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Abstract:
We report two longitudinal studies measuring changes in brain
activity that accompany the earliest stages of second-language
learning. In the first experiment, we recorded event-related
potentials (ERPs) while French learners made lexical decisions to
French words and pseudowords. After two weeks of instruction,
learners' brain activity discriminates between French words and
pseudowords (as reflected in N400 amplitude differences) even
though their conscious judgments do not. In the second experiment,
native French speakers and French learners made acceptability
judgments to sentences containing either a semantic or syntactic
anomaly and well-formed controls. For native speakers, semantic and
syntactic anomalies elicit distinct ERP responses (the N400 and
P600 effects, respectively). For French learners, after four weeks
of instruction semantic anomalies elicit an N400 effect; syntactic
anomalies elicit either an N400-like effect or no effect. We
speculate that for words form is learned before meaning, whereas
for sentences meaning is learned before form.
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