Second Language Processing at Different Ages: Do Younger Learners Pay More Attention to Prosodic Cues to Sentence Structure?

Abstract

Seeking a processing explanation for the phonological merits of early age exposure to second language use, this study investigates the relationship between age of arrival in the L2 environment and a preference for prosodic versus syntactic cues to sentence interpretation in English. The learners were Cantonese‐speaking ESL students at Canadian schools: 13 students in Grade 2,27 students in Grades 7/8, and 16 in Grades 11/12. All had been in Canada for between 1 and 4 years. The students were asked to interpret ambiguous sentences with conflicting prosodic and syntactic cues to structure. In contrast to the pattern found for native English‐speaking students at the same grade levels, and contrary to predictions, the older ESL learners were found to be just as likely as the younger ones to attend to prosody rather than syntax.