on grammar instruction tailored to learners’ current level of writing proficiency.

A Corpus-Based Study of Korean EFL Learners’ Use of Subordinate Conjunctions in Argumentative Writing: With Focus on if, when, and because

백순도 한국외국어대학교 영미연구소 2023 영미연구 Vol.58 No.-

The use of subordinating conjunctions in L2 writing has been widely studied with regard to frequency of occurrence, grammatical accuracy, and relative ordering of subordinate and main clauses. However, relatively few studies investigated the diverse aspects of the L2 use of subordinating conjunctions within a single study. The present study analyzed three representative subordinating conjunctions, if, when, and because as used in a proficiency-stratified Korean EFL written corpus in terms of their frequency of occurrence, grammatical accuracy, and linear ordering relative to the main clause. The results revealed that the proficiency effect on frequency and grammatical accuracy varied among the three subordinating conjunctions, whereas that on linear ordering of subordinate clauses was uniform across conjunctions. The findings provide implications for a better understanding of L2 adverbial subordinate clauses and its application to teaching practice.

Online Processing of English Articles and Information Structure by Korean College Students

백순도 한국응용언어학회 2014 응용 언어학 Vol.30 No.2

English articles mark the definiteness of co-occurring noun phrases (NPs), which in turn correlates with the information status of the referents described by the NPs (e.g., Clifton & Frazier, 2004). Previous studies show that the information given in the discourse tends to be encoded earlier in an utterance than the information to be newly introduced (e.g., Arnold, Wasow, Losongco, & Ginstrom, 2000). The present study investigates an aspect of the knowledge that adult Korean learners of English have of the English articles by testing their sensitivity to the link between the definiteness of NPs and the NP’s preferred order in a sentence. Twenty-four learners of English read double object (DO) and prepositional object (PO) constructions on a word-by-word basis, in which the two post-verbal NPs were contrasted in definiteness by switching the and a (e.g., The pitcher showed the boy a ball, The pitcher showed a boy the ball; The pitcher showed the ball to a boy, The pitcher showed a ball to the boy). The results show that the participants read the definite–indefinite post-verbal NP sequences more rapidly than indefinite–definite sequences in the DO constructions but not in the PO constructions, which indicates their sensitivity to the given-before-new preference in the discourse informational organization as well as to its interaction with syntactic alternation. The findings are discussed in terms of L2 acquisition and instruction of English articles.

Collocational Status of the Bigrams in Korean EFL Learners’ Argumentative Writing: A Quantitative Approach

백순도 이화여자대학교 교과교육연구소 2020 교과교육학연구 Vol.24 No.1

The current study examined the development of collocational knowledge of Korean EFL learners by analyzing a large set of argumentative essays taken from the Yonsei English Learner Corpus. A comparable native-speaker corpus was used as a norm for evaluating the learner texts. Collocational status of the bigrams in the corpora was measured in terms of (i) the strength of statistical association between the component words (MI and t-score) calculated based on a large native-speaker reference corpus and (ii) whether they ever occur in the reference corpus. The overall collocational strength of each text in the corpora was quantified by the mean MI and t-score of the bigrams in the text and the proportion of those that are absent in the reference corpus. These three measures of collocational knowledge were then compared between the native-speaker texts and the learner texts, with the latter grouped by proficiency level to capture the developmental pattern of collocational knowledge. The results showed that different measures reflect different aspects of collocational development and provide a rich source of information that can characterize the collocational knowledge of Korean EFL learners. Practical effects of each measure are also discussed in terms of their methodological implications for corpus-based research on foreign language development.

Dative Alternation in Korean L2 English learners’ Essay Writing

백순도 담화·인지언어학회 2016 담화와 인지 Vol.23 No.1

This study investigates the effects of discourse-related factors on the English dative alternation in Korean EFL learners’ writing by comparing a learner corpus (YELC) and a corresponding native speaker corpus (LOCNESS). Factors of interest are pronominality, definiteness and linear length of the two post-verbal arguments of the dative construction, which have been shown in previous studies to affect the choice between alternative double object and prepositional constructions. The results suggest (i) that Korean learners generally prefer the prepositional construction over the double object construction as compared with native speakers and (ii) that constraints involving pronominality is acquired earlier or more easily than those involving definiteness or length. These findings are discussed in terms of the role of instruction and L1 transfer in L2 acquisition of the English dative construction.

Psychological reality of the trace in L2 English sentence processing by Korean learners

백순도 한국외국어대학교 언어연구소 2017 언어와 언어학 Vol.0 No.74

This study tested the psychological reality of a syntactic trace in L2 sentence processing by capitalizing on the finding that sentences are read faster when discourse-given information precedes discourse-new information. In a self-paced reading experiment, 32 Korean learners of English read English indirect wh-questions in which one of the two objects of a double object construction was extracted. The unextracted object was either discourse-new or discourse-given (e.g. I wondered which cookie the woman would give the/a dog). The overall results suggest that the unextracted object was more difficult to read when it was given than new. This finding is interpreted as suggesting that information structure was perceived by the participants based on the surface position of the wh-phrases, not on their trace position.

Domain-initial strengthening of the Korean liquid: A production-based study

백순도 한국외국어대학교 언어연구소 2014 언어와 언어학 Vol.0 No.62

Previous work shows that coronal stop consonants (/t, th, t*, n/) in initial positions of later prosodic units are articulated with greater strength in Korean (Cho and Keating, 2001). The present study investigates whether and how domain-initial strengthening modulates the phonetic realization of word-initial liquids in loanwords produced by Korean speakers. The results show a general tendency of domain-initial strengthening on the liquids, as reflected in greater duration and more forceful articulation. Furthermore, some speakers produced word-initial laterals in higher prosodic units when the source sound was lateral. The findings are discussed in terms of phonological factors affecting phonetic realization of segments and adaptation of foreign sounds.