The Processing Of English Simple Sentence By Chinese-english Bilinguals Of Different Proficiency: An ERP Study

Factors that influence L2 syntactic processing pose important but unsolved questions in the study of L2 acquisition. Previous studies have only discussed on the influence proficiency or L1 transfer has on L2 syntactic processing separately, while leaving us in the dark about how the two interact. This study discusses the roles of proficiency and L1 transfer as well as their interaction in the processing of simple English sentences by Chinese-English bilinguals of different proficiency. The current study also attempts to find out if late L2 learners are able to acquire formal,morpho-syntactic L2 structures missing in their L1. Through the study, the aim is purported to provide further electrophysiological proof and complement for existing theories of L2 syntactic processing.This study adopts the ERPs technique to study the neurological mechanism in the processing of sentences of typologically similar(Chinese and English), dissimilar and English-specific formal and morpho-syntactical structures by high- and low-proficiency Chinese late learners of the English language. In the comparison of neurological responses between Chinese-English bilinguals of the same proficiency in the processing of correct and incorrect sentences, and bilinguals of different proficiency in the processing of the same syntactic structures, the conclusions of this study as follows:Firstly, The current study finds that in high-proficiency Chinese-English bilinguals LAN-P600 components are elicited when processing sentences of similar syntactical structure, while in low-proficiency bilinguals only P600 in the centro-parietal area is shown. At the same time, no significant difference is found in the processing of dissimilar syntactical structures by the two subject groups. These findings show that,when reaching a high proficiency, bilinguals are able to acquire native-like processing mechanism. Also, the positive transfer of L1 can facilitate the processing of L2, for even low-proficiency learners are sensitive to the violations in similar structures. Owing to an influence from competing L1 syntax knowledge, even high-proficiency bilinguals appear not able to processing dissimilar structures implicitly, indicating that L1 transfer plays a more important role in L2 simple sentence processing.Secondly, when processing the subject-verb agreement structure nonexistent in Chinese, a LAN in the anterior area are elicited in high-proficiency bilinguals, while inlow-proficiency bilinguals only a N400 in the centro-parietal is found. The finding is consistent with the D/P model, which argues that along with the increase of proficiency,learners will depend more on procedural than on declarative knowledge. Furthermore,formal structures nonexistent in L1 harder to acquire than morpho-syntactic structures.Late L2 learners are able to acquire syntactical structures not found in their mother tongue when they reach high proficiency, supporting an acquirable opinion of the Unified Competition Model and Full Transfer Full Access Hypothesis.