NATIVE LANGUAGE IMPACT ON IMPLICIT LANGUAGE LEARNING

This study investigated the effects of language background on artificial language learning by adults. Three groups participated including native speakers of English, Norwegian, and Chinese tonal languages (Mandarin and Cantonese). Listeners participated in a two-part experiment. At Time 1, participants listed to an artificial language that contained both word dependency and tonal cues to language structure. They were then tested on items that contained the word dependency cues only, the tonal cues only, or both cues. Native English speakers showed evidence of language learning using word dependency cues. Native Tonal language speakers showed evidence of language learning using tonal cues. However, native Norwegian speakers did not show evidence of language learning. At Time 2, participants listened to stimuli in which the structural relation between items heard at Time 1 had been simplified. They were then retested with the same types of test items. Tonal speakers continued to use tonal cues, but began to use word dependency cues. Native Norwegian and English speakers continued to show their previous patterns of response. These results indicate that native language background impacts the preference for different cue types in a new language. Native Language Impact 2 Introduction Language is acquired by all normally developing humans who are exposed to it. How this occurs is a matter of debate. Recent studies have begun to isolate factors that are important to the process by using artificial language paradigms. This work indicates that certain aspects of language are more difficult to acquire than others. For example, lower-order dependencies (i.e. adjacent dependencies) are relatively easy to learn. Prior research (Aslin, Saffran, & Newport, 1998; Saffran, Newport, & Aslin, 1996) has shown that infants are capable of learning these dependent relations after just a few minutes. Higher-order dependencies (i.e. non-adjacent dependencies) are more difficult to acquire (Gomez, 2002). Non-adjacent dependencies include: is jumping and she walks. However, studies have shown that learners have the ability to track these non-adjacent dependencies if learning conditions are optimized. One way to optimize learning is to provide prior experience with relevant components of the non-adjacent dependencies. Lany, Gomez, and Gerken (2007) demonstrated this by exposing participants to simple constructions of the language such as adjacent dependencies (aX and bY). The participants with prior exposure were able to learn similar more difficult nonadjacent relationships (acX and bcY) better than participants that had no prior adjacent dependency experience. This study, in addition to many others, suggest that simpler forms of languages may scaffold more complex forms (Newport, 1990; Elamn, 1993; Conway, Ellefson & Christiansen, 2003). In addition, Gomez (2002) revealed that adults and infants alike can learn non-adjacent dependencies if exposed to a large number of intervening middle elements. This variance involving the middle elements helps learners to abandon their focus on adjacent dependencies and begin to focus more on the non-adjacent dependencies. These studies demonstrate that certain strategies can highlight non-adjacent dependencies. This raises the Native Language Impact 3 question of whether there might be other strategies that can achieve a similar outcome. And if so, does a learner’s native language background influence the strategies they employ? Language learners who have already acquired a native language do not approach learning a new language as a blank slate. A person’s prior experience with his or her native language may make him or her more attentive to certain linguistic features in the new language. Some languages rely heavily on word order as the dominant cue to language structure. Others, including many Asian languages, use tonal elements that are not found in European languages. Will the native language differences involving the importance of word order versus tonal elements influence the strategies that a learner uses to learn a new language? Prior research suggests this may be the case. A study of French and English monolinguals revealed that the use of segmentation strategies was biased by native language. English speaking participants preferred to use stress cues to segment speech, while French speaking participants chose to use syllable based cues (Cutler, Mehler, Norris, & Segui 1986). In addition, a follow up study of French-English bilingual participants demonstrated that the use of certain rhythmic cues in speech segmentation is mutually exclusive. Participants chose either syllable cues or stress cues to segment words in ways that suggested they relied more on the cues relevant to either French or English, but not both (Cutler, Mehler, Norris, & Segui 1992). This study was created to test how the differences in a learner’s native language experiences bias them to attend to or disregard different elements of language. The experiment used word dependency and tonal elements in an artificial language to determine which cues participants use. Three populations were used including: native English speakers, native Norwegian speakers, and native speakers of tonal languages (Mandarin and Cantonese). We used these populations because English relies primarily on word order and does not use tonal Native Language Impact 4 cues for differentiating word meanings. Chinese speakers (Mandarin & Cantonese) use both word order and tonal cues. Norwegian speakers also use both, but rely more heavily on word order. Therefore, they represent a mid-point between English and Chinese participants. In this study, we want to determine if speakers will be biased by the cues that are salient in their native language when asked to derive structure in an artificial language that contains both word dependency and tonal cues. In addition, we want to know if learners can alter their representations if they are provided with additional input that focuses on the more difficult elements to learn. (i.e. non-adjacent dependencies). We hypothesize that English speakers will show a pattern of initial learning that reflects word dependency cues and speakers of tonal languages will show a pattern of initial learning that reflects tonal cues. Furthermore, we believe that Norwegians will perform better with word dependency elements than tonal elements, and will not use the tonal cues to the same extent as Chinese participants. Finally, we hypothesize that all learners will be able to shift their representation of the input to learn non-adjacent dependencies if the input is restructured to highlight this more difficult relationship. Method Participants Fifty-two adults from the University of Arizona, USA and the University of Bergen, Norway participated in this study. A total of 58 participants were recruited, and 52 participants were included in the final data set. The remaining 6 were withdrawn from the final data set because 4 failed the hearing screening, 1 had a history of a concussion, and 1 had a history of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The subjects were grouped according to their native language. The three language groups included English, Norwegian, and Chinese tonal Native Language Impact 5 languages (Mandarin and Cantonese). The native English speakers consisted of 16 adults (7 males, 9 females) who ranged in age from 18 to 52 years (mean age= 22.06). Of these participants, all were functionally monolingual although the majority did have formal training in another language. The native Norwegian speakers consisted of 20 adults (8 males, 12 females) who ranged in age from 21 to 37 years (mean age= 26.5). The native tonal language speakers consisted of 16 adults (7 males, 9 females) who ranged in age from 18 to 47 years (mean age= 29.19). For both Norwegian and Tonal groups, all subjects were proficient in English as well as their native language. All participants but three reported themselves to be right handed. Two participants in the Norwegian group were left handed and one participant in the English group reported he was ambidextrous. Norwegian-speaking participants were recruited with fliers posted at the University of Bergen. English speakers and speakers of the tonal languages were recruited from the University of Arizona from undergraduate psychology classes, through fliers, and email notices. Each participant was required to pass an initial hearing screening. All participants reported no history of seizures, hearing loss, head trauma, or diagnosis of a learning disability, dyslexia, or ADHD. The participants provided informed consent, which followed the approved procedures of the institutional review boards of the host universities. Participants were paid for their time.