Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-7rbh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-04T17:11:14.048Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

SYNTACTIC PRIMING AND ESL QUESTION DEVELOPMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2008

Kim McDonough  and
Alison Mackey
Kim McDonough
Affiliation:
Northern Arizona University
Alison Mackey
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Interaction research that has investigated the relationship between language production and second language (L2) development has largely focused on learners' immediate responses to interactional feedback. However, other speech production processes might help account for the beneficial relationship between interaction and L2 development. The current study examines whether syntactic priming—the tendency to produce a syntactic structure encountered in the recent discourse—is associated with English as a second language (ESL) question development. The participants were intermediate-level Thai learners of English (N = 46) at a large public university in northern Thailand. In two 20-min sessions, the participants carried out communicative activities with a more advanced L2 English interlocutor who had been scripted with developmentally advanced question forms. They also completed an oral pretest and two posttests that consisted of activities similar to those carried out during the treatment sessions. The results indicated that participants who evidenced high levels of syntactic priming were likely to advance to a higher stage in the developmental sequence of ESL question formation.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 31 - 47
Copyright
© 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Bock, K. (1986). Syntactic persistence in language production. Cognitive Psychology, 18, 355–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, K. (1989). Closed-class immanence in sentence production. Cognition, 31, 163–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, K. (1990). Structure in language: Creating form in talk. American Psychologist, 45, 1221–1236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, K. & Griffin, Z. (2000). The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 177–192.Google Scholar
Bock, K. & Loebell, H. (1990). Framing sentences. Cognition, 35, 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bock, K., Loebell, H., & Morey, R. (1992). From conceptual roles to structural relations: Bridging the syntactic cleft. Psychological Review, 99, 150–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H., Pickering, M., & Cleland, A. (2000). Syntactic co-ordination in dialogue. Cognition, 75, B13–B25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H., Pickering, M., Liversedge, S., Stewart, A., & Urbach, T. (1995). Syntactic priming: Investigating the mental representation of language. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 24, 489–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H., Pickering, M., Stewart, A., & McLean, J. (2000). Syntactic priming in spoken production: Linguistic and temporal interference. Memory & Cognition, 28, 1297–1302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Bot, K. (1996). The psycholinguistics of the output hypothesis. Language Learning, 46, 529–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeKeyser, R. (1998). Beyond focus on form: Cognitive perspectives on learning and practicing second language grammar. In C. J. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 42–63). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, N.C. (1998). Emergentism, connectionism, and language learning. Language Learning, 48, 631–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N.C. (2002a). Frequency effects in language acquisition: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 143–188.Google Scholar
Ellis, N.C. (2002b). Reflections on frequency effects in language acquisition: A response to commentaries. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 297–339.Google Scholar
Ellis, N.C. (2005). Constructions, chunking and connectionism: The emergence of second language structure. In C. J. Doughty & M. H. Long (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 63–103). Oxford: Blackwell.
Ellis, R. (1991). The interaction hypothesis: A critical evaluation. In E. Sadtano (Ed.), Language acquisition and the second/foreign language classroom (pp. 179–211). Singapore: Regional English Language Centre.
Gass, S.M. (1997). Input, interaction, and the second language learner. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gass, S.M. (2003). Input and interaction. In C. J. Doughty & M. H. Long (Eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 224–255). Oxford: Blackwell.
Gass, S.M. & Mackey, A. (2007). Input, interaction and output in second language acquisition. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition (pp. 175–199). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Haberman, S. (1973). The analysis of residuals in cross-classified tables. Biometrics, 29, 205–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, M. & Goldberg, A. (1999). Structural priming: Purely syntactic? In M. Hahn & S. Stones (Eds.), Proceedings of the 21st annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 208–211). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Havranek, G. (2002). When is corrective feedback most likely to succeed? International Journal of Educational Research, 37, 255–270.Google Scholar
Huttenlocher, J., Vasilyeva, M., & Shimpi, P. (2004). Syntactic priming in young children. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 182–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iwashita, N. (2003). Negative feedback and positive evidence in task-based interaction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keck, C., Iberri-Shea, G., Tracy-Ventura, N., & Wa-Mbaleka, S. (2006). Investigating the empirical link between task-based interaction and acquisition: A meta-analysis. In J. Norris & L. Ortega (Eds.), Synthesizing research on language learning and teaching (pp. 91–131). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Leeman, J. (2003). Recasts and second language development: Beyond negative evidence. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 37–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewen, S. & Philp, J. (2006). Recasts in the adult English L2 classroom: Characteristics, explicitness, and effectiveness. Modern Language Journal, 90, 536–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, M.H. (1996). The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W. Ritchie & T. K. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of language acquisition: Vol. 2. Second language acquisition (pp. 413–468). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Long, M.H. (2006). Problems in SLA. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Long, M.H., Inagaki, S., & Ortega, L. (1998). The role of interactional feedback in SLA: Models and recasts in Japanese and Spanish. Modern Language Journal, 82, 357–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackey, A. (1999). Input, interaction, and second language development: An empirical study of question formation in ESL. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 557–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackey, A. & Goo, J. (2007). Interaction research: A meta-analysis and research synthesis. In A. Mackey (Ed.), Conversational interaction in second language acquisition: A collection of empirical studies (pp. 407–452). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McDonough, K. (2005). Identifying the impact of negative feedback and learners' responses on ESL question development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 79–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K. (2006). Interaction and syntactic priming: English L2 speakers' production of dative constructions. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 179–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, K. & Mackey, A. (2006). Responses to recasts: Repetitions, primed production and linguistic development. Language Learning, 54, 693–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melinger, A. & Dobel, C. (2005). Lexically-driven syntactic priming. Cognition, 98, B11–B20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nobuyoshi, J. & Ellis, R. (1993). Focused communication tasks and second language acquisition. ELT Journal, 47, 203–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panova, I. & Lyster, R. (2002). Patterns of corrective feedback and uptake in an adult ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 36, 573–595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pica, T. (1994). Research on negotiation: What does it reveal about second-language learning conditions, processes, and outcomes? Language Learning, 44, 493–527.Google Scholar
Pickering, M. & Branigan, H. (1998). The representation of verbs: Evidence from syntactic priming in language production. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 633–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pienemann, M. (1998). Language processing and second language development: Processability theory. Amsterdam: Benjamins.CrossRef
Pienemann, M. (2007). Processability theory. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second language acquisition (pp. 137–154). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Pienemann, M. & Johnston, M. (1987). Factors influencing the development of language proficiency. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Applying second language acquisition research (pp. 45–141). Adelaide, Australia: National Curriculum Resource Centre, AMEP.
Pienemann, M., Johnston, M., & Brindley, G. (1988). Constructing an acquisition-based procedure for second language assessment. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 10, 217–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sachs, H., Shegloff, E.A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematic for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, C., Lieven, E., Theakston, A., & Tomasello, M. (2003). Testing the abstractness of children's linguistic representations: Lexical and structural priming of syntactic constructions in young children. Developmental Sciences, 6, 557–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, R. (1995). Consciousness and foreign language learning: A tutorial on the role of attention and awareness in learning. In R. Schmidt (Ed.), Attention and awareness in foreign language learning (Tech. Rep. No. 9, pp. 1–63). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 3–32). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Silver, R.E. (2000). Input, output, and negotiation: Conditions for second language development. In B. Swierzbin, F. Morris, M. E. Anderson, C. A. Klee, & E. Tarone (Eds.), Social and cognitive factors in second language acquisition: Selected proceedings of the 1999 Second Language Research Forum (pp. 345–371). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Spada, N. & Lightbown, P. (1999). Instruction, first language influence, and developmental readiness in second language acquisition. Modern Language Journal, 83, 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhofer (Eds.), Principle and practice in applied linguistics: Studies in honour of H. G. Widdowson (pp. 125–144). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97–114). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swain, M. (2005). The output hypothesis: Theory and research. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 471–484). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Swain, M. & Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems in output and the cognitive processes they generate: A step towards second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 16, 371–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2000). The item-based nature of children's early syntactic development. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 156–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar