The psychological validity of non-adjacent collocations: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

我的博士论文的主要目的是找出大脑处理第二个单词很可能跟随第一个单词的成对单词的方式是否有所不同(例如，临床试验)，与第二个单词不太可能跟随第一个单词的单词对(例如，临床设备)是否存在差异。为了实现这一目标，我进行了一系列的四项脑电实验。EEG是“脑电图学”的缩写，是一种在参与者的头皮上放置电极的方法。这些电极检测参与者在执行特定任务时的大脑活动。在我的实验中，任务是阅读电脑屏幕上出现的句子，一次一个单词。在这些句子中，我插入了两组词，其中第二个词很可能紧跟在第一个词之后(这些词被称为搭配双词)，以及第二个词不太可能紧跟第一个词之后的词对(这些词被称为非搭配双词对)。我的博士实验结果表明，大脑处理这两种不同类型的词对的方式是不同的。当以英语为母语的人阅读非搭配二元语法时，他们的大脑似乎比他们阅读搭配二元语法时要努力得多。这是有道理的，因为阅读一个非搭配的二元语法违反了由该对中的第一个单词设置的下一个单词可能出现的预期。研究结果还表明，当非英语母语者阅读非搭配二元语法时，他们的大脑似乎比英语母语者在相同刺激下更加努力地工作。这可以通过考虑两个参与者组接触英语的次数来解释。母语人士很可能以前遇到过非搭配词对，尽管它们非常罕见，而非母语人士可能以前从未遇到过这些词对。因此，从非母语说话者的角度来看，搭配违规可能更加极端。我的博士论文关注的是词对，而不是更长的词序列，以减少可能影响词序列处理方式的因素的数量，从而使进行控制实验成为可能。然而，这实际上是对搭配概念的一种非常狭隘的概念化；在实践中，当单词出现在彼此附近时，即使有几个中间的词，即使这些词的出现顺序并不总是相同，也被认为是构成搭配的。因此，在我打算在研究员任期内进行的其他研究中，我将重点研究这些不相邻的搭配。具体地说，在最初的脑电实验中，我的目标是找出大脑处理带有一个插入词的搭配(例如，认真对待某事)的方式是否与相同长度的匹配的非搭配(例如，快乐地对待某事)的方式不同。如果我发现有明显的加工差异，我会进行另一个脑电实验，这一次是观察两个插入词的搭配(例如，认真对待这件事)。我将使用这两个实验的结果来指导设计研究问题和方法，以便在未来的工作中(在资助期之后)从事更不同类型的搭配模式。我的发现，无论是现在还是将来，都将对我们理解语言在大脑中的作用以及语言教学的实际方面(因为搭配教学是当前大多数高级语言学习者教学的主要部分)都有一些关键的启示。

The overarching aim of my PhD thesis was to find out whether or not there is a difference in the way that the brain processes pairs of words where the second word is highly likely to follow the first word (e.g. clinical trials), compared to pairs of words where the second word is not likely to follow the first word (e.g. clinical devices). In order to achieve this aim, I carried out a series of four EEG experiments. EEG, short for "electroencephalography", is a method which involves placing electrodes across a participant's scalp. These electrodes detect the participant's brain activity while they are carrying out a particular task. In my experiments, the task was to read sentences presented one word at a time on a computer screen. Within these sentences, I embedded pairs of words where the second word is highly likely to follow the first word (these are known as collocations, or collocational bigrams), as well as pairs of words where the second word is not likely to follow the first word (these are known as non-collocations, or non-collocational bigrams).The results of my PhD experiments show that there is a difference in the way that the brain processes these two different types of word pairs. When native speakers of English read non-collocational bigrams, their brain seems to work much harder than when they read collocational bigrams. This makes sense, as reading a non-collocational bigram violates the expectation of which word is likely to come next that was set up by the first word in the pair. The results also show that, when non-native speakers of English read the non-collocational bigrams, their brain seems to work even harder than that of the native speakers of English exposed to the same stimuli. This can be explained by considering the amount of exposure that both participant groups have had to the English language. Native speakers are likely to have encountered the non-collocational word pairs before, even though they are highly infrequent, while non-native speakers have probably never encountered these word pairs before. The collocational violation is therefore likely to be more extreme from the perspective of a non-native speaker.My PhD thesis focused on word pairs rather than longer sequences of words in order to reduce the number of factors that might influence how the word sequences were processed, making it feasible to conduct controlled experiments. However, this is actually a very narrow way of conceptualizing the notion of collocation; in practice, words are considered to form collocations when they occur in one another's vicinity even if there are several intervening words, and even if the words do not always occur in the same order. In the additional research that I intend to undertake during the term of the Fellowship, I will therefore focus on these non-adjacent collocations. Specifically, in an initial EEG experiment, I aim to find out whether or not there is a difference in the way that the brain processes collocations with one intervening word (e.g. take something seriously), compared to matched non-collocations of the same length (e.g. take something happily). If I find that there is a distinct processing difference, I will then carry out another EEG experiment, this time looking at collocations with two intervening words (e.g. take the matter seriously). I will use the results of these two experiments to inform the design of research questions and methods for future work (after the funded period) engaging with yet more varied types of collocational pattern. My findings, present and to come, will have a number of key implications for both our understanding of how language works in the mind, and for practical aspects of language teaching (since the teaching of collocation is a major part of most current approaches to teaching advanced language learners).