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Judgment and Interpretation Tasks in Second Language Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2014

Tania Ionin  and
Eve Zyzik
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Abstract

This article provides an overview of recent studies in second language acquisition that use tasks that elicit learners' judgments about the grammaticality of language or learners' interpretation of language. We discuss acceptability judgment tasks, preference tasks, truth-value judgment tasks, and other types of interpretation tasks. For each task type, recent studies that use that task are briefly summarized, with a focus on advantages and disadvantages of the methodology in relation to the study's objectives. A variety of topics related to task administration are covered, including (but not limited to) different types of rating scales; presentation of target sentences in isolation versus in the context of other sentences, stories, and/or pictures; visual versus auditory modality of presentation; and timed versus untimed tasks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual Review of Applied Linguistics , Volume 34 , March 2014 , pp. 37 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cowart, W. (1997). Experimental syntax. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

This textbook covers the construction, administration, and analysis of acceptability judgment tasks that test syntactic phenomena. Although the book focuses exclusively on experimental syntactic research with native speakers, the content is fully applicable to research with second language learners. The topics covered include a detailed discussion of experimental design and an introduction to statistical analysis.

Dąbrowska, E. (2010). Naïve versus expert intuitions: An empirical study of acceptability judgments. The Linguistic Review, 27, 1–23.

This article discusses many of the methodological issues associated with AJTs as necessary background to an empirical study in which linguists (of both generative and functional orientations) were compared to nonlinguists in their evaluation of sentences containing long-distance dependencies. The results indicate that linguists’ judgments diverge from those of the general population. Dąbrowska suggests that this is due to linguists’ frequent exposure to specific kinds of ungrammatical sentences.

Ellis, R. (2005). Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 141–172.

In this article Ellis describes a battery of tests, including two versions of an acceptability judgment task, that were designed to provide relatively independent measures of implicit and explicit knowledge. The results of psychometric testing indicate that timed and untimed AJTs measure different types of knowledge; time pressure seems to encourage participants to rely on their implicit knowledge while an untimed AJT is more likely to tap explicit knowledge.

Ionin, T. (2012). Formal theory-based methodologies. In Mackey, A. & Gass, S. (Eds.), Research methods in second language acquisition: A practical guide (pp. 30–52). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

This book chapter covers the use of judgment and interpretation tasks in formal, generative research with adult second language learners. The chapter includes a step-by-step tutorial on designing acceptability judgment tasks and truth-value judgment tasks, as well as several study questions that ask readers to design judgment tasks and to interpret sample data.

Schmitt, C., & Miller, K. (2010). Using comprehension methods in language acquisition research. In Blom, E. & Unsworth, S. (Eds.), Experimental methods in language acquisition research (pp. 35–56). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

This book chapter provides an overview of the use of truth-value judgment tasks, picture-matching tasks, and act-out tasks in research with both first and second language learners. The format and administration of each task are discussed, as are its relative advantages and disadvantages. The chapter ends with a list of do's and don’ts in the use of interpretation tasks.

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