نشریه پژوهشهای زبانشناسی (Sep 2020)
The Role of Construction Similarity and Verb Tense on the Construction of Integrated Syntactic Representations in Bilinguals
Abstract
AbstractThe aim of this study was to investigate the role of construction similarity and verb tense in the construction of integrated syntactic representations in Persian and English bilinguals. Bilingual speakers aged 18 to 40 years (mean= 23 years old) fluent in Persian (as a mother tongue) and English (as a second language) attended in this study. We used the cross-language syntactic priming paradigm. The participants were first presented a sentence (prime sentence) in language A, which had a special syntactic construction such as the passive structure. Then the participants had to produce a sentence in language B (target sentence) in order to describe the target picture. If her/his production of sentences in language B is significantly influenced by the syntactic structure of the sentence that was first presented to her/him (i.e., s/he uses the same syntactic construction of the previous sentence), it is feasible to believe that cross-language syntactic priming occurred. In the present study, 4 experiments were designed in which the language of the prime sentence was Persian or English and the target language was either Persian or English. Also, in order to examine whether the syntactic representation is independent from the tense of the verb and whether syntactic priming is affected by whether tense of the verb stayed the same or differed between prime and target, the tense of the prime and target sentences was either the same or different in Experiments 2 and 4. The results showed that there were no cross-language priming effects in any linguistic directions (Persian to English and English to Persian). These results showed that structural differences in Persian and English languages are an influential factor in the occurrence of cross-language syntactic priming and, different word order of passive sentences prevents the occurrence of cross-language syntactic priming. The results from Experiments 2 and 4 also revealed that if the tense of the prime sentence is different or the same from the tense of the target sentence, cross-language syntactic priming did not occur.Keywords: Bilingualism, Syntactic Representation, Syntactic Processing, Cross-Language Syntactic Priming, Bilingual Language Processing Introduction:Syntactic representations and storage of syntactic information in bilingual speakers, and the issue whether syntactic representation is accessed independently from semantic and phonological representations are some of the most important issues that have recently been considered in psycholinguistic studies. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of construction similarity and verb tense in the construction of integrated syntactic representations in Persian and English bilinguals. In particular, the main question of the research is whether the syntax is shared or separated between languages of bilinguals. In other words, we examined whether bilingual speakers have 2 separate syntactic representations, one for each language (the separate-syntax account), or whether at least some syntactic representations are shared between the two languages of bilinguals (the shared-syntax account)? According to the shared-syntax account, the rules that are the same across the two languages, are represented once. The shared-syntax account predicts cross-language priming effect. Cross-language syntactic priming is one of the most frequently used paradigms to examine syntactic representations and organizations of different linguistic components in memory. Materials and Methods:Bilingual speakers aged 18 to 40 years (mean= 23 years old) fluent in Persian (as a mother tongue) and English (as a second language) attended in this study. Participants’ language proficiency was tested by a self-assessment questionnaire. Moreover, their language proficiency in four skills was measured by a short interview. We used the cross-language syntactic priming paradigm. The cross-language syntactic priming effect was investigated in both directions (Farsi to English & English to Farsi). The participants were first presented a sentence (prime sentence) in language A, which had a special syntactic construction such as the passive structure. Then a picture was presented to the participants. The participants had to produce a sentence in language B (target sentence) in order to describe the target picture. If their production of sentences in language B is significantly influenced by the syntactic structure of the sentence that was first presented to them (i.e., they use the same syntactic construction of the previous sentence), it is feasible to believe that cross-language syntactic priming occurred. In the present study, 4 experiments were designed in which the language of the prime sentence was either Persian (Experiments 1 and 2) or English (Experiments 3 and 4) and the target language was either Persian or English. We used 40 sentences as prime stimulus ad 40 pictures as target stimulus. Moreover, in order to examine whether the syntactic representation is independent from the tense of the verb and whether cross-language syntactic priming is affected by whether tense of the verb stayed the same or differed between prime and target, the tense of the prime and target sentences was either the same or different in Experiments 2 and 4. The tense words (e.g., today, tomorrow) were depicted below the target pictures. Discussion of Results and Conclusions:The results showed that there were no cross-language priming effects in any linguistic directions (Persian to English and English to Persian). These results also showed that structural differences in the Persian and English languages are an influential factor in the occurrence of cross-language syntactic priming and different word orders of passive sentences in Persian and English prevent the occurrence of cross-language syntactic priming. The results from Experiments 2 and 4 also revealed that if the tense of the prime sentence is different or the same from the tense of the target sentence, cross-language syntactic priming did not occur. The results are consistent with the previous studies that reported that sstructural differences across the two languages are an influential factor in the occurrence of cross-language syntactic priming and that word order is a vital factor in cross-language priming.
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