Construction Learning as a Complex Adaptive System: Psycholinguistic Evidence from L2 Learners of English

133 Pages·2015·2.07 MB·English

by  Annalisa Baicchi (auth.)

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN EDUCATION
Annalisa Baicchi
Construction
Learning as a
Complex Adaptive
System
Psycholinguistic
Evidence from L2
Learners of English
123
SpringerBriefs in Education
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8914
Annalisa Baicchi
Construction Learning
as a Complex Adaptive
System
Psycholinguistic Evidence from
L2 Learners of English
123
AnnalisaBaicchi
Department ofHumanities, Section
ofTheoretical andAppliedLinguistics
University of Pavia
Pavia
Italy
ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inEducation
ISBN978-3-319-18268-1 ISBN978-3-319-18269-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-18269-8
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To my grannie Albina, an inspired teacher,
with unquenchable love.
Contents
Part I Constructional Approaches to Language Complexity
1 Introduction: Theoretical Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Complex Adaptive Systems: The Case of Language. . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Complex Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.1.1 Complex Adaptive Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 Language as a Complex Adaptive System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.1 Speaking Agents, Joint Actions, and Emergentism . . . . . . 21
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3 The Complex Dynamics of Meaning Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 The Nature of Meaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.2 Embodiment in Cognition and Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3 Embodied Semantic Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.4 Idealized Cognitive Models Revisited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.5 Partial Compositionality and Conceptual Completion . . . . . . . . . 43
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4 Construction Grammar(s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.1 The Notion of ‘Construction’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.2 Basic Tenets of Construction Grammar(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3 Construction Grammar Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.3.1 Fillmore’s Case Grammar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.3.2 Lakoff’s Construction Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3.3 Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.3.4 Goldberg’s Cognitive Construction Grammar . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3.5 Croft’s Radical Construction Grammar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
vii
viii Contents
4.3.6 Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal’s Lexical
Constructional Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.3.7 Computationally-Oriented Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.4 The Advantages of the Lexical Constructional Model. . . . . . . . . 68
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Part II Experimental Studies. Psycholinguistic Evidence
of Constructional Meaning
5 Introduction: Priming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6 Sentence-Sorting Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6.2 How Sentence Meaning is Yielded. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.2.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.2.2 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.2.3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.2.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.2.5 Interim Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6.3 Experiment with Italian University Learners of English. . . . . . . . 91
6.3.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.3.2 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.3.3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3.4 Scoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.3.6 Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
7 Sentence-Elicitation Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
7.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
7.2 Variation in Syntactic Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7.2.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7.2.2 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7.2.3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7.2.4 Scoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
7.2.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
7.2.6 Interim Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
7.3 Semantic Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
7.3.1 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
7.3.2 Experimental Hypothesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Contents ix
7.3.3 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.3.4 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.3.5 Scoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.3.6 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.3.7 Interim Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.4 Experiment with Italian University Learners of English. . . . . . . . 106
7.4.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.4.2 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.4.3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.4.4 Scoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.4.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
7.4.6 Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
8 Sentence-Completion Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
8.1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
8.2 How to Represent Syntactic Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2.2 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2.3 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2.4 Scoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
8.2.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
8.2.6 Interim Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
8.3 Experiment with Italian University Learners of English. . . . . . . . 114
8.3.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.3.2 Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.3.3 Scoring and Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.3.4 Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
9 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Part I
Constructional Approaches
to Language Complexity
Emergencepresupposes anon-reductivechange, from
lower level phenomenon to a higher level
phenomenon, from individual ants to an ant colony,
from a bunch of houses to an organized city, from
perception to thought, from pointing to language.
(Van Lier 2004, p. 82)