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

非相邻搭配的心理有效性：来自事件相关大脑电位的证据

• 批准号: ES/S011501/1
• 负责人: Jennifer Hughes
• 金额: $ 11.2万
• 依托单位: Lancaster University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS011501%2F1
• 关键词: psychological; validity; non; adjacent; collocations

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).

我的博士论文的首要目标是找出大脑处理第二个单词很可能跟在第一个单词后面的单词对（例如临床试验）与第二个单词不太可能跟在第一个单词后面的单词对（例如临床设备）的方式是否有差异。为了实现这一目标，我进行了一系列的四个EEG实验。EEG是“脑电图”的缩写，是一种将电极放置在参与者头皮上的方法。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，任务是一次一个词地阅读计算机屏幕上呈现的句子。在这些句子中，我嵌入了一对单词，其中第二个单词很可能跟在第一个单词后面（这些被称为搭配，或搭配双字母），以及第二个单词不太可能跟在第一个单词后面的单词对（这些被称为非搭配，我的博士实验结果表明，大脑处理这两种不同类型的单词对的方式是不同的。当以英语为母语的人阅读非搭配双字母时，他们的大脑似乎比阅读搭配双字母时工作得更努力。这是有道理的，因为阅读一个非搭配的二元组违反了由第一个词建立的下一个词的预期。研究结果还表明，当非英语母语者阅读非搭配双字母时，他们的大脑似乎比英语母语者在相同的刺激下工作得更努力。这可以通过考虑两个参与者群体对英语的接触量来解释。本族语使用者很可能以前遇到过非搭配词对，即使它们非常罕见，而非本族语使用者可能以前从未遇到过这些词对。因此，从非母语人士的角度来看，搭配违规可能会更加极端。我的博士论文关注的是单词对，而不是更长的单词序列，以减少可能影响单词序列处理方式的因素，从而使进行受控实验变得可行。然而，这实际上是一种非常狭隘的概念化搭配概念的方式;在实践中，当单词出现在彼此的附近时，即使有几个插入的单词，即使单词并不总是以相同的顺序出现，也被认为是构成搭配。因此，在我打算在奖学金期间进行的额外研究中，我将专注于这些非相邻搭配。具体来说，在最初的脑电图实验中，我的目标是找出大脑处理带有一个插入词的搭配（例如，认真对待某件事）的方式是否与匹配的相同长度的非搭配（例如，愉快地接受某件事）有差异。如果我发现存在明显的处理差异，我将进行另一个脑电图实验，这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，为未来的工作（资助期后）涉及更多不同类型的搭配模式的研究问题和方法的设计提供信息。我现在和将来的研究结果将对我们理解语言在大脑中的作用和语言教学的实际方面（因为搭配教学是目前大多数高级语言学习者教学方法的主要部分）产生许多关键影响。

项目成果

Lexicogrammar and the brain, in theory and in practice

词汇语法和大脑的理论和实践

• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Hughes J

Neuroimaging of collocation: Implications of electroencephalography findings for a network model of collocation

搭配的神经影像学：脑电图结果对搭配网络模型的影响

• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Hughes J

Using Corpus Methods to Triangulate Linguistic Analysis

使用语料库方法进行语言分析三角测量

• 发表时间: 2020
• 作者: Anthony McEnery