An E-Prime Study Of L1 Conceptual Transfer In Chinese EFL Learners’ Processing Of English Sentences

From the perspective of conceptual competence, conceptual transfer can be defined as follow :conceptual competence is the involvement of one language’s conceptual competence system in another language’s conceptual competence system.This kind of involvement can overtly happen at language level, or covertly at conceptual level. The previous studies of conceptual transfer are mainly theoretical,few studies are empirical ones.Among the few empirical studies,most focus on collecting specific evidences of conceptual transfer, and small quantities of studies on the cognitive process of conceptual transfer from the aspect of language processing.The current research adopts the empirical study by way of reaction time and accuracy to explore the conceptual transfer from native language’s effect on L2 sentence processing. Three research questions are put forward:(1).Does L1 conceptual transfer take place in L2 sentence processing of Chinese EFL learners?(2). If the conceptual transfer take place, is there any difference existing in sentence processing between primed and unprimed condition respectively?(3). Does the effect of L1 conceptual transfer decrease with the increase on the degree of L2 proficiency of Chinese EFL learners?The qualitative research is applied to the current study. Totally, fifteen postgraduates and fifteen students from the second and third year of graduates majoring in English in Sichuan International Studies University(SISU), are chosen to participate in the experiment. The stimuli, programmed by E-prime2.0, are presented at random on the 19 inch wide screen. The subjects are required to carry out sensibility judgement by pressing the button upon understanding the sentences, followed by a corresponding question which is presented to be judged by subjects whether the answer is yes or no. The behavioral data of reaction time and accuracy rate are put into the statistic software SPSS. The experiment is completed in the Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience & Foreign Language Learning in SISU.The research obtains the following findings :(1)With regard to the comparison between comprehending SMC sentence and EMC sentence under unprimed condition, there is insignificant difference in respond time[t(29)=-1.721, p=.090] but significant in accuracy rate [t(29)= 2.798, p=.000],while under primed condition,there is significant difference in respond time[t(29)=-3.062, p=.005] but insignificant in accuracy rate [t(29) =1.602, p=.08].Therefore,The conclusion is given that there exist significant difference in processing SMC and EMC sentence,and the speed of processing SMC sentence is more faster,which indicates that conceptual transfer takes place in sentence processing.(2)With regard to the comparison of comprehending SMC sentence and EMC sentence respectively between unprimed and primed conditions, there are all statistically significant in respond time [EMC: t(29)=7.152, p=.000; SMC:t(29)=9.749, p=.000] and accuracy rate [EMC: t(29)=-3.399, p=.002; SMC: t(29)=-2.371, p=.025]; It is indicated that there is significant differences existing in sentence processing under two conditions,and it is quicker in speed under primed condition than unprimed condition.(3)With regard to the comparison of comprehending SMC sentence and EMC sentence respectively of primary group between unprimed and primed conditions, there are statistically significant in respond time[EMC: t(29)=7.128, p=.000; SMC:t(29)=8.613,p=.002] and accuracy rate [EMC: t(29)=-3.279, p=.002; SMCt(29)=-2.281,p=.025],While that of advanced group between two conditions are statistically insignificant in respond time [EMC: t(29)=7.013, p=.063; SMC: t(29)=7.896, p=.08] and accuracy rate [EMC:t(29)=-3.182,p=.054; SMC: t(29)=-2.034, p=.072], Which means EFL learners of different fluency suffers different degree effect of conceptual transfer, and high fluency of learners suffer less than low fluency learners.