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Address for correspondence: Yuichi Suzuki, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Kanagawa University, 3-27-1 Rokkakubashi, Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 221–8686, Japan [email protected]
Supplementary material can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1366728916000857
Introduction
Smooth engagement in L2 communication requires complex, coordinated lower-level sub-skills, such as lexical retrieval, grammatical parsing, and articulating sounds (Kormos, 2006; Levelt, 1989, 1999). Automaticity of these lower-level sub-skills plays a critical role in supporting fluent L2 use (De Jong, Steinel, Florijn, Schoonen & Hulstijn, 2013). Skill acquisition theory postulates that L2 learners gradually automatize these skills, progressing from controlled to more automatic processes (Anderson, 2015; DeKeyser, 2015; McLaughlin, 1987). These automatization processes have been documented for L2 learning (e.g., DeKeyser, 1997), which follows developmental paths similar to those of other cognitive skills, such as mathematical calculation, playing a sport, and driving a car, among others. However, as Lim and Godfroid (2015) noted:
Many important questions have remained unanswered as to how L2 automaticity develops over the course of language learning, how long it takes for L2 learners to reach the fully automatized phase, how the development of automaticity varies depending on linguistic features, or how automaticity can be validly measured. (p. 1248)
The current study aims to address the assessment issues of automaticity in L2 sentence processing. A body of research has attempted to measure automaticity at the word level (i.e., lexical access), using Reaction Time (RT) tasks, such as lexical decision tasks and semantic classification tasks (Akamatsu, 2008; Harrington, 2006; Segalowitz & Freed, 2004; Segalowitz & Segalowitz, 1993; Segalowitz, Watson & Segalowitz, 1995; Segalowitz, Segalowitz & Wood, 1998).
In contrast, very few studies have attempted to assess automaticity at the sentence level (DeKeyser, 1997; Hulstijn, Van Gelderen & Schoonen, 2009; Lim & Godfroid, 2015; Rodgers, 2011). By extending this line of recent work on the assessment of automaticity in L2 sentence processing, the present study measures automaticity in sentence (syntactic) processing 1 using a computerized RT task called a maze task. The current cross-sectional study investigates the extent to which the sentence processing efficiency, as measured by this maze task, can predict L2 oral proficiency (as measured by the Elicited Imitation [EI] task).
Automatization and CV in L2 learning
Automaticity is defined as a fast, ballistic, effortless, and unconscious process (N. S. Segalowitz, 2003). A...