title: Does the speaker matter? Online processing of semantic and pragmatic information in L2 speech comprehension.
abstract: The present study investigated how pragmatic information is integrated during L2 sentence comprehension. We put forward that the differences often observed between L1 and L2 sentence processing may reflect differences on how various types of information are used to process a sentence, and not necessarily differences between native and non-native linguistic systems. Based on the idea that when a cue is missing or distorted, one relies more on other cues available, we hypothesised that late bilinguals favour the cues that they master during sentence processing. To verify this hypothesis we investigated whether late bilinguals take the speaker's identity (inferred by the voice) into account when incrementally processing speech and whether this affects their online interpretation of the sentence. To do so, we adapted Van Berkum, J.J.A., Van den Brink, D., Tesink, C.M.J.Y., Kos, M., Hagoort, P., 2008. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 20(4), 580-591, study in which sentences with either semantic violations or pragmatic inconsistencies were presented. While both the native and the non-native groups showed a similar response to semantic violations (N400), their response to speakers' inconsistencies slightly diverged; late bilinguals showed a positivity much earlier than native speakers (LPP). These results suggest that, like native speakers, late bilinguals process semantic and pragmatic information incrementally; however, what seems to differ between L1 and L2 processing is the time-course of the different processes. We propose that this difference may originate from late bilinguals' sensitivity to pragmatic information and/or their ability to efficiently make use of the information provided by the sentence context to generate expectations in relation to pragmatic information during L2 sentence comprehension. In other words, late bilinguals may rely more on speaker identity than native speakers when they face semantic integration difficulties.
authors.affiliation: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Center for Brain and Cognition, Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: alfoucart@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Foucart
authors.affiliation: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Center for Brain and Cognition, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.affiliation: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Center for Brain and Cognition, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Meritxell
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ayguasanosa
authors.affiliation: University of Bangor, School of Psychology, Bangor, UK.
authors.forename: Guillaume
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Thierry
authors.affiliation: BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain; IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Clara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Center for Brain and Cognition, Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Costa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Bilingualism; ERPs; LPP; N400; Pragmatics; Semantics; Sentence comprehension