An ERP Study in English Relative Clause Processing by Chinese-English Bilinguals

The processing of relative clauses receives much concern from linguists. The finding that object relatives are easier to process than subiect relatives in Chinese challenges the notion that subject relative clauses are preferred universally. A large body of literature provides theories related to sentence processing mechanisms for native speakers but leaves one area relatively untouched： how bilinguals process sentences. This study is designed to examine the case where the individuals with a Chinese L1 language background process subject-extracted subject relative clauses （SS） and subject-extracted object relative clauses （SO） by using event- related potentials （ERPs） to probe into the real-time language processing and presents a direct manifestation of brain activity. The findings from this study support the subject relative clause preference due to the strong influence of English relative clause markedness and bilinguals＇ relative lower working memory capacity.

关系从句的加工机制研究是各国语言学家的研究热点。迄今为止,对于拼音文字的研究已经得出一个相对普遍的适用规律,即主语从句具有加工优势。对于非拼音文字,特别是汉语关系从句加工存在分歧。相关研究的目标语言多数采用被试者的母语,双语学习者对关系从句加工机制的研究相对较少。本研究采用事件相关电位技术(ERP)考察了汉英者对主语位置主语抽取式的英语关系从句(SS)和主语位置宾语抽取式的英语关系从句(SO)的加工过程,通过实时语言加工监测及脑区活动的直接显示,发现汉英双语者对英语关系从句的加工仍然支持主语从句加工优势规律,其原因在于英语的关系从句标记性比汉语更强,双语学习者的工作记忆能力相对母语使用者更低,从而使汉英双语学习者对英语的关系从句的加工更为趋向英语母语使用者的加工模式。