native and non-native speakers Adding more fuel to the fire: An eye-tracking study of idiom proce... more native and non-native speakers Adding more fuel to the fire: An eye-tracking study of idiom processing by
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1366728913000795 How to cite this a... more Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1366728913000795 How to cite this article: GARETH CARROL and KATHY CONKLIN (2014 Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 17 (4), 2014, 784-797 C Cambridge University Press 2014. The online version of this article is published within an Open Access environment subject to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution licence http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ doi:10.1017/S1366728913000795 Getting your wires crossed: Evidence for fast processing of L1 idioms in an L2 *
The literature on idioms often talks about an “idiom advantage,” such that familiar idioms (spill... more The literature on idioms often talks about an “idiom advantage,” such that familiar idioms (spill the beans) are generally processed faster than comparable literal phrases (burn the beans). More recently, researchers have explored the processing of idiom modification and while a few studies indicate that familiarity benefits the processing of modified forms, the extent of this facilitation is unknown. In an eye-tracking study, we explored whether familiar idioms and modified versions with 1 or 2 adjectives {spill the [spicy, (red)] beans} are processed faster than matched literal phrases {burn the [spicy, (red)] beans} when both were preceded by a biasing context. The results showed that adjectives inserted in idioms induced longer fixations and were more likely to elicit a regression. However, idiom verbs and final words were processed with the same ease in all adjective conditions, implying that modifying idioms did not impede their processing. In contrast to the widely reported “...
With the proliferation of cell phones and other small handheld electronic devices, more and more ... more With the proliferation of cell phones and other small handheld electronic devices, more and more people are using software that presents texts one word at a time. This trend can be attributed to the small screen sizes afforded by these modern electronics. Importantly, software companies often claim that such products, which present texts word-by-word, make reading more efficient, as reading speed is increased without sacrificing comprehension. Alongside this, nonnative speakers are often told to read more in their second language to improve their language skills. This leads to important questions about whether the manner in which reading is done is important. To address this, the current study explores the impact of word-by-word presentation of a text on nonnative reading comprehension, as well as on native speakers who provide a baseline of performance. Nonnative and native speakers were presented with a full text on a piece of paper to read naturally, as well as texts presented on...
While psycholinguistic studies of first language (L1) reading have identified multiple factors th... more While psycholinguistic studies of first language (L1) reading have identified multiple factors that predict the speed of lexical access, there are few studies investigating whether such factors influence second language (L2) reading. For usage-based models of acquisition and processing, two lexical factors that are believed to be crucial in L2 reading are word frequency and cross-linguistic similarity. No previous studies, however, have looked at these factors during naturalistic reading tasks when readers' L1 and L2 differ in script. In this study, we monitored the eye movements of Japanese speakers of English while they read a short story. We used linear mixed effects modelling to investigate the role of word frequency and cross-linguistic similarity, as well as other factors such as language proficiency, on L2 lexical access. Word frequency was a strong predictor of word reading speed. A cross-linguistic measure of phonological similarity was not significant, indicating that even if lexical representations in the L1 were activated during L2 reading, this activation did not influence reading speed. The findings are discussed in terms of a localist connectionist model of word recognition.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the racial slurs nigger and negro in Heart ... more The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the racial slurs nigger and negro in Heart of Darkness on readers’ perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. It compares data collected through online questionnaires to test whether the absence or different frequencies of the slurs influence how participants perceive the fictional representation of the African people in the text. Three versions of the same questionnaire are used: one with unmodified passages from Heart of Darkness, one with the same passages but without the racial slurs, and one with the same passages but with more slurs than in the original. Findings show that the absence or overabundance of slurs compared to the original does not alter reader perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. By comparing the results, this paper makes two interconnected contributions. First, it contributes to the critical discussion about racism in Conrad’s novel, by providing evidence on whether the repr...
Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, 2020
Woolf’s work has been the object of several studies concerned with her experimental use of techni... more Woolf’s work has been the object of several studies concerned with her experimental use of techniques of speech, thought and consciousness presentation. These investigated the way in which different perspectives coexist and alternate in her writing, suggesting that the use of such techniques often results in ambiguous perspective shifts. However, there is hardly any empirical evidence as to whether readers experience difficulty while reading her narratives as a result of these narrative techniques. This article examines empirically readers’ responses to extracts from Woolf’s two major novels – To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway – to provide evidence for whether Woolf’s techniques for the presentation of characters’ voices, thoughts and perspectives represent a challenge for readers. To achieve this, a mixed-methods approach that combines a stylistic analysis with a detailed questionnaire has been employed. Selected extracts that were hypothesised to be complex due to the presence of...
A tendency by literary stylisticians to overlook the role of the author in the generation of lite... more A tendency by literary stylisticians to overlook the role of the author in the generation of literary meaning has been a significant source of tension between linguistic approaches to literariness and other practices in the discipline, such as text-editing and literary biography. Recently, however, efforts have been made to close this gap, with a branch of stylistics, cognitive poetics, claiming to have developed a new and empirical method of integrating an appreciation of authorial imagination and creativity into the study of readers’ responses to the language of literary texts. We examine these claims critically, testing the grounds of assertions about scientific rigour in relation to demands about model testing and falsifiability associated with the scientific study of literature more generally. We then explore how some other methodologies, technologies and insights associated with this last branch of the discipline might be brought to bear on the topic of authorial intention, wi...
Language comprehension is sensitive to the predictability of the upcoming information. Prediction... more Language comprehension is sensitive to the predictability of the upcoming information. Prediction allows for smooth, expedient and successful communication. While general discourse-based constraints have been investigated in detail, more specific phrase-level prediction has received little attention. We address this gap by exploring the ERPs elicited during the comprehension of English binomials - familiar and predictable multi-word expressions. In Experiment 1a, participants read binomial expressions (knife and fork), infrequent strongly associated phrases (spoon and fork), and semantic violations (theme and fork). In Experiment 1b, participants read the same stimuli without "and". Experiment 1a revealed that binomials elicited larger P300s and smaller N400s compared to the other conditions, reflecting the activation of a 'template' that matches the upcoming information (P300) and pointing to easier semantic integration (N400). In contrast, no differences were obs...
Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, 2014
This article reports the findings of an empirical study that uses eye-tracking and follow-up inte... more This article reports the findings of an empirical study that uses eye-tracking and follow-up interviews as methods to investigate how participants read body language clusters in novels by Charles Dickens. The study builds on previous corpus stylistic work that has identified patterns of body language presentation as techniques of characterisation in Dickens (Mahlberg, 2013). The article focuses on the reading of ‘clusters’, that is, repeated sequences of words. It is set in a research context that brings together observations from both corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics on the processing of repeated patterns. The results show that the body language clusters are read significantly faster than the overall sample extracts which suggests that the clusters are stored as units in the brain. This finding is complemented by the results of the follow-up questions which indicate that readers do not seem to refer to the clusters when talking about character information, although they are...
Using eye-tracking, we investigate on-line processing of idioms in a biasing story context by nat... more Using eye-tracking, we investigate on-line processing of idioms in a biasing story context by native and non-native speakers of English. The stimuli are idioms used figuratively ( at the end of the day — ‘eventually’), literally ( at the end of the day — ‘in the evening’), and novel phrases ( at the end of the war). Native speaker results indicate a processing advantage for idioms over novel phrases, as evidenced by fewer and shorter fixations. Further, no processing advantage is found for figurative idiom uses over literal ones in a full idiom analysis or in a recognition point analysis. Contrary to native speaker results, non-native findings suggest that L2 speakers process idioms at a similar speed to novel phrases. Further, figurative uses are processed more slowly than literal ones. Importantly, the recognition point analysis allows us to establish where non-natives slow down when processing the figurative meaning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2011
Are speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report ... more Are speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report an eye-tracking study that investigates this by examining the processing of multiword sequences that differ in phrasal frequency by native and proficient nonnative English speakers. Participants read sentences containing 3-word binomial phrases (bride and groom) and their reversed forms (groom and bride), which are identical in syntax and meaning but that differ in phrasal frequency. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that native speakers and nonnative speakers, across a range of proficiencies, are sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in English. Results also indicate that native speakers and higher proficiency nonnatives are sensitive to whether a phrase occurs in a particular configuration (binomial vs. reversed) in English, highlighting the contribution of entrenchment of a particular phrase in memory.
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Bilingual lexical processing is non-selective, wh... more Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Bilingual lexical processing is non-selective, which allows for activation of the non-target language, even when reading in a different script. However, while the influence of cross-script L1 lexical knowledge has been demonstrated in isolated word reading, it is unknown whether it survives in more natural reading tasks. We investigated whether crosslinguistic facilitation due to phonological similarity, semantic similarity, and L1 cognate frequency, is observed when different-script bilinguals read cognate words in their L2 in sentence context and in isolation. Design/methodology/approach: Two tasks were conducted with the same Japanese-English bilinguals and target items: A self-paced English reading task with non-highlighted target items embedded in sentence context; and an English lexical decision task. A monolingual control group also completed both tasks. Data and analysis: 108 cognate items were embedded in sentence context and ...
The popularity of literary biographies and the importance publishers place on author publicity ma... more The popularity of literary biographies and the importance publishers place on author publicity materials suggest the concept of an author’s creative intentions is important to readers’ appreciation of literary works. However, the question of how this kind of contextual information informs literary interpretation is contentious. One area of dispute concerns the extent to which readers’ constructions of an author’s creative intentions are text-centred and therefore can adequately be understood by linguistic evidence alone. The current study shows how the relationship between linguistic and contextual factors in readers’ constructions of an author’s creative intentions may be investigated empirically. We use eye-tracking to determine whether readers’ responses to textual features (changes to lexis and punctuation) are affected by prior, extra-textual prompts concerning information about an author’s creative intentions. We showed participants pairs of sentences from Oscar Wilde and Henr...
Data from each subject in a repeated-measures experiment form a time series, which may include tr... more Data from each subject in a repeated-measures experiment form a time series, which may include trial-by-trial fluctuations arising from human factors such as practice or fatigue. Concerns about the statistical implications of such effects have increased the popularity of Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs), a powerful technique for modeling wiggly patterns. We question these statistical concerns and investigate the costs and benefits of using GAMMs relative to linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs). In two sets of Monte Carlo simulations, LMEMs that ignored time-varying effects were no more prone to false positives than GAMMs. Although GAMMs generally boosted power for within-subject effects, they reduced power for between-subject effects, sometimes to a severe degree. Our results signal the importance of proper subject-level randomization as the main defense against statistical artifacts due to by-trial fluctuations.
native and non-native speakers Adding more fuel to the fire: An eye-tracking study of idiom proce... more native and non-native speakers Adding more fuel to the fire: An eye-tracking study of idiom processing by
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1366728913000795 How to cite this a... more Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1366728913000795 How to cite this article: GARETH CARROL and KATHY CONKLIN (2014 Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 17 (4), 2014, 784-797 C Cambridge University Press 2014. The online version of this article is published within an Open Access environment subject to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution licence http: //creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ doi:10.1017/S1366728913000795 Getting your wires crossed: Evidence for fast processing of L1 idioms in an L2 *
The literature on idioms often talks about an “idiom advantage,” such that familiar idioms (spill... more The literature on idioms often talks about an “idiom advantage,” such that familiar idioms (spill the beans) are generally processed faster than comparable literal phrases (burn the beans). More recently, researchers have explored the processing of idiom modification and while a few studies indicate that familiarity benefits the processing of modified forms, the extent of this facilitation is unknown. In an eye-tracking study, we explored whether familiar idioms and modified versions with 1 or 2 adjectives {spill the [spicy, (red)] beans} are processed faster than matched literal phrases {burn the [spicy, (red)] beans} when both were preceded by a biasing context. The results showed that adjectives inserted in idioms induced longer fixations and were more likely to elicit a regression. However, idiom verbs and final words were processed with the same ease in all adjective conditions, implying that modifying idioms did not impede their processing. In contrast to the widely reported “...
With the proliferation of cell phones and other small handheld electronic devices, more and more ... more With the proliferation of cell phones and other small handheld electronic devices, more and more people are using software that presents texts one word at a time. This trend can be attributed to the small screen sizes afforded by these modern electronics. Importantly, software companies often claim that such products, which present texts word-by-word, make reading more efficient, as reading speed is increased without sacrificing comprehension. Alongside this, nonnative speakers are often told to read more in their second language to improve their language skills. This leads to important questions about whether the manner in which reading is done is important. To address this, the current study explores the impact of word-by-word presentation of a text on nonnative reading comprehension, as well as on native speakers who provide a baseline of performance. Nonnative and native speakers were presented with a full text on a piece of paper to read naturally, as well as texts presented on...
While psycholinguistic studies of first language (L1) reading have identified multiple factors th... more While psycholinguistic studies of first language (L1) reading have identified multiple factors that predict the speed of lexical access, there are few studies investigating whether such factors influence second language (L2) reading. For usage-based models of acquisition and processing, two lexical factors that are believed to be crucial in L2 reading are word frequency and cross-linguistic similarity. No previous studies, however, have looked at these factors during naturalistic reading tasks when readers' L1 and L2 differ in script. In this study, we monitored the eye movements of Japanese speakers of English while they read a short story. We used linear mixed effects modelling to investigate the role of word frequency and cross-linguistic similarity, as well as other factors such as language proficiency, on L2 lexical access. Word frequency was a strong predictor of word reading speed. A cross-linguistic measure of phonological similarity was not significant, indicating that even if lexical representations in the L1 were activated during L2 reading, this activation did not influence reading speed. The findings are discussed in terms of a localist connectionist model of word recognition.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the racial slurs nigger and negro in Heart ... more The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the racial slurs nigger and negro in Heart of Darkness on readers’ perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. It compares data collected through online questionnaires to test whether the absence or different frequencies of the slurs influence how participants perceive the fictional representation of the African people in the text. Three versions of the same questionnaire are used: one with unmodified passages from Heart of Darkness, one with the same passages but without the racial slurs, and one with the same passages but with more slurs than in the original. Findings show that the absence or overabundance of slurs compared to the original does not alter reader perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. By comparing the results, this paper makes two interconnected contributions. First, it contributes to the critical discussion about racism in Conrad’s novel, by providing evidence on whether the repr...
Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, 2020
Woolf’s work has been the object of several studies concerned with her experimental use of techni... more Woolf’s work has been the object of several studies concerned with her experimental use of techniques of speech, thought and consciousness presentation. These investigated the way in which different perspectives coexist and alternate in her writing, suggesting that the use of such techniques often results in ambiguous perspective shifts. However, there is hardly any empirical evidence as to whether readers experience difficulty while reading her narratives as a result of these narrative techniques. This article examines empirically readers’ responses to extracts from Woolf’s two major novels – To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway – to provide evidence for whether Woolf’s techniques for the presentation of characters’ voices, thoughts and perspectives represent a challenge for readers. To achieve this, a mixed-methods approach that combines a stylistic analysis with a detailed questionnaire has been employed. Selected extracts that were hypothesised to be complex due to the presence of...
A tendency by literary stylisticians to overlook the role of the author in the generation of lite... more A tendency by literary stylisticians to overlook the role of the author in the generation of literary meaning has been a significant source of tension between linguistic approaches to literariness and other practices in the discipline, such as text-editing and literary biography. Recently, however, efforts have been made to close this gap, with a branch of stylistics, cognitive poetics, claiming to have developed a new and empirical method of integrating an appreciation of authorial imagination and creativity into the study of readers’ responses to the language of literary texts. We examine these claims critically, testing the grounds of assertions about scientific rigour in relation to demands about model testing and falsifiability associated with the scientific study of literature more generally. We then explore how some other methodologies, technologies and insights associated with this last branch of the discipline might be brought to bear on the topic of authorial intention, wi...
Language comprehension is sensitive to the predictability of the upcoming information. Prediction... more Language comprehension is sensitive to the predictability of the upcoming information. Prediction allows for smooth, expedient and successful communication. While general discourse-based constraints have been investigated in detail, more specific phrase-level prediction has received little attention. We address this gap by exploring the ERPs elicited during the comprehension of English binomials - familiar and predictable multi-word expressions. In Experiment 1a, participants read binomial expressions (knife and fork), infrequent strongly associated phrases (spoon and fork), and semantic violations (theme and fork). In Experiment 1b, participants read the same stimuli without "and". Experiment 1a revealed that binomials elicited larger P300s and smaller N400s compared to the other conditions, reflecting the activation of a 'template' that matches the upcoming information (P300) and pointing to easier semantic integration (N400). In contrast, no differences were obs...
Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, 2014
This article reports the findings of an empirical study that uses eye-tracking and follow-up inte... more This article reports the findings of an empirical study that uses eye-tracking and follow-up interviews as methods to investigate how participants read body language clusters in novels by Charles Dickens. The study builds on previous corpus stylistic work that has identified patterns of body language presentation as techniques of characterisation in Dickens (Mahlberg, 2013). The article focuses on the reading of ‘clusters’, that is, repeated sequences of words. It is set in a research context that brings together observations from both corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics on the processing of repeated patterns. The results show that the body language clusters are read significantly faster than the overall sample extracts which suggests that the clusters are stored as units in the brain. This finding is complemented by the results of the follow-up questions which indicate that readers do not seem to refer to the clusters when talking about character information, although they are...
Using eye-tracking, we investigate on-line processing of idioms in a biasing story context by nat... more Using eye-tracking, we investigate on-line processing of idioms in a biasing story context by native and non-native speakers of English. The stimuli are idioms used figuratively ( at the end of the day — ‘eventually’), literally ( at the end of the day — ‘in the evening’), and novel phrases ( at the end of the war). Native speaker results indicate a processing advantage for idioms over novel phrases, as evidenced by fewer and shorter fixations. Further, no processing advantage is found for figurative idiom uses over literal ones in a full idiom analysis or in a recognition point analysis. Contrary to native speaker results, non-native findings suggest that L2 speakers process idioms at a similar speed to novel phrases. Further, figurative uses are processed more slowly than literal ones. Importantly, the recognition point analysis allows us to establish where non-natives slow down when processing the figurative meaning.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2011
Are speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report ... more Are speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report an eye-tracking study that investigates this by examining the processing of multiword sequences that differ in phrasal frequency by native and proficient nonnative English speakers. Participants read sentences containing 3-word binomial phrases (bride and groom) and their reversed forms (groom and bride), which are identical in syntax and meaning but that differ in phrasal frequency. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that native speakers and nonnative speakers, across a range of proficiencies, are sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in English. Results also indicate that native speakers and higher proficiency nonnatives are sensitive to whether a phrase occurs in a particular configuration (binomial vs. reversed) in English, highlighting the contribution of entrenchment of a particular phrase in memory.
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Bilingual lexical processing is non-selective, wh... more Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Bilingual lexical processing is non-selective, which allows for activation of the non-target language, even when reading in a different script. However, while the influence of cross-script L1 lexical knowledge has been demonstrated in isolated word reading, it is unknown whether it survives in more natural reading tasks. We investigated whether crosslinguistic facilitation due to phonological similarity, semantic similarity, and L1 cognate frequency, is observed when different-script bilinguals read cognate words in their L2 in sentence context and in isolation. Design/methodology/approach: Two tasks were conducted with the same Japanese-English bilinguals and target items: A self-paced English reading task with non-highlighted target items embedded in sentence context; and an English lexical decision task. A monolingual control group also completed both tasks. Data and analysis: 108 cognate items were embedded in sentence context and ...
The popularity of literary biographies and the importance publishers place on author publicity ma... more The popularity of literary biographies and the importance publishers place on author publicity materials suggest the concept of an author’s creative intentions is important to readers’ appreciation of literary works. However, the question of how this kind of contextual information informs literary interpretation is contentious. One area of dispute concerns the extent to which readers’ constructions of an author’s creative intentions are text-centred and therefore can adequately be understood by linguistic evidence alone. The current study shows how the relationship between linguistic and contextual factors in readers’ constructions of an author’s creative intentions may be investigated empirically. We use eye-tracking to determine whether readers’ responses to textual features (changes to lexis and punctuation) are affected by prior, extra-textual prompts concerning information about an author’s creative intentions. We showed participants pairs of sentences from Oscar Wilde and Henr...
Data from each subject in a repeated-measures experiment form a time series, which may include tr... more Data from each subject in a repeated-measures experiment form a time series, which may include trial-by-trial fluctuations arising from human factors such as practice or fatigue. Concerns about the statistical implications of such effects have increased the popularity of Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs), a powerful technique for modeling wiggly patterns. We question these statistical concerns and investigate the costs and benefits of using GAMMs relative to linear mixed-effects models (LMEMs). In two sets of Monte Carlo simulations, LMEMs that ignored time-varying effects were no more prone to false positives than GAMMs. Although GAMMs generally boosted power for within-subject effects, they reduced power for between-subject effects, sometimes to a severe degree. Our results signal the importance of proper subject-level randomization as the main defense against statistical artifacts due to by-trial fluctuations.
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