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Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense: Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

E-pub ahead of print

Standard

Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense: Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals. / Li, Yang; Casaponsa, Aina; Jones, Manon et al.
In: Language Learning, 14.05.2023.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Li, Y, Casaponsa, A, Jones, M & Thierry, G 2023, 'Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense: Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals', Language Learning. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12584

APA

Li, Y., Casaponsa, A., Jones, M., & Thierry, G. (2023). Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense: Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals. Language Learning. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12584

Vancouver

Li Y, Casaponsa A, Jones M, Thierry G. Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense: Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals. Language Learning. 2023 May 14. Epub 2023 May 14. doi: 10.1111/lang.12584

Author

Li, Yang ; Casaponsa, Aina ; Jones, Manon et al. / Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense : Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals. In: Language Learning. 2023.

Bibtex

@article{88ebc41fdd894afcb6d83b6ca85ffa35,
title = "Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense: Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals",
abstract = "Chinese learners of English often experience difficulty with English tense, presumably because their native language is tenseless. Here, we show that this difficulty relates to incomplete conceptual representations for tense rather than poor grammatical rule knowledge. Participants made acceptability judgments on sentences describing two-event sequences that were either temporally plausible or misaligned according to verb tense (time clash). Behaviourally, both Chinese learners of English and native English controls were able to detect time clashes between events, showing that Chinese participants could apply tense rules explicitly. However, a predicted modulation of the N400 event-related brain potential elicited by time clashes in English controls was entirely absent in Chinese participants. In contrast, the same participants could semantically process time information when it is lexically conveyed in both languages. Thus, despite their mastery of English grammar, high-functioning Chinese learners of English fail to process the meaning of tense-conveyed temporal information in real time.",
author = "Yang Li and Aina Casaponsa and Manon Jones and Guillaume Thierry",
year = "2023",
month = may,
day = "14",
doi = "10.1111/lang.12584",
language = "English",
journal = "Language Learning",
issn = "0023-8333",
publisher = "Wiley",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Chinese learners of English are conceptually blind to temporal differences conveyed by tense

T2 - Conceptual tense blindness in late bilinguals

AU - Li, Yang

AU - Casaponsa, Aina

AU - Jones, Manon

AU - Thierry, Guillaume

PY - 2023/5/14

Y1 - 2023/5/14

N2 - Chinese learners of English often experience difficulty with English tense, presumably because their native language is tenseless. Here, we show that this difficulty relates to incomplete conceptual representations for tense rather than poor grammatical rule knowledge. Participants made acceptability judgments on sentences describing two-event sequences that were either temporally plausible or misaligned according to verb tense (time clash). Behaviourally, both Chinese learners of English and native English controls were able to detect time clashes between events, showing that Chinese participants could apply tense rules explicitly. However, a predicted modulation of the N400 event-related brain potential elicited by time clashes in English controls was entirely absent in Chinese participants. In contrast, the same participants could semantically process time information when it is lexically conveyed in both languages. Thus, despite their mastery of English grammar, high-functioning Chinese learners of English fail to process the meaning of tense-conveyed temporal information in real time.

AB - Chinese learners of English often experience difficulty with English tense, presumably because their native language is tenseless. Here, we show that this difficulty relates to incomplete conceptual representations for tense rather than poor grammatical rule knowledge. Participants made acceptability judgments on sentences describing two-event sequences that were either temporally plausible or misaligned according to verb tense (time clash). Behaviourally, both Chinese learners of English and native English controls were able to detect time clashes between events, showing that Chinese participants could apply tense rules explicitly. However, a predicted modulation of the N400 event-related brain potential elicited by time clashes in English controls was entirely absent in Chinese participants. In contrast, the same participants could semantically process time information when it is lexically conveyed in both languages. Thus, despite their mastery of English grammar, high-functioning Chinese learners of English fail to process the meaning of tense-conveyed temporal information in real time.

U2 - 10.1111/lang.12584

DO - 10.1111/lang.12584

M3 - Journal article

JO - Language Learning

JF - Language Learning

SN - 0023-8333

ER -