The Influence Of Predictability On Language Switching At Sentential Level

Predictability refers to the probability of surmising the target words according to the prior context when reading sentences or paragraphs. A great number of researches have revealed that predictability is one of the most important factors that can have an influence on word access. Specifically, it seems that target words with high predictability tend to be accessed more easily than target words with low predictability. And, language switching refers to a speaker's alternation between two or more languages when he or she communicates with the others. It is evident that most of the previous studies on predictability are based on monolingual researches which means that the quantity of the studies on predictability on language switching is quite limited. Besides, in the very small number of studies, fewer are carried out with high-resolution technologies such as ERPs,fMRI or eye-tracker.Based on the literature review of previous researches, the present study aims to explore the influence of predictability on language switching at sentential level with eye-tracker. The two research questions are as follows: (1) What are the features of switching cost and its asymmetry in low predictable sentences? (2) Are there any differences of switching cost and its asymmetry between low and high predictable sentences? If yes, what are they?Totally 72 Chinese-English bilinguals (15 males, 57 females) were adopted in the present study. During the experiment, the eye movement indexes of these subjects were firstly measured when they were reading four types of low predictable sentences (English,Chinese, English to Chinese, Chinese to English, 16 sentences for each condition and thus totally 64 sentences for each subject). Then, a further comparison between the present study and another study about high predicable sentences was made. After analyzing the research data, the present study yielded the final conclusions: (1) With low predictable sentences, switching cost from L1 to L2 tends to be much significant while no significant switching cost from L2 to L1 is found. What is more, switching cost and its asymmetry of L2 increase dramatically within the middle and late processing periods. (2) Obvious differences of switching cost and its asymmetry between high and low predictable sentences are observed: with high predictable sentences, switching cost from L2 to L1 is quite significant while switching cost from L1 to L2 is not. Besides, the increases of switching cost and its asymmetry with low predictable sentences are extremely larger than those with high predictable sentences.