On the interpretation of scalar implicatures in first and second language

Greta Mazzaggio (Author), Daniele Panizza (Author), Luca Surian (Author)

Abstract

We investigated the effect of presenting items in a foreign language (L2) on scalar- implicatures computation. To ensure that L2 processing was more effortful than the pro- cessing of the native language (L1), participants were late learners of L2 immersed in an L1 environment and they were presented with oral stimuli under time constraints. If scalar- implicatures computation requires cognitive effort one should !nd that people are more likely to compute scalar implicatures in L1 than in L2. In two experiments, participants were asked to perform a Sentence Evaluation Task either Italian, their native language, or in a foreign language (English or Spanish). The task included underinformative statements such as “Some dogs are animals” that, if interpreted in a pragmatic way (i.e., “Some but not all dogs are animals”) should be rejected as false. In both experiments, we found more rejections in the native language condition than in the foreign language conditions. These results provide support for models that maintain that scalar-implicature computation is effortful.

Keywords

scalar implicatures;pragmatics;default models;non-default models;second-language comprehension;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2021
Typology:	1.01 - Original Scientific Article
Organization:	UNG - University of Nova Gorica
UDC:	81
COBISS:	76760579
ISSN:	0378-2166
Views:	1119
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