第二言語低熟達者による第二言語文理解の身体性

抄録

From the perspective of embodied cognition, sensory-motor representation is activated during comprehension of sentences. Although many studies have supported this view, activation of the sensory-motor representation during second language comprehension is still not well understood, especially in L2 beginners. To investigate whether the representations are involved in the comprehension of action sentences in Japanese and English, three experiments were conducted with Japanese students at CEFR A1-A2 levels. In experiment 1-1 and experiment 1-2, Japanese students performed a sensible judgment task for unimanual and bimanual action sentences, and for mental action sentences in both Japanese and English. The reaction times for the mental action sentences were significantly longer than in the other two types of sentences in both languages. No significant difference was observed between the unimanual and bimanual sentences. The third experiment, Experiment 2, was conducted to compare perfect tense and progressive tense of hand action sentences and mental action sentences. Participants read English sentences to answer the sensible judgment task. In the hand action sentences, the reaction time to a progressive tense was shorter than to a perfect tense. However, the tenses showed no significant influence on the mental sentences. These results suggest that comprehending a second language activates the sensory-motor representation even in learners who are not fluent in the language.