中国学生英语句法启动效应:来自及物和与格的证据

Structural Priming Effect from Chinese ESL Learners:Evidence from the Transitive and Dative Sentences

以词汇为基础的语言习得观认为学习者能够习得词汇,但是不能将词汇的使用规则归纳扩展到类似句法结构的其他词汇使用中;与之对立,以句法为基础的语言习得观认为学习者能够将听到的句法规则运用于类似的词汇所在的句子中。在这一对立观点的基础上,我们利用结构启动的范式验证动词的及物性和与格结构的启动是以词汇还是以句法为基础。实验一建立无启动的及物和与格结构生成的基线水平;实验二采用单向启动范式,受试单听启动句不重复,再描述图片;实验三采用双向启动范式,受试听完启动句后立刻重复,然后再描述图片。研究发现:第一,实验结果验证了句法启动是一种验证抽象句法能力的有效手段;第二,二语抽象表征与句法产出能力在低水平的学习者中已形成,语言能力高的受试语言习得能力吻合以句法为基础的习得观;第三,水平高和水平低的受试都具备基本的词汇习得的抽象能力,但英语水平高的自主抽象能力强;第四,提升低水平学生的英语关键在于提升其句法的自主抽象能力。

There are two opposing language acquisition views： lexically-based view and syntax based view. The former argues that learners can not extend the lexical rules to other structurally similar lexical usages, while the latter holds that learners can apply syntactic rules to structurally and semantically similar sentences. On the basis of these two opposing views, we apply the structural priming paradigm to testify whether transitive verbs and dative verbs are lexically based or syntactically based. We begin by presenting a baseline experiment （ Expl ） to determine the frequency of transitive and dative forms in participants＇ spontaneous description. Then we present two structural priming experiments （ Exp 2 ＆ 3） at different intensity levels and ob- serve the priming effects. The results prove that ： 1 ） structural priming is an effective way to testify abstract syntactic compe- tence; 2） the abstract syntactic representation and production competence of second language could be formed among low-level learners; 3） both low-level and high-level participants have basic abstract lexical acquisition competence, and the high-level learners show a stronger autonomous abstract syntactic competence; 4） to improve the generalization ability of the syntactic skills is critical for low-level learners to elevate their second language competence.