Implicit causality (IC) is a well-known phenomenon whereby certain verbs appear to create biases to remention either their subject or object in a causal dependent clause. This study investigated to what extent Korean learners of English made use of IC information for predictive processing at a discourse level, and whether L2 proficiency played a modulating role in this process. Results from a visual-world eye-tracking experiment showed early use of IC information in both L1 and L2 listeners, yet the effect was weaker and emerged later in the L2 group. None of three independent and intercorrelated proficiency measures modulated L2 listeners’ processing behavior. The findings suggest that L2 listeners are able to engage in prediction during real-time processing at a discourse level, although they did so to a more limited extent than native speakers in this study. We discuss these findings in light of similar evidence from other recent work.

中文翻译：

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第二语言中隐含因果关系的预测处理

隐含因果关系（IC）是一种众所周知的现象，某些动词似乎会产生偏见，以在因果从属从句中提及它们的主语或宾语。本研究调查了韩国英语学习者在何种程度上利用 IC 信息进行语篇水平的预测处理，以及 L2 熟练程度是否在这一过程中发挥了调节作用。视觉世界眼动追踪实验的结果表明，在 L1 和 L2 听众中早期使用 IC 信息，但效果较弱，并且在 L2 组中出现较晚。三个独立和相互关联的熟练程度测量都没有调节 L2 听众的处理行为。研究结果表明，L2 听众能够在话语级别的实时处理过程中进行预测，尽管在本研究中他们这样做的程度比以母语为母语的人要有限。我们根据其他近期工作的类似证据来讨论这些发现。