Doctoral Dissertation Research: Resumptive Relative Clause Dependencies in the Processing of Second Language English

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The study of second language (L2) learning has much to tell us about the basic properties of the human mind/brain. This dissertation project investigates “resumptive relative clauses” or RRCs - phrases such as “the man that the police arrested him”, a conspicuous feature of L2 English speech and writing. RRCs are ungrammatical in some languages including English but are possible in other languages such as Mandarin Chinese. Surprisingly, RRCs are often observed in L2 speech and writing even when they are impossible in both the native language and the L2. These "interlanguage" features that cannot be traced to either the speaker's first or second language offer insight into the nature of the human language system and its development independent of the properties of individual languages. Second language learning is of growing importance in our increasingly globalized world, and an understanding of the L2 learning process and how interlanguage features emerge is critical to the development of language teaching methods.Drawing on recent methodological innovations in the psycholinguistics literature on native speakers, this project investigates whether RRCs in English represent a genuine grammatical option in the L2 learner’s developing language system and/or a subconscious strategy for managing cognitive load during real-time sentence processing. In addition to a control group of native English speakers, L2 learners of English whose native language either has or does not have RRCs undertake a series of experimental tasks probing the production, comprehension, and acceptability of English resumptive vs. non-resumptive relative clauses in three increasingly complex sentence types. The L2 learners complete two versions of the acceptability task - one in English and one in their native language- so that their knowledge with respect to the (im)possibility of RRCs can be compared across the two languages. This line of research addresses key questions related to L2 knowledge, L2 use, and the development of each.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.