Context Constraint To The Relative Embodiment Effect Of Verbs For Chinese L2 English Learners

Based on the framework of the embodied cognition,this paper aims to probe if the relative embodiment effect of verbs could be constrained in sentences.Through questionnaires and QPT test 2,30 advanced English learners are selected,and the objects of the study are 40 verbs with different relative embodiment scales,which are chosen from the 678 verbs with relative embodied scales of Sidhu & Pexman(2014).The study consists of two experiments.Experiment 1 is taken as a control part,which examines the embodied effect of verbs in non-context for Chinese L2 English learners;and Experiment 2 is the major part that examines the embodied effect of verbs in sentences.Using E-prime 2.0,SPSS 19.0,and other research tools,we explored the various effects of counterfactual context and factual context on the processing of verbs with different embodied scales by collecting the response latencies and the accuracy rate for Chinese L2 English learners.The experimental results indicate that:(1)lexical processing in the context of sentence appears significant contextual effects,which means that in the context of sentences,the effect of relative embodiment on the processing of verbs with different embodied scales is constrained;(2)by comparing the response latency and accuracy of verb processing in factual sentences and counterfactual sentences,we find that the restriction on relative embodiment from sentence context is influenced according to the embodied meaning representation of verbs.That is,if sentence context emphasizes action meaning of the verb,the relative embodiment will appear strong effect on verb processing;if the sentence context emphasizes the descriptive meaning,the relative embodiment will be constrained.In Experiment 2,verb processing in declarative sentence and the subjunctive sentence guided by “suggest” emphasizes the action meaning rather than the descriptive meaning,so there is a significant difference in processing of verbs with high embodiment scale and verbs with low embodiment scale,while for subjunctive sentence guided by “wish”,it emphasizes the descriptive meaning and the individual’s subjective will rather than the action itself,so there is no significant difference in the processing speed of verbs with different embodied scales.This paper explains and analyzes the above results based on the theory of embodied language simulation.