Sagarra, N. 1 , Ellis, N. 2 & Gauthier, J. 1
1 Pennsylvania State University
2 University of Michigan
Processing a foreign language as an adult requires additional computation and activation, which in turn imposes an extra load on the already limited working memory resources (Ardila, 2003; Hasegawa, Carpenter & Just, 2002; Kormos & Safar, 2008) and forces learners to process L2 input selectively. Latin, Spanish and other morphologically rich languages can mark temporal reference lexically (adverbs) and morphologically (verbal inflections). In laboratory studies with a subset of Latin, Authors (2010, in press) found that learners attended to the cues on which they were trained (adverb, verb), that those without training focused more on adverbs, and that this adverb bias was augmented in L1s with no (Chinese) or impoverished (English) morphology. However, when linguistic complexity increased, learners were “adverby” regardless of their L1. A question that remains open is whether these findings also apply to adult learners of a complete language. We present self-paced reading and eyetracking data with native speakers of an L1 with impoverished (English) or rich (Romanian) morphology learning a morphologically rich L2 (Spanish) and the corresponding control groups. The results revealed that: (1) beginning learners relied so heavily on adverbs that they were insensitive to adverb-verb tense incongruencies unless they had high working memory capacity, (2) intermediate learners were sensitive to tense incongruencies but still relied more on adverbs independently of whether their L1 had impoverished or rich morphology, and (3) advanced learners were sensitive to tense incongruencies but those with L1 English relied more on adverbs (like English controls) whereas those with L1 Romanian relied more on verbs (like Romanian and Spanish controls). These results suggest that earlier learned cues block the learning of later experienced ones and that learners start with the least effortful interpretation and later on recur to L1 transfer.