An ERPs Investigation Into Brain Mechanisms Of Native Speakers And Chinese Efl Learners In English Sentence Processing

Sentence processing is the basic format and core of language comprehension. Researchers generally consider that sentence processing mainly involves syntactic and semantic processing, but there is also a debate about when and how they interact or integrate. Syntactic processing mainly focuses on the identification, monitoring, and construction. Semantic processing includes the semantic access, identification, match, and the processing of the design of subject assignment, which is based on the structure of syntax. Now there are two theories about sentence processing: modular and interactive theory. Friederici (2002) proposed a neuro-cognitive three-phase model based on the former two theories.Large evidence has proved that syntactic and semantic information are interactive. However, they did not point exactly which information is more important. In addition, the previous studies involved English and other Indo-European languages as subjects' native language (for instance, German, Dutch, and Spanish), second language, or foreign language. However, there are few studies which deal with the processing of EFL learners with Chinese as their native language. Therefore, the study on mental mechanisms of English sentence processing with Chinese learners can enrich the relative data of second language processing and comprehension and broaden or modify the related theoretical models.Based on Guo et al. (2009), the present study tried to use the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to study the brain mechanisms of native speakers and high and low proficiency Chinese EFL learners in English sentence processing. The study selected 40 university students as subjects, who are right handed and have no known impairment. Their age is between 20 and 28 years. The subjects are divided into 3 groups. A group is composed of 10 native English speakers. A group of high and a group of low proficiency Chinese EFL learners divided by their scores of spot dictation test, 15 people in each group. In the formal experiment, the brain waves of 40 subjects was recorded when they were reading sentences with verb sub-categorization. All the ERPs data were analyzed by SPSS 16.0 for windows. By analyzing ERPs components, the following results were obtained.(1) The N400 effect was showed in the low proficiency L2 learners, which revealed that they were semantic driven and tended to adopt semantic information when processing a sentence. In this group, the results indicate that semantic processing may be prior to syntactic processing;(2) The P600 and N400 effects were found in the high proficiency L2 learners, which showed semantic processing and syntactic processing interacted with each other when they comprehend English sentences;(3) The early left anterior negativity (ELAN) appeared in native English speakers. This result indicated that they could process sentences automatically.