不同时间连词对中国英语学习者语用加工的影响

The influence of temporal conjunctions on pragmatic processing in Chinese-English L2 learners

语篇连词在句子理解和语篇衔接中扮演着十分重要的角色,对于外语学习者来说尤其如此。然而,目前有关连词的实验研究主要集中在母语研究领域,且主要关注因果连词如何影响句子阅读和语篇连贯。不同的时间连词如何影响二语语用信息的处理,目前尚不清楚。为了探究不同时间连词如何影响语用加工以及这一影响如何受外语熟练程度的调节,本研究采用自定步速阅读(self-paced reading)这一在线测量方法,探讨高、低水平中国英语学习者阅读由before和after所衔接句子的反应快慢,以及句中百科知识正误如何受这两种不同连词的影响。结果显示,对于after条件来说,百科知识不一致句的反应时显著长于百科知识一致句,而对于before条件来说,百科知识的一致与否并不影响阅读时间。此外,虽然在百科知识一致的情况下,after句与before句的反应时没有明显差别,但当句中存在百科知识不一致时,after句的阅读速度要慢于before句。这一结果表明,不同的时间连词与语用信息相互作用共同影响二语句子理解,而外语熟练程度则未对这一结果产生实质性影响。

Discourse conjunctions play an important role in discourse comprehension,especially for second language learners.However,empirical studies concerning discourse conjunctions were mainly carried out in the field of native languages,focusing on how causal conjunctions(e.g.,because)affect sentence comprehension and discourse coherence.It remains unclear how conjunctions influence second language pragmatic processing.To this end,this study,using self-paced reading,examined how processing pragmatic information(e.g.,world knowledge)was modulated by different temporal conjunctions(before vs.after)in both low-and high-level Chinese-English L2 speakers.The results show that the sentences with pragmatic problems were processed much more slowly than those without pragmatic problems when sentences were connected by after,whereas there was no difference between the two conditions when sentences were connected by before.Moreover,although there was no difference between the two conditions when sentences contained no pragmatic problems,after-inconsistent sentences were processed more slowly than before-inconsistent sentences.These results suggest that second language sentence processing is influenced by both pragmatic information and coherence relations,although L2 proficiency plays a less important role during this process.