Antonella Sorace
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 227739 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Antonella Sorace |
| NOMBRES | Antonella |
| APELLIDO | Sorace |
| FIRMA | SORACE A |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8812-1979 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 60 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 619 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 59 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1982 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 11 |
Can language attrition be reversed
Cognitive performance differences between Chinese and European students in the UK
This study examines how linguistic differences between Chinese and European languages influence cognitive functions. Two experiments compared cognitive performance between Chinese and European undergraduates. Experiment 1 compared Chinese and European bilinguals (e.g., Chinese-English versus French-English) studying at an English university. Chinese bilinguals exhibited stronger executive control, inhibitory control and mental rotation, suggestin…
The effect of language proficiency, usage, and exposure on cognitive control
Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This study investigated the effect of the specific L2 learning experience (i.e., usage, proficiency, and exposure) on cognitive performance in 121 Chinese learners of English. Design/Methodology/Approach: The participants were divided into three groups: beginning, intermediate, and advanced learners. They are homogeneous in background variables (e.g., cultural and educational environment) but hetero…
L1 morphosyntactic attrition in instructed and immersed bilinguals
The present study investigates whether L1 Spanish-L2 English instructed and immersed adult sequential bilinguals show L1 attrition effects in the oral production of subject referring expressions in topic continuity. We tested the predictions from the Pragmatic Principles Violation Hypothesis and controlled for two factors that modulate rates of overproduction, namely antecedent distance and the number of potential antecedents. The results from tw…
Mandarin speakers undergoing attrition produce more explicit referring expressions
Continuous immersion in a second language causes speakers’ first language to change, a phenomenon known as L1 attrition. We explored (1) whether bilingual native Mandarin speakers display attrition-related changes in their use of referring expressions in Mandarin after exposure to English and (2) whether the severity of attrition is affected by the amount of exposure to both Mandarin (L1) and English (L2) and English proficiency. All participants…
Inter-generational attrition
The phenomenon of language change in contact has been explored most significantly in speakers of a language who migrate, while fewer studies explore how language is affected across different generations. In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of inter-generational attrition on the production of clitic pronouns and clitic clusters. 86 adult speakers of Italian took part in the study: homeland residents, long-term UK residents, and heritag…
How language proficiency and age of acquisition affect executive control in bilinguals
Researchers have argued that grouping heterogeneous linguistic profiles under a dichotomous condition might mask the cognitive effects of bilingualism. The current study used two different analysis approaches (i.e., continuous versus dichotomous) to examine inhibitory control in a sample of 239 young adult bilinguals. Dividing the sample into dichotomous groups based on L2 proficiency (i.e., high-proficient versus low-proficient) and L2 AoA (i.e.…
Backward anaphora in L2 acquisition of English, Mandarin and Japanese
This study reports findings from two experiments on backward anaphora by second language (L2) learners of English, Mandarin, and Japanese, examining the effects of first language (L1) systems and whether a pronoun resolution pattern requiring syntax–discourse integration can be successfully acquired. The findings from Experiment 1 comparing English and Mandarin demonstrate that the availability of positive evidence for Mandarin-speaking learners …
Processing appositive relative clauses
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L1 Attrition vis-à-vis L2 Acquisition
Late bilingual speakers immersed in a second language (L2) environment often experience the non-pathological attrition of their first language (L1), exhibiting selective and reversible changes in L1 processing and production. While attrition research has largely focused on long-term residents in anglophone countries, examining changes primarily within a single L1 domain, the present study employs a novel experimental design to investigate L1 attr…
Microvariation in L2 acquisition of backward anaphora
There are crosslinguistic variations for backward anaphora coreference readings although the languages, such as English, Italian, Russian, and Mandarin, that have been experimentally studied are constrained by Principle C. English allows backward anaphora coreference readings between the pronoun and the antecedent NP for sentences like “While he was dancing, Kermit ate the pizza”, but languages like Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese prohibit the co…
Advantages of visiting your home country
The study explores how native language (L1) lexical access is affected by immersion in a second-language (L2) environment, and by short-term reimmersion in the L1 environment. We compared the L1 picture-naming performance of Polish–English bilinguals living in the UK (migrants) against that of bilinguals living in Poland (controls). Each group was tested twice: the migrants while in the UK (L2 immersion) and after visiting Poland (L1 reimmersion)…
A longitudinal investigation of the effects of language instruction versus immersion on cognitive functions in young adult Chinese speakers learning English
The current study examined cognitive effects of two pathways of second language (L2) acquisition longitudinally in Chinese speakers learning English in an L2-dominant environment. Thirty-nine participants who attended an intensive 10-week English course (L2-instruction group) were compared to 38 participants who attended regular university courses taught in English (L2-immersion group). Four repeated assessments were conducted over 10 weeks: prec…
Developmental language disorder in sequential bilinguals
The current study sought to investigate whether word properties can facilitate the identification of developmental language disorder (DLD) in sequential bilinguals by analyzing properties in nouns and verbs in L2 spontaneous speech as potential DLD markers. Measures of semantic (imageability, concreteness), lexical (frequency, age of acquisition) and phonological (phonological neighbourhood, word length) properties were computed for nouns and ver…
Measuring the Relationship between Bilingual Exposure and Social Attentional Preferences in Autistic Children
Background: Autistic children show reduced attentional preferences to social stimuli early in development, and these differences have consequences on a range of social domains. One factor that could influence development in those processes is bilingualism. Parents and practitioners frequently voice unfounded concerns that bilingualism could cause delays in autistic children, yet there is little evidence to dispute this idea. While there are studi…
Interference suppression in bilingualism
Studies examining the potential effects of bilingualism on interference suppression show inconsistent results. Our study approaches this topic by distinguishing two potential subcomponents within interference suppression (i.e., Stimulus-Stimulus and Stimulus-Response conflict). We investigated the two subcomponents through their operationalisation in different tasks and examined the role of language proficiency in modulating it. A sample of 111 y…
Bringing together autism and bilingualism research
Preview this article: Bringing together autism and bilingualism research: Language matters, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.21071.dig-1.gif
The additive effect of metalinguistic awareness in third or additional language acquisition
Previous and current research identify Metalinguistic Awareness (MLA) as a possible cause of the positive effects of bilingualism on cognitive development and Third Language Acquisition (TLA). Although it has been acknowledged that MLA is strongly affected by literacy and grammar-related activities, only a few studies have focused on the context and method of acquisition of the bilingual learners’ L2 to account for the mediating effect of MLA in …
Language Competence in Italian Heritage Speakers
The linguistic profile of bilingual children is known to show areas of overlap with that of children affected by Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), creating a need to differentiate the profiles and provide clinicians with tools to evaluate bilingual speakers in both of their languages. Data from typical adult bilinguals provide a picture of the language of a bilingual speaker at the end of language development. The present work explores how c…
What do children think of their own bilingualism? Exploring bilingual children’s attitudes and perceptions
Aims and objectives: This paper explores children’s experiences and perceptions of their own bilingualism in two contexts in Scotland, UK: a primary school with a high proportion of children using a language other than English at home; and a primary school where the language of instruction is an indigenous, minority language, Gaelic. Methodology: The paper draws upon data gathered from multiple qualitative methods, including interviews, group act…
Cognitive effects of Gaelic medium education on primary school children in Scotland
Research has shown that learning more than one language may have beneficial effects on executive functions, such as focused attention, inhibitory control, and switching between tasks. Evidence demonstrating these effects comes from studies with infants, children and adults from a range of language combinations. Much less direct evidence of such effects exists with regard to the bilingual experience of children acquiring regional minority language…
L1 attrition in a wider perspective
Exploring the role of cognitive control in syntactic processing
In this paper, we explore the role of cognition in bilingual syntactic processing by employing a structural priming paradigm. A group of Norwegian-English bilingual children and an age-matched group of Norwegian monolingual children were tested in a priming task that included both a within-language and a between-language priming condition. Results show that the priming effect between-language was not significantly smaller than the effect within-l…
Shared representation of passives across Scottish Gaelic and English
Evidence from cross-linguistic priming suggests that bilinguals can share their representations of constructions that occur in both languages. Some studies suggest that such sharing occurs only when the constructions involve identical syntactic categories and word order, thereby supporting a restricted shared-structure account of bilingual linguistic representation. But other studies suggest that such exact repetition is not necessary for priming…
Auxiliary Selection
The chapter provides an overview of auxiliary selection in the perfect tense. While in some languages there is only one perfect tense auxiliary, a number of languages show a split between perfects in which the equivalent of to have occurs as auxiliary and perfects in which the equivalent of to be occurs as such. The first part of the chapter provides an overview of the relevant synchronic and diachronic data, mainly from Germanic and Romance lang…
Pinning down the concept of "interface" in bilingualism
The Interface Hypothesis (IH) was put forward by Sorace and colleagues as an attempt to account for patterns of non-convergence and residual optionality found at very advanced stages of adult second (L2)acquisition. The IH originally proposed that language structures involving an interface between syntax and other cognitive domains are less likely to be acquired completely than structures that do not involve this interface. At the same time, the …
Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian
This study presents data from an experiment on the interpretation of intrasentential anaphora in Italian by native Italian speakers and by English speakers who have learned Italian as adults and have reached a near-native level of proficiency in this language. The two groups of speakers were presented with complex sentences consisting of a main clause and a subordinate clause, in which the subordinate clause had either an overt pronoun or a null …
Internal and external interfaces in bilingual language development
This article deals with the interface between syntax and discoursepragmatics/semantics in bilingual speakers. Linguistic phenomena at the interface have been shown to be especially vulnerable in both child and adult bilinguals; here we explore four variables that contribute to this vulnerability to different extents depending on the nature of the interface: underspecification, cross-linguistic influence, quantity and quality of the input, and pro…
Magnitude Estimation of Linguistic Acceptability
Judgments of linguistic acceptability constitute an important source of evidence for theoretical and applied linguistics, but are typically elicited and represented in ways which limit their utility. This paper describes how MAGNITUDE ESTIMATION, a technique used in psychophysics, can be adapted for eliciting acceptability judgments. Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability is shown to solve the measurement scale problems which plague con…
Discourse conditions on subject pronoun realization
Gradients in Auxiliary Selection with Intransitive Verbs
The primary purpose of this study is to present evidence, based on experimental data from Western European languages, that there is orderly variation in the choice of perfective auxiliary with intransitive verbs. Specifically, auxiliary selection is sensitive to a hierarchy of aspectual/thematic verb types: some verbs require a given auxiliary categorically, whereas others allow both auxiliaries to a greater or lesser extent depending on their po…
Gradience in linguistic data
Theoretical and developmental issues in the syntax of subjects
Incomplete vs. divergent representations of unaccusativity in non native grammars of Italian
The term 'near-native', used to refer to speakers at the most advanced stage of second language acquisition, may denote either incompleteness of their competence (lack of given L2 properties) or divergence (interlanguage representations of L2 properties that are consistently different from native representations). An undifferentiated use of the term conceals the fact that incompleteness and divergence are two distinct states of grammatical compe …
Syntactic optionality in non-native grammars
Bilingual children's sensitivity to specificity and genericity
A number of recent studies have argued that bilingual children's language comprehension and production may be affected by cross-linguistic influence. The overall aim of this study was to investigate whether the ability to judge the grammaticality of a construction in one language is affected by knowledge of the corresponding construction in the other language. We investigated how English-Italian and Spanish-Italian bilingual children and monoling…
Gradient auxiliary selection and impersonal passivization in German
The main purpose of this paper is to provide experimental evidence that two syntactic reflexes of split intransitivity in German – the selection of perfective auxiliaries and the impersonal passive construction – are sensitive to an aspectual/thematic hierarchy of verb classes. We show that there is a split between ‘core’ verbs that elicit categorical intuitions from native speakers, and ‘intermediate’ verbs that exhibit gradience. Furthermore, c…
L1 attrition in a wider perspective
Selectivity in L1 Attrition
Shared representation of passives across Scottish Gaelic and English
Evidence from cross-linguistic priming suggests that bilinguals can share their representations of constructions that occur in both languages. Some studies suggest that such sharing occurs only when the constructions involve identical syntactic categories and word order, thereby supporting a restricted shared-structure account of bilingual linguistic representation. But other studies suggest that such exact repetition is not necessary for priming…
Language Competence in Italian Heritage Speakers
The linguistic profile of bilingual children is known to show areas of overlap with that of children affected by Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), creating a need to differentiate the profiles and provide clinicians with tools to evaluate bilingual speakers in both of their languages. Data from typical adult bilinguals provide a picture of the language of a bilingual speaker at the end of language development. The present work explores how c…
Detecting the Late Stages of Syntactic Change
While all of the Scandinavian languages have verb-second order in main clauses, they vary in the word order in subordinate clauses: in Icelandic the finite verb appears in a high position, to the left of negation and sentence-medial adverbs, while in all of the standard Mainland Scandinavian languages it remains in a low position, to the right of these elements. This order in Mainland Scandinavian is known to be the result of a historical change,…
Multiple grammars
Introduction
Notes on the Monitor Model
Metalinguistic Knowledge and Language Use in Acquisition-poor Environments
Journal Article Metalinguistic Knowledge and Language Use in Acquisition-poor Environments* Get access ANTONELLA SORACE ANTONELLA SORACE University of Southern California Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Applied Linguistics, Volume 6, Issue 3, 1985, Pages 239–254, https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/6.3.239 Published: 01 December 1985
Incomplete vs. divergent representations of unaccusativity in non native grammars of Italian
The term 'near-native', used to refer to speakers at the most advanced stage of second language acquisition, may denote either incompleteness of their competence (lack of given L2 properties) or divergence (interlanguage representations of L2 properties that are consistently different from native representations). An undifferentiated use of the term conceals the fact that incompleteness and divergence are two distinct states of grammatical compe …
Magnitude Estimation of Linguistic Acceptability
Judgments of linguistic acceptability constitute an important source of evidence for theoretical and applied linguistics, but are typically elicited and represented in ways which limit their utility. This paper describes how MAGNITUDE ESTIMATION, a technique used in psychophysics, can be adapted for eliciting acceptability judgments. Magnitude estimation of linguistic acceptability is shown to solve the measurement scale problems which plague con…
Introduction
Animacy effects on the production of object-dislocated descriptions by Catalan-speaking children
This paper presents an experiment that examined two related questions. First, it examined the effects of animacy on the production of different syntactic structures and word orders by Catalan-speaking children. Secondly, it explored the relationship between age and the production of different syntactic structures by these children. The results of a picture description experiment run with eighty Catalan-speaking children aged 4;11 to 11;11 show th…
Syntactic optionality in non-native grammars
Second Language Learning
Gradients in Auxiliary Selection with Intransitive Verbs
The primary purpose of this study is to present evidence, based on experimental data from Western European languages, that there is orderly variation in the choice of perfective auxiliary with intransitive verbs. Specifically, auxiliary selection is sensitive to a hierarchy of aspectual/thematic verb types: some verbs require a given auxiliary categorically, whereas others allow both auxiliaries to a greater or lesser extent depending on their po…
Gradient auxiliary selection and impersonal passivization in German
The main purpose of this paper is to provide experimental evidence that two syntactic reflexes of split intransitivity in German – the selection of perfective auxiliaries and the impersonal passive construction – are sensitive to an aspectual/thematic hierarchy of verb classes. We show that there is a split between ‘core’ verbs that elicit categorical intuitions from native speakers, and ‘intermediate’ verbs that exhibit gradience. Furthermore, c…
Native language attrition and developmental instability at the syntax-discourse interface
Montrul's study is an important contribution to a recently emerged research approach to the study of bilingualism and languages in contact, characterized by its sound theoretical basis and its reliance on data from different – and traditionally non-integrated – domains of language development: bilingual first language acquisition (Müller and Hulk, 2001; Paradis and Navarro, 2003; Serratrice, 2004; Serratrice, Sorace and Paoli, in press), adult se…
Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax–pragmatics interface
The findings from a number of recent studies indicate that, even in cases of successful bilingual first language acquisition, the possibility remains of a certain degree of crosslinguistic influence when the choice between syntactic options is affected by discourse pragmatics. In this study we focussed on the use of referring expressions, prime candidates to test the interaction between syntax and pragmatics, and we compared the distribution of s…
First language attrition and syntactic subjects
In this paper we present some results from an experimental study that we have been conducting into the effects of syntactic attrition on the L1 of Greek and Italian speakers who have achieved near-native proficiency in their L2 (English) but still use their L1 on a regular basis. In particular, we test the hypothesis, developed on the basis of assumptions regarding syntactic modularity, that the changes in L1 syntax will be restricted to the inte…
Selective optionality in language development
Paths of development in L1 and L2 acquisition
Gradience in linguistic data
Anaphora resolution in near-native speakers of Italian
This study presents data from an experiment on the interpretation of intrasentential anaphora in Italian by native Italian speakers and by English speakers who have learned Italian as adults and have reached a near-native level of proficiency in this language. The two groups of speakers were presented with complex sentences consisting of a main clause and a subordinate clause, in which the subordinate clause had either an overt pronoun or a null …
Crosslinguistic influence and language dominance in older bilingual children
The point of departure of this study is the well-known hypothesis according to which structures that involve the syntax–pragmatics interface and instantiate a surface overlap between two languages are more vulnerable to crosslinguistic influence than purely syntactic domains (e.g. Müller and Hulk, 2001). In exploring the validity of this hypothesis for later stages of bilingual acquisition, the study aims to establish whether crosslinguistic infl…
Theoretical and developmental issues in the syntax of subjects
Alignment in second language dialogue
This paper considers the nature of second language dialogues, involving at least one non-native (L2) speaker. We assume that dialogue is characterised by a process in which interlocutors develop similar mental states to each other (Pickering & Garrod, 2004). We first consider various means in which interlocutors align their mental states, and suggest why such alignment may be different in second language dialogues from dialogues involving native …
Bilingual children's sensitivity to specificity and genericity
A number of recent studies have argued that bilingual children's language comprehension and production may be affected by cross-linguistic influence. The overall aim of this study was to investigate whether the ability to judge the grammaticality of a construction in one language is affected by knowledge of the corresponding construction in the other language. We investigated how English-Italian and Spanish-Italian bilingual children and monoling…
Internal and external interfaces in bilingual language development
This article deals with the interface between syntax and discoursepragmatics/semantics in bilingual speakers. Linguistic phenomena at the interface have been shown to be especially vulnerable in both child and adult bilinguals; here we explore four variables that contribute to this vulnerability to different extents depending on the nature of the interface: underspecification, cross-linguistic influence, quantity and quality of the input, and pro…
Discourse conditions on subject pronoun realization
Processing auxiliary selection with Italian intransitive verbs
For intransitive verbs in languages with a choice of perfective auxiliaries, off-line acceptability judgments conform to a semantically based Auxiliary Selection Hierarchy (ASH) (Sorace 2000, 2004). According to the ASH, inherently telic verbs regularly selecting auxiliary BE appear to be core exemplars of unaccusative syntax, while atelic verbs of agentive activity regularly selecting HAVE are core exemplars of unergative syntax. Non-core verbs …
Pinning down the concept of "interface" in bilingualism
The Interface Hypothesis (IH) was put forward by Sorace and colleagues as an attempt to account for patterns of non-convergence and residual optionality found at very advanced stages of adult second (L2)acquisition. The IH originally proposed that language structures involving an interface between syntax and other cognitive domains are less likely to be acquired completely than structures that do not involve this interface. At the same time, the …
Psychology (47 obras) · Linguistics (46 obras) · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism (37 obras) · Computer Science (34 obras) · Language Development and Disorders (33 obras) · Philosophy (24 obras) · Reading and Literacy Development (19 obras) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (19 obras) · Neuroscience of multilingualism (17 obras) · Artificial Intelligence (14 obras)