A Study On Structural Priming And Acquisition Of English Attributive Clause In The Continuation Task Under Different Task Conditions

Structural priming refers to a tendency to repeatedly use the syntactic structures that one has encountered in the recent experience.It has been intensively studied ever since it was ushered in scientific research.However,the research is far from exhaustive.To date,the majority of studies draw on traditional paradigm which employs highly manipulated tasks with low ecological validity.For studies that employ the new paradigm--the continuation task which features high ecological validity,few if there is any delve into the effect of task condition.In addition,scholars have explored simple structures such as passive structure and double object,but have yet focused on complex structures like attributive clause.The current study adopts the continuation task to explore structural priming of attributive clause under different task conditions.Specifically,this study aims at addressing two questions:(1)Does structural priming occur in the continuation task under different task conditions(normal continuation task condition and enhanced continuation task condition)?(2)If structural priming occurs,will it contribute to the acquisition of attributive clause?To probe into these questions,111 senior high school students were invited to participate in the experiment.They were divided into three groups to finish original continuation task,normal continuation task and enhanced continuation task respectively.Then,they should finish three attributive clause tests as the pre-test,immediate post-test and delayed post-test.Besides,questionnaire and interview will be conducted for some subjects as supplement.Through data analysis,it is found that structural priming occurs under the enhanced continuation task but not under the normal continuation task,indicating that task condition influences structural priming effect.What’s more,the priming effect does contribute to the acquisition of attributive clause and the retention exists,yet the contributory effect is larger on the recognition of attributive clause than the production of attributive clause.This study is believed to have some implications for structural priming research and teaching practice.For one thing,it confirms that enhanced task condition triggers structural priming,and it reconfirms that the continuation task is a proper way to study structural priming.And for another,English teachers are supposed to give full play of continuation task particularly enhanced continuation task in English teaching so as to achieve effective teaching and learning.