Examining the Effect of Training on L2 Processing and Comprehension of Spanish Null and Overt Subject Pronouns

Abstract

An increasing amount of research has shown that second language (L2) learners experience difficulties in the acquisition of discourse properties (Sorace & Filiaci, 2006). This has notably been examined with respect to pronominal dependencies, particularly in pro-drop languages like Spanish. Subject pronouns in Spanish can be either null or overt, and their distribution is guided largely by discourse-pragmatic constraints. Specifically, Spanish natives prefer to use a null pronoun to maintain reference to the subject and an overt pronoun to refer to a non-prominent referent, such as the object. Studies with L1 English L2 Spanish learners have shown that learners overproduce and overaccept overt pronouns to refer back to prominent antecedents (e.g. Lubbers Quesada & Blackwell, 2009), and null pronouns to refer to non-prominent antecedents (e.g. Clements & Domínguez, 2017), resulting in pragmatically odd utterances. Furthermore, reading time studies show that native speakers are sensitive to these constraints during online processing, while L2 learners may not be (Feroce, Gabriele, Gelormini-Lezama, & Fiorentino, 2019; c.f. Judy, 2015). One possible reason that learners struggle to acquire the discourse-pragmatic constraints of Spanish subject pronouns is that they are not explicitly aware of them, as these properties are not typically taught in the L2 Spanish classroom. The present dissertation addresses this by examining whether explicit instruction and practice modulates learner sensitivity, online and offline, to these discourse-pragmatic properties.A total of 45 intermediate L1 English L2 Spanish learners and 21 L1 Spanish speakers completed a self-paced reading task and an untimed sentence-selection task in which discourses were manipulated for referent prominence and pronoun type. Half of the L2 participants (N = 22; experimental group) also received explicit training and practice about the discourse-pragmatic properties of Spanish pronouns and comparison of pronoun usage between English and Spanish, while the other half (N = 23; control group) and the native speakers did not. Results revealed a training effect for the sentence-selection task, where the learners in the experimental group, but not those in the control group, showed higher accuracy from pre-test to post-test in the pragmatically-appropriate selection of a null pronoun in subject continuation contexts and an overt pronoun in subject shift contexts. In contrast, results from the self-paced reading task did not show any training effect for the L2 learners, nor any reading time differences based on whether a null pronoun or overt pronoun referred to the subject or object of a previous sentence. Nevertheless, correlation analyses revealed that at the individual level, learners in the experimental group showed increased sensitivity in reading time patterns from pre-test to post-test and that those who made the most gains in the self-paced reading task also made the most gains in the sentence-selection task. Taken together, these results suggest that L2 learners at low-intermediate levels of proficiency can demonstrate knowledge of the discourse-pragmatic properties of Spanish subject pronouns and that explicit training can modulate this (at least in an immediate post-test). Additionally, the lack of robust group sensitivity during the self-paced reading task suggests that the online integration of syntax-discourse properties in the L2 poses a notable difficulty for learners, in line with the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2011), and that combining online and offline experimental methods can shed light on the L2 acquisition of discourse properties. Overall, this dissertation is one of the first studies to empirically examine how explicit training of a syntax-discourse interface property may modulate learner awareness of these forms, and ultimately can help foster discussion between researchers and educators across the fields of second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics.