An ERPs Study Of Advanced Chinese EFL Learners' Covert Nonnative-likeness In Sentence Production

Covert nonnative-likeness can be defined as “a phenomenon of FL production which bears the impress of L1 but keeps accordance with the norms of the target language's expressions”(Jiang & Zhou, 2015). Previous studies on covert nonnative-likeness are mainly limited to explorations at lexical level, few studies focus on covert nonnative-likeness at sentential level. What's more, few studies empirically validate the underlying cognitive mechanism of covert nonnative-likeness, especially from the perspective of language conceptual competence. Therefore, based on previous studies and the theory of linguistic conceptual competence put forward by Jiang(2015), the present study attempts to make a further exploration to the phenomenon of covert nonnative-likeness in advanced Chinese EFL learners by employing ERPs technique. The research question is: Does covert nonnative-likeness occur in advanced Chinese EFL learners ?The whole study adopted a 2 × 2 two-factor within-participant design, including non-priming condition and priming condition. Seventeen postgraduates majoring in English in Sichuan International Studies University(SISU) took part in the experiments. In the experiments, Chinese & English-shared conceptualization mode fillers(SF) and English-specific conceptualization mode fillers(EF) were selected as target words. Participants were required to first comprehend the English sentences with blanks and then judge whether the following words can be fitted into the previous presented English sentences. After that, the processing difference between SF and EF in advanced Chinese EFL learners will be explored by comparing and analyzing the differences in behavioral and ERPs data.The whole experiments were conducted in the Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience & Foreign Language Learning at SISU. All the experimental data were collected and recorded by the software Neuroscan4.5 and Synaps2 and calculated off-line by using the statistic software SPSS 19.0. The research findings are as follows:(1) Under non-priming condition, advanced Chinese EFL learners showed no significant distinction in reaction time(t(13)=-1.406, p=.183 > 0.05), but a significant distinction in accuracy rate(t(13)= 4.516, p=.001 < 0.01) in processing SF and EF. ERPs results showed that compared to SF, EF elicited an increased N400 and a reduced P600, showing significant distinction in amplitude(F(1,14) =6.70, p =.021 <.05) in the 250-450 ms time window, indicating the occurrence of covert nonnative-likeness.(2) Under priming condition, the data also revealed a significant distinction between SF and EF both in reaction time(t(13)=-2.378, p=.033 < 0.05) and accuracy rate(t(13)= 5.747, p=.000 < 0.001). ERPs results revealed that SF elicited a larger N400 and a decreased P600 relative to EF. Significant distinction was found in analysis over mean amplitude(F(1,14) =5.14, p =.040 <.05) in the 450-850 ms time window, indicating that the mobilization of L1 MC amplifies advanced Chinese EFL learners' preference for Chinese & English-shared mode of conceptualization, thus resulting in covert nonnative-likeness.(3) The comparison of two reading conditions(non-priming and priming condition) showed that the reaction time results are different from accuracy rate results in behavioral data. This may because as an indicator for covert nonnative-likeness, the sensitivity of reaction time was surpassed by that of accuracy rate at least for covert nonnative-likeness in FL production. And there exists difference between behavioral results and ERPs results, reflecting differences in processing mechanism.To sum up, covert nonnative-likeness do occurs in language use of advanced Chinese EFL learners. And the occurrence of covert nonnative-likeness is intimately connected to their inadequate FL conceptual competence and strong L1 conceptual competence.