Psycholinguistics research paper: need subjects!

[michaelsanford]

I'm doing a small reserach paper in psycholinguistics concerning so-called garden path sentences and how they are interpreted by native speakers (of English) and by non-native speakers.

I'm looking for subjects who are non-native English speakers since I already have enough anglophones (at least for the time being).

What's involved ? Looking at a few garden path sentences (likely on a web site) and choose from varying interpretations of the sentence. Each survey should only take about 3 - 5 minutes to complete.

I should mention that the experiment (survey) won't be ready for a few weeks, I'm just trying to see if I will have a resonable sample size, or if I need to re-design the experiment.

And in case you're wondering, there's no indemintory compensation

What is a garden path sentence ?
Essentially a GP sentence is a phrase that leads you into thinking the sentence is saying one thing when in fact it's saying something different.

Example : I convinced her children are noisy.

When you begin to parse the sentence you probably analyse it as convincing her children and not convincing her. It might work better to read it out loud. Also this one isn't as 'striking' as many others, but I don't want to waste the good ones on an example

I obviously don't need any names since the surveys will be anonymous (all 'identifying' information that will be stored is native language and linguistic background).

So, anyone interested ? Just reply here and I'll check this post when the experiment design is complete (and passed by the ethics committee).

 

[Randman]

While I usually hate the overuse of the word "that", that sentence of yours should read "I convinced her that children are noisy." to be correct, grammatically.
Using poor grammar or slang on non-native English speakers could come up with skewed results.

 

[andychrist]

[T]hat sentence of yours should read "I convinced her that children are noisy." to be correct, grammatically.

The grammar is technically correct (I convinced her: children are noisy) but (deliberately) misleading. Certainly a "that" would have been appropriate.

Using poor grammar or slang on non-native English speakers could come up with skewed results.

I think that is the point of this study, to compare how non-native v. native speakers may be led down the wrong path...

 

[Randman]

I think enough native speakers are already led down the path. ::ha::

 

[michaelsanford]

Well the complementizer 'that' is, as andy pointed out, deliberatey left out so as not to explicitly introduce the subordinate clause "children are noisy".

The point is to see how native versus non-native speakers position the start of the subordinate clause. More generally (since not all sentences have subordinate clauses but may make use of noun-phrase objects or other structural features) howpeople parse the sentence structure.

Another example (one of my favourites): The old man the boat. What does this sentence mean ?

Most people analyze 'old man' to be a noun phrase in subject position and then get tripped up when they don't see a verb following it; they just see the noun phrase 'the boat'. In this sentence 'the old' is the noun phrase subject (as opposed to 'the young'), 'man' is the verb and 'the boat' is the object.

It's basically a study on sentence parsing, akin to this one:

The structure-dependant nature of the operatons used in language is all the more remarkable because there are often no overt clues as to the structure. Experiments carried out by psycholinguists have made it clear that listeners do not have to rely on auditory cues for interpreting the main structural divisions. For example, Garrett, Bever and Fodor (1966) constructed two sentences that both contained the words "GEORGE DROVE FURIOUSLY TO THE STATION":
1. In order to catch his train | George drove furiously to the station.
2. The reporters assigned to George | drove furiously to the station. In the first sentence is is George who is driving furiously. In te second, it is the reporters. In order to understand the sentence the listener must put the structural break in the right place (which I have marked with a | separating the NP from the VP).

...

The tape was played into one ear only. In the other ear the students heard a click, which was placed in the middle of a word, like George. The students were then asked whereabouts in the sentence the click had occurred. The interesting result was that in their reports students tended to move the location of the click in the direction of the structural break.

This indicates that listeners impose a structure on what they hear for which there is often no physical evidence.
("The Articulate Mammal" Aitchison, 17)

 

[gumse]

My GF uses me all the time for her Phonetic research , so im used to be a guinea pig.
I'll help you. I think I can persuade her to. We are both Swedish.

 

[michaelsanford]

Cool, thanks.

 

[Arden]

This sounds pretty cool. The first example caught me off-guard, but I got it by the second. Even if you don't need anymore native speakers, can we take it anyway just for the hell of it?