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Effects of working memory capacity and distance-based complexity on agreement processing: a crosslinguistic competition account

  • Sonthaya Rattanasak ORCID logo , Nattama Pongpairoj ORCID logo EMAIL logo and Kiel Christianson ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: October 31, 2022
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Applied Linguistics Review
From the journal Applied Linguistics Review Volume 15 Issue 3

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which working memory (WM) capacity and distance-based complexity influenced how second language (L2) learners used morphosyntactic information incrementally during online processing of L2 English long-distance subject-verb number agreement dependencies. The moving-window self-paced reading experiment involved 40 agreement-lacking first language (L1) Thai learners of English and 40 native English speakers. Distance-based complexity was manipulated based on whether the agreement controller and the agreeing verb were intervened by a short-distance subject-extracted relative clause or a long-distance object-extracted relative clause in line with the Dependency Locality Theory. The findings indicated that both native speakers and L2 learners experienced less processing difficulty in short-distance conditions, showing heightened sensitivity to agreement violations. Their sensitivity was, however, modulated as a function of distance-based complexity and WM capacity. The L2 learners’ lack of sensitivity in the long-distance conditions was associated with their limited pool of cognitive resources. Consistent with the L1–L2 structural competition account, these findings suggest in relation to morphology learning in SLA that L2 learners may labor under parallel activation during crosslinguistic competition, whereby cognitive resources are insufficient to resolve long-distance agreement dependencies, thus resulting in reduced sensitivity to L2 morphosyntactic violations.

Keywords: agreement processing; crosslinguistic influence; distance; second language acquisition; working memory
Corresponding author: Nattama Pongpairoj, Applied Linguistics for Language Education Research Unit, Faculty of Arts; Graduate Program in English as an International Language, Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, E-mail:

Funding source: The 90th Anniversary of Chulalongkorn University Fund (Ratchadaphiseksomphot Endowment Fund) and Overseas Research Experience Scholarship for Graduate Students, Graduate School Chulalongkorn University

Funding source: Thailand-United States Educational Foundation (Fulbright Thailand)

Funding source: National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT), the Royal Golden Jubilee Ph.D. Program, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation

Award Identifier / Grant number: NRCT5-RGJ63001-022

Acknowledgments

We would like to convey our sincere appreciation to the members of the Educational Psychology Psycholinguistics Lab, Department of Educational Psychology and Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Special thanks are also given to the audiences at the 33rd Annual CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference, University of Massachusetts Amherst, the 2020 American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference (AAAL), and the 10th European Conference on Language Learning, University College London (UCL), where portions of this research project were presented, for their useful insights and productive exchange of views. Grateful acknowledgments are also due to the editors and anonymous reviewers, whose constructive comments and valuable suggestions in part shaped this research article.

  1. Research funding: This research project is supported by National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT): NRCT5-RGJ63001-022 under the Royal Golden Jubilee Ph.D. Program, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation; the 90th Anniversary of Chulalongkorn University Fund (Ratchadaphiseksomphot Endowment Fund); Overseas Research Experience Scholarship for Graduate Students, Graduate School, Chulalongkorn University; and Fulbright Junior Research Scholarship Program (JRS), Thailand-United States Educational Foundation (Fulbright Thailand).

  2. Ethical statement: Experimental protocols were approved by the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Institutional Review Board (IRB Protocol No. 20285) and Chulalongkorn University (IRB Protocol No. 080/62), concordant to the relevant guidelines. Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

  3. Conflict of interests: The researchers declare that there are no conflicts of interests.

Appendix

Experimental stimuli

The list of the experimental sentences is shown below. The distance types, short-distance SRCs and long-distance ORCs, were separated by slashes.

  1. The guys that know the driver/that the driver knows want(s) to buy a new car.

  2. The officers that follow the tourist/that the tourist follows seem(s) to be very busy now.

  3. The students that miss the teacher/that the teacher misses know(s) an interesting topic to discuss.

  4. The farmers that see the brother/that the brother sees love(s) to talk about the weather.

  5. The boys that like the girl/that the girl likes wish(es) to live in the city.

  6. The leaders that thank the member/that the member thanks mean(s) to bring the team together.

  7. The readers that meet the author/that the author meets believe(s) in the power of love.

  8. The professors that advise the scientist/that the scientist advises remember(s) the first book on nature.

  9. The pilots that call the expert/that the expert calls forget(s) the work rules quite often.

  10. The kids that please the parent/that the parent pleases appear(s) to be good at music.

  11. The writers that invite the fan/that the fan invites like(s) to go to the bar.

  12. The players that contact the coach/that the coach contacts prefer(s) to stay at the club.

  13. The actors that avoid the director/that the director avoids hate(s) to work at the weekend.

  14. The employees that warn the manager/that the manager warns understand(s) the problem with the product.

  15. The designers that support the model/that the model supports promise(s) to learn to use email.

  16. The ladies that love the lawyer/that the lawyer loves own(s) an excellent restaurant in town.

  17. The soldiers that train the guard/that the guard trains deserve(s) to win the top prize.

  18. The guides that help the visitor/that the visitor helps agree(s) to reduce the tour price.

  19. The workers that trust the boss/that the boss trusts see(s) the value of hard work.

  20. The patients that visit the doctor/that the doctor visits need(s) to take a long rest.

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Received: 2022-03-21
Accepted: 2022-09-29
Published Online: 2022-10-31
Published in Print: 2024-05-27

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Exploring open consonantal environments for at-home testing of vowel perception in advanced L2 speakers
  4. “Writing-to-learn”: the influence of task repetition on CSL writers’ attention to form
  5. Tourism, commodification of Dongba script and perceptions of the Naxi minority in the linguistic landscape of Lijiang: a diachronic perspective
  6. The early the better? Or, the more the merrier? The relative effects of onset age and exposure hours on EFL learners’ implicit and explicit grammatical attainment
  7. Stylistic alignment in natural conversation involving second language speakers
  8. Learner-internal and learner-external factors for boredom amongst Chinese university EFL students
  9. Epistemic positioning by science students and experts: a divide by applied and pure disciplines
  10. Sociocultural influence on engineering students’ collaborative design project: an Activity Theory perspective
  11. Interplay between language and identity: Chinese returnee scholars in the internationalisation of higher education
  12. The pedagogical remit of test preparation: the case of writing acquisition on an IELTS course
  13. Contributions of morphological awareness and lexical inferencing ability to L2 vocabulary knowledge among Chinese EFL learners: a structural equation modeling analysis
  14. Syntactic variation and Pan-Hispanic awareness in teachers of Spanish as a second language
  15. Strategic competence, task complexity, and foreign language learners’ speaking performance: a hierarchical linear modelling approach
  16. Effects of working memory capacity and distance-based complexity on agreement processing: a crosslinguistic competition account
  17. Review Article
  18. Oral corrective feedback on lexical errors: a systematic review
https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2022-0035
Keywords for this article
agreement processing; crosslinguistic influence; distance; second language acquisition; working memory

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Exploring open consonantal environments for at-home testing of vowel perception in advanced L2 speakers
  4. “Writing-to-learn”: the influence of task repetition on CSL writers’ attention to form
  5. Tourism, commodification of Dongba script and perceptions of the Naxi minority in the linguistic landscape of Lijiang: a diachronic perspective
  6. The early the better? Or, the more the merrier? The relative effects of onset age and exposure hours on EFL learners’ implicit and explicit grammatical attainment
  7. Stylistic alignment in natural conversation involving second language speakers
  8. Learner-internal and learner-external factors for boredom amongst Chinese university EFL students
  9. Epistemic positioning by science students and experts: a divide by applied and pure disciplines
  10. Sociocultural influence on engineering students’ collaborative design project: an Activity Theory perspective
  11. Interplay between language and identity: Chinese returnee scholars in the internationalisation of higher education
  12. The pedagogical remit of test preparation: the case of writing acquisition on an IELTS course
  13. Contributions of morphological awareness and lexical inferencing ability to L2 vocabulary knowledge among Chinese EFL learners: a structural equation modeling analysis
  14. Syntactic variation and Pan-Hispanic awareness in teachers of Spanish as a second language
  15. Strategic competence, task complexity, and foreign language learners’ speaking performance: a hierarchical linear modelling approach
  16. Effects of working memory capacity and distance-based complexity on agreement processing: a crosslinguistic competition account
  17. Review Article
  18. Oral corrective feedback on lexical errors: a systematic review
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