Planning complex structures in a second language: compounds and phrases in non-native speech production

Book section : Chapter

Models of bilingual language production (e.g. Roelofs and Verhoef 2006) assume activation of the native language (L1) during speech. This assumption is tied to evidence from psycholinguistic tasks where non-native speakers regularly exhibit the cost of speaking in the non-dominant language. One of the most obvious signs of a non-native (L2) English speaker is incorrect stress assignment in polysyllabic words. This phenomenon has often been ascribed to interference from the L1 metrical structure on the construction of L2 word frames (cf. Archibald 1993, 1997). A major claim of L2 production models is that a word’s prosodic and segmental components are activated separately. If this is true, then errors in stress assignment should not interfere with the construction of L2 word frames. This study presents a series of psycholinguistic experiments designed to test the production of complex constructions in English by fluent speakers of a language with similar compounding strategies but different word stress: Bengali. Over the course of these experiments, we found evidence that the planning unit for both complex and simple words retained a prosodic shape in non-native speakers of English. Furthermore, we found that native Bengali speakers, despite difficulties in assigning correct stress, were able to distinguish between compounds and phrases across all four experiments. Specifically, they were able to access the prosodic shapes of both complex structures despite errors in stress assignments. These findings support models of phonological encoding in which post-lexical information is prepared during separate subprocesses and suggest that the learnability of complex structures such as compounds in English involves the distinct preparation of prosodic and segmental components.

Authors: Wynne, H; Wheeldon, L; Lahiri, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Host title: The Learnability of Complex Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective
• Pages: 91-126
• Series: Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs
• Series number: 345
• Place of publication: Berlin/Boston
• Publication date: 2020-08-10
• DOI: 10.1515/9783110695113-005
• EISSN: 2199-3734
• ISSN: 1861-4302
• EISBN: 9783110695113
• ISBN-10: 3110694492
• ISBN-13: 9783110694499
• Language: English
• Keywords: phonological encoding; compounds; bilingualism; language production; prosody
• Subtype: Chapter