L2 Processing of Inflectional Morphology by Korean Learners of English

Abstract

This study examined how L2 learners process morphologically complex words (e.g., regularly inflected past-tense forms) to see if L2 processing of inflectional morphology is similar to L1 processing. In literature, it is posited that native speakers use grammatical computation in processing of morphologically complex words, whereas L2 learners largely rely on lexical storage (Ullman, 2001). A lexical decision task with masked primes was administered to thirty Korean L2 learners who were classified into two different levels of English proficiency. The results demonstrated that highly advanced L2 learners, like native English speakers, showed facilitation effects for past-tense primes and similar reaction times (RTs). On the other hand, intermediate L2 learners were significantly slower than native English speakers and did not show any facilitation effects for past-tense primes. These data indicate that the highly advanced L2 learners process morphologically complex words in decomposed form, whereas the intermediate L2 learners as unanalyzed wholes, suggesting that as proficiency increases, L2 processing changes.