Sentence Processing Among Native vs. Nonnative Speakers: Implications for Critical Period Hypothesis

The present study intended to investigate the processing behavior of ۲ groups of L۲ learners of English (high and mid in proficiency) and a group of English native speakers on English active and passive reduced relative clauses. Three sets of tasks, an offline task, and ۲ online tasks were conducted. Results revealed that the high-proficiency group’s performance was the same as that of the native group in all the ۳ tests in terms of accuracy and processing behavior. Accordingly, it was concluded that proficient L۲ learners can achieve native-like performance. Also, opposed to maturational propositions on adult L۲ learning following the critical period hypothesis, the high-proficiency participants showed native-like behavior on the L۲ structures. We suggest that the amount of exposure to an L۲ can be a defining factor for L۲ learners to perform in a native-like manner.

کلیدواژه ها:

Sentence Processing ، Reduced Relative Clauses ، Native/Nonnative Speakers ، Online/Offline Tasks ، Critical Period Hypothesis