工作记忆容量的限制对第二语言语法加工的影响

Influence of working memory capacity limitations on second language grammatical processing

本研究采用语法判断任务,考察晚期第二语言学习者工作记忆容量的限制对第二语言(英语)语法加工的影响。实验结果显示,高工作记忆负荷条件下的语法判断的成绩显著低于低工作记忆负荷条件下语法判断的成绩;不同语法形式句子的语法判断成绩存在一定的差别。研究结果表明,个体工作记忆容量的限制是影响第二语言语法加工的重要因素之一。母语和第二语言语法结构相似性在一定程度上解释了不同句子类型语法判断成绩的差异。

This paper presents an experiment that investigated the effect of working memory capacity limitations on the grammatical processing of second language(English)for late L2 learners.The working memory load when reading the English sentences and the different grammatical structures were manipulated in a grammatical judgment task.The result indicated that grammatical judgment performance was better for the condition of low working memory load.Late L2 learners had less difficult judging some structures(e.g.word order)than others(e.g.articles).The experiment provides further evidence that working memory capacity limitations were an important factor that influenced L2 grammatical processing.The similarity between Chinese and English grammatical structures offers a possible explanation for the performance difference of judging different grammatical structures.