Misha Naveed
Pronouns: She/Her
Research Mentor(s): Natasha Vernooij
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 6 – 4:40pm – 5:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Misha Naveed, Natasha Vernooij
Presenter: 67
Abstract
Code-switching between languages is a common part of bilingual communities. These practices have been found to vary between bilingual communities in how often and when individuals code-switch (Adamou & Shen, 2017). However little is known about the factors that deem certain sentences more acceptable than others to a community. This study is the first of two experiments created to gain an understanding of grammar preferences of bilinguals by examining the role of adjective-noun word orders on sentence acceptability. In this experiment, 36 Spanish-English bilinguals from El Paso, TX were presented with Spanish sentences utilizing four types of adjectives (mandatory post-nominal, mandatory pre-nominal, either position with no change in meaning, either position with change in meaning) in different adjective-noun word orders (noun-adjective or adjective-noun) within a sentence. Through a Qualtrics survey participants were asked to rate the sentences on a scale from 1 (bad) to 7 (good) on how acceptable the sentence was to them. The study found that mandatory post-nominal and no change adjectives were rated the highest in the noun-adjective word order condition compared to mandatory pre-nominal and change adjectives, which were rated the highest in the adjective-noun condition. These results suggest post-nominal and no change adjectives are preferred in the noun-adjective condition and seen are unacceptable in adjective-noun conditions. This can inform us of how bilinguals actually use these types of adjectives, which can be useful for teaching Spanish learners the acceptable uses of certain adjectives. The results of this experiment will be expanded to inform the stimuli creation for future experiments on code-switching between adjectives and nouns.
Interdisciplinary, Social Sciences
