The role of modality in cross-linguistic syntactic priming

This study investigates whether L2 learners share abstract syntactic representations between an L1 and an L2 that have different word orders, and if so, whether modality affects access to the shared representation. In a syntactic priming experiment, 38 L1-Korean advanced English L2 learners completed English target fragments to describe pictures after either listening to or reading aloud different types of Korean dative sentences. The results show cross-linguistic syntactic priming between Korean and English; however, only reading led to priming effects, and the magnitude of the effects differed depending on the type of Korean dative in the prime sentence. These results suggest that L2 learners can share syntactic representations between L1 and L2, but that their access to such representations can be restricted by language-specific features and modality.