EAPSI: Investigating the Chinese Bei Construction using Cross Linguistic Priming

EAPSI：使用跨语言启动研究汉语“be”构式

• 批准号: 1515638
• 负责人: Claire Stabile
• 金额: $ 0.5万
• 依托单位: Stabile Claire M
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1515638&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAPSI; Investigating; Chinese; Bei; Construction

This award supports research that helps develop understanding of bilingual language acquisition ? a phenomenon that is growing as globalization increases. It extends the use of a relatively new technique (cross-language priming) to solve a troublesome theoretical problem. This research will help solve a long-lasting problem in Chinese syntax ? the structure of the bei construction. Many researchers believe that the abstract structure of the bei construction is the same as the English passive, while others believe it is a separate structure. Understanding the nature of this construction will aid in our understanding of bilingual language acquisition, and may improve language teaching methods. This research will be conducted at National Taiwan Normal University under the guidance of Professor Dong-Bo Hsu, a noted expert on priming methodology. Previous research has shown that the disputed Mandarin bei construction primes, and is primed by English passives; suggesting that the two patterns share an abstract structural representation. However, it is possible that this priming effect is due to priming of noncanonical word order (theme-before-agent instead of agent-before-theme). This research will test whether speakers of English and Chinese who are primed by sentences with noncanonical word order produce passives or bei constructions because of the effect of that word order. If the results of this experiment show no priming, then we can conclude that previous results showing priming of bei of and by the English passive do indeed indicate a shared abstract syntactic structure between the two constructions. This project will test 60 Mandarin-English bilingual children between the ages of three and five years, and a similar number of adults. Participants will be shown a picture which will be described using either an active sentence or on in which the argument order is noncanonical (e.g., topicalization or clefting). Participants will then describe a subsequent picture. Participants will be tested on both Mandarin prime-English target, and English prime-Mandarin target. If participants produce more passives in response to noncanonical sentences (rather than in response to actives), we can conclude that the priming effect found in previous work was indeed due to priming of a shared abstract representation - the Mandarin bei construction does indeed share an abstract structural representation with the English passive. These results can help to settle a long-standing debate by way of new psycholinguistic experimental methods. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan.

该奖项支持有助于增进对双语习得理解的研究？随着全球化的加剧，这种现象正在日益严重。 它扩展了相对较新的技术（跨语言启动）的使用来解决棘手的理论问题。 这项研究将有助于解决汉语语法中长期存在的问题？北建筑的结构。 许多研究人员认为“被”结构的抽象结构与英语被动语态相同，而另一些研究人员则认为它是一个单独的结构。 了解这种结构的本质将有助于我们理解双语语言习得，并可能改进语言教学方法。这项研究将在国立台湾师范大学在著名启动方法学专家徐东波教授的指导下进行。 先前的研究表明，有争议的普通话“bei”结构是由英语被动语态引发的。表明这两种模式共享一个抽象的结构表示。 然而，这种启动效应可能是由于非规范词序的启动（主题在主体之前而不是主体在主题之前）造成的。 这项研究将测试以非规范词序句子开头的英语和汉语使用者是否会因为该词序的影响而产生被动语态或“被”结构。如果这个实验的结果显示没有启动，那么我们可以得出结论，之前显示英语被动语态 bei of 和 by 启动的结果确实表明这两个结构之间存在共享的抽象句法结构。该项目将测试 60 名 3 至 5 岁之间的中英双语儿童以及类似数量的成年人。 参与者将看到一张图片，该图片将使用主动句子或其中论证顺序不规范（例如，主题化或分裂）进行描述。然后参与者将描述随后的图片。 参与者将接受普通话-英语目标和英语-普通话目标的测试。 如果参与者在回应非规范句子时产生更多的被动语态（而不是回应主动语态），我们可以得出结论，在之前的研究中发现的启动效应确实是由于共享抽象表征的启动——普通话“bei”结构确实与英语被动语态共享抽象结构表征。 这些结果可以通过新的心理语言学实验方法帮助解决长期存在的争论。 该 NSF EAPSI 奖项是与台湾科学技术部合作资助的。