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Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure
Scalar inferences represent the condition when a speaker uses a weaker expression such as some in a pragmatic scale like <some, all>, and s/he has the intention to reject the stronger use of the other word like all in the utterance. Considerable disagreement has arisen concerning how interlocu...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2016
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4709112/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26752294 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145494 |
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author | Lin, Yowyu |
author_facet | Lin, Yowyu |
author_sort | Lin, Yowyu |
collection | PubMed |
description | Scalar inferences represent the condition when a speaker uses a weaker expression such as some in a pragmatic scale like <some, all>, and s/he has the intention to reject the stronger use of the other word like all in the utterance. Considerable disagreement has arisen concerning how interlocutors derive the inferences. The study presented here tries to address this issue by examining online scalar inferences among Mandarin learners of English. To date, Default Inference and Relevance Theory have made different predictions regarding how people process scalar inferences. Findings from recently emerging first language studies did not fully resolved the debate but led to even more heated debates. The current three online psycholinguistic experiments reported here tried to address the processing of scalar inferences from second language perspective. Results showed that Mandarin learners of English showed faster reaction times and a higher acceptance rate when interpreting some as some but not all and this was true even when subjects were under time pressure, which was manifested in Experiment 2. Overall, the results of the experiments supported Default Theory. In addition, Experiment 3 also found that working memory capacity plays a critical role during scalar inference processing. High span readers were faster in accepting the some but not all interpretation than low span readers. However, compared with low span readers, high span readers were more likely to accept the some and possibly all condition, possibly due to their working memory capacity to generate scenarios to fit the interpretation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4709112 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-47091122016-01-15 Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure Lin, Yowyu PLoS One Research Article Scalar inferences represent the condition when a speaker uses a weaker expression such as some in a pragmatic scale like <some, all>, and s/he has the intention to reject the stronger use of the other word like all in the utterance. Considerable disagreement has arisen concerning how interlocutors derive the inferences. The study presented here tries to address this issue by examining online scalar inferences among Mandarin learners of English. To date, Default Inference and Relevance Theory have made different predictions regarding how people process scalar inferences. Findings from recently emerging first language studies did not fully resolved the debate but led to even more heated debates. The current three online psycholinguistic experiments reported here tried to address the processing of scalar inferences from second language perspective. Results showed that Mandarin learners of English showed faster reaction times and a higher acceptance rate when interpreting some as some but not all and this was true even when subjects were under time pressure, which was manifested in Experiment 2. Overall, the results of the experiments supported Default Theory. In addition, Experiment 3 also found that working memory capacity plays a critical role during scalar inference processing. High span readers were faster in accepting the some but not all interpretation than low span readers. However, compared with low span readers, high span readers were more likely to accept the some and possibly all condition, possibly due to their working memory capacity to generate scenarios to fit the interpretation. Public Library of Science 2016-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4709112/ /pubmed/26752294 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145494 Text en © 2016 Yowyu Lin http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Lin, Yowyu Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure |
title | Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure |
title_full | Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure |
title_fullStr | Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure |
title_full_unstemmed | Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure |
title_short | Processing of Scalar Inferences by Mandarin Learners of English: An Online Measure |
title_sort | processing of scalar inferences by mandarin learners of english: an online measure |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4709112/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26752294 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145494 |
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