The Effects Of Intra-lingual And Inter-lingual Factors On Chinese Learners' Processing Of English Verb-argument Constructions

Recent research on L2 construction learning from the Usage-based Approaches mainly focuses on the production of verb-argument constructions(henceforth,VACs),with little attention being given to the processing of VACs.The current study aims to investigate the effects of intra-lingual and inter-lingual factors on Chinese learners' processing of English verb-argument constructions.The intra-lingual factors being investigated include construction frequency and contingency(the association strength between a verb-argument construction and a specific verb).The inter-lingual factor refers to the first language and second language congruency.Three research questions are addressed:(1)How do intra-lingual factors affect Chinese learners' processing of verb-argument constructions in terms of response time and accuracy rate?Are they different from native speakers in this processing?(2)How does inter-lingual factor affect Chinese learners' processing of verb-argument constructions in terms of response time and accuracy rate?(3)How do intra-and inter-lingual factors interactively affect Chinese learners' processing of verb-argument constructions in terms of response time and accuracy rate?Two experiments were carried out,including an online acceptability judgment task and a self-paced reading task.Experiment 1 examined Chinese learners' processing of English VACs in decontextualized conditions.38 Chinese learners and 29 English native speakers participated in the task.Frequency(frequent vs.infrequent),contingency(high vs.low)and congruency(congruent vs.incongruent)were manipulated and eight experiment conditions were formed.Each condition contained two VACs,i.e.,one verb-locative construction and one ditransitive construction,along with 16 control items and 16 filler items.Participants were randomly assigned to List A or B to make a judgment by pressing corresponding keys The whole procedure was conducted with E-prime 2.0 and the response times and accuracy rates were recorded automaticallyExperiment 2 was carried out immediately after Experiment 1.It examined Chinese learners' processing of English VACs in sentences.Participants were the same with those in Experiment 1.Frequency(frequent vs.infrequent),contingency(high vs.low)and congruency(congruent vs.incongruent)were manipulated and eight experiment conditions were formed.Each condition was composed of two sentences containing VACs,i.e.,one verb-locative construction and one ditransitive construction,along with 16 sentences containing control items.Participants who finished List A in Experiment 1 still performed List A in Experiment 2 and those who performed List B in Experiment 1 still received List B in Experiment 2.A word-by-word moving window technique(E-prime 2.0)was adopted with participants' response times and accuracy rates recordedMultivariate analysis of variance(MANOVA)and paired-samples t-tests were used in data analysis.The results showed that:(1)In Experiment 1,frequency had a significant main effect on learners' response times without interaction with other two factors,suggesting that frequent exposure to constructions could lead to automatic processing.Contingency effect was insignificant on learners' response times and accuracy rates but interactively affect response times with congruency.For congruent constructions,the higher the contingency,the faster it was processed.For incongruent constructions,the lower the contingency,the faster it was processed.Congruency effect was nontrivial and demonstrated reverse effect to frequency on accuracy rates.(2)In Experiment 2,neither the main effects of frequency and congruency nor the interaction effect between them was found on reading times,probably due to the unnatural word-by-word presentation.Then,contingency had a significant effect on reading times and demonstrated a reverse effect to congruencyThis study has theoretical and pedagogical implications:theoretically,it provides data and references to Chinese learners' processing of English VACs and the application of the Usage-based Approaches to L2 construction learning;meanwhile,the research results also offer researchers important insights into the manipulation of relevant factors like task type in future study;pedagogic ally,it enlightens teachers about various factors affecting English VACs learning and provides them with guidance of teaching,such as achieving automatic processing based on construction frequency,having a deep understanding of constructions based on cross-linguistic comparisons and establishing holistic construction representation in different contexts.