Acquisition of Verbal Aspect in L2 English by advanced learners with L1 Russian and L1 Norwegian: A web-based eye tracking study

Abstract

It is well known that the similarities between L1 and L2 (also L3, etc.) facilitate language acquisition, whereas significant differences between them result in non-facilitating effects. These effects are known as Cross-Linguistic Influence (CLI). The main objective of the current study is to investigate the CLI, experienced by high proficient L2 English speakers when the grammatical aspect is being acquired. In order to investigate and compare different L2 processing patterns, I tested L1 speakers of a language with an obligatory contrast between perfective and imperfective aspect (Russian) and a language without such distinction (Norwegian). The participants recruited for this experiment were university students with advanced level of proficiency in English, and the groups were closely matched by proficiency. From the perspective of grammatical aspect, none of these languages bears complete similarity to English. Moreover, these languages differ dramatically in how they encode aspectual semantics in their grammar, hence we hoped to find substantial differences in processing and acquisition of the English system due to CLI. In Russian, with its perfective/imperfective contrast, aspectual information is obligatorily encoded in the verb form. Speakers of Russian link imperfective aspect with ongoing events and perfective aspect with completed events. In Norwegian, on the other hand, there is no grammatical way of encoding aspectual differences, i.e., the same verbal forms are employed to refer to either ongoing or completed events. As for English, there exist specialized forms that encode progressive meaning (e.g., Present and Past Progressive), but the jury is still out as to whether the Simple Past forms encode perfectivity or should be treated as neutral aspect. The goal of this thesis is thus to investigate semantic acquisition and processing of the English Past Progressive and Simple Past forms by studying online changes in gaze patterns by L2 listeners with L1 Russian and L1 Norwegian. The thesis aims to answer the following research questions: RQ 1: Do native speakers of Russian have strong opposition between Simple Past and Progressive Past in L2 English due to the transfer of similar opposition from their L1 on the processing level? RQ 2: How will Norwegian L1 speakers behave in the online eye-tracking Picture-Sentence Matching task? RQ 3: Is there any difference between online and offline results in the L1 Norwegian or the L1 Russian group? The methodology used to answer these research questions was web-based eye tracking. The experiment was implemented on JATOS platform using Webgazer.js software. The participants were asked to perform a sentence-picture matching task: they viewed visual displays with two pictures on the screen and listened to pre-recorded audio stimuli while their eye movements were tracked. This setup allowed for collecting both processing and conscious choice data performed after each sentence. The task contained audio stimuli of sentences with the Past Simple and Past Progressive verbal forms, and visual stimuli, depicting ongoing and completed events. The results of the experiment show that: 1) Both groups have a strong preference for an ongoing event picture when they listen to sentences involving the verb in the Past Progressive form. The offline responses also reflect this preference. This corresponds to the pattern exhibited by L1 speakers of English. 2) L1 speakers of Russian have a strong preference for a completed event picture when they listen to sentences involving the verb in the Past Simple form. The offline responses also reflect this preference. This doesn’t correspond to the pattern exhibited by L1 speakers of English, who had no preference for either completed or ongoing event picture in this condition. 3) L1 speakers of Norwegian have a weaker, but still sunstantial preference for an ongoing event picture when they listen to sentences involving the verb in the Past Simple form. The offline responses also reflect this preference. This doesn’t correspond to the pattern exhibited by L1 speakers of English, who had no preference for either completed or ongoing event picture in this condition. Taken together, the results indicate that while learners from both L1s converge on target-like interpretation of the Past Progressive form, their interpretation of the Past Simple form is deviant from that of the native speakers even at advanced levels of proficiency. We argue that this is likely due to CLI, with L1 Russian speakers mapping the semantic opposition between imperfective and perfective aspect onto English, and L1 Norwegians making a link between the English and the Norwegian Simple Past tense forms.