An ERPs Study Of The Asymmetrical Effects In Chinese EFL Learners' Processing Of English And Chinese Same-translation Words

Because of its particularity,the acquisition of the same-translation words has become one of the difficulties and key points in the field of research on second language acquisition.In the past few decades,many scholars have explored the psychological mechanism of bilingual lexical processing from the perspectives of theory and practice.However,these researches seldom involve the processing of same-translation words especially the same-translation effect.So far,few scholars at home and abroad have provided a number of all-round evidence for the existence of L1 same-translation effect by investigating the processing of same-translation words of bilinguals whose second language is English.However,the existence of L2 same-translation effect varies from experimental condition.Therefore,based on previous studies,this paper explores the same-translation effect in Chinese EFL learners' processing of English and Chinese vocabulary by using ERPs technology and taking reaction time and EEG as indicators.The specific research questions as follows:(1)Does Chinese(L1)same-translation effect happen in Chinese EFL learners' processing of English vocabulary?(2)Does English(L2)same-translation effect happen in Chinese EFL learners' processing of Chinese vocabulary?(3)Is there an asymmetry of the same-translation effect in Chinese EFL learners' processing of English and Chinese vocabulary?This study adopts a 3(processing condition: non-priming,subliminal priming and supraliminal priming)×2(processing language: English and Chinese)withinsubject design which consists of six parts: non-priming English vocabulary processing,subliminal priming English vocabulary processing,supraliminal priming English vocabulary processing,non-priming Chinese vocabulary processing,subliminal priming Chinese vocabulary processing,and supraliminal priming Chinese vocabulary processing.22 postgraduates majoring in English from Sichuan International Studies University are selected as participants and are asked to perform a lexical decision task.This study selects English word pairs shared one translation in Chinese,Chinese word pairs shared one translation in English and semantic unrelated words as target words which need to be judged whether are words or nonwords.These experiments were carried out in the Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience and Foreign Language Learning at Sichuan International Studies University.ERPs data was obtained and analyzed by the software of Neuroscan 4.5 then was analyzed by adopting one-way ANOVO,repeated measures one-way ANOVO,three-factors repeated measures ANOVO and pairwise comparison through SPSS 16.0.The specific are as follows:(1)The behavior data shows: under the condition of non-priming vocabulary processing,there is no significant difference(F=.166,p=.848 >.05)between participants' reaction time of judging English same-translation pairs and English unrelated words,which shows that L1 same-translation effect does not happen;there are all significant differences between RT of judging Chinese same-translation pairs(F=6.137,p=.026<.05),and between first words in Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words(F=9.765,p=.007<.05),and between second words in Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words(F=28.399,p=.000<.05),which shows that L2 same-translation effect does not happen.Under the condition of subliminal priming vocabulary processing,there is no significant difference(F=1.868,p=.192>.05)between RT of judging English same-translation pairs,but significant differences between first words in English same-translation pairs and English unrelated words(F=15.575,p=.001<.05),and between second words in English same-translation pairs and English unrelated words(F=12.469,p=.003<.05),which shows that L1 same-translation effect happens;there is only significant difference between first words in Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words(F=5.934,p=.028 <.05),which shows that L2 same-translation effect does not happen.Under the condition of supraliminal priming vocabulary processing,there are all significant differences between RT of judging English same-translation pairs(F=8.814,p=.010<.05),and between first words in English same-translation pairs and English unrelated words(F=40.13,p=.000<.05),and between second words in English same-translation pairs and English unrelated words(F=5.366,p=.035<.05),which shows that L1 same-translation effect does not happen;but there is only significant difference between first words in Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words(F=7.514,p=.015<.05),which shows that L2 same-translation effect does not happen.(2)The ERPs data shows that the participants' processing of English and Chinese vocabulary under three kinds of processing conditions evokes obvious N100,P200 and N400.Under the non-priming condition,there is no significant difference of N100,N200 and N400 evoked over latency,amplitude and mean amplitude in the English vocabulary processing,which shows that L1 same-translation effect does not happen;there is no significant difference of N400 over amplitude between judging Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words(p=.755>.05),which shows that L2 same-translation effect does not happen.Under the subliminal priming condition,participants' processing of English unrelated words evokes a N400 with longer latency than the processing of English same-translation pairs,which shows that L1 same-translation effect happens;but there is no significant difference of N100,P200 and N400 over amplitude between the processing of Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words,which shows that L2 same-translation effect does not happen.Under the supraliminal priming,there is no significant difference between the processing of English same-translation pairs(p=.664>.05),significant difference between first words in English same-translation pairs and English unrelated words(p=.018<.05),and between second words in English same-translation pairs and English unrelated words(p=.004<.05)over latency of N400,which shows that L1 same-translation effect happens;there is no significant difference between the processing of Chinese same-translation pairs(p=.38>.05),significant differences between first words in Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words(p=.001<.05),and between second words in Chinese same-translation pairs and Chinese unrelated words(p=.018<.05)over latency of N400,which shows that L2 same-translation effect happen.By combining behavior data and ERPs data described above,under non-priming condition,neither L1 same-translation effect nor L2 same-translation effect happens;under subliminal priming condition,only L1 same-translation effect happens;under supraliminal priming condition,both L1 same-translation effect and L2 same-translation effect happens,which indicates that Chinese EFL learners' processing of English and Chinese same-translation words shows an asymmetric effect.