Work

Crosslinguistic Differences in Implicit Language Learning

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: We report three experiments that explore the effect of prior linguistic knowledge on implicit language learning. Native speakers of English from the United Kingdom and native speakers of Cantonese from Hong Kong participated in experiments that involved different learning materials. In Experiment 1, both participant groups showed evidence of learning a mapping between articles and noun animacy. In Experiment 2, neither group showed learning of a mapping between articles and a linguistically anomalous concept (the number of capital letters in an English word or that of strokes in a Chinese character). In Experiment 3, the Chinese group, but not the English group, showed evidence of learning a mapping between articles and a concept derived from the Chinese classifier system. It was concluded that first language knowledge affected implicit language learning and that implicit learning, at least when natural language learning is concerned, is subject to constraints and biases.

Source: Studies in Second Language Acquisition

DOI: 10.1017/s0272263114000333

Authors: Janny H. C. Leung, John N. Williams

Institutions: University of Hong Kong, University of Cambridge

Language: English

Topic: EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning

Subfield: Language and Linguistics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: green

Funder: Economic and Social Research Council