Bilingual sentence processing : relative clause attachment in English and Spanish / / Eva M. Fernandez

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910812389303321
• Autore: Fernandez Eva M
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Amsterdam ; ; Philadelphia, : J. Benjamins Pub., 2003
• ISBN: 1-282-16142-3; 9786612161421; 90-272-9678-2
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (314 p.)
• Collana: Language acquisition & language disorders, , 0925-0123 ; ; v. 29
• Disciplina: 404/.2
• Soggetti: Bilingualism - Psychological aspects; English language - Relative clauses; Spanish language - Relative clauses; Psycholinguistics
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-284) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Bilingual Sentence Processing -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC page -- Contents -- List of tables -- List of figures -- List of appendixes -- Abstract -- Foreword -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Cross-linguistic differences in sentence processing -- Chapter 3. Language dependency and bilingual sentence processing -- Chapter 4. Materials evaluation: Quality control for experimental sentences -- Chapter 5. Monolingual experimental data on relative clause attachment preferences -- Chapter 6. Bilingual experimental data on relative clause attachment preferences -- Chapter 7. Conclusions -- Appendixes -- References -- Author index -- Subject index -- The series LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LANGUAGE DISORDERS.
• Sommario/riassunto: The cross-linguistic differences documented in studies of relative clause attachment offer an invaluable opportunity to examine a particular aspect of bilingual sentence processing: Do bilinguals process their two languages as if they were monolingual speakers of each? This volume provides a review of existing research on relative clause attachment, showing that speakers of languages like English ; attach relative clauses differently than do speakers of languages like Spanish. Fernández reports the findings of an investigation with monolinguals and bilinguals, tested using speeded ("on-line") and unspeeded ("off-line") methodology, with materials in both English and Spanish. The experiments reveal similarities across the groups when the procedure is speeded, but differences with unspeeded questionnaires: The monolinguals replicate the standard cross-linguistic differences, while bilinguals have language-independent preferences determined by language dominance - bilinguals process stimuli in either of their languages according to the general preferences of monolinguals of their dominant language.