跨语言句法启动及其机制

Cross-language syntactic priming and its mechanism

本研究考察跨语言句法启动及其机制。60名高年级和低年级英语学习者将汉语复句译成英语,这些语句在英语中至少有两种语序——主句在前或从句在前。结果显示,在翻译中低年级英语学习者倾向于选择与汉语语序一致的目标句结构(即从句在前的结构),而高年级英语学习者则倾向于选择与汉语语序不一致的目标句结构(即主句在前从句在后的结构)。研究结果表明,跨语言句法启动只存在于外语学习的初级阶段,是一种过渡性的认知加工方式。

This study probed into the mechanism of cross-language syntactic priming. Sixty high- and low-level Chinese English learners were asked to translate Chinese compound sentences with adverbial clauses into English. The English equivalents of all the Chinese sentences had at least two syntactic patterns: consistent or non-consistent with the Chinese word order. The results showed that in translation the low-level learners tended to choose the syntactic pattern consistent with the source sentence whereas the high-level learners tended to choose the syntactic pattern non-consistent with the source sentence, indicating that syntactic priming was found only in beginning learners of a foreign language as a transitional processing mechanism.