TY - JOUR
T1 - Indeterminacy in the grammar of adult language learners
AU - Johnson, Jacqueline S.
AU - Shenkman, Kenneth D.
AU - Newport, Elissa L.
AU - Medin, Douglas L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by NIH Grant DC00167 and NIH Grant HD30785. The authors would like to thank Erica Goren and Mindy Lee for their assistance in running subjects, and Carol Antone for some statistical analyses. We would also like to thank Dan Slobin and two anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Correspondence should be addressed to Jacqueline S. Johnson, University of Virginia, Department of Psychology, Charlottesville, VA 22903.
PY - 1996/6
Y1 - 1996/6
N2 - This paper investigates the formal nature of the grammar formed by adult learners of English. Two groups of subjects were tested: native English speakers, and native Chinese speakers who arrived in the United States and learned English as adults. The adult learners resided in the United States for many years prior to testing and were therefore at an asymptotic level of performance in English. The question asked is whether adult learners are as consistent in their judgments as native speakers across two testing sessions. Both groups were given the grammaticality judgment task of Johnson and Newport (1989) twice, with three weeks between tests. While native speakers' performance was highly consistent across the two testings, adult learners' performance showed a marked degree of inconsistency. It is concluded that the grammars of the adult learners are not fully determinate, and that adult learners rely on other strategies for a substantial portion of their performance in their late learned language. Late language learning is thus different from native learning not only in the ultimate level of performance attained, but also in the nature of that knowledge.
AB - This paper investigates the formal nature of the grammar formed by adult learners of English. Two groups of subjects were tested: native English speakers, and native Chinese speakers who arrived in the United States and learned English as adults. The adult learners resided in the United States for many years prior to testing and were therefore at an asymptotic level of performance in English. The question asked is whether adult learners are as consistent in their judgments as native speakers across two testing sessions. Both groups were given the grammaticality judgment task of Johnson and Newport (1989) twice, with three weeks between tests. While native speakers' performance was highly consistent across the two testings, adult learners' performance showed a marked degree of inconsistency. It is concluded that the grammars of the adult learners are not fully determinate, and that adult learners rely on other strategies for a substantial portion of their performance in their late learned language. Late language learning is thus different from native learning not only in the ultimate level of performance attained, but also in the nature of that knowledge.
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U2 - 10.1006/jmla.1996.0019
DO - 10.1006/jmla.1996.0019
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0030170865
VL - 35
SP - 335
EP - 352
JO - Journal of Memory and Language
JF - Journal of Memory and Language
SN - 0749-596X
IS - 3
ER -