Data_Sheet_1_Structural Priming and Inverse Preference Effects in L2 Grammaticality Judgment and Production of English Relative Clauses.pdf

This study investigated inverse preference effects in L2 structural priming of English relative clauses and their potential influences on subsequent learning of target structures. One hundred fourteen Chinese learners of English at a low-to-intermediate proficiency level participated in a structural priming experiment with a pretest-posttest design. The experimental group underwent a priming task in which they orally produced syntactic structures immediately after viewing English object or passive relative clauses as primes, whereas the control group only read sentences unrelated to English relative clauses. A grammaticality judgment task and a sentence completion task were used to measure the inverse preference effect and its subsequent effects on L2 learning. The results showed the presence of structural priming and inverse preference effects in immediate production, which extended to subsequent learning of L2. In subsequent grammaticality judgments and production, L2 learners performed better with English object relative clauses than with English passive relative clauses in comparison with the pretest. The results are discussed in terms of the structural frequency in both L1 and L2 as well as the implicit learning mechanisms of structural priming.

本研究探讨了英语关系从句（relative clauses）的第二语言（L2）结构启动（structural priming）中存在的逆偏好效应（inverse preference effects），及其对目标结构后续学习的潜在影响。共有114名英语水平处于低中级的中国英语学习者参与了一项采用前测-后测设计的结构启动实验。实验组完成了一项启动任务：在观看作为启动刺激的英语宾语关系从句（object relative clauses）或被动关系从句（passive relative clauses）后，即刻口头产出相应句法结构；而对照组仅阅读与英语关系从句无关的句子。本研究采用语法正确性判断任务（grammaticality judgment task）与句子补全任务（sentence completion task），分别测量逆偏好效应及其对第二语言学习的后续影响。结果显示，即时产出任务中存在结构启动效应与逆偏好效应，且该效应可延伸至第二语言的后续学习中。与前测结果相比，在后续的语法正确性判断与产出任务中，英语学习者对英语宾语关系从句的表现优于被动关系从句。本研究从第一语言（L1）与第二语言（L2）的结构使用频率，以及结构启动的内隐学习机制（implicit learning mechanisms）两方面对实验结果进行了讨论。