Effects of Vocabulary Size on Anticipatory Sentence Processing in Korean Learners of English

Abstract

The present study investigates whether and the extent to which nonnative speakers of English exhibit anticipatory processing of English sentences in comparison to native speakers (Borovsky et al., 2012), using a looking-while-listening paradigm. We also examine the relationship between the anticipatory behavior and vocabulary knowledge of English as a second language. College students with high-intermediate English proficiency participated in an eye-tracking experiment and an offline measurement of vocabulary knowledge. The results revealed that the participants anticipate upcoming words, thereby incrementally processing English sentences as native speakers do. In doing so, they also actively make use of combinatory information of semantic cues and real-world knowledge, having advantage of a larger L2 vocabulary size. (Hanyang University)