Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

This paper brings together the fields of pragmatics and second language acquisition. Although the point of convergence between these two fields is not new, most of the work that has been carried out there has focused on what has come to be known as interlanguage pragmatics (see Kasper’s work for instance). However, Foster-Cohen already in 2000 and 2004 indicated other directions that research in the pragmatics of SLA could take. In this paper, we explore one of these paths, as we investigate the nature of pragmatic disambiguation processes in a second language (L2). In doing so we argue that the population of L2 users of English provides us with an original and useful insight into the pragmatic processes that govern reference assignment.

Taking a relevance-theoretic perspective on utterance interpretation (Sperber & Wilson 1995; Carston 2002) and following the claim that in a L2, the semantic blueprint that pragmatics depends upon to generate an extended meaning is partly deficient due to the limitations experienced in L2 by the learner (see Foster-Cohen 2000, 2004), we predict that pragmatic performance will deteriorate in L2 contexts. However, we argue further that the limitations imposed by a L2 on pragmatic processes will be felt even if the pragmatic process under scrutiny is not directly affected by the limitations in L2. That is to say that we expect pragmatic degradation to be the result of a cognitive overload, as opposed to semantic shortcomings and/or cross-linguistic interference. In order to look into these issues we focus on low-level disambiguation explicatures (assigning referents) with late German-speaking learners of English.

In order to show this we will use L2 data collected through two original experimental designs that focus on the explicatures generated in reference assignment processes. Based on designs derived from those developed by Trueswell and colleagues (1999) and Keysar and colleagues (1998), we observed in a cross-sectional population of 160 German-speaking learners of English, aged 10-80, how they assigned referents in a) temporarily syntactically ambiguous stimuli (garden-path sentences) and b) stimuli involving competing referents. We contrast these results with performance in a L1 control condition.

Our results show that in both tests, pragmatic performance in L2 deteriorates significantly from the control condition – both in terms of accuracy and reaction time. L2 learners’ referential disambiguation explicatures thus appear to be significantly hindered even when cross-linguistic positive transfer is possible (see Jarvis & Pavlenko 2008). We propose that these results are best accounted for in terms of a cognitive overload affecting pragmatic processes.

In this respect, we conclude by showing that our results provide a new insight in recent research on reference assignment. Several studies reported in Gibson and Pearlmutter 2011have shown that within a L1 context, performance differs significantly between children and adults. Various accounts have been put forward amongst which we can single out two dominant explanations: either that a) children’s pragmatic system is not fully functional or b) children underperform as a result of a cognitive overload. Our results open a new perspective on this debate.

References

Foster-Cohen, S.H., 2000. Relevance: communication and cognition. Second Language Research 16, 77–92.

Foster-Cohen, S.H., 2004. Relevance Theory and Second Language Learning/Behaviour. Second Language Research 20, 189–192.

Gibson, E. and N. J. Pearlmutter, Eds. (2011). The Processing and Acquisition of Reference. Cambridge, MIT Press.

Jarvis, S. & Pavlenko, A., 2008, Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition. New York, Routledge.

Kasper, G. and R. Schmidt (1996). "Developmental Issues in Interlanguage Pragmatics." SSLA 18: 149-169.

Keysar, B., D. J. Barr, et al. (1998). "Definite Reference and Mutual Knowledge: Process Models of Common Ground in Comprehension." Journal of Memory and Language 39: 1-20.

Trueswell, J. C., I. Sekerina, et al. (1999). "The kindergarten-path effect: studying on-line sentence processing in young children." Cognition73(89-134).