A Study Of Typicality Effect Of English Words In Picture-word Interference Paradigm-a Contrastive Analysis Between Chinese EFL Learners And English Native Speakers

Speech production refers to converting ideas into language (Peng, et al,1997). The process containsthree levels: conceptualization, formulation, and articulation (Zhang&Yang,2003). Analyzing the reactiontime in picture-word interference paradigm (a usual method in language production), researchers havefound the semantic context effects and try to explain them. The first hypothesis is the Lexical Selection byCompetition (Roelofs,1992), which states that a semantic related distractor causes interference because itreceives more activation (both from the distractor word and from the related picture). Other explanationsinclude assumption of Comparative Level of Categorization (Costa,2003) and Response RelevanceHypothesis (Lupker,1979). Those hypotheses were proposed on the basis of studies of the semanticrelationship between distractor words and pictures, with no consideration for intrinsic properties of thedistractors, like word typicality, frequency, length, familiarity.This study aims to check typicality effect while controlling semantic relationship. Based on the aims,three questions are proposed.(1) What are the effects of typical and non-typical distractors for Chinese EFLlearners in the PWI paradigm?(2) What are the main differences of typicality effect in PWI paradigmbetween Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers?(3) What are the possible causes of thesedifferences?Two experiments are conducted to testify those hypotheses that typical distractors have loweractivation threshold, get more activation, and interfere more than atypical distractors. The analysis of theresults reaches the following findings.(1) Compared with atypical words, typical words do interfere morewith semantic effects in PWI paradigm for the Chinese EFL learners, but there is no typicality effect fornative speakers.(2) Obviously, the interference effects are greatly different between the Chinese EFLlearners and English native speakers.(3) The differences of the typicality effect between the Chinese EFLlearners and the native speakers are caused by different culture and institution, and can be explained by thehypotheses mentioned above.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One gives introduction to the research background, research significance, research objectives and the organization of the research.Chapter Two is literature review of related studies on semantic effect in PWI paradigm and thehypotheses for explaining those effects. It also provides the theoretical framework for the present research.Chapter Three focuses on research questions, data selection, research methodology, and procedures.Chapter Four is the main part of this research. First, it discusses the results of two experiments. Thenthe differences of typicality effect between Chinese EFL learners and English native speakers are explainedfrom perspective of some hypotheses. Last, it analyzes the causes for the differences between the ChineseEFL learners and English native speakers.Chapter Five draws a conclusion. It summarizes the findings, implications, and limitations of thepresent study. In addition, suggestions for further studies are presented at the end of this chapter.