工作记忆和二语水平对关系从句挂靠歧义加工的影响

Effects of Working Memory and Language Proficiency on EFL Learners’Processing of Relative Clause Attachment Ambiguity

二语学习者如何理解歧义句(如:NP1+of/with+NP2+关系从句)一直备受学界关注。本研究通过两项实验考察工作记忆和二语水平对中国英语学习者关系从句挂靠歧义加工的影响。在线实验结果显示,二语水平可以调节工作记忆对挂靠歧义加工的制约作用。离线实验结果则表明,挂靠偏好很大程度上受到句法结构和二语水平的影响,工作记忆的影响较小。研究结果支持了“二语加工认知容量受限的理论”,认为二语和母语句子加工策略本质上是相同的,加工过程中所表现出的差异源于二语加工认知容量受限,与“浅层结构假说”理论预期不符。

One of the core questions in second language acquisition is how L2 learners understand structural ambiguities(e.g., NP1 + of/with + NP2 + relative clause). The present paper reports two experiments designed to investigate the impact of working memory and L2 proficiency on EFL learners’ resolution of English relative clause attachment ambiguity. Results of the self-paced reading experiment reveal that the impact of working memory on attachment processing was mediated by learners’ L2 proficiency. The offline grammatical judgment task shows that L2 learners were more susceptible to the impact of syntactic structure and L2 proficiency, while working memory did not contribute much. Taken together, the results indicate that L1 and L2 sentence processing is fundamentally similar, and that the primary source of L1-L2 differences lies in the increased burden on EFL learners’ capacity-limited cognitive resources, which is inconsistent with the Shallow Structure Hypothesis.