日本人英語学習者の文産出における統語プライミング効果 : 語彙処理負荷と言語熟達度の違いが及ぼす影響

抄録

The present study aims to examine how the lexical retrieval process affects oral sentence production of second language (L2) learners through a syntactic priming experiment. Forty six Japanese EFL learners participated in a picture description task. The participants were divided into four proficiency groups. They were asked to read the prime sentence aloud, and then to describe a picture with a single sentence. In total, 60 different pictures were used. The participants encountered each picture twice during the experiment. The pictures were shown with the objects' names written on the pictures (with-word condition) one time, and were shown without the names written (without-word condition) one time. Overall, the syntactic priming effect was observed in the without-word condition. When compared by proficiency, the upper intermediate groups exhibited syntactic priming effects both in the with and without-word conditions. The priming effect was found only in the without-word condition, in the lower intermediate group. No syntactic priming effect was found in the upper or lower groups in either condition. Considering the residual activation account, the results indicate that the way the combinatorial nodes are activated differ depending on the learners' proficiency. The results also indicate that syntactic activation is suppressed when lexical processing requires a greater cognitive load.