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PROSODY FACILITATES MEMORY RECALL IN L1 BUT NOT IN L2 IN HIGHLY PROFICIENT LISTENERS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2019

Elaine Schmidt Open the ORCID record for Elaine Schmidt [Opens in a new window] ,
Ana Pérez ,
Luca Cilibrasi  and
Ianthi Tsimpli
Elaine Schmidt*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Ana Pérez
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Luca Cilibrasi
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge and Charles University, Prague
Ianthi Tsimpli
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elaine Schmidt, RFB, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9DA, United Kingdom. E-mail: aeis2@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

Prosody is crucial for language comprehension because it highlights underlying structures. This study explores whether prosody facilitates memory recall to the same extent in L1 and L2, and whether memory recall is poorer in L2 or whether language-specific differences can mitigate L2 processing difficulties. Nineteen Greek learners of English, and a monolingual English baseline, repeated three-digit chunks with and without prosodic cues in L1 and L2. Prosody was a major facilitator of memory recall only in L1 despite the high proficiency of learners. This indicates that L2 mastery of prosody perception is hard to attain, mirroring production studies. However, when prosodic boundary cues were absent, memory recall in L2 was comparable to L1. This demonstrates that language-specific differences can attenuate more general processing difficulties in L2. This study is the first to demonstrate differences in prosodic processing in L1 and L2 resulting in poorer memory recall in L2.

Type
Research Report
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 223 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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