THEPROCESSINGOFAMBIGUOUSSENTENCES

BYNATIVESPEAKERSANDFOREIGNLANGUAGELEARNERSOFENGLISH

A. INTRODUCTION

1. Background

Ambiguityisacommonphenomenoninhumanlanguage.Itexistsinbothspokenandwrittenlanguage.Inotherwords,itispervasiveinhumanlinguisticexpressions(Vuong2010).Interestingly,however,peoplealmostnevernoticeambiguityinspokenlanguage.Whensomeonesays “Iwenttothebank,” peopletendtointerpretitas “Ivisitedafinancialinstitutionwherepeoplecaninvestorborrowmoney.” Theword “bank” inthiscaseisnotinterpretedas “thesideofariver.” Peopleappeartoignorethefactthatabankdoesnotonlymeanafinancialinstitution.Perhaps,thisisbecauseineverydayconversationcontextshelppeopleguessthemeaningofabank.

Ifthesentenceisexamined “inisolation,” thesentenceislexicallyambiguous.Ambiguityoccursbecausetheword “bank” hasmorethanonemeaning.Inadditiontolexicalambiguity,sentencescanhavemorethanoneinterpretationduetostructuralambiguity,whichmeansambiguitythatoccurswhenasentencehasmorethanonesyntacticstructure.

Afamousexampleofstructureambiguityis “Isawtheboywiththebinoculars.” Theambiguouspartofthesentenceistheprepositionalphrase “withthebinoculars.” Theprepositionalphrasemaybeinterpretedas “thetoolsthatIusedforseeingtheboy” or “thetoolsthattheboywasholding.” Ifthesentenceistakenoutofcontext,itisconfusingbecauseitmayrepresenttwodifferentevents.

Observingtheaboveexamples,itisinterestingtoinvestigatehowthehumanmindhandlestheinterpretationofambiguoussentenceswhencontextsarenotpresent.Inotherwords,whatstrategiesareusedbypeopletodeterminethecorrectmeaningofambiguoussentences?Istheresuchathingthatappliesuniversallywhenitcomestointerpretingambiguoussentences?

Thus,thisproposalwillseektoexaminetheuniversalityofthehumansentenceprocessingmechanism.Theproposalwillalsoexplorewhethertherearecross-linguisticvariationsinparsingambiguoussentences.

2. Statement of Problems

The present study tries to answer the following questions: (1) WhattypesofstrategiesareemployedininterpretingambiguoussentencesbynativespeakersofEnglish?, (2) WhattypesofstrategiesareemployedininterpretingambiguoussentencesbyforeignlanguagelearnersofEnglish?, and (3) Howdosentenceprocessingtheoriesexplaintheuseofthosestrategies?

Some concepts used in the present study can be understood as followas: (1)Ambiguity is undesrtood as alinguisticformthathasmorethanonemeaningsuchaswordsorsyntacticstructures; (2) LateClosure can be defined as the situation that: “requiresthatnewincomingelementsbeattachedtothephrasecurrentlybeingprocessed.” Thisstrategyisalsocalled “lowattachment” (3)MinimalAttachment is a condition in a sentence that “requiresthatnewincomingmaterialbeattachedinawaythatthefewestnecessaryphrasestructurenodesareusedinaccordancewiththewell-formednessoflanguagerules.Thisstrategyisalsocalled “highattachment.”

3. Research Objectives

The present study tries to describe: (1) thetypesofstrategiesemployedininterpretingambiguoussentencesbynativespeakersofEnglish?, (2) thetypesofstrategiesemployedininterpretingambiguoussentencesbyforeignlanguagelearnersofEnglish?, and (3) theoretical explanation that can be derived from the data found. This study will also look at the differences of the processing ambiguous sentences between native speakers of English and the respondents speaking English as a foreign language. It will reveal the whether the cognitive language processing between the different respondents are different.

B. RESEARCH ROAD MAP

Penelitian yang sudah dilakukan /


/ Penelitian yang akan dilakukan
Didi Sukyadi
1)Coreferences in English and Indonesian detached participle
2)The prototype of “anger” and “hate”
3)The metaphorical use of English address terms
4)A Semiotic analysis of cyber emoticons / 1)The non-iconic clause ordering and discourse function of sentence-initial adverbial clauses in students theses and dissertations
2)The positioning of temporal adverbial clauses in Indonesian
3)The visual iconicity of UN test item illustration
4)Phonasthemes in Sundanese
5)The metaphors used in Indonesian Cartoons
Penelitian saat ini
The iconic construction of gestures used by science teachers using English as the language of instruction
Dadang Sudana
1) Relating the Prefix {meng-} and {ber-} to verb roots (2007)
2) Semantic Mapping of Affixation: an attempt to explain affixation in Bahasa Indonesia (2007)
3) Derivative – Based Materials Development to Improve Students, Vocabulary Acquisition (2006) / 1) The study of the relation between botanical vocabulary and thought and attitude towards the preservation of environment.
2) The semantic study concerning the the affixation process of single and double afix. / 1) The study of how fonem is stored and accessed in our brain.
2) The study of how lexical and grammatical morphemes are accessed and retrieved from the brain.
3) The study of how formulaic expressions are stored and retrieved from the brain.
4) The study of how sentences are formulated to store messages
5) Studying the phenomenon of language lost and language deficiency
6) Studying the relation betwwn brain and language activities
Ruswan Dallyono
1)The Role of Literacy Education to National Development. Unpublished.
2)The Use of Multimedia in The Teaching of Speaking. Unpublished. (2008)
3)The Use of heading in Academic Discourse. Educationalist Journal. / 1)The acquisition of TLUS subject in Indonesian by foreign language learners of Indonesian.
2)The use of modality in British English in written academic text / 1)Syntax
2)Morphology

C. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

ThementalsentenceprocessingtheorieshavebeenrevolutionizedbyFodor(1983)whowroteabookentitled “ThemodularityoftheMind” whichsaysthatweshouldnotanalogizethemindasamassivemaximallyinterconnectednetwork,suchthat,one'slanguageprocessingcanprobablybeinfluencedbywhatwaseateninthemorningorthecolourofone'seyes(Jackendoff2000).Accordingtothismodulartheory,themindhasdistinctpartsthathavetheirownfunctions.Theystillconstituteonesystembuttheyarenotdirectlyconnectedtooneanother.

Sentenceprocessingisnotanexception.Theremustbeoneorseveralfunctionsinthebrainthattakecakeofthemechanismsinvolved.Thereareanumberoftheoriesthathavedevelopedwithinthemodularframework,expoundinghowthemindworkswhenanindividualprocessesasentence.Oneofthesefunctionsisthepartthatiscalledtheparser.

Thisfunctionhasanessentialroleinsentenceprocessing.Theparserisdefinedassomethingthatdeterminesthewayasentenceissyntacticallyanalyzed(Field2004).Interestingly,theparserseemstoworkinarule-basedmannersothatitdoesnotrandomlychooseorpreferonespecificallyratherthananother.Severaltheorieswillbedescribedastohowthehumanparsingmechanismsworkinthemind.

Accordingtotheuniversalmodelsofsentenceprocessing,thehumanparsingmechanism hasthesamepatternsacrossdifferentlanguagesandtheparsingactionsaredictatedbygrammaticalconstraints(Abney1989;Crocker1996;Gorrell1995;Philips1996;Pritchett1988,1992inPapadopoulou2006).Inthisperspective,peoplearepredictedtointerpretambiguoussentencesinrelativelythesameways.

Mostuniversalparsingtheoriesarguethatparsingpreferencesarecontrolledbyalocalityprinciplewhichrequiresnewinformationtobeattachedtothephrasebeingprocessedandwhichisthoughttocomefromgrammaticalconstraints(Philips1996;Weinberg2001inPapadopoulou2006).ThelocalityprinciplemaintainsthattheparserwillattachaclausetotheclosestDP.Thisprincipleisalsocalled “lowattachment.”

Philips(1996)saysthatbydrawingupontheprinciple-basedmodel,thegrammarandtheparseractuallyembodythesamesystem.Thus,theyareliketwosidesofacoin.Theyonlydifferinthesensethattheparseristhetypeofgrammarwhichoperateswithinlimitedresourcessuchasmemoryconstraintsandexpectations.Thesearepsycholinguisticvariablesthatmightinterfereininterpretingambiguoussentences(Papadopoulou2006).

PhilipsarguesthatallsyntacticconsiderationsinvolvedininterpretingambiguoussentencesdependonasingleuniversalprinciplecalledBranchRight.Thissyntactictendencyisdeterminedbythementalgrammaroftheindividualandisjustifiedbyaneconomyprincipleofgrammar.TheBranchRightprinciplerequiresthatgrammaticalderivationsmovefromlefttoright.InFrazier'sterm,thisphenomenoniscalledLateClosure(Frazier1978inPapadopoulou2006)orinGibson'stermitiscalledRecency(Gibsonetal.1996A,1999inPapadopoulou2006).Nonetheless,thelocalityprinciplehasfailedtoexplaincross-linguisticexperimentalfindings.Spanishsubjects,forexample,werefoundtoprefertheminimalattachmentstrategyininterpretingambiguoussentences(FernandezandCairns2011).

AnotherperspectivetotheprocessingofambiguityistheGardenPathmodel.Thismodelpresupposesthatthereisaserial,modularandphrase-structuredrivenparsingmechanismininterpretingambiguoussentences.Accordingtothismodel,inrespondingtoanambiguoussentence,theparserchoosesoneanalysisratherthanusingmultiplesyntacticanalysesorpostponinganalysesofinput(Cliftonetal.1991;Frazier1987;FrazierandRayner1988andFodor1998inPapadopoulou2006).

Incases,thefirstanalysisisfoundtobeinappropriate,theparsergoestothegardenpathandreanalyzethesentence.Therearetwophasestothismodel,namelytheparsingandtheinterpretationphases.Intheparsingphasetheparserdeterminesastructuralanalysistotheinputreceivedbasedonphrasestructurerules.Inthisphase,theparserdrawsonsyntacticinformationtogettotheinitiallypreferredanalysis.Thus,theparsingphaserepresentsapurelysyntacticanalysis,ignoringnon-syntacticinformationsuchassemanticsandpragmatics(Frazier1987;FerreiraandClifton1986inPapadopoulou2006).

Theinterpretationphase,however,makesuseofallthenon-syntacticresourcessuchassemantics,pragmaticsandothergeneralknowledge.Inthisphase,theparsercomestoaconclusionwhethertheanalysisiscorrectorincorrect(Papadopoulou2006).Theparserhastwoprinciplesofparsing,namelyLateClosureandMinimalAttachment. TheLateClosureprinciplestatesthatnewconstituentsshouldbeattachedtothephrasebeingprocessed.Thisprincipleisalsoknownasthelowerattachmentstrategy.TheMinimalAttachment,however,statesthat newconstituentsshouldbeattachedinsuchawaythatthefewestobligatoryphrasenodesareemployedforthesakeoflinguisticwell-formedness(Papadopoulou2006).

Thesestructuralprinciplesfunctiontomaximizethespeedandefficiencyforintegratingnewinformationintotheoccurringanalysis.ThesetwoprinciplesmergeintowhatiscalledtheFirstAnalysisConstraint.Theparser,therefore,isthoughttobeuniversalandallparsingdifferencesoccurringcross-linguisticallyarecausedbyspecificgrammaticalvariationsamongdifferinglanguages(Papadopoulou2006).

Fodor(1998:291–293inPapadopoulou2006)assumesthatthehumansentenceprocessorisdesignedtomakea ‘leasteffort’ anditsgoalistoparseasfastaspossible,thereforeinhisviewtheFirstAnalysisConstrainttendstoconstructthesimplestanalysis,whichisactuallyduetothe ‘laziness’ propertyoftheparser.TheClosureprincipleisnormallyusedin(1)anditdictatesthattheconstituenttoSueshouldbeattachedtothelastDPconstituent(theletter)insteadofthehigherDP(thememo,thenote)ortotheVP(read):

(1)Alexreadthenote,thememo,andthelettertoSue.

Thispredictionhasreaffirmedbyseveralstudies(FerreiraandHenderson1991a;FrazierandRayner1982;KennedyandMurray1984;Mitchell1987ainPapadopoulou2006).Nevertheless,theuniversalapplicabilityofLateClosurehasbeenquestionedbyCuetosandMitchell(1988)in(Papadopoulou2006),whoinvestigatedRCattachmentchoicesinEnglishandSpanish.TheGardenPathmodelpresupposesthatparsingprinciplesareuniversalandvalidacrossdifferentlanguages.Insentencessuchas(2),LateClosurepredictsthatpeoplewillattachtheRClowtothesecondDP,theactress:

(2)Someoneshottheservantoftheactresswhowasonthebalcony.

ThispredictionhasbeenvalidatedbyempiricalfindingsinsuchlanguagesasEnglish(CuetosandMitchell,1988;FrazierandClifton,1996;Gilboyetal.,1995;off-linestudiesundertakenbyTraxleretal.1998),Swedish(Ehrlichetal.1999),Norwegian(Ehrlichetal.,1999),Romanian(Ehrlichetal.,1999),BrazilianPortuguese(Miyamoto,1998),andArabic(AbdelghanyandFodor,1999),wheretheRCissuitablyattachedlow,thatis,tothesecondDP.Nonetheless,thetraditionalGardenPathmodelhasfailedtoexpoundthetendencytochoosethefirstDPattachmentinSpanishbyCuetosandMitchell(1988)andalsobysubsequentstudiesinSpanish(CarreirasandClifton,1993,1999;Gilboyetal.,1995inPapadopoulou2006).

Construaltheory

AmorerefinedparsingtheoryistheConstrualtheory(FrazierandClifton,1996,1997inPapadopoulou2006).TheConstrualtheoryispresupposesdifferentparsingmechanismsfordifferentstructures.Syntacticconstructionsarecategorizedintotwoparts:primaryandnon-primaryphrases.Primaryrelationsorprimaryphrasescoverthesubjectandmainpredicateofanyfiniteclauseinadditiontothecomplementsandnecessaryconstituentsofprimaryphrases(FrazierandClifton,1996:41inPapadopoulou2006).Othertypesofrelationsareclassifiedasnon-primaryrelations.TheConstrualtheoryassertsthatonlyprimaryrelationsareparsedinadefinitemanner,asexplainedbytheGardenPathmodel(Papadopoulou2006).

Non-primaryrelationsareparsedinannon-definitefashionandtheyareassociatedtoonedomainintermsoftheConstrualprincipleincludingthematicandinterpretationprocesses.Thus,anunderspecifiedanalysisisgivenonlytonon-primaryrelations;inthatcase,theConstrualtheoryisaboutsyntacticunderspecificationandmightbeviewedasadevelopmentofparsingoptionsthatstressedthedifferencebetweenargumentandadjunctattachment(Igoaetal.,1998inPapadopoulou2006).Crocker(1996:220–221inPapadopoulou2006)considersmodifierattachmenttobeanexampleoflocalreanalysis,insteadofsimpleattachmentbecausemodifiersarenotpredicted.

Crockerfurthercontendsthat ‘statisticalorinterpretativeknowledgemightbeemployedinsuchcasestoconductreanalysis’ (Crocker,1996:221inPapadopoulou2006),althoughhedoesnotexplainhowtospecificallydescribemodifierattachmentambiguitiesintermsofquantitativeanalysis.IntheConstrualframework,thedistinctionbetweenprimaryandnon-primaryphrasesistriggeredbythefactthatnon-primaryrelationsarenotcompulsory(FrazierandClifton,1996:46–47,1997:285–286inPapadopoulou2006).Inordertorapidlyconstructananalysis,theparsercan,firstofall,neglectthenon-primaryrelations.However,inrealityunderspecificationofprimaryrelationsmayleadtoinconsistentanalysesofthesentenceindisambiguatingtheinputmaterial.AsTraxleretal.(1998:586)say,mis-attachmentofamodifierhasnoseriousconsequencesfortheoverallgrammaticalmeaningoftherestofthesentence(Papadopoulou2006).

TheConstrualtheorypositsthatrelativeclausesbelongtonon-primaryphrasesbecausetheyarenominalmodifiers.Thisargumentmeansthat,ifaRCcanbeattachedtotwoheads,itwillnotbe directlyattachedtothesecondDP,asLateClosuretendstopredict,butitwillbeassociatedtotheextendedmaximalprojectionofthelasttheta-roleassigner.Ifmorethanonepotentialheadisavailableinthepresentthematicdomain,theninterpretativeprinciplesestablishtheattachmentchoicesfortheRC.(FrazierandClifton,1997inPapadopoulou2006).Agoodexampleisgiveninasentencesuchas(10),thelastthematicdomainisdeterminedbythelexicalprepositionwith:

(10)Someonewaslookingattheservantwiththeactresswhowasonthebalcony.

Inexamplessuchas(10)onlythesecondDPiswithinthelasttheta-domainandthus,itistheonlyavailablenodefortheRCand,therefore,alow-attachmentchoicecanbeprojected.Thispredictionhasbeenaffirmedbyanumberofstudiesacrossdifferentlanguages(Gilboyetal.,1995;Traxleretal.,1998,2000forEnglish,Gilboyetal.,1995forSpanish,Hemforthetal.,1996,1998forGermanandFrenck-MestreandPynte,2000forFrench).Theconsiderationofthematiccluesfortheconstructionofinitialinputanalyseshasalsobeenusedasacomponentinpreviousparsingmodels(cf.Pritchett,1988,1992)inPapadopoulou(2006).

Asforasentencesuchas(2)rewrittenhereas(11),itslastthematicdomain,however,coversbothDPsbecausethepreposition “of” doesnotinstantiateanewthematicdomain:

(11)Someoneshottheservantoftheactresswhowasonthebalcony.

In(11)theRCtendstobeassociatedtotheextendedmaximalprojectionofthefinaltheta-assigner(thefirstDP)and,hencebothDPsshouldbeevenlyavailablenodesfortheRC.TheGardenPathmodelanditsrefinementsalsouseofthematicinformationtoexplicateprocessingpatternsdiscoveredinvariouslanguages(Papadopoulou2006).

D. RESEARCH METHOD

Thisresearchproposalwillprimarilyemployaqualitativemethod.However,itwillalsousesimplestatisticstocomputepercentagestoshowthedistributionofstrategiesusedbytheparticipants.ThisisacasestudyofhowtheparticipantsinterpretambiguoussentencesinEnglish.

Participants

TheparticipantsofthisstudywillbeeightEnglishnativespeakers(fourAmericansandfourEnglishpeople)andeightIndonesianstudentsfromtheEnglishdepartment(allofwhomareseniors).Thenativespeakerparticipantswillbeselectedbasedontheireducation.Preferably,theyshouldholdamaster'sdegree,butatleasttheyshouldhaveabachelor'sdegree.

ResearchProcedure

  1. Aresearchinstrumentwillbepreparedconsistingof15syntacticallyambiguoussentences.
  2. TheseambiguoussentenceswillbereadbyanativespeakerofEnglishandrecorded.
  3. Eachparticipantwillbeaskedtolistentoeachambiguoussentenceonceandthentheywillbeaskedtofigureoutwhatthesentencemeansbychoosingananswerprovidedbytheresearcher.
  4. Thedatawillbeclassifiedandthencomputedintheformofpercentages.
  5. Thequantifieddatawillpresentedintabularformandinterpretedbasedontheexistingtheories.

E. RESEARCH SCHEDULE

No. / Activities / Months
August / September / October / November / December
1. / Instrumet validation / V / V
2. / Data collection / V / V
3. / Data display / V / V
4. / Data analysis / V / V
5. / Drawing conclusion / V / V
6. / Writing research report / V
7. / Writing journal article / V
8. / Dissemination / V

F. REFERENCES

FernandezCairns,2011.FundamentalsofPsycholinguistics.WestSussex:JohnWileySonsLimited.

Field,J.2004.Psycholinguistics:TheKeyConcepts.LondonNewYork:Routledge,TaylorFrancisGroup.

Jackendoff,R.inGrodzinsky,Y.,Shapiro,L.,Swinney,D.(Eds.)LanguageandtheBrain:RepresentationandProcessing.NewYork,London,Tokyo:AcademicPress.

Papadopoulou,D.2006.Cross-linguisticVariationinSentenceProcessing;EvidencefromRCAttachmentPreferencesinGreek.Dordrecht:Springer.

Vuong,L.C.2010.TheRoleofExecutiveControlinGardenPathReinterpretation.Houston:UMIDissertationPublishing

APPENDIX

ResearchInstrument

Answerthefollowingquestions:

  1. Someoneshotthemaidoftheactresswhowasonthebalcony.

(Fernandez2011)

Whowasonthebalconyintheevent?

a.theactress

b.themaid

  1. Thestudenttoldtheprofessorthateveryonehatedalie?

Whatdidthestudenttelltheprofessor?

a.Alie

b.thateveryonehatedalie

  1. Imetthemanageroftheactresswhohadascandal.

Whohadascandal?

a.themanager

b.theactress

  1. Isawtheboywiththebinoculars.

WhomdidIsee?

a.theboy (thebinocularswerethetools that I used forseeingtheboy)

b.theboy carrying thebinoculars

  1. Suemetthewomanwithherhusband.

Whomdid Sue meet?

a.thewoman

b.herhusband

  1. Paullovesthewomanalongwithherchildren.

WhomdoesPaullove?

a.thewoman

b.herchildren

  1. Theywerenotthoseofthegirlswhowenttothemall.

Whowenttothemall?

a.Thoseofthegirls

b.thegirls

  1. JamesmetthefatheroftheboyswhowenttoLondonlastyear.

WhowenttoLondon?

a.thefather

b.theboys

  1. Isawthemanwiththetelescope.

Whathappened?

a.Iusedthetelescopetoseetheman

b.Isawthemancarryingthetelescope

  1. Isawthemotherofthegirlwhofoundthewalletyesterday.

Whofoundthewallet?

a.themother

b.thegirl

  1. Jackspoketothemanfromthevillagethatisverynice.

Who/whichisverynice?

a.theman

b.thevillage

  1. Luciadidnotliketheshapeofthefruitwhichisthorny.

Whichisthorny?

a.theshape

b.thefruit

  1. Danielsatonthechairofthekingthatisveryold.

What/whoisveryold?

a.thechair

b.theking

  1. Jamiekissedthethemotherofthreechildrenwhocametotheevent.

WhomdidJamiekissed?

a.themother

b.threechildren

  1. Ivisitedthegrandmotherofthegirlwhowassick.

Whowassick?

a.thegrandmother

b.thegirl

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