4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
The comprehension of sentences in
Spanish-English bilinguals
Paola E. Dussias
Penn State University
pdussias@psu.edu
ISB5- March 20-23, 2005
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
The police arrested the brother of the baby-sitter
was ill.
who
Who was ill?
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
The police arrested the brother of the baby-sitter
who was ill.
 In English
baby sitter
who was ill
 In Spanish
brother
who was ill
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LOW
ATTACHMENT
HIGH
ATTACHMENT
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
What about Spanish-English bilinguals?
How do bilinguals resolve the competition that is created between
parsing preferences in the L1 and in the L2?
Use the correct strategy in each context
Use high attachment for both
Use low attachment for both languages
languages
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Research Question
Prior research suggest that, provided sufficient
proficiency, second language syntactic processing
obeys the same principles as native language
processing (Frenck-Mestre; 1997, 2002; FrenckMestre & Pynte, 1997; Hoover & Dwivedi, 1998;
Juffs & Harrington, 1996)
How is syntactic processing affected by exposure
to the second language?
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
Study 1– Relative clause ambiguity
resolution
April 30th –May 03rd
Participants
1.
Twenty L1 Spanish-L2 English participants.
 Learned English during adulthood.

Lived in an L2 environment for an average of 7 years.

88% of the subjects reading and listening in both
languages equally high.

75% of the subjects speaking abilities in both
languages equally high.
 Used Spanish and English in their daily lives and in a
variety of contexts; both formal and informal.
2. Thirty-six monolingual Spanish speakers.
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Materials

1 (high attachment)
La policía arrestó al hermano de la mujer que estaba enfermo
desde hacía tiempo.
the brother
[The police arrested the
brother of the woman who had been
ill
(masc) for a while].
ill (masc.)

2 (low attachment)
La policía arrestó a la hermana del hombre que estaba enfermo
desde hacía tiempo.
[The police arrested the sister of the man
man who had been ill
ill (masc)
for a while].
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Procedure
 Eyelink II eyetracker interfaced with an IBM compatible
computer.
 Materials were displayed on a color monitor.
 All sentences were displayed in a single line of text.
 Sentences were followed by a comprehension questions
to ensure that participants were executing the task
appropriately.
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Analysis

Gaze duration: the sum of all fixations on the
disambiguating region (e.g., the adjective)

Total time: The sum of gaze duration +
regressions on the critical region.
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Results (total reading times)
650
600
*
*
550
500
Total reading time
(ms)
450
High attachment
Low Attachment
400
350
300
250
200
Monolinguals
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Bilinguals
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Why the low-attachment preference?
 Language Exposure account:
Exposure to a preponderance of English constructions
resolved in favor of low attachment may have rendered
this interpretation more available, ultimately resulting in
the preference for low attachment observed in these
results.
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
A preliminary test of this hypothesis…
Test participants with fewer years of immersion in an
English environment.
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Participant profile:
Twenty-eight L1 Spanish-L2 English participants.
Learned English during adulthood.
 Lived in an L2 environment for an average of 8.5
months.
 Used Spanish and English in their daily lives and
in a variety of context, both formal and informal.
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Bilinguals—Limited exposure
(total reading times)
650
600
*
*
550
500
Total reading time
(ms)
450
High attachment
Low Attachment
400
350
300
250
200
Monolinguals
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Bilinguals
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Bilinguals—Limited exposure
(total reading times)
650
600
*
550
*
500
Total reading time
(ms)
450
High attachment
Low Attachment
400
350
300
250
200
Monolinguals
ISB5- March 20-23, 2005
Bilinguals
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4th International Symposium on Bilingualism
Arizona State University
April 30th –May 03rd
Summary of findings from Study 1
Spanish monolingual speakers and Spanish-English
bilinguals with limited exposure in the L2 environment adopt
a high attachment strategy
Spanish-English bilinguals with extensive exposure to
the L2 adopt a low-attachment strategy
These findings highlight the role of L2 exposure in
parsing.
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Study 2– The role of word order
• One grammatical property that has been found to
affect sentence comprehension is word order.
• The parser seems to find it easier to comprehend
sentences in which the subject (S) precedes the
object (O) than with the reverse O-S order (Bates,
MacWhinney, McNew, Devescovi, & Smith, 1982;
MacWhinney, Bates, & Kliegl, 1984; MacWhinney &
Bates, 1989; Weyerts, Penke, Münte, Heinze, &
Clahsen, 2002).
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The construction under investigation
Contestó el chico
[Verb
Subject
que quería estudiar derecho
That-clause]
A. that-clause complement of verb
The boy answered that he wanted to study law
B. that-clause relative clause
The boy that wanted to study law answered
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Preferred interpretation of the ambiguity
Monolingual Spanish speakers prefer the relative
clause reading
Contestó el chico que quería estudiar derecho
The boy that wanted to study law answered
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Method
• Participants
• 54 Monolingual Spanish speakers
• 15 proficient English-Spanish bilinguals
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Materials
Experimental stimulus
Contestó el chico [que quería estudiar derecho] ambiguous region
[que sabía la respuesta] disambiguating region
Control
El chico que quería estudiar derecho contestó que sabía la
respuesta
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Procedure
Reading moving window
Contestó _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_______ ___ _____ __ _________
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Analysis
Reading times of que + the verb following it.
Contestó el chico [que quería estudiar derecho] ambiguous region
[que sabía la respuesta] disambiguating region
El chico que quería estudiar derecho contestó que sabía la
respuesta
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Results
650
*
600
550
500
450
Ambiguous
Control
Reading time (ms)
400
350
300
250
200
Monolinguals
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Bilinguals
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Overall summary of findings
• Both experiments show that bilinguals sometimes do
not parse L2 input in a manner similar to that of
speakers of the target language.
• Variables such as L2 proficiency, exposure to the L2
environment and syntactic characteristics specific to
the second language affect syntactic processing in
the two languages of the bilingual.
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Acknowledgements
Tracy Cramer
Chip Gerfen
Judy Kroll
Maya Misra
Teresa Bajo
Manuel Carreiras & Charles Clifton Jr.
Language Science Research Group at Penn State
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