Learning to Think in a Second Language: Effects of Proficiency and Length of Exposure in English Learners of German

Autor/inn/en	Athanasopoulos, Panos; Damjanovic, Ljubica; Burnand, Julie; Bylund, Emanuel
Titel	Learning to Think in a Second Language: Effects of Proficiency and Length of Exposure in English Learners of German
Quelle	In: Modern Language Journal, 99 (2015), S.138-153 (16 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0026-7902
DOI	10.1111/j.1540-4781.2015.12183.x
Schlagwörter	Cognitive Processes; Psycholinguistics; German; English; Native Language; Second Language Learning; Motion; Higher Education; German Literature; Foreign Countries; Grammar; Language Proficiency; Classification; Correlation; Cognitive Restructuring; United Kingdom (England) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Psycholinguistik; Deutscher; English language; Englisch; Zweitsprachenerwerb; Bewegungsablauf; Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Deutsche literatur; Ausland; Grammatik; Language skill; Language skills; Sprachkompetenz; Classification system; Klassifikation; Klassifikationssystem; Korrelation
Abstract	The aim of the current study is to investigate motion event cognition in second language learners in a higher education context. Based on recent findings that speakers of grammatical aspect languages like English attend less to the endpoint (goal) of events than do speakers of nonaspect languages like Swedish in a nonverbal categorization task involving working memory (Athanasopoulos & Bylund, 2013; Bylund & Athanasopoulos, 2015), the current study asks whether native speakers of an aspect language start paying more attention to event endpoints when learning a nonaspect language. Native English and German (a nonaspect language) speakers, and English learners of L2 German, who were pursuing studies in German language and literature at an English university, were asked to match a target scene with intermediate degree of endpoint orientation with two alternate scenes with low and high degree of endpoint orientation, respectively. Results showed that, compared to the native English speakers, the learners of German were more prone to base their similarity judgements on endpoint saliency, rather than ongoingness, primarily as a function of increasing L2 proficiency and year of university study. Further analyses revealed a nonlinear relationship between length of L2 exposure and categorization patterns, subserved by a progressive strengthening of the relationship between L2 proficiency and categorization as length of exposure increased. These findings present evidence that cognitive restructuring may occur through increasing experience with an L2, but also suggest that this relationship may be complex and unfold over a long period of time. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01