Syntactic Surprisal Effects in Second Language English Reading: Electroencephalography Evidence During Naturalistic Text Comprehension

Abstract We examined neural responses to probabilistic syntactic information during skilled L2 reading. English L2 readers from Spanish, Korean, and Chinese L1 backgrounds, with varying levels of English proficiency, read naturalistic texts from The New York Times while electroencephalography (EEG) data were recorded. Neural sensitivity to probabilistic syntactic information was assessed by relating event‐related potential (ERP) responses to syntactic surprisal. Although an early anterior negativity linked to syntactic surprisal has been reported in L1 English readers (Chen et al., 2025), we did not observe a comparable early effect in L2 readers. Instead, L2 groups showed a consistent and robust syntactic surprisal effect in the N400 window, with little evidence that its timing or magnitude varied with L1 background or L2 proficiency. These findings suggest that skilled L2 readers, like native readers, recruit probabilistic syntactic information while reading naturalistic texts; however, neural sensitivity to this information emerges later in skilled L2 readers.