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1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Page 1: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers

Silvina Montrul

3rd Heritage Language Summer Institute

Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

Page 2: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Research projects at UIUC

1. Bilingual Past project: in depth-comparison of proficiency-matched L2 learners and heritage language speakers

2. Focus on form and reactivity to instruction in heritage language learners and heritage speakers (with Melissa Bowles)

3. Comparative heritage languages: Study of Spanish, Hindi and Romanian

4. The role of the contact language in heritage language grammars (Ji-Hye’s dissertation)

Page 3: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Acknowledgements

• University of Illinois Campus Research Board (Beckman Award to Silvina Montrul, Spring 2005)

• The Center for Advanced Study (UIUC)• Research assistants and collaborators

Rebecca Foote Alyssa MartoccioSilvia Perpiñán Lucia AlzagaDan Thornhill Ben McMurrySusana Vidal Brad Dennison

Page 4: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Heritage Language Grammars

• Distinctive gaps in heritage speakers’ grammatical knowledge (Montrul, 2008; O’Grady et al., 2001; Polinsky 2007; Rothman 2007).

• We know much less about lexical knowledge in heritage language grammars.

• What variables characterize heritage language speakers’ knowledge, retention and loss of words?

Page 5: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Theoretical significance

• Is there a relationship between lexicon and grammar (Bates et al., 1994, Thal et al. 1997, Polinsky 2005)?

• Polinsky (1997, 2007) found that lexical knowledge was correlated with grammatical knowledge in Russian heritage speakers.

Page 6: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Pedagogical Significance

• If there is a relationship between vocabulary size and grammatical knowledge, then vocabulary tests can be used as proficiency measures.

• Lexical decision tasks have been implemented as placement tests for language classes

• ESL (Meara & Jones 1987, 1988)• L2 acquisition of Spanish (Lam et al., 2003)• Spanish heritage speakers (Fairclough, 2008)

Page 7: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Objective

• Discuss some results from a large-scale experimental study of Spanish L2 learners and Spanish heritage speakers.

• Several written and oral tasks testing knowledge of gender, cilices, tense, aspect, and mood.

• An on-line lexical decision task• An on-line translation judgment task

Page 8: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Do heritage speakers have advantages over proficiency-matched

L2 learners due to their linguistic past?

Lexicon PhonologyMorphology and Syntax

Page 9: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Participants

Baseline or control group 22 native speakers

Experimental Groups72 L2 learners of Spanish69 Spanish heritage speakers

All participants completed a language background questionnaire (6-page long for the heritage speakers)

Page 10: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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L2 learners

• Age 21.91 (18-25)• Native speakers of English• Raised in English-speaking families• Age of first exposure/acquisition of Spanish as a

second language between the ages of 12-25 (high school, college)

• Enrolled in Spanish language classes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Advanced speakers were graduate students and Spanish language instructors with very high (some near-native) command of Spanish.

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Heritage speakers

• Age 22.64 (18-30)• Born in the US to Mexican parents• Exposed to English before age 5• At least one of the parents had to be a first

generation immigrant• Schooled in the US• Graduate and undergraduate students at the same

university, some of them enrolled in the same classes as the L2 learners

• Some advanced speakers were graduate students and Spanish teaching assistants

Page 12: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Heritage Speakers: Some Descriptive Stats

First language: Spanish (57%), English (35%), both (8%)Parents: both parents from Mexico (88%) one parent from Mexico (12%)Language used at home

Only Spanish (44%), Spanish and English (56%)Languages parents spoke to participants

Spanish (80%), English (5%), both (15%)All participants had between 1-9 siblings and 20% lived with a

Spanish-speaking grandparentLanguage spoken with siblings

Spanish (20%), English (48%), both (38%)Relative strength of the languages48% felt Spanish was like a native language, 52% like a second

languageSelf rated proficiency: mean Spanish (3.9, range 1-5)

mean English (4.88, range 4-5). 100% wanted to improve their ability in Spanish for both

professional and personal reasons

Page 13: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Spanish Proficiency Test

• Cloze part (fill in the blanks by selecting one of four possible responses) (DELE test) = 30 points

• Multiple choice vocabulary test (MLA) = 20 points

• Maximum 50 points• Has been widely used in many L2

acquisition studies

Page 14: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Proficiency Scores

Native Speakers L2 Learners Her itage Speakers

Groups

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

Mean 48.5

SD 1.00

range 45-50

Mean 36.88

SD 8.17

range 15-48

Mean 35.34

SD 9.24

range 16-50

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Participants

Groups Proficiency scores (max = 50)

Native speakers (n = 22) 48.5

Heritage speakers (n = 69) Advanced (n = 32)

Intermediate (n = 24)

Low (n =13)

Overall

44.74

34.57

22.81

36.88

L2 Learners (n = 72) Advanced (n = 25)

Intermediate (n = 25)

Low (n = 22)

Overall

45.88

34.20

23.18

35.34

Page 16: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Research questions

• Polinsky (2005) found that low proficiency Russian heritage speakers had selective control of word classes, retaining verbs better than nouns and adjectives. Do Spanish heritage speakers also have selective control of verbs?

• Does Age of Acquisition (AoA) of word interact with age of acquisition of the target language in L2 learners and heritage language speakers?

Page 17: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Research questions

• Does accuracy in a lexical decision task correlate with accuracy on a written proficiency and other written measures of grammatical competence? Is the lexical decision task a reliable placement tool for both L2 learners and heritage language learners?

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Questions in Bilingual lexical processing

• What is the relationship between words and concepts in the bilingual lexicon?

• What is the architecture (organization) of the bilingual lexicon?

• What factors influence lexical access and speed during lexical processing by bilingual individuals?

Page 19: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Some factors that influence speed of lexical processing

• Word frequency• Phonology• Morphological complexity• Syntactic category • Semantic priming• Lexical ambiguity• Imageability• Age of acquisition

Page 20: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Lexical Access

• In L1 attrition, lexical access is assumed to be the aspect of language most susceptible to language loss (de Bot 1996, 1998; Weltens & Grendell 1993).

• Speakers encounter lexical retrieval difficulties in the L1 due to low level of activation and reduced proficiency.

Page 21: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Frequency Effects in L1 Attrition

Hulsen (2000)• Study of lexical access in 3 generations of Dutch

immigrants to Australia• Picture naming and picture matching tasks

(production)• More frequent and cognate nouns are retained

and accessed faster than less frequent nouns in 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation speakers.

• Accuracy decreases and reaction times increases by generation 1>2 >3.

Page 22: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Lexical Categories or Grammatical Class

• Distinction between NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE, etc.• NOUNS are referential, VERBS are relational,

ADJECTIVES are neither (Baker 2004)• NOUN-VERB distinction figures prominently in normal

L1 acquisition: In many languages, including Spanish and English, NOUNS are acquired before VERBS and ADJECTIVES (Clark 1993). In Chinese and Korean, VERBS are acquired before NOUNS (Choi 1998, Choi & Gopnik 1995)

• NOUNS and VERBS are selectively impaired in aphasia (Shapiro & Caramazza 2002)

Page 23: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Polinsky (2005)

• Do incomplete learners of Russian (i.e., Russian heritage speakers) differ from complete speakers in their access to words in Russian?

• In L1 acquisition of Russian, NOUNS are acquired before VERBS. Is lexical access selective by lexical class in incomplete acquisition of Russian?

Page 24: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Polinsky (2005)

• Study of 5 incomplete learners of Russian and 4 Russian native speakers

• Stimuli: VERBS, NOUNS and ADJECTIVES of low, mid and high frequency ranges (11 items per frequency range for each class)

• Cognates and latinate words were avoided• Experiment 1: lexical recognition task• Experiment 2: translation task

Page 25: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Polinsky’s Findings

• Different control of word classes in the heritage speakers.

• Native speakers had balanced control of NOUNS, VERBS and ADJECTIVES

• Incomplete learners had faster reaction times in Experiment 1 and higher accuracy in Experiment 2 for VERBS.

• Primacy for VERBS in lexical retrieval• Explanation: semantic density of VERBS

Page 26: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Vocabulary Recognition

Page 27: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Translation

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Motivations for our Study

• Examine the effects of lexical class and AoA (and of frequency) in Heritage speakers (a case of incomplete L1 acquisition) and late L2 learners of Spanish.

• Practical implications: Many colleges and universities in the United States are developing lexical decision proficiency tests in order to place L2 learners and Heritage speakers into different proficiency levels in language programs.

• Assumption: size of vocabulary correlates with grammatical development.

Page 29: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Method

• Experiment 1: Visual lexical decision task• Experiment 2: Visual translation judgment

task

Dependent variables: accuracy and reaction times

Page 30: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Stimuli in each experiment

108 Spanish words (non-cognate)

NOUNS(HF LF)

VERBS (HF LF)

ADJECTIVES (HF LF)

Early L1-Early L2 12 12 12

Early L1-Late L2 12 12 12

Late L1-Early L2 12 12 12

Matched for frequency

Page 31: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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• Words were matched for frequency and syllable length across the three lexical classes

• Only 1/3 of words appeared in the two experiments• AoA was decided by consulting the Spanish version

of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) for L1 acquisition and first year Spanish textbooks for L2 acquisition

• 108 filler items (36 nouns, 36 verbs, 36 adjectives)• Equal number of Non-words in each experiment

Page 32: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Lexical Decision Task

• Subjects saw a string of letters in the center of a computer screen and had to indicate whether the string of letters formed a real word of Spanish or not.

pañal coler SI NO SI

NO

Page 33: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Translation Judgment Task

• Spanish words were presented on a computer screen followed by an English word. Subjects were asked to decide as fast as possible whether the English word was an accurate translation of the Spanish word, by pressing YES or NO keys.

Pañal Diaper

SI NO

Page 34: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Research Question # 1

• Do Spanish heritage speakers also have selective control of verbs?

Page 35: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Lexical Decision Task

• 60 heritage speakers• 20 native speakers

Heritage Speakers’ Proficiency scores29 advanced21 intermediate10 low

Page 36: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Results Native speakers: Accuracy

99.7 99.1 99.498 98.6 97.4

50

60

70

80

90

100

Nouns Verbs Adjectives

high frequency

low frequency

Main effect for frequencyF(1,19) 8.76, p = 0.008

Page 37: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Heritage Speakers: Accuracy

97.6 97.5 96.694.2

90.893.4

50

60

70

80

90

100

Nouns Verbs Adjectives

high frequency

low frequency

Main effect for word class, for frequency and word class X frequency interaction

Page 38: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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ResultsNative speakers: Reaction Times

828851 857

891

989940

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

Nouns Verbs Adjectives

high frequency

low frequency

Main effect for frequencyF(1,19) 19.75, p < 0.01

Page 39: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Heritage Speakers: Reaction Times

875903 891

1009 1026982

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

Nouns Verbs Adjectives

high frequency

low frequency

Main effect for frequency F(1,59) 72.1, p < 0.01

Page 40: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Results

• Both native speakers and heritage speakers were more accurate with and responded faster to high frequency than with low frequency words.

• There was an effect of word class in the accuracy analysis only for the heritage speakers, as well as a class by frequency interaction.

• Heritage speakers were more accurate on high and low frequency nouns and least accurate with low frequency verbs.

• No effect of word class in reaction times.

Page 41: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Heritage speakers: Proficiency analysis

• Main effect by level in both accuracy and RT.

• Main effect for frequency in accuracy and RT

• No effect for word class

Page 42: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Primacy for verbs in accuracy for low and intermediate groups, but ns

Heritage speakers: Accuracy

95.6

94.1

90.3

98

95.3

91.6

97.6

94.1

89.8

84

86

88

90

92

94

96

98

100

advanced intermediate low

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Page 43: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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No effect for Word class in RTs

Heritage speakers: RT

885

9851019

920

1006 1007

896

982959

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

advanced intermediate low

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Page 44: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Heritage speakers: Proficiency analysis

Heritage speakers: Accuracy

98.1% 98.0%

95.1%

93.1%

90.2%

85.5%

98.2% 98.3%

94.9%

97.8%

92.2%

88.3%

98.1%96.5%

92.6%

97.0%

91.7%

87.0%

75.0%

80.0%

85.0%

90.0%

95.0%

100.0%

advanced HHs intermediate HSs low HSs

Noun HF

Noun LF

Verb HF

Verb LF

Adjective HF

Adjective LF

Page 45: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Heritage speakers: Proficiency analysis

Heritage Speakers: Reaction Times

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

1200

advanced HHs intermediate HSs low HSs

Noun HF

Noun LF

Verb HF

Verb LF

Adjective HF

Adjective LF

Page 46: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Lexical Decision: Summary of results

• Main effect for frequency• Main effect for proficiency level• Advantage for nouns in Accuracy• Slowest on verbs and adjectives in

reaction times

Page 47: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Results Translation Judgment Task

Heritage speakers: Accuracy

94.696.7 95.695.1

90.1 90.8

50

60

70

80

90

100

Nouns Verbs Ajectives

high frequency

low frequency

Main effect for word class, for frequency and word class X frequency interaction

Page 48: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Results Translation Judgment Task

Heritage Speakers: Reaction Times

753

797

745773

888

836

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Nouns Verbs Ajectives

high frequency

low frequency

Main effect for word class and for frequency

Page 49: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Summary

• If word class advantage, it is a noun advantage

• In the accuracy analysis, the heritage speakers were more accurate on high and low frequency nouns.

• In the speed analysis, heritage speakers were faster with high and low frequency nouns.

• They are slowest and least accurate with low frequency verbs and adjectives

Page 50: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Translation Judgment: Proficiency Analysis

Heritage speakers: Accuracy

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

90.0%

100.0%

advanced HSs intermediate HSs low HSs

Noun HF

Noun LF

Verb HF

Verb LF

Adjective HF

Adjective LF

Page 51: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Translation Judgment: Proficiency Analysis

Heritage speakers: Reaction Times

500

600

700

800

900

1000

advanced HSs intermediate HSs low HSs

Noun HF

Noun LF

Verb HF

Verb LF

Adjective HF

Adjective LF

Page 52: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Primacy of Nouns for Adv. and Interm.

Heritage speakers: Accuracy

97

94

91

95

9291

96

92

88

80

90

100

advanced HSs intermediate HSs low HSs

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Page 53: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Slower on Verbs than on Nouns and Adjectives

Heritage speakers: RT

740757

796826 816

880

748

803

841

500

600

700

800

900

1000

advanced HSs intermediate HSs low HSs

Nouns

Verbs

Adjectives

Page 54: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Translation Judgment: Summary of Results

• Accuracy: Advantage for Nouns• RT: slower on verbs• Proficiency effect

Page 55: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Conclusion

• Advantage for verbs may be possible at lowest levels of proficiency.

• In general, this study found an advantage for high frequency words and NOUNS.

• Difference between Spanish and Russian verbs and nouns?

Page 56: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Research Question # 2

• Does Age of Acquisition (AoA) of word interact with age of acquisition of the target language in L2 learners and heritage language speakers?

Page 57: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Age of Acquisition effects in monolingual lexical processing

Bonin, Barry, Méot & Calard (2004)Age of acquisition (AoA) in these studies

refers to the age at which words are first learned in their spoken and written form.

AoA effect: words acquired early in life are processed faster and more accurately than those acquired later.

Page 58: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Locus of AoA effects

1. Phonological2. Semantic3. Process of mapping between different

lexical representations (orthographic, semantic, phonological)

Page 59: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Bilingual processing

AoA also affects lexical processing in a second language

Izura & Ellis (2004) found that the lexical decision speed of words in Spanish (the L1 of the Spanish-English bilinguals tested) was predicted by AoA of words in Spanish.

In a translation judgment task, speed in English (the L2) was predicted by AoA of English words.

Support for Mapping Hypothesis (Ellis & Lambon-Ralph, 2000)

Page 60: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Izura & Ellis (2004)

• Words used were 80% NOUNS, the rest were ADJECTIVES and VERBS

• Age of acquisition of bilinguals ranged from 6-24

• AoA of words was decided by asking subjects when they thought they had acquired words

Page 61: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Age of Acquisition in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism

Age of Acquisition: age at which the L1 and the L2 of bilinguals/second language learners were acquired.

Early bilinguals: L1 and L2 acquisition takes place simultaneously or sequentially, before the onset of puberty (within the Critical Period)

Late bilinguals: L2 acquisition takes place after puberty, after the foundations of the L1 are in place.

Page 62: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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AoA is correlated with bilingual outcomes or ultimate attainment

L2 AcquisitionThe earlier the AoA of an L2 the more native-like

the bilingual is likely to become in the L2, especially in phonology and morphosyntax.

L1 attrition and/or incomplete acquisitionThe earlier the AoA of an L2 the less nativelike

the bilingual is likely to become in the L1, especially in phonology and morphosyntax.

Page 63: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Method

• Same tasks• Subset of heritage speakers and L2

learners matched for proficiency (n =28 per group)

Page 64: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Words and main variable manipulated

group AoA Spanish

AoA of words

pañal“diaper”

perro“dog”

correo“mail”

Heritage speakers

early early early late

L2 learners

late late early early

Between group variables

within group variables

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Example words for each word AoA category

Early L1-Early L2

Early L1-Late L2

Late L1-Early L2

NOUN lápiz (pencil) pañal (diaper) correo (mail)

VERB besar (to kiss) barrer (to sweep)

resumir (to summarize)

ADJECTIVE

cansado (tired) travieso (naughty)

soltero (unmarried)

Page 66: 1 Lexical Knowledge and Access in Spanish Heritage Speakers Silvina Montrul 3 rd Heritage Language Summer Institute Urbana, IL June 22-26, 2009

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Hypotheses: between groupsThe heritage speakers may show an advantage over

the L2 learners in both accuracy and reaction times with Spanish words acquired early in L1 acquisition, but late in L2 acquisition (Early L1-Late L2) and with words acquired early in L1 acquisition and early in L2 acquisition (Early L1-Early L2), since the heritage speakers will have acquired all of these early words at a much younger age than the late L2 learners.

The heritage speakers may also show an advantage over the late L2 learners with words acquired late in L1 acquisition but early in L2 acquisition (Late L1-Early L2), or the two groups may show similar results, depending on when each group acquired these words. 

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Hypotheses: Within groups• The heritage speakers will be faster and

more accurate in their responses to Early L1-Late L2 and Early L1-Early L2 words in comparison to Late L1-Early L2 words.

• The L2 learners will pattern in the opposite direction, with an accuracy and reaction time advantage for the Late L1-Early L2 and the Early L1-Early L2 words over the Early L1-Late L2 words.

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Results Lexical Decision Task

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Summary of Results: Accuracy

• Main effect for word AoA and word AoA by group interaction

• Overall accuracy rates in the two participant groups were similar (no main effect for group).

• The heritage speakers showed the predicted accuracy advantage over the L2 learners for Early L1-Late L2 words.

• However, they were not more accurate than L2 learners in either of the other two word AoA categories.

• The L2 learners were less accurate with Early L1-Late L2 words (mean = 91%) than with Late L1-Early L2 words (mean = 96%)

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Results Lexical Decision Task: Accuracy

50

60

70

80

90

100

Early L1-Early L2 Early L1-Late L2 Late L1-Early L2

Heritage speakers

L2 learners

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Summary of Results: Reaction times

• Main effect for AoA and AoA by group interaction.

• The L2 learners were faster than the heritage speakers in all three word AoA conditions (but non-significant).

• The predicted speed advantage for the heritage speakers over the L2 learners was not borne out.

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Results Lexical Decision Task: RT

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Early L1-Early L2 Early L1-Late L2 Late L1-Early L2

Heritage speakers

L2 learners

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• Within groups, the heritage speakers were fastest to respond to Early L1-Early L2 words.

• They were next fastest to respond to Early L1-Late L2 words and slowest to respond to Late L1-Early L2 words, as predicted.

• The L2 learners were also fastest to respond to Early L1-Early L2 words, but patterned differently with the other word AoA categories, responding next fastest to Late L1-Early L2 words, and slowest to Early L1-Late L2 words, as predicted.

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Translation Judgment Task

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Results Translation Judgment Task

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Summary of Results

• The heritage speakers showed an accuracy advantage over the L2 learners for the Early L1-Late L2 words, but the L2 learners were faster than the heritage speakers in all three word AoA conditions (although non-significant).

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Within-group differences results patterned as expected

• heritage speakers showed a speed advantage for both Early L1-Early L2 and Early L1-Late L2 translation pairs over Late L1-Early L2 translation pairs

• L2 learners showed an accuracy advantage for Early L1-Early L2 pairs and Late L1-Early L2 word pairs over Early L1-Late L2 pairs, and a speed advantage for Early L1-Early L2 pairs over Early L1-Late L2 pairs.

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• However, as in Experiment 1, heritage speakers showed a speed and accuracy advantage for Early L1-Early L2 word pairs over Early L1-Late L2 word pairs.

• This is in contrast to our predictions, based on the assumption that both of these word AoA categories were acquired early in Spanish and in English for these participants.

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Results Translation Judgment Task: Accuracy

50

60

70

80

90

100

Early L1-Early L2 Early L1-Late L2 Late L1-Early L2

Heritage speakers

L2 learners

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Results Translation Judgment Task: RT

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Early L1-Early L2 Early L1-Late L2 Late L1-Early L2

Heritage speakers

L2 learners

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Conclusion

• Predictions based on AoA of L1 and L2 were generally not borne out in the results.

• No age effects of language in the acquisition of words, unlike morphosyntax and phonology.

• Word AoA was found to be significant within each group in the two experiments, confirming previous findings in the psycholinguistics literature (Carroll & White 1973a,b; Ellis & Morrison, 1998; Ellis & Lambon Ralph, 2000; Izura & Ellis 2002, 2004).

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Conclusion

• Age of language acquisition does not confer an overall speed advantage in lexical access, though it may confer an accuracy advantage, at least for words that are learned later in the course of L2 acquisition, but early in L1 acquisition.

• This supports the idea that there is no critical period for the acquisition of lexical items, though it must be kept in mind that we only investigated lexical access in a visual comprehension task.

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Research questions # 3

• Does accuracy in a lexical decision task correlate with accuracy on a written proficiency and other written measures of grammatical competence?

• Is the lexical decision task a reliable placement tool for both L2 learners and heritage language learners?

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Vocabulary and Proficiency in L2 acquisition

Meara & Jones (1988) and Meara & Buxton (1987): found correlations for L2 learners of English between a lexical decision task and the Cambridge Proficiency Exam.

• Lam, Pérez-Leroux, & Ramírez (2003) found a correlation between knowledge of vocabulary and a proficiency test in Spanish L2 (Canadian University)

• Assumption: more words, more exposure, better proficiency skills

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Vocabulary and syntactic development in heritage grammars

• Polinsky (2007) found that vocabulary proficiency correlated positively with structural accuracy in Russian heritage speakers

• Those speakers who knew more basic words from a list of 200 items exhibited better control of agreement, case markers, and subordination in spontaneous speech.

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Fairclough (2008)

• Investigated whether the lexical decision task was a good tool for language placement for both L2 learners of Spanish and Spanish heritage speakers.

• She found high positive correlations (r above .7) between a cloze test and accuracy on a lexical decision task in both groups.

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Fairclough’s results

group N Pearson coefficient

L2 learners 55 0.786*

Heritage speakers

51 0.772*

Total 106 0.906*

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Fairclough (2008)

Decisión Léxica

.6.5.4.3.2.1

Cloze-Test

25

20

15

10

5

0

-5

Grupo

SL

LH

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Our Study

• We had a total of 108 words selected from Léxico Informatizado del Español (LEXEP, 2000).

• But our results are very similar to those reported by Fairclough (2008).

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Heritage Speakers: Proficiency Test

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Heritage Speakers: Lexical Decision Task

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Heritage speakers: Correlation

Significant positive correlation between two scores

r = 0.647**

p < 0.001

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L2 learners: Proficiency Test

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L2 learners: Lexical Decision Task

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L2 learners

Significant positive correlation between two scores

r = 0.678**

p < 0.001

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Conclusion

• Although we have not used our results as a placement measure, they do confirm that accuracy in lexical access and overall grammatical proficiency are correlated in the two populations.

• Many people have raised concerns about our use of a written proficiency measure originally developed for L2 students with heritage language students.

• Our research shows that the proficiency test we use is not only reliable (Cronbach alpha above .80) but also suitable for heritage language learners.

• This does not mean that the ACTFL OPI (A measure of oral proficiency as demonstrated by Valdés 1997) will have the same results with the two groups.

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BIG QUESTION

• Theoretical relationship between grammar and the lexicon.

• Nativist position: word learning and grammatical development proceed in a different way and at different pace because grammar and the lexicon are separate.

• Emergentism: There is no separate grammar. It is learned with the same general learning principles as the lexicon.

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Minimalism

• Lexical, grammatical and abstract features all form part of the lexicon.

• Functional categories (grammatical words) are part of the lexicon, so the fact that we find a correlation between grammatical functors and grammar is not surprising at all (we are correlating the same thing) (Bates & Goodman, 1997).

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• What is interesting is that we are finding a correlation between knowledge of content words (nouns, verbs and adjectives) and GRAMMAR, which are assumed to be learned very differently and to be handled by different mechanisms.

• No one has proposed that grammar can begin in the absence of lexicon.

• Computational mechanisms for grammar must be in place in order for the grammar to use the lexicon

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Muchas gracias