Ambiguous Sentence Processing and the Effect of Referential Context in Spanish-English Bilinguals
Open Access
- Author:
- Mc Fadden, Colleen
- Area of Honors:
- Communication Sciences and Disorders
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Paola Eulalia Dussias, Thesis Supervisor
Carol Anne Miller, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Spanish-English
COVID-19
Sentence Processing
Syntactic Ambiguity
Referential Context
Bilingual - Abstract:
- As adults process language, they make partial commitments to meanings before the whole sentence is even spoken aloud, showing rapid incremental interpretation of a sentence (Trueswell, Sekerina, Hill, & Logrip, 1999). Therefore, a conflict is created when there are multiple ways to interpret an unambiguous sentence. The current study explored the parsing of ambiguous and unambiguous sentences by 13 highly proficient Spanish-English bilinguals recruited via the University of Puerto Rico in the presence of a 1-Referent or 2-Referent context. The research is centered around two common interpretations by the listener, the Modifier interpretation and the Destination interpretation. The visual context is what helps to shape the interpretation of the listener. A 2-Referent context paired with the ambiguous sentence supports the modifier interpretation of that sentence. When the 1-Referent context is seen as the participant hears the ambiguous sentence, the Destination interpretation becomes more prevalent. Previous literature suggests that native English-speaking adults are incredibly skilled at resolving these conflicts in processing and are able to use both the context as well as auditory input to adapt their thoughts to the world around them (Trueswell et al., 1999). The bilinguals in this study were presented with the visual and auditory stimulus reflecting these conditions in a completely remote format. Eye movements were recorded in order to investigate how bilinguals resolved the syntactic ambiguity in their second language. Overall, the data show that proficient bilinguals were not be sensitive to auditory syntactic ambiguity, as eye movements were consistent across all conditions. The data does indicate that the bilinguals were sensitive to referential context, with a 1-referent context supporting the destination interpretation of the prepositional phrase following a noun.