An ERP Study On The Processing Of English Syntactic Ambiguity For Chinese Native Speakers

It remains unclear whether late second language learners' syntactic processing ability can reach native speakers' level.Some researchers advocate that late second language learners' syntactic ability can reach native speakers' level.The representative theories are the United Competition model and the Declarative/Procedural model.However,other researchers argue that late second learners' syntactic ability can not reach native speakers' level.The representative theory is the Shallow Structure hypothesis.Relevant empirical research results are also controversial.The current ERP study examined L2 English garden-path sentence(GPs)processing in late and highly proficient L1 Chinese-L2 English learners,to investigate whether or not Chinese learners of English show the same syntactic ambiguity processing pattern as English native speakers',and to test the influence of syntactic structural similarity on garden-path sentence processing.Behavioral data showed: higher accuracy rates occurred in the English native speakers than in Chinese learners of English.ERP results showed Chinese learners of English evoked a larger P250 and more positive-going N400 than English native speakers.In addition,English native speakers evoked an LAN,but Chinese learners of English did not.It will be argued that there is significant difference in complex syntactic processing between Chinese learners of English and English native speakers.Firstly,Chinese learners of English' syntactic representation was significantly weaker than English native speakers'.The P250 reflected the match degree between syntactic structure built on disambiguating words in GPs or key verbs in N-GPs and syntactic presentation of subjects.The higher the match degree was,the smaller the amplitude was.Chinese learners of English' syntactic representation was significantly weaker than English native speakers',causing the match degree between built syntactic structure and Chinese learners of English' syntactic representation was lower,so inducing a larger P250.Secondly,there was significant difference in thematic role assignment between Chinese learners of English and English native speakers.The LAN reflected thematic role assignment,and only English native speakers evoked an LAN.Furthermore,initial syntactic processing deficiency inhibited later semantic processing for Chinese learners of English,so inducing a more positive-going N400.The results also indicate that syntactic structure similarity promotes L2 syntactic processing.The match degree between the syntactic structures built on disambiguating words in Chinese-English similar GPs and syntactic presentation was higher than dissimilar GPs,so inducing a smaller P250.However,it didn't make Chinese learners of English get native-like processing pattern.In sum,the present study investigated Chinese learners of English how to process English garden-path sentences.The behavioral and ERP data reflect the late and highly proficient second language learners do not have the same syntactic processing ability with native speakers,which is consistent with Shallow Structure hypothesis.