Acceso usuarios
Angelica Fulga, Kim Mcdonough
This study investigated whether first language (L1) background and visual information impact the effectiveness of skewed and balanced input at promoting pattern detection. Participants (N = 84) were exposed to Esperanto sentences with the transitive construction under skewed (one noun with high token frequency) or balanced (equal token frequency) input conditions while viewing either color or black-and-white visuals. Their ability to detect the relevant morphological and syntactic features of the transitive construction was tested through a forced-judgment task using novel nouns. The results indicated no significant main effect for visual information or input type. There was, however, a significant main effect for L1 on learners’ detection of the novel pattern. Implications are discussed in terms of the potential effect of L1-specific transitive encodings on second language speakers’ ability to abstract novel patterns.
