The Effect Of Working Memory Capacity On The Processing Of Temporary Ambiguous Sentences In Second Language Of High School Students

In the literature,whether working memory affects the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language is controversial.Some scholars believe that working memory has a significant impact on the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language（Dussias ＆Pinar,2010;Juffs,2004,;Gregory＆ William,2015）;Some scholars believe that working memory does not affect the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language（Just,1992）.Ambiguous sentence processing by,for example,the influence of working memory,the ambiguity of sentence of two or more different interpretations,readers are usually constructed the most easy to understand and the processing of syntactic structure to alleviate the burden of memory,working memory capacity of the individual differences affect sentence processing,the greater the individual working memory capacity,the higher the efficiency of reading processing sentences（Pan Xin,Yu Zuchen,2008）.Using the reading span task,she tested the grammar and reading ability of Spanish second language learners and found that working memory had no effect on the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language（Sagarra,2005）.In order to investigate the effects of working memory on the learning of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language of high school students,94 students from a middle school in Zhangzhou were selected as subjects.The learning of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language was tested online and offline using Oxford test,operational span test and self-paced reading task.SPSS21.0 software was used to conduct paired sample T test,two-factor analysis and independent sample T test for the obtained data.The main questions of this study are as follows :（1）does working memory capacity affect the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language?（2）What is the effect of high and low working memory capacity on the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences in high school students?The results showed that:（1）In the two-factor analysis of variance,sentence type is of a significant interaction with working memory level.Region1 was significantly affected by working memory in online sentence processing.In the simple effect analysis of main sentence verb response,the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences in second language has a significant effect on the subjects with high and low working memory capacity,but the processing of unambiguous sentences has no significant effect on the subjects with high and low working memory capacity.Temporal-ambiguous sentences Region1 was significantly affected by high and low working memory,while non-ambiguous sentences Region1 was not significantly affected by working memory.In the independent sample T test,the average response time of the subjects in the second language temporarily ambiguous sentences was respectively larger than that in the unambiguous sentences,indicating that the reaction time required by the subjects to process the second language temporarily ambiguous sentences was longer than that in the unambiguous sentences.In other words,the subjects needed to spend more time in processing the second language temporarily ambiguous sentences.The results of independent sample T-test of working memory and Region1 showed that,firstly,working memory had a significant effect on the reading of ambiguous sentences;Second,the type of clause has a significant effect on the reading of ambiguous sentences.Third,high or low working memory capacity has a significant effect on the processing of ambiguous sentences,while high or low working memory capacity has no significant effect on the processing of unambiguous sentences.（2）The main effect of sentence complexity on the grammatical accuracy of temporary and non-temporary ambiguous sentences is significant,indicating that sentence complexity affects the grammatical accuracy of the participants.The accuracy rate of ambiguous sentences was lower than that of unambiguous sentences,indicating that the accuracy rate of unambiguous sentences was higher than that of ambiguous sentences.The results of independent sample T test show that the accuracy of unambiguous sentences is not significantly affected by working memory,while the accuracy of ambiguous sentences is significantly affected by working memory.The results of two-factor analysis showed that working memory had a significant impact on the grammatical accuracy of temporary ambiguous sentences,indicating that the capacity of working memory had a significant impact on the processing of temporary ambiguous sentences,and the accuracy of grammatical judgment was significantly affected by sentence patterns.The research shows that:（1）Working memory has a significant effect on the response time of key Region1 of L2 temporary ambiguity,and high and low working memory have a significant effect on the response time of L2 temporary ambiguity.The high and low working memory levels affected the processing of temporary ambiguity sentences.The online response time of the high working memory group was larger than that of the low working memory group.This conclusion is consistent with the results of Pan Xin,Yu Zuchen（2008）,Wang Jinquan（2017）and Merel Keijzer（2013）.（2）Syntactic complexity（sentence pattern）affects the grammatical accuracy of the subjects: the grammatical accuracy of the high school students’ temporary ambiguity sentences is lower than that of the unambiguous sentences,and the response time of the critical area of the temporary ambiguity sentences is more than that of the unambiguous sentences.This is consistent with the results of Sturt etal（1999）,Fraziers（1987）,Dussia＆ Pinar（2010）and Jackson（2011）.Therefore,we suggest that teachers should grasp the characteristics of students’ working memory in middle school English teaching,and improve and enhance students’ working memory ability.We should enrich the teaching methods and train the verb tendency and complement types in temporary ambiguous sentences of second language.