| Recently,it has been manifested that studies of code-switching(CS hereafter)are in an interdisciplinary fashion with fruitful achievements.Still,the interplay between theoretical and empirical studies of CS needs to be reinforced to a much deeper extent.First of all,studies regarding the syntactic aspects of CS are in their infancy and the pertinent theories based on evidence of the Indo-European family desperately require to be supported by more converging and cross-linguistic evidence.Comparatively,so far,little is known about the syntactic aspects of Chinese-English CS with regards to domestic studies.Secondly,the syntactic aspects of CS are far from consensus,and the theoretical disputes reside in the existence of CS-specific "the third grammar"which is independent of bilingual syntactic systems,namely,the disputes between"the constraint-based account" and "the constraint-free account".Lastly,two crucial issues like the time-course of CS processing and the role of language proficiency in CS alike is not satisfactorily settled,leaving much space to further explore.Given all the aforementioned,the present study,by applying the syntactic approach at the morphological,phonological and sentential level,attempts to ask two groups of Chinese EFL learners in different language proficiency to participate in three"temporally sensitive and ecologically valid" eye-movement experiments,in the hope of explicating the syntactic aspects of CS with converging and cross-linguistic online evidence.Consequently,three general research questions are put forward.First,can Chinese-English CS costs be observed at morphological level?If yes,what characterizes such costs?Second,can Chinese-English CS costs be observed at phonological level?If yes,what characterizes such costs?Third,can Chinese-English CS costs be observed at sentential level?If yes,what characterizes such costs?Concerning those questions,three eye-movement tasks of Chinese-English CS were conducted as follows.To be specific,Experiment 1:Functional category of code-switched DPs at morphological level.The present experiment,by means of analyzing the eye-movement indexes between two groups of participants,attempted to discover the processing mechanisms at morphological level.31 post-graduates majoring in English and the other 32 post-graduates majoring in non-English were recruited to take part in the eye-movement task,which were regarded as the advanced and intermediate group,respectively.In this sense,a mixed ANOVA design with 2(Language Proficiency:High vs.Intermediate)×4(Conditions)was established.And Language Proficiency was the between-group variable,Conditions the within-group variable.Experiment 2:Syllabically-overlapped code-switched DPs at phonological level.The present experiment,by means of analyzing the eye-movement indexes between two groups of participants,attempted to discover the processing mechanisms at phonological level.28 post-graduates majoring in English and the other 29 post-graduates majoring in non-English were recruited to take part in the eye-movement task,which were regarded as the advanced and intermediate group,respectively.For avoiding the repetition effects,two experimental sessions which will present either the syllabic overlapped or non-overlapped materials were deliberately set to last from around 2 months interval.In this sense,a mixed ANOVA design with 2(Language Proficiency:High vs.Intermediate)×2(Syllabic-overlap:Overlapped vs.Non-overlapped)×4(Conditions)was established.And Language Proficiency was the between-group variable,Syllabic-overlap and Conditions the within-group variable.Experiment 3:Wh-question in code-switched sentences at sentential level The present experiment,by means of analyzing the eye-movement indexes between two groups of participants,attempted to discover the processing mechanisms at sentential level.28 post-graduates majoring in English and the other 29 post-graduates majoring in non-English were recruited to take part in the eye-movement task,which were regarded as the advanced and intermediate group,respectively.In this sense,a mixed ANOVA design with 2(Language Proficiency:High vs.Intermediate)×4(Conditions)was established.And Language Proficiency was the between-group variable,Conditions the within-group variable.Taken together,research findings could be summarized as follows.First,Chinese-English CS costs can be observed at morphological leve.Specifically,switch costs at code-switched conditions seem to differ from each other.Consequently,the syntactic aspects of Chinese-English CS at morphological level cannot be supported by the "functional head constraint(FHC)",a typical representative of "the constraint-based account",but by the theoretical predictions of "Minimalist Program(MP)",a representative of "the constraint-free account".Second,Chinese-English CS costs can be observed at phonological level.Specifically,switch costs of syllabically-overlapped conditions do not differ from each other,while switch costs at code-switched conditions seem to differ from each other.Thus,the syntactic aspects of Chinese-English CS at phonological level cannot be supported by the ’"triggering theory",a typical representative of "the constraint-based account",but by the theoretical predictions of "MP",a representative of "the constraint-free account".Third,Chinese-English code-switching costs can be observed at sentential level,specifically,switch costs of wh-question in different code-switched sentences seem to differ from each other.Therefore,the syntactic aspects of Chinese-English CS at sentential level can further be supported by the theoretical predictions of "MP",a representative of "the constraint-free account".Above all,"the third grammar" which is independent of bilingual syntactic systems might be non-existent.Furthermore,the exploration regards the time-course of Chinese-English CS,as a whole,reveals that robust switch effects can be observed from the very early stage to the late stage of CS processing,which could be explained by the ideas of "coactivation in bilingual grammars" under the "Gradient Symbolic Computation".Lastly,as far as the effects of language proficiency among three experiments are concerned,language proficiency might play a limited modulating role in Chinese-English CS.That is,the fact that both groups of participants acquired the uninterpretable features(e.g.,‘[+uNum]’or’[+uwh]’)supported the theoretical predictions of "the Full Transfer/Full Access Model(FTFAM)".The contributions of the present study were also obtained as follows.First,theoretical contributions.The present study posed threat to the existence of "the third grammar" as the typical representative of "the constraint-based account",so as to ensure the theoretical stance of "the constraint-free account" in Chinese-English CS.New evidence of "coactivation in bilingual grammars" under the "Gradient Symbolic Computation" was provided,given the consideration of time-course of CS.Furthermore,as far as two groups of participants in different language proficiency were concerned,the present study also supported the theoretical predictions of "the Full Transfer/Full Access Model(FTFAM)",in terms of the parameter resetting of SLA.Second,research methods.The present study combined the well-acknowledged syntactic acceptability task and the "temporally sensitive and ecologically valid"eye-movement task,which could also provide the sensitive and reliable bonanza of data,so as to reveal the time-course of CS.Third,research participants.The present study,by comparing two groups of Chinese EFL learners in different language proficiency,enriched the research participants of CS studies,which could also provide the converging and cross-linguistic evidence for the syntactic aspects of CS,so as to extend the universality of theories.Four,research framework.The present study made a comprehensive exploration of three linguistic levels(i.e.,the morphological,phonological and sentential level),two syntactic operations(’Merge’ and ’Move’)and two theoretical disputes(’the constraint-based account’ vs.’the constraint-free account’)regarding Chinese-English CS,which could also provide the ready-made framework for the syntactic aspects of CS,so as to fertilize the research dimensions for subsequent studies. |
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