12 thoughts on “Week 12: Comment to Akane’s paper”
This paper talks about the Isomorphic mapping hypothesis (IMH) which states that second language learners favor sentences in which the noun phrase order reflects the manner in which the corresponding event unfolds. They did a test on English Native speakers learning Japanese, and the results of the study supported the hypothesis. I found this very interesting because in English I feel that it is more normal to say something like “Tap the pencil with the eraser” rather than “With the eraser, tap the pencil”, but in the conclusion it states that second language learners could prefer Isomorphic sentences because in order to tap the pencil, one would first need to pick up the eraser, so in terms of processing, an isomorphic sentence in a second language is easier. This makes sense, but I just found it surprising!
The paper discusses the role of isomorphic mapping for English L1 learners of Japanese. Isomorphic mapping is when the word order mirrors the order of the event. Previous research on Japanese and Korean L1 learners of English suggests isomorphic mapping facilitates performance accuracy. Ito tests isomorphic mapping in the Japanese locative and instrumental cases. He controls for both transfer effects and canonicity effects, or the language’s characteristic structure. The results show isomorphic mapping helps accuracy for English L1 learners of Japanese. The participants preformed better on the non-canonical and isomorphic than the canonical and non- isomorphic pattern. However, I think the assumptions underlying isomorphic mapping makes too strong assertions about the role of world knowledge in language processing.
This article looked at the role of isomorphic mapping, specifically in L1 English learners of Japanese. It showed that English learners of Japanese were more likely to understand isomorphic sentences than non-isomorphic ones when tested with a performance task. There were both isomorphic and non-isomorphic sentences, reflecting four different types: location-theme, theme-location, instrument-them, and theme-instrument. The subjects performed better with the theme-location and instrument-theme (isomorphic) sentence patterns, an interesting finding considering the isomorphic sentences deviate from established word order in the subjects L1.
The author’s introduction of isomorphic mapping hypothesis was really interesting to me because personally I had a lot more trouble understanding the isomorphic sentence as opposed to the other one. However, looking at the Japanese example sentences, there were more difficulties with the non-isomorphic versions. I wonder if isomorphic sentences show up a lot more than non-isomorphic ones and if production/frequency is also influenced by comprehensibility in this context as well?
This paper evaluated how adult L1 English / L2 Japanese learners interpreted word order patterns in their L2. It showed how L2 learners prefer sentences with isomorphic sentence patterns rather than non-isomorphic sentence patterns—they performed better on sentences that had theme-before-location and instrument-before-theme rather than those that had location-before-theme and theme-before-instrument. The author hypothesized that this could be due to the level of language acquired by the study participants. I would have expected that since English sentence patterns follow theme before location and theme before instrumental, that the participants would have shown their preference for these sentences in Japanese as well.
This paper on the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis was extremely clear in explaining the basis of the experiment that was tested and the results that were found. I thought it was interesting that the isomorphic sentence formations were more comprehensible to the subjects who participated in the experiment. While I was reading the example sentences I found that I also understood the isomorphic more easily, but then when looking back to double check, I realized that either way makes sense and the order is not really changing the comprehension. I think this process is normal for most L2 learners, in the beginning stages when you don’t have much knowledge of the structure of the language, the isomorphic mapping is obviously saying what you think, so you choose it. Since the non-isomorphic mapping is a little different than “the norm” an L2 learner is hesitant to say that they know the meaning.
This article looked at the isomorphic mapping hypothesis and the acquisition of Japanese word order by L1 English speakers. It showed that sentences with isomorphic word order were more easily understood by Japanese L2 learners than their non-isomorphic counterparts even when the non-isomorphic version if either more canonical for the L2 or would be expected from L1 transfer. This last result was what I found the most interesting, since I would have expected transfer from L1 to have a stronger effect. However, I agree with Bailey’s comment that the assumptions behind ISH are too strong. When looking into it, I found that ISH is related to the theta criterion, specifically the thematic hierarchy. In this context, it made a little more sense because agent θ-roles are assigned first, then theme, then experiencer, then others. Normally this would not necessarily have much bearing on the surface structure since themes are assigned before movement. But, since low-intermediate and intermediate L2 learners have not yet acquired all the syntactic rules of their L2 it would make sense they would initially find sentences with the same surface structure as the order in which θ-roles are assigned easier to understand. It would be interesting to compare them to more advanced learners.
This article details the findings of an experiment examining the success of isomorphic sentence pattern acquisition and understanding versus non-isomorphic sentence patterns among native English speakers learning Japanese in Japan. Four sentence patterns were introduced to participants, each of which gave the participant a directive in Japanese. Two of which were locative and two of which were instrumental. One locative sentence and one instrumental sentence were isomorphic and the other two sentences non-isomorphic. It was found that participants were most successful interpreting isomorphic sentence patterns. These results also show that isomorphic mapping plays a stronger role in the understanding of Japanese for native English speakers than either transfer or canonicity. I was surprised to discover this finding as I initially would have expected transfer to be the strongest variable in second language acquisition.
I thought the article is quite interesting. It is a study about how English-speaking Japanese learners would interpret Japanese word order patterns. This study and experiment seem to be simple yet very interesting. As a Japanese learner myself, I actually never thought of this before. I remember when I learned Japanese I had trouble at first because although Japanese word order is very flexible and can be moved around, the Japanese language prioritizes location and instrument over theme in its sentence structure, unlike my native language Indonesian. The Indonesian language, on the other hand,similar to English, prioritizes theme over location and instrument. That is why it was confusing for me at first to to get used to the Japanese sentence pattern.
From this experience, if I were to make my own hypothesis, I would say the transfer effect of the Japanese learner’s L1 will affect much to their order pattern interpretation. I personally don’t quite believe the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis. So, the result of the experiment in this article quite surprised me. It is interesting to learn that the Japanese learners who participated in the experiment preferred isomorphic mapping over both transfer and canonicity. It would be interesting to test non English speaker Japanese learners whose L1 has similar grammar to English.
isomorphic mapping IMH was new for me. It is known that each language has its own lexico-grammatical pattern of sequences of words. But this study shows that isomorphic mapping has a critical role in comprehension for L2 learners, like the experiment of the Japanese learners of English speakers. The subjects performed better in the isomorphic sentence patterns. This accords with the prediction of the IMH and invalidates the prediction of the canonical word order: the non-canonical (but isomorphic) theme–location sentence pattern is easier than the canonical (but nonisomorphic) location–theme sentence pattern.
It was surprising to see that the participants preferred isomorphic mapping over both transfer and canonicity. The author offers the following hypothesis: “Second language learners favor sentences in which the noun phrase order reflects the manner in which the corresponding event unfolds.” I don’t know much about Japanese but this study has made me curious if I would also choose isomorphic mapping over non-isomorphic.
It seems logical that isomorphic sentence patterns would be preferred by L2 learners of any language. This would be especially true as I think that learners process information in their L2s sequentially as they are progressively decoding meaning. It follows that higher-order thinking with regard to word positioning and sentence grammaticality would be secondary to lexical comprehension and thus is especially true in beginner L2 learners. Ito states that his data supports Grady’s isomorphic mapping hypothesis (IMH) and importantly, he is able to rule out any L1 transfer effects. Some might thus consider that isomorphism is a feature of UG. In order to determine this, I think research in children would need to be conducted regarding theme-location sentence patterns.
This paper talks about the Isomorphic mapping hypothesis (IMH) which states that second language learners favor sentences in which the noun phrase order reflects the manner in which the corresponding event unfolds. They did a test on English Native speakers learning Japanese, and the results of the study supported the hypothesis. I found this very interesting because in English I feel that it is more normal to say something like “Tap the pencil with the eraser” rather than “With the eraser, tap the pencil”, but in the conclusion it states that second language learners could prefer Isomorphic sentences because in order to tap the pencil, one would first need to pick up the eraser, so in terms of processing, an isomorphic sentence in a second language is easier. This makes sense, but I just found it surprising!
The paper discusses the role of isomorphic mapping for English L1 learners of Japanese. Isomorphic mapping is when the word order mirrors the order of the event. Previous research on Japanese and Korean L1 learners of English suggests isomorphic mapping facilitates performance accuracy. Ito tests isomorphic mapping in the Japanese locative and instrumental cases. He controls for both transfer effects and canonicity effects, or the language’s characteristic structure. The results show isomorphic mapping helps accuracy for English L1 learners of Japanese. The participants preformed better on the non-canonical and isomorphic than the canonical and non- isomorphic pattern. However, I think the assumptions underlying isomorphic mapping makes too strong assertions about the role of world knowledge in language processing.
This article looked at the role of isomorphic mapping, specifically in L1 English learners of Japanese. It showed that English learners of Japanese were more likely to understand isomorphic sentences than non-isomorphic ones when tested with a performance task. There were both isomorphic and non-isomorphic sentences, reflecting four different types: location-theme, theme-location, instrument-them, and theme-instrument. The subjects performed better with the theme-location and instrument-theme (isomorphic) sentence patterns, an interesting finding considering the isomorphic sentences deviate from established word order in the subjects L1.
The author’s introduction of isomorphic mapping hypothesis was really interesting to me because personally I had a lot more trouble understanding the isomorphic sentence as opposed to the other one. However, looking at the Japanese example sentences, there were more difficulties with the non-isomorphic versions. I wonder if isomorphic sentences show up a lot more than non-isomorphic ones and if production/frequency is also influenced by comprehensibility in this context as well?
This paper evaluated how adult L1 English / L2 Japanese learners interpreted word order patterns in their L2. It showed how L2 learners prefer sentences with isomorphic sentence patterns rather than non-isomorphic sentence patterns—they performed better on sentences that had theme-before-location and instrument-before-theme rather than those that had location-before-theme and theme-before-instrument. The author hypothesized that this could be due to the level of language acquired by the study participants. I would have expected that since English sentence patterns follow theme before location and theme before instrumental, that the participants would have shown their preference for these sentences in Japanese as well.
This paper on the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis was extremely clear in explaining the basis of the experiment that was tested and the results that were found. I thought it was interesting that the isomorphic sentence formations were more comprehensible to the subjects who participated in the experiment. While I was reading the example sentences I found that I also understood the isomorphic more easily, but then when looking back to double check, I realized that either way makes sense and the order is not really changing the comprehension. I think this process is normal for most L2 learners, in the beginning stages when you don’t have much knowledge of the structure of the language, the isomorphic mapping is obviously saying what you think, so you choose it. Since the non-isomorphic mapping is a little different than “the norm” an L2 learner is hesitant to say that they know the meaning.
This article looked at the isomorphic mapping hypothesis and the acquisition of Japanese word order by L1 English speakers. It showed that sentences with isomorphic word order were more easily understood by Japanese L2 learners than their non-isomorphic counterparts even when the non-isomorphic version if either more canonical for the L2 or would be expected from L1 transfer. This last result was what I found the most interesting, since I would have expected transfer from L1 to have a stronger effect. However, I agree with Bailey’s comment that the assumptions behind ISH are too strong. When looking into it, I found that ISH is related to the theta criterion, specifically the thematic hierarchy. In this context, it made a little more sense because agent θ-roles are assigned first, then theme, then experiencer, then others. Normally this would not necessarily have much bearing on the surface structure since themes are assigned before movement. But, since low-intermediate and intermediate L2 learners have not yet acquired all the syntactic rules of their L2 it would make sense they would initially find sentences with the same surface structure as the order in which θ-roles are assigned easier to understand. It would be interesting to compare them to more advanced learners.
This article details the findings of an experiment examining the success of isomorphic sentence pattern acquisition and understanding versus non-isomorphic sentence patterns among native English speakers learning Japanese in Japan. Four sentence patterns were introduced to participants, each of which gave the participant a directive in Japanese. Two of which were locative and two of which were instrumental. One locative sentence and one instrumental sentence were isomorphic and the other two sentences non-isomorphic. It was found that participants were most successful interpreting isomorphic sentence patterns. These results also show that isomorphic mapping plays a stronger role in the understanding of Japanese for native English speakers than either transfer or canonicity. I was surprised to discover this finding as I initially would have expected transfer to be the strongest variable in second language acquisition.
I thought the article is quite interesting. It is a study about how English-speaking Japanese learners would interpret Japanese word order patterns. This study and experiment seem to be simple yet very interesting. As a Japanese learner myself, I actually never thought of this before. I remember when I learned Japanese I had trouble at first because although Japanese word order is very flexible and can be moved around, the Japanese language prioritizes location and instrument over theme in its sentence structure, unlike my native language Indonesian. The Indonesian language, on the other hand,similar to English, prioritizes theme over location and instrument. That is why it was confusing for me at first to to get used to the Japanese sentence pattern.
From this experience, if I were to make my own hypothesis, I would say the transfer effect of the Japanese learner’s L1 will affect much to their order pattern interpretation. I personally don’t quite believe the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis. So, the result of the experiment in this article quite surprised me. It is interesting to learn that the Japanese learners who participated in the experiment preferred isomorphic mapping over both transfer and canonicity. It would be interesting to test non English speaker Japanese learners whose L1 has similar grammar to English.
isomorphic mapping IMH was new for me. It is known that each language has its own lexico-grammatical pattern of sequences of words. But this study shows that isomorphic mapping has a critical role in comprehension for L2 learners, like the experiment of the Japanese learners of English speakers. The subjects performed better in the isomorphic sentence patterns. This accords with the prediction of the IMH and invalidates the prediction of the canonical word order: the non-canonical (but isomorphic) theme–location sentence pattern is easier than the canonical (but nonisomorphic) location–theme sentence pattern.
It was surprising to see that the participants preferred isomorphic mapping over both transfer and canonicity. The author offers the following hypothesis: “Second language learners favor sentences in which the noun phrase order reflects the manner in which the corresponding event unfolds.” I don’t know much about Japanese but this study has made me curious if I would also choose isomorphic mapping over non-isomorphic.
It seems logical that isomorphic sentence patterns would be preferred by L2 learners of any language. This would be especially true as I think that learners process information in their L2s sequentially as they are progressively decoding meaning. It follows that higher-order thinking with regard to word positioning and sentence grammaticality would be secondary to lexical comprehension and thus is especially true in beginner L2 learners. Ito states that his data supports Grady’s isomorphic mapping hypothesis (IMH) and importantly, he is able to rule out any L1 transfer effects. Some might thus consider that isomorphism is a feature of UG. In order to determine this, I think research in children would need to be conducted regarding theme-location sentence patterns.