Project Animacy in Relative Clause Production and Comprehension for L1 and L2 English Program Margo Katherine Wilke Undergraduate Research Internship Program Term Spring 2025 Status Accepted Research Area linguistics, language production, second language acquisition Description When using an object relative clause (ORC) to modify a noun, English speakers have a choice between active and passive structures. For example, they can say either the baby carried by the woman or the baby that the woman carries. This project explores how animacy influences the production and comprehension of object relative clauses (ORCs) in English by native English speakers and advanced second language (L2) English learners with Mandarin Chinese and Spanish backgrounds. Animacy, the distinction between animate and inanimate entities, has been shown to impact ORC structure choices, particularly the preference for passive constructions when both the head noun (e.g. baby) and agent (e.g. woman) are animate. However, existing research often simplifies animacy into a binary classification and rarely includes diverse L2 learner groups. The current study, led by PhD student Yue Li, incorporates a comprehensive picture-based elicitation task and a comprehension decision task to investigate ORC production and processing across four animacy conditions: AA (animate head noun, animate agent), AI (animate head noun, inanimate agent), IA (inanimate head noun, animate agent), and II (inanimate head noun, inanimate agent). English native speakers, as well as L2 learners from Mandarin and Spanish backgrounds, will participate. Key research questions address the animacy effect on structure preferences, differences between native and L2 speakers, and the role of individual factors like working memory and language proficiency. This project will advance our understanding of animacy’s role in ORC structure decisions, also uncover cross-linguistic influences in ORC processing, and provide insights into the broader field of bilingualism and second language acquisition. Supervisor Elaine J Francis Mentor Yue Li Type of work required In the spring 2025 semester, the undergraduate intern would assist with the project in the following ways: (1) creating a bibliography from PDF files provided by the supervisors; (2) helping run participants in the lab and online via the Gorilla experiment platform; (3) helping code the experiment data. The intern will have the chance to present their work in the spring undergraduate research symposium. Websites https://cla.purdue.edu/english/francislab/ Qualifications The intern should have: (1) a foundational background in linguistics, with at least one completed course in the field; (2) some basic experience with Python coding, though advanced programming skills or the ability to write code from scratch are not necessary, as pre-written scripts will be provided by the mentor; (3) enthusiasm for learning new skills. Prior knowledge of experiment procedures or specific software is not required, as training will be provided during the project. Credit Hours 2 Weekly Hours 6 (estimated)