Dissertation > Excellent graduate degree dissertation topics show

ERP studies and language proficiency in bilingual similarity to those affected by second language syntactic processing

Author: TianTian
Tutor: WangZhi；GuoChunYan
School: Capital Normal University
Course: Basic Psychology
Keywords: second language syntactic processing syntactic anomaly proficiency language similarity P600
CLC: H319
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 194
Quote: 0
Read: Download Dissertation

Abstract


While there is ample evidence on lexical-semantic processing in bilingual language studies, the research and evidence on L2 syntactic processing is sparse. Previous research primarily concerned with age of acquisition, proficiency and transfer of L2 and their roles in L2 syntactic acquisition and processing. However, most of the studies focused on the western languages and bilinguals. Chinese is constitutionally different from western language in syntax with its own characteristics. Therefore, Chinese-English bilinguals deserve more thoroughly investigation. The current ERP research examined late AOA Chinese-English bilinguals with two systematic experiments. In the first experiment, the proficiency of Chinese-English bilinguals was manipulated to explore the interaction between L2 proficiency and L2 syntactic processing. The second experiment was focused on the LI language transfer influence on the L2 syntactic processing. Two experiments clearly showed:(1) In the first experiment, the electrophysiological correlates were investigated when differently proficient Chinese-English bilinguals processed the syntactic anomaly in English garden-path sentences. High proficient bilinguals evoked P600 which is considered as the index of syntactic revision while low proficient bilinguals were lack of such a component. The L2 proficiency was proved to positively impact L2 syntactic processing despite the late AOA and the critical period is not the determinant of L2 syntactic processing.(2) In the second experiment, the high proficient bilinguals showed different ERP patterns when processing the English syntactic anomalies with certain similarity or dissimilarity with Chinese syntax. While tense anomaly which is considered to share similar syntactic concept with Chinese evoked P600, the subject-verb agreement anomaly which is considered as a characteristic syntactic phenomenon in English showed an N400-P600 bi-phase ERP pattern. The results showed that the transfer of language similarity leads to different L2 language processing mechanism.

Related Dissertations

  1. English -speaking Chinese learners willing verb bias analysis,H195
  2. The interrogative pronouns Non - doubt usage Acquisition of Russian students,H195
  3. China and Russia Chinese teaching methods compare,H195
  4. Emotional factors in second language acquisition research,H195
  5. The Research of Detachable Words and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language,H195
  6. Writing Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Ways of input and output,H195
  7. Second Language Acquisition in Cognitive Styles,H195
  8. Interfaces between Second Language Acquisition and Language Testing,H319
  9. Chinese College Students' English unaccusatives Acquisition,H314
  10. A Survey of EFL Students’ Translating of Chinese Proverbs,H315.9
  11. An Empirical Study on the Semantic Fossilization in Chinese College Students’ L2 Mental Lexical Development,H319
  12. A Study of the Mental Lexicon of Chinese Business English Learners,H319
  13. An Empirical Study on the Correlation between L2 Listening Comprehension and Attention,H09
  14. A Study of Interactive English Language Teaching in Sthee Classroom,H319
  15. Chinese English majors graduate thesis analyzing the convergence,H319
  16. Study on the Relationship between Working Memory and Second Language Reading Comprehension,H319
  17. The Influence of Primary Chinese Classroom Context on the Output of Foreign Students,H195
  18. English Learners' Acquisition of English as the background error analysis Existential Sentences,H195
  19. A Study of the Effects of L1 Reading Ability on English Reading in a Chinese EFL Context,H319
  20. The Study of the Relationship between Lexical Chunks and the Development of Non-English Major Learners’ Oral Fluency,H319
  21. A Study of the Structural Model of Motivated Vocabulary Learning Process,H319

CLC: > Language, writing > FOREIGN > English > Language teaching
© 2012 www.DissertationTopic.Net  Mobile