The Two-Sided Nature of Reliance on Prior Knowledge and on L1/L2 Structural Similarity in L2 Sentence Comprehension

Autor/inn/en	Rosenstein, Ofra; Meir, Irit; Miller, Paul
Titel	The Two-Sided Nature of Reliance on Prior Knowledge and on L1/L2 Structural Similarity in L2 Sentence Comprehension
Quelle	In: Foreign Language Annals, 53 (2020) 3, S.576-593 (18 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0015-718X
DOI	10.1111/flan.12478
Schlagwörter	Prior Learning; Sentences; Reading Comprehension; Native Language; Semitic Languages; English (Second Language); Transfer of Training; Contrastive Linguistics; Semantics; Syntax; Junior High School Students; Postsecondary Education; Language Processing + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Vorkenntnisse; Sentence analysis; Satzanalyse; Leseverstehen; Arabisch; Hebräisch; English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Training; Transfer; Ausbildung; Linguistics; Kontrastive Linguistik; Semantik; Junior High Schools; Student; Students; Sekundarstufe I; Schüler; Schülerin; Post-secondary education; Tertiäre Bildung; Sprachverarbeitung
Abstract	The study explored the contribution of prior knowledge and reliance on L1 syntactic knowledge to L2 written sentence comprehension. Participants, 102 native Hebrew speakers at three education levels (junior high, high school, and postsecondary), answered questions in two sentence categories: Semantically plausible sentences that readers can understand by linking their content words to prior knowledge; semantically neutral sentences, whose comprehension requires adequate syntactic processing. To track the benefits of linguistic transfer from Hebrew (L1) to English (L2), the study manipulated the languages' cross-linguistic structural similarity. The results suggest that Hebrew-speaking students rely on prior knowledge and/or on structural similarities between Hebrew and English to interpret English sentences. When they cannot rely on either of these two factors, they manifest remarkably poor understanding of quite basic English constructions even at the postsecondary level. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01