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Antoine Tremblay
Building D, room 237, Washington, DC 20057 USA Tel: (202) 687-8449 trea26@gmail.com Web page: www.ualberta.ca/~antoinet/ |
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PhD Thesis |
MA Dissertation |
Resume |
LING 100 |
E-Prime Scripts |
My doctoral studies and other collaborative research focused on what have come to be known as “lexical bundles”
(after Biber et al., 1999), which are high frequency, non-idiomatic multi-word sequences that do not necessarily conform to
traditional constituent boundaries (e.g., the end of the, I don’t like it, I see what you).
More specifically, I gathered empirical evidence showing that, in L1 speakers of English,
higher frequency sequences (e.g., in the middle of the vs. in the front of the) are easier to process, as evidenced by faster reading times,
higher recall rate, and faster production onset. Non-idiomatic multi-word sequences can thus be viewed as a means to alleviate
the conversational pressures faced by speakers, as they not only need to constantly plan and produce utterances ‘on the fly’
but also make sense of what their interlocutors are saying. This facilitatory frequency effect may also be apparent in second
language learners, in which case explicitly teaching and reinforcing non-idiomatic multi-word sequences may increase their
comprehension ability, expressive power, and fluency, and ultimately enhance their willingness to engage with native speakers
of the language they are learning.
Experiments
Chunk Recall and ERP--Visual Modality
(with Harald Baayen, University of Alberta)
Behavioral Results:
The
higher the probability of occurrence of a regular four-word sequence, the more likely it
will be remembered;
Electrophysiological Results:
The
higher the probability of occurrence of a regular four-word sequence, the larger N1 amplitudes at frontal sites
(for phrasal and non-phrasal sequences alike)
and the smaller P1 amplitudes at posterior sites (for phrases only);
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Time x Probability of occurrence
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Time x Probability of occurrence x Phrasehood
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Chunk Production task--Visual Modality
(with Benjamin Tucker,
University of Alberta)
Results:
The more frequent a sequence is,
the faster the onset of production will be;
Off-line Semantic Ratings
(with Bruce Derwing, Gary Libben, and Chris Westbury,
University of Alberta)
Results:
Sentences containing lexical bundles (LBs) are
rated as making more sense than non-lexical bundles (NLBs);
Sentence and Word Recall--Auditory Modality
(with Bruce Derwing, Gary
Libben, and Chris Westbury, University of Alberta)
Results:
Sentences containing LBs are
recalled more accurately, but no difference in # of words recalled after LBs and NLBs;
You can read more in Chapter 3 of my PhD thesis and
in
Tremblay, A., Derwing, B., Libben, G., & Westbury, C. (in press). Processing Advantages of Lexical Bundles:
Evidence from Self-paced Reading and Sentence Recall Tasks. Language Learning, 61:3.
Sentence and Word Recall--Visual Modality
(with Bruce Derwing, Gary Libben, and
Chris Westbury, University of Alberta)
Results
Sentences
containing LBs are recalled more accurately, and more words are recalled after LBs
than NLBs;
You can read more in Chapter 3 of my PhD thesis and
in
Tremblay, A., Derwing, B., Libben, G., & Westbury, C. (in press). Processing Advantages of Lexical Bundles:
Evidence from Self-paced Reading and Sentence Recall Tasks. Language Learning, 61:3.
Self-Paced Reading -- word-by-word, chunk-by-chunk, and whole sentence
(with Bruce
Derwing, Gary Libben, and Chris Westbury, University of Alberta)
Results:
Lexical
bundles are read faster than non-lexical bundles in all three experiments;
You can read more in Chapter 2 of my PhD thesis and
in
Tremblay, A., Derwing, B., Libben, G., & Westbury, C. (in press). Processing Advantages of Lexical Bundles:
Evidence from Self-paced Reading and Sentence Recall Tasks. Language Learning, 61:3.
Tremblay, A., Derwing, B., Libben, G., & Westbury, C. (in press). Processing Advantages of Lexical Bundles:
Evidence from Self-paced Reading and Sentence Recall Tasks. Language Learning, 61:3.
Self-Paced Reading -- word-by-word, chunk-by-chunk, and whole sentence
(with Bruce Derwing, Gary Libben, and Chris Westbury, University of Alberta)
Results:
Lexical bundles are read faster than non-lexical bundles in all three experiments;
You can read more in Chapter 2 of my PhD thesis and
in
Tremblay, A., Derwing, B., Libben, G., & Westbury, C. (in press). Processing Advantages of Lexical Bundles:
Evidence from Self-paced Reading and Sentence Recall Tasks. Language Learning, 61:3.
Last updated: 26/11/2009