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In:New Approaches to English Linguistics: Building bridges
Edited by Olga Timofeeva, Anne-Christine Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja and Sarah Chevalier
[Studies in Language Companion Series 177] 2016
► pp. 251–280

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Processing of aspectual meanings by non-native and native English speakers during narrative comprehension

 | Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota
 | University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, Wisconsin
Published online: 1 November 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.177.10sch
Languages have unique systems of language forms, meanings, and conventions for expressing narratives and temporal structure, grammatical aspect and its meaning and use being part of it. In second-language acquisition, little is known what temporal concepts and concurrent forms are comprehended at certain development stages and whether resulting mental representations are similar between native and non-native adult English speakers. In this study, we investigate whether readers attend to semantic content and draw causal inferences. Advanced non-native, unlike native, readers appear to not notice aspectual meanings and, apparently, the input is not cognitively registered; implicit learning of aspect seems unlikely. In native readers, aspect affects the availability of situations enabling causal inferencing, and imperfective aspect appears to be mentally stored in-focus.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Second language acquisition
  • 3.Linguistic theory of aspect
  • 4.Cognitive processing of aspect
  • 5.The present study
  • 6.Method
    • 6.1Participants
    • 6.2Design
    • 6.3Passages
    • 6.4Procedure
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1Moment-to-moment processing
    • 7.2Off-line processing
  • 8.Discussion
    • 8.1Moment-to-moment processing
    • 8.2Off-line processing
  • 9.General discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (99)
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