Chinese L2 Learners’ Use Of Lexical-semantic And Syntactic Information In English Relative Clause Processing

A Relative clause is a common linguistic phenomenon in most languages. The English natives, according to previous research, make use of both lexical-semantic and syntactic information in processing RC constructions. However, studies conflicted as to whether L2 learners are able to employ both lexical-semantic and syntactic information during English RC processing. Some, especially the Shallow Structure Hypothesis(SSH), holds that L2 learners rely overwhelmingly on non-syntactic cues such as lexical-semantic ones, while others found that L2 speakers of English are capable of employing a syntactic processing route like the English natives, which is against the SSH. Moreover, the question of whether L2 proficiency and L1 transfer affect Chinese-English learners’ processing of English RCs is also far from consistent in the present literature.Therefore, this study, through investigating proficient and less-proficient Chinese-English learners’ online reading of both English and Chinese relative clauses, explores whether they adopt both lexical-semantic and syntactic information in processing English RCs, and whether their processing strategies of English RCs were affected by L2 proficiency and corresponding L1 processing strategies. And then it tries to account for the findings with current L2 processing theories and examines the possibility of L1 transfer.Three research questions are raised: 1) Do Chinese-English learners use both lexical-semantic information and syntactic information in processing English RCs? If yes, then how? 2) Does L2 proficiency affect Chinese-English learners’ processing strategies of English RCs? If yes, then how? 3) Are Chinese-English learners’ processing strategies of English RCs influenced by their corresponding L1 processing strategies? If yes, then how?An online self-paced reading experiment is designed in response to the three questions. The materials include English and Chinese RCs which are manipulated in their clause type(subject RCs versus object RCs) and the animacy of the heads and RC-internal NPs(animate heads and inanimate RC-internal NPs versus inanimate heads and animate RC-internal NPs). And the participants are proficient and less-proficient Chinese-English learners.The experiment leads to the following findings: 1) In processing English RCs, proficient Chinese-English learners use both lexical-semantic and syntactic information, while less-proficient Chinese-English learners rely mainly on lexical-semantic cues; 2) In processing Chinese RCs, the participants, in spite of their English proficiency, depend on not only lexical-semantic but also syntactic information.The findings suggest that L2 proficiency affects Chinese-English learners’ processing strategies of English RCs and with increased L2 proficiency, Chinese learners are able to process English input both lexical-semantically and syntactically, which challenges the Shallow Structure Hypothesis but tallies with the declarative/procedural model. Besides, contrary to previous offline research, no L1 transfer effect is found, which is probably due to an independent L2 processing mechanism for English RCs. In sum, the present study is believed to have contributed to a better understanding of Chinese-English learners’ processing of English RCs and has rich theoretical and empirical implications.