The role of priming in grammatical acceptability judgements for native versus non-native speakers: Effects of intelligibility

Abstract

Comprehenders frequently need to adapt to linguistic variability between talkers and dialects. Previous research has shown, given repeated exposure to quasi-grammatical structures, comprehenders begin to perceive them as more grammatical (Luka & Barsalou 2005, Luka & Choi 2012). We examined whether grammatical acceptability judgements differ for native versus non-native speech. In an exposure phase, native English speakers listened to, retyped, and rated the grammaticality of quasi-grammatical sentences (e.g., What Emily is thankful for is that she is here) spoken by a native or non-native speaker. In a subsequent test phase, participants rated additional sentences, some of which had the same structure as exposure sentences. Participants rated native-accented sentences as more grammatical, demonstrating a role for talker identity in perceptions of grammaticality. Furthermore, structures previously heard during the exposure phase were rated as more grammatical than novel unprimed structures, but only for the native speaker. Subset analyses suggest this effect is driven by speaker intelligibility, which holds implications for communication between native and non-native speakers.