HL2C-SLLAT Seminar: Katherine Messenger (Lancaster University)

Title: Syntactic priming and grammar development in L2 language learners

Presenter(s): Kate Messenger (Lancaster University)

Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2024, 12pm to 1pm

Venue: Bowland North Seminar Room 8

How to join: The seminars are free to attend. Simply sign up to the HL2C Mailing List or to the SLLAT mailing list to receive the link to join us via Microsoft Teams link. You do not need a Teams account to access the talk.

About: This is a joint event, co-organized by the Heritage Language 2 Consortium (HL2C) and the Second Language Learning and Teaching (SLLAT) Research Group.

Abstract:

The phenomenon of syntactic priming (the unconscious repetition of syntactic structures across speakers and/or utterances) is a key source of evidence for understanding what different group of speakers know about the grammar of their language(s) as it is thought to reflect the activation of mental representations of syntax. Moreover, it is thought that these individual experiences of grammar (via priming) have cumulative and long-lasting effects that can strengthen such mental representations, making them more readily available for use not just immediately but in the long-term also. This notion of learning via syntactic priming is particularly relevant to the study of L2 learning. In this talk, I will present our recent research looking at syntactic priming as learning in L2 speakers and how syntactic priming interactions in different contexts (face-to-face, online, in written-chat, captioned audiovisual) support L2 speakers’ grammatical development.