Current Research Posters
Second Language Acquisition
Second Language Acquisition Lab
CUNY Graduate Center
Director: Dr. Gita Martohardjono
Linguistics Program CUNY Graduate Center Open House October 20th 2022
Pamela Franciotti
Grad Researcher & Lab Manager
LeeAnn Stover
Graduate Researcher
Dr. Gita Martohardjono
Lab Director
the children are
the children have
Daniela Castillo
Graduate Researcher
Naparat Meechanyakul
Graduate Researcher
Ilaria Porru
Graduate Researcher
Matt Stuck
Graduate Researcher
Reem Faraj
Graduate Researcher
Yana Miroshnychenko
Graduate Researcher
Turkish/German bilingual pronoun resolution
At the moment I am designing my QP2 project. Building on Knospe (2019), my study will investigate pronoun resolution in Turkish-German bilinguals. I will explore whether and to what extent the
pronominal systems of Turkish (pro-drop) and German (non-pro-drop) may influence one another's representation of pronouns and reflexives
in bilingual populations. In order to examine individual variables, such as active use, I will focus on heritage speakers of Turkish (HS) and Turkish speakers who learned German after puberty.
Bidirectional influence of L1-L2 on the interpretation of Thai and English reflexives
The objective of my project is to investigate how Thai-English bilingual speakers process and interpret referents for Thai and English reflexives through the use of visual world eye tracking paradigm. As a part of this
project, I recently completed a study where I employed a binary forced-
choice judgment task to examine the binding preference for Thai reflexives by Thai native speakers. I found that the interpretation of Thai reflexives is primarily driven by pragmatics, as opposed to English where the reflexives
are considered primarily driven by syntactic constraint. The next step is to examine how the pragmatic and syntactic knowledge interacts and influence the interpretation of Thai and English reflexives in the mind of
Thai-English late bilingual speakers.
In addition to the interaction of L1-L2 grammatical knowledge in Thai L2
speakers of English, I’m also interested in theoretical and experimental syntax of Thai language.
Multilingual Sentence Processing
My dissertation project focuses on code-switching, a multilingual’s ability to fluidly alternate between languages within a sentence. Specifically, I investigate the role that morpho-phonology plays in modulating the processing costs
associated with Spanish-to-English code-switches in progressive versus perfect
constructions, such as those illustrated in 1) and 2) below.
Yana Miroshnychenko is a first year student in the Linguistics PhD program. She has joined the SLA Lab in Fall 2022 in hopes of contributing to the development of heritage language proficiency scales that are
aligned with the most current findings in language acquisition to aid in
future experimental design.
Her research interests include heritage language acquisition of Slavic languages, L2 acquisition of aspectual morphology, the prosody-
pragmatics interface, discourse analysis, and corpus linguistics. In the near future, she plans on investigating the cross-linguistic influence of politeness on the prosody of L2 and heritage requests.
Gita Martohardjono is the director of the Second Language Acquisition Laboratory. Her research focuses on the development of syntax and semantics in adult second language acquisition and bilingualism, primarily from a psycho and neurolinguistic perspectives. Recent work includes psychophysiological studies (EEG and eye-tracking) on wh-questions and relative clauses in Spanish/English bilinguals, and the acquisition of (in)definiteness in L2 English learners whose L1 is Mandarin.
A second research area is the development of academic literacy in newcomer students with low literacy in the native language. She is currently PI on several externally funded projects creating multilingual, online assessments for use in NY public schools. For a short introduction to the Multilingual Literacy Sife Screener (MLS), click here.
Email: gmartohardjono@gc.cuny.edu
Scope ambiguity parsing among Mandarin-English bilinguals
My QP2 study examines how the bilingual experience of Heritage Speakers (HSs) impacts the computation of doubly-quantified constructions in English such as ‘Every shark is attacking a pirate’, which have two possible readings in
English but are argued to be unambiguously scope-rigid in Mandarin Chinese.
I probe whether HSs pattern more in line with the well-documented Processing Scope Economy (PSE) or an emergent Avoidance of Ambiguity (AA) strategy. Forty-three highly proficient bilingual participants completed an
online experiment using PC Ibex software. They listened to an aural stimulus, selected which of two pictures best matches the sentence they heard, and then rated the picture they selected for appropriateness. Results show mixed
support for the PSE and AA, suggesting that HSs can compute inverse scope in line with the PSE but may also prefer to avoid it in line with the AA strategy
when a surface scope interpretation is available.
Reid Vancelette
Graduate Researcher
Reid’s dissertation is a self-paced listening study on the acquisition of case by looking at the relationship between both structural and lexical case and word order changes in second language learners of Russian with various levels of
proficiency. Under the Processability Theory (PT) and previous research, an
implicational order has been demonstrated in the acquisition of case and other linguistic features, mainly through production studies. According to this order, configurational case (nominative and accusative) is acquired based on
the NPs position in a canonical word order, then lexical case, and then grammatical case. His study investigates whether grammatical case, which is predicated on word order changes in PT, is a separate process from non-
canonical word order acquisition or if they are two processes that occur and rely on one another in second language acquisition.
In my research I focus mostly on heritage Levantine Arabic in the Us; specifically, the syntax-morphology and semantics-morphology interface. I am interested in seeing how certain morphological patterns
which serve specific semantic purposes develop in children. Lexical and
grammatical aspects are one of these semantic components that demonstrate the interface with morphology and which I am examining.
I am also currently collaborating on two separate projects that explore different
aspects of heritage speakers’ grammars. These projects focus on Spanish heritage speakers’ lexical and syntactic complexity and on the role that relative language use plays in the processing of the first learned language.
Email: lstover@gradcenter.cuny.edu
If you would like to know more about lab members’ individual research, feel free to email them directly!
For any other inquires related to the SLA lab, you can either email the Lab Director, Dr. Gita Martohardjono or the Lab Manager, Pamela Franciotti at slal@gc.cuny.edu
To visit our website, click here.
Email: rf2273@gmail.com
Syntactic Parsing of Relative Clauses and Wh-Questions in L2 Italian
My dissertation seeks to investigate whether and how grammatical representations contribute to L2 parsing strategies by looking at the processing
of relative clauses (RCs) and wh-questions in L1 English-L2 learners of Italian. In the study, I address three main questions and ask whether: (i) L2 learners present the well-attested subject/object asymmetry, whereby subject RCs are
easier to process over object RCs; (ii) a mismatch of morphosyntactic features between the two NPs (i.e., number, but not gender), facilitate the processing
of object RCs (as also attested in child acquisition); (iii) L2 learners use verbal agreement to activate structural reanalysis to favor an OVS word order in relative clauses and wh-questions. Four self-paced reading experiments are
presented to a group of L2 learners at different levels of proficiency, as well as to a control group of native speakers. The study aims to shed light on the
similarity and differences between, on the one hand, L1 and L2 parsing strategies; and secondly, between child L1 and adult L2 learners in the
development of the target language.
Ioana Wicker
Research Assistant
Ioana Wicker is an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College and a prospective student in the Linguistics program at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
Ioana has always been interested in studying the mechanisms of the multilingual brain and she decided to join the SLA Lab after taking a
course with Dr. Gita Martohardjono last fall. As a Research Assistant, she helps support graduate students with their research in addition to
working on her own projects. Her research interests include: second language acquisition, heritage speakers, phonetic and phonological learning, bilingualism and foreign language pedagogy. She is currently
researching and developing classroom material specifically aimed to include student’s identity, purpose, and mental health in the early stages
of language acquisition. Email: iwicker@gradcenter.cuny.edu
An acoustic analysis of the Spanish vowel systems of NYC Spanish-English bilinguals
Matt’s project studies how the acoustic (re)distribution of the five Spanish vowels /i e a o u/ is shaped by the bilingual experience. The corpus is based on ~5-minute audio recordings of fluent Spanish-English
bilinguals from 14 different Latin American countries who narrated a
children’s picture book. These speakers additionally provided information about their language background, including their historical and current use of Spanish and English, as well as attitudes towards
Spanish and English-speaking cultures.
Ultimately, this project endeavors to understand how contact-induced
language change is modulated by a complex of bilingual experiences, including fluency, language exposure and use across the lifespan, and personal affiliation towards the languages and cultures a bilingual must
navigate daily.
Email: mstuck@gradcenter.cuny.edu
I am also currently working on a project that looks at whether a peculiar phonological process of Campidanese Sardinian (intervocalic lenition at the word boundary) is affected by Italian dominance in
bilingual Sardinian/Italian speakers.
Email: iporru@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Second Language Acquisition
First Language Acquisition/ Semantics
Computational Linguistics/ Prosody
Prosody/ Phonology/ Phonetics
Prosody/ Phonology/ Phonetics
Prosody/ Phonology/ Phonetics
L2 proficiency modulates the distinction between personal and demonstrative pronouns in Russian–German bilinguals
Clare Patterson1, Petra B. Schumacher1, Irina A. Sekerina2
1University of Cologne, 2City University of New York
(CLI)
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
CONTEXT: OUR PROJECT
Personal and demonstrative pronouns
Pronoun interpretation in bilinguals
neutral | Der Clown sah den Zauberer, weil er/dieser an der Bühne stand. Kloun uvidel fokusnika, potomu chto on/tot stojal u sceny. “The clown saw the magician because he/he-DEM stood by the stage.” |
obj- biased | Der Designer verachtete den Regisseur, weil er/dieser sehr gerissen war. Dizajner preziral rezhissera, tak kak on/tot byl ochen’ xitryj ‘The designer despised the director because he/he-DEM was very crafty.’ |
subj- biased | Der Richter bewunderte den Anwalt, weil er/dieser sehr einfühlsam war. Sud’ja vosxischal advokata, potomu chto on/tot byl chuvstvitelen. ‘The judge delighted the lawyer because he/he-DEM was very sensitive.’ |
RUSSIAN
.001) ➔ higher subj
preference for subj-biased than neutral verbs
GERMAN
higher subj preference for PPro than DPro
< .01) ➔ subj preference is higher for subj-biased verbs, lower for obj-biased verbs,
compared to neutral verbs
= .03) ➔ higher proficiency = lower subject-preference
Der Clown sah den Zauberer, weil er/dieser an der Bühne stand.
Kloun uvidel fokusnika, potomu chto on/tot stojal u sceny.
“The clown saw the magician because he/he-DEM stood by the stage.”
References: [1] Schumacher PB, Backhaus J, Dangl M. Backward- and forward-looking potential of anaphors. Front. Psychol. 2015;6:1746. [2] Kibrik AA. Mexanizmy ustranenija referencial'nogo konflikta. [Mechanisms of resolving the referential conflict.] In: Kibrik AE, Narin'jani AS (eds.) Modlerovanie Jazykovoj Dejatel'nosti v Intellektual'nyx Sistemax. [Modeling Linguistic Performance in AI Systems.] Moscow, Russia: Nauka; 1987. p. 128-145. [3] Sorace A. Pinning down the concept of ‘interface’ in bilingualism. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 2011;1:1-33. [4] Kaltsa M, Tsimpli IM, Rothman J. Exploring the source of differences and similarities in L1 attrition and heritage speaker competence: evidence from pronominal resolution. Lingua 2015;164: 266-288. [5] Wilson F. Processing at the syntax–discourse interface in second language acquisition. PhD thesis. University of Edinburgh; 2009. [6] Tsimpli I, Sorace A. Differentiating Interfaces: L2 performance in syntax–semantics and syntax–discourse phenomena. In: Bamman D, Magnitskaia T, Zaller C (eds.) Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language and Development. Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press; 2006: 653-664.
Effect of proficiency on DPro (German bilinguals):
Sociolinguistics