An ERP Study On The Prenominal Adjective Order-Evidences From English Native Speakers And Advanced Chinese English Learners

Previous studies on prenominal adjective order mainly focus on native speakers without paying much attention to the comparison between native speakers and foreign language learners,not to mention the employment of Event-related potentials(ERP)technology.Therefore,in terms of prenominal adjective order,this thesis compares English native speakers with advanced Chinese English learners in order to answer the following two questions:(1)Do English native speakers and advanced Chinese English learners employ the same language-processing mechanism when they process prenominal adjective order?(2)Is there any chance that advanced Chinese English learners can reach native-like language integration in terms of prenominal adjective order?This thesis employed ERP technology to record participants’ neurological data and SPSS to analyze the data.The results turned out that English native speakers elicited P300 effect in 250-350ms time-window in reversed prenominal adjective order.P300 effect was related with top-down attention-driven process,since reversed order was more effective than preferred order in engaging participants’ attention.LPP(Late Positive Potential)effect was observed in the 500-800ms time-window in reversed prenominal adjective order.LPP effect was relevant to reflect the emotional intensity and memory comparison.Participants needed repetitive viewing and syntactic processing when unexpected stimuli appeared.P300 effect and LPP effect explained that English native speakers employed attention allocation,memory comparison and syntactic structure to observe prenominal adjective order repeatedly in order to extract proper information.As for advanced Chinese English learners,although no reliable ERP component was found in EEG(electroencephalogram),SPSS showed N400 effect in 350-500ms time-window in reversed prenominal adjective order.N400 was relevant to participants’ semantic processing toward stimuli,which indicated that advanced Chinese English learners failed to find the violation of prenominal adjective order and they just employed semantic processing to extract information.Based on the above findings,English native speakers are sensitive to the difference between.preferred order and reversed order,employing attention allocation,memory comparison and syntactic structure to do deep processing.Advanced Chinese English learners just employ semantic structure to process prenominal adjective order.It is possible to state that English native speakers and advanced Chinese English learners employ different language-processing mechanisms and advanced Chinese English learners fail to achieve native-like language integration in terms of prenominal adjective order.