Processing Novel Inflectional Morphology in L1 and L2 Spanish Reading

Open Access
- Author:
- Chandler, Lindsey
- Graduate Program:
- Spanish
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 19, 2022
- Committee Members:
- Carrie Jackson, Major Field Member
Paola Migliaccio-Dussias, Major Field Member
Matthew Carlson, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Paola Migliaccio-Dussias, Program Head/Chair
Kevin McManus, Outside Unit Member
Janet van Hell, Outside Field Member - Keywords:
- spanish
second language acquisition
vocabulary
morphology - Abstract:
- Readers are likely to encounter words they have never seen before, regardless of the language in which they are reading. Second-language learners, in particular, are particularly susceptible when their explicit instruction in L2 vocabulary is limited (Malone, 2018; Schmitt & Schmitt, 2014). Studies show that vocabulary acquisition through context is slow (Uchihara et al., 2019), but may be expedited with tools such as detecting known word parts (e.g., morphology, the structure of words) (Nation, 1990). Researchers of L2 pedagogy suggest that the ability to utilize morphology explicitly can help expand the L2 vocabulary (e.g., Akbulut, 2017; Nation, 1990). However, psycholinguistic research suggests that the ability to detect L2 morphology is reduced, and so this strategy may be less beneficial to the L2 reader. L2 vocabulary research can benefit from understanding how morphological information may be detected and utilized by readers when explicit elaboration such as through classroom teaching is not otherwise engaged. This dissertation takes a first step in understanding how morphological detection while reading can be utilized to benefit L2 vocabulary learning. It examines the role that morphological structure plays in processing novel verbs by L1 and L2 readers. The presented experiment uses novel pseudo-Spanish verbs embedded in isolation and in Spanish sentences, because of the rich morphology of Spanish, the central role of the verb in a sentence’s structure, and the likelihood that Spanish learners will encounter various forms of verbs over time. Specifically, and similarly to the expectations of the canonical masked priming paradigm, it is predicted that where morphological overlap is detected across the isolated and embedded verbs, reading times of novel words will be facilitated. This outcome may point to the detection or registration of morphological structure in a naturalistic context. The experiment designed to test the influence of overlapping structure while reading adopted a design consisting of a lexical-decision-style priming task, followed by a self-paced reading task. Both the isolated prime and sentence contained novel pseudo-Spanish verbs which shared varying degrees of overlapping information, The isolated primes took on one of five primary conditions: 1) exact identity repetitions, 2) morphological stem repetitions with distinct inflectional affixes or 3) non-finite affixes, 3) orthographic overlap primes (where letter strings matched from prime to target, but did not constitute a morphological relationship), and 5) unrelated verbs (both existing Spanish verbs and novel nonce verbs). Following this main task sequence, participants completed a second lexical-decision-style vocabulary recognition task to assess whether repeated information from the main task would influence whether they believed they had seen pseudo-Spanish verbs before. Individual differences such as vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, and working memory were also measured. The results showed that reading times of embedded pseudo-verbs following unrelated primes were highest, compared to conditions where some form of overlap was present. In addition, where that overlapping information was morphological in nature, reading times were faster, compared to orthographic overlap. Additional differences were found between L1 and L2 reading patterns. The following vocabulary recognition task did not reveal striking patterns of influence from repeated information on decisions, but rather that all participants were conservative in their choices, likely due to the taxing nature of the primary reading task. These results are discussed in light of research in reading and processing load. Considerations for task structure and content are also discussed for the benefit of future studies and the application of these findings for the benefit of morphology as a vocabulary learning tool.