The present study investigated how pragmatic information is integrated during L2 sentence comprehension. We put forward that the differences often observed between L1 and L2 sentence processing may reflect differences on how various types of information are used to process a sentence, and not necessarily differences between native and non-native linguistic systems. Based on the idea that when a cue is missing or distorted, one relies more on other cues available, we hypothesised that late bilinguals favour the cues that they master during sentence processing. To verify this hypothesis we investigated whether late bilinguals take the speaker's identity (inferred by the voice) into account when incrementally processing speech and whether this affects their online interpretation of the sentence. To do so, we adapted Van Berkum, J.J.A., Van den Brink, D., Tesink, C.M.J.Y., Kos, M., Hagoort, P., 2008. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 20(4), 580�591, study in which sentences with either semantic violations or pragmatic inconsistencies were presented. While both the native and the non-native groups showed a similar response to semantic violations (N400), their response to speakers� inconsistencies slightly diverged; late bilinguals showed a positivity much earlier than native speakers (LPP). These results suggest that, like native speakers, late bilinguals process semantic and pragmatic information incrementally; however, what seems to differ between L1 and L2 processing is the time-course of the different processes. We propose that this difference may originate from late bilinguals� sensitivity to pragmatic information and/or their ability to efficiently make use of the information provided by the sentence context to generate expectations in relation to pragmatic information during L2 sentence comprehension. In other words, late bilinguals may rely more on speaker identity than native speakers when they face semantic integration difficulties.
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机译：本研究调查了在二语句子理解过程中如何整合语用信息。我们提出，通常在L1和L2句子处理之间观察到的差异可能反映出有关如何使用各种类型的信息来处理句子的差异，而不一定反映本地语言系统和非本地语言系统之间的差异。基于这样的想法，即当提示缺失或失真时，人们会更多地依赖于其他可用提示，因此我们假设后期的双语者会偏爱他们在句子处理过程中掌握的提示。为了验证这一假设，我们研究了后期的双语者在逐步处理语音时是否考虑了说话者的身份（由语音推断），以及这是否会影响他们对句子的在线解释。为此，我们改编了范伯库姆（J.J.A.），范登布林克（D. Van den Brink），特辛克（Tesink），C.M.J.Y。，科斯（密苏里州），哈戈特（Hagoort），2008年。神经科学。 20（4），580â591，研究提出了具有语义冲突或语用不一致的句子。虽然本地人和非本地人对语义违规（N400）的反应相似，但他们对说话者前后矛盾的反应略有不同。晚期双语者比母语人士（LPP）表现出积极得多。这些结果表明，像母语使用者一样，晚期双语者会逐渐处理语义和实用信息。但是，L1和L2处理之间似乎有所不同的是不同过程的时间过程。我们认为，这种差异可能源于后期双语者对语用信息的敏感性和/或他们有效利用句子上下文提供的信息以在二语句子理解过程中产生与语用信息有关的期望的能力。换句话说，当双语者面对语义整合困难时，他们可能会比母语使用者更依赖说话者身份。
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