Understanding the content of a sentence not only involves knowing the semantic meaning of the words but also the pragmatic information that these same words evoke. The way people process the contents of a written or spoken sentence, for example, in the statement “Divorce is unacceptable”, the interpretation of the adjective “unacceptable” will vary according to their own views on the role of divorce.

In one’s native language, rapid and progressive integration of information foments the rapid interpretation of the message conveyed. But little is known about whether these information sources are used and retrieved during understanding in a second language.

A study published in Acta Psychologica has aimed to explore how and when assessment processes come into play when sentences are processed in a second language. The study was conducted by Albert Costa, ICREA researcher and coordinator of the Speech Production and Bilingualism Research Group with Alice Foucart, first author and member of his group, at UPF’s Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) and has involved the researchers from centres in the Basque Country.

Previous experiments indicated that in the understanding of a sentence, semantic processing and evaluation of its meaning are conducted online in native speakers, who not only analyse the words within context, but also evaluate the meaning of the sentence in accordance with their own moral values. Now the researchers wished to ascertain what happens in processing the same information in a second language, other than the native one, in relation to commonly accepted moral values. 

To do so, the experimental design consisted of examining brain activity (ERP, event-related potential) in two groups of individuals, a group of Spanish speakers (24) as a native language and the other group of speakers of French or Spanish as a second language (24). Both groups were asked to read some sentences (80) containing value judgements with high moral and ethical content, such as ”paedophilia should be prohibited/tolerated across the world”, “homosexuals should be accepted/exterminated in my opinion”, or “the fact that religion intervenes in politics is ridiculous/necessary, in my opinion”. Acceptance or rejection of the meaning of the sentences was recorded via ERP recording while the participants read them in their native language and in a second language.

Data analysis showed identical valuations in both groups, except that among native speakers when the sentence was in disagreement with their moral convictions, ie, they were immoral, the ERP recordings showed semantic and also pragmatic responses, whereas in a second language, the responses were practical and pragmatic in nature. The study authors have interpreted the results, saying that “this suggests that the assessment of the moral content of a sentence is faster in the first language than in the second language and online”.

This study was carried out thanks to funding from the Spanish government (PSI2011-23033,CONSOLIDER-INGENIO2010 CSD2007-00048, ECO2011-25295,  and ECO2010-09555-E), the government of the Generalitat of Catalonia (SGR 2009-1521) and the 7^th Framework Programme (AThEME 613 465). Clara Martin has had the support of the Basque Foundation for Science (IKERBASQUE) and of the BCBL Institution.

Article of reference:

Alice Foucart, Eva Moreno, Clara D. Martin, Albert Costa (2015), “Integration of moral values during L2 sentence processing”, Acta Psychologica, 162, 1-12.

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