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Current Perspectives on Generative SLA - Processing, Influence, and Interfaces: Selected proceedings of the 15th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference
Edited by Anne Dahl, Marta Velnić and Kjersti Faldet Listhaug
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 70] 2024
► pp. 241–264

Chapter 10
Sensitivity to event structure in passives supports deep processing in L1 and L2

| University of York
| University of York
| University of York

A key question in second language research is whether native (L1) and non-native (L2) sentence processing are fundamentally different. Recent L1 research has questioned the assumption that passives are harder to process than actives: passive complexity appears to be determined by event structure (Paolazzi et al., 2019; Paolazzi et al., 2021). We replicate these results using a maze task; only passives of states appear to be more difficult to process than actives, inconsistent with a good-enough account. We also present evidence that L2 learners can recruit similarly nuanced processing mechanisms in understanding passives. L2 learners display the same interaction of event structure and passivization. Taken together, the results appear inconsistent with shallow processing accounts of both L1 and L2 processing.

Keywords: sentence processing, actives, passives, event structure
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Passivization and event structure
  • 2.Experiment
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2English proficiency
    • 2.3Experimental materials
    • 2.4Procedure
    • 2.5Data analysis
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • References
  • Appendix
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