Differential Effects of Early Verb Planning on Reaction Time in L2 English Production

Abstract

　　In the current study two experiments were conducted to examine how L2 speakers of English plan the verb of a simple sentence prior to utterance onset. In the experiments, a variation of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) displayed pictured elements of an event in a sequence (e.g., buy [verb] - bed [object] - woman [subject]; bed [adjunct] - sleep [verb] - boy [subject]). RSVP was used to induce verb planning at different timings (initial or middle) in the serial presentation. The variables were position of the verb, and type of sentence elements (e.g., subject) presented around the verb. The effects of these variables on reaction time (latency before articulation) were observed. The results revealed that when speakers saw a verb in the initial position, reaction time was generally shorter, but the effect of position of the verb varied depending on the number of choices which an element around the verb had: For instance, when an element (e.g., bed) preceding a verb had two functional choices (either an adjunct as in sleep in the bed, or an object as in buy the bed) reaction was delayed. A control experiment was carried out to test the effect from the number of choices observed in the main experiment. The results of this study suggest that learners should be given a chance to practice using different types of verb (transitive, intransitive, or be) in a single task.