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Abstract: Embodied Language Comprehension Theory claims that language is grounded in bodily activity and meaning is grounded in sensory motor system in modality. This study aims to examine whether EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners triggered Action-Sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) during sentence comprehension. The English sentences including concrete and abstract verbs are taken as stimuli. Reaction time and accuracy rate of the participants were collected as the experimental data. Two groups of students with different English proficiencies participated in the study. The results indicate that (1) While processing concrete-verb sentences, both groups triggered ACE. (2) There is no significant ACE in processing abstract-verb sentences. (3) High proficiency group responded faster with a higher accuracy. (4) It is difficult for EFL learners to process abstract actions. To conclude, the present study shows that mental simulation is activated while EFL learners with certain language proficiency are processing sentences. In foreign language comprehension, mental simulation would be facilitated with higher language proficiency.
Key Words:Embodied Cognition; Mental Simulation; Motor Processing; Foreign Language Comprehension
中圖分类号:H0 文献标识码:A 文章编号:1003-6822(2017)01-0017-15
1. Introduction
The study of language comprehension focuses on how language conveys meaning. Traditional Amodal Theory thinks that conceptual meaning is stored in memory as abstract, amodal, and arbitrary symbols combined by syntactic rules (Burgess & Lund, 1997: 177-210; Kintsch, 1988: 163-182). However, the amodal theories could not solve the grounding problem. According to the embodied view, language comprehension is grounded in bodily activity through the cognitive neural system so that mental image is processed from the external experience (Barsalou, 1999: 577-660; Glenberg, 1997: 1-55; Stanfield & Zwaan, 2001:153-156; Fincher-Kiefer, 2001: 336-343; 万晋红, 2009: 9-11). Under this basic framework of language comprehension, embodied theories including Perceptual Symbol System theory (PSS) (Barsalou, 2008: 617-645)[22], Indexical Hypothesis (IH) (Glenberg & Robertson, 1999:1-26) and Immersed Experienced Framework (IEF) (Zwaan, 2004: 35-62) argue that human cognition is completely grounded in sensory-motor systems. The summary of the three embodied theories can be seen in Table 1. These embodied theories are obviously reinforcing the explanation of language processing. Table 1 Summary of the three embodied theories
PSS IH IEF
Language Comprehension Processes Perceptual simulation is achieved through a simulator. Three steps: Indexing, Affordance and Meshing Three steps: Activation, Construal and Integration
Thus, the center of embodied language comprehension is the dynamic role of body in language comprehension. Compared with the traditional language theories, the embodied theory presents three characteristics: it is physical, mutual and situational. Firstly, language comprehension speaks of physical presence. Effective language acquisition is achieved through cognition with the body“in presence”. Focusing on the role of body, embodied language comprehension shows its scientificity and rationality. Secondly, embodied language comprehension grasps the interaction between the language comprehender and the environment. According to Thelen, Schoner, Scheier, et al, (2001: 34-86) cognition is embodied and cognition derives from the interaction between body and the world. Thirdly, the embodied view of language comprehension emphasizes the situational representation of human cognition. Cognition is a highly embodied and situational activity. Cognition happens in a real circumstance and is related to internal perceptual activity.
Many scholars in China have done some research into embodied language cognition. Qu et al. (2012: 834-842) reviewed theories under the rubric of embodied language comprehension: Indexical Hypothesis, Immersed Experience Frame and neural theory of language. Lu et al. (2007:275-281) stated that language is rooted in perception and motor system. Comprehending language is to simulate the situation that is described by the language. This mental simulation is based on the bodily experience as well as the emotional and social knowledge of the comprehender. Ye (2010:705–710) concluded three perspectives in embodied cognition including bodily condition, brain and sensory-specific modalities, and the environment.
In the previous behavioral studies on action simulation, the researchers mainly focused on the affordance factor, linguistic factor, the grammatical factor, or effector-specific factor. Few behavioral studies focused on the action simulation of EFL learners, especially Chinese English learners.
In order to investigate whether EFL learners understand language embodily and to explore how language proficiency affects second language processing, the following research questions are proposed: (1)Is ACE applicable to EFL learners?
(2)If so, does language proficiency affect motor processing?
(3)Do any differences exist while EFL learners are processing concrete-verb sentences and abstract-verb sentences?
2. Methodology
2.1 Participants
In order to approve whether language proficiency affects motor processing, participants are divided into two groups. Group One is the high proficiency group including 41 English major postgraduate students, coming from School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology in China. Among them 3 are males and 38 are females. The average age of participants in group one was 23.2. All of the participants passed TEM8 (Test for English Majors Grade 8 Certificate) with a qualifying criterion. They have been studying English for at least 11 years. Group Two is the low proficiency group including 43 non-English-major students from Dalian University of Technology in China. Among them 32 are males and 11 are females. The average age of the participants was 19.7. The participants were all native Chinese speakers who were studying English as the foreign language (EFL), majoring in science and engineering. All of the participants of group two passed CET4 with score less than 450 (the criteria score is 426).
The participants were all right-handed with normal or correct-to-normal vision. A reward was given after the experiment for their gratitude of cooperation.
2.2 Stimuli
The 60 critical stimuli are composed of 30 pairs of sentences, with each pair indicating two action directions: one is the motion forward-away from the body while the other one the motion backwards-towards the body. They are all simple sentences containing concrete transfer or abstract transfer. The transfer is manipulated by the verb in the sentence. According to Glenberg and Kaschak (2008: 905-919), concrete transfer describes the transfer of a physical object while abstract transfer describes a non-physical transfer. For instance,“You delivered the pizza to Andy”is concrete transfer and“You told Liz the story”is abstract transfer. The sentences are all in progressive tense, describing action that is being performed. The tense factor is considered according to Begern and Wheeler (2010: 150-158), as progressive tense can drive readers to mentally simulate the action with the strongest internal force rather than perfect tense or future tense. The subject of the stimuli is third person pronoun, and this factor is taken into account based on the idea of Bergen and Wheeler (2005: 238-243) that processing action sentences would trigger mental simulation for both second-person sentences and third-person sentences. That is to say mental simulation is activated in the ACE test regardless of the event described in the sentence is directly associated with the subject or not. The concrete-verb sentences are divided into two types with the directional representation of the sentence being controlled either by the verb or noun part of the sentences. For the abstract-verb sentences, the directional representation is controlled by verb phrase in the sentences. For example:
1a. He is beating the drum. [away from the body]
1b. He is beating his chest. [toward the body]
2a. She is closing the drawer. [away from the body]
2b. He is opening the drawer. [toward the body]
3a. She is donating a kidney to the lab. [away from the body]
3b. He is accepting a kidney from the lab. [toward the body]
The first two pairs of stimuli, 1a, 1b and 2a, 2b are concrete-verb sentences. In sentences 1a and 1b, the transitivity of the sentence is controlled by noun“drum”and “chest”. In sentences 2a and 2b, the transitivity is controlled by the verb“close”and“open”. Sentences 3a and 3b are abstract-verb sentences, the transitivity being controlled by verb phrases“donate to”and“accept from”.
The verbs were chosen from the research by Begern and Wheeler (2005: 238-243; 2010: 150-158). All 70 verbs and verb phrases are selected with 40 concrete verbs and 30 abstract verbs phrases. A familiarity pretest was conducted in order to test whether the verb or verb phrases are familiar to the students or not. 50 freshmen of different majors from Dalian University of Technology who finished the pretest didn’t participate in the experiment. Likert 5-point scale was employed as the method for the participants to rate their familiarity to the verbs or verb phrases. The instructions for the familiarity scale were as below,“If you have never heard of the verb/verb phrase and you don’t know the meaning of it, rate it a 1. If you have heard this verb/verb phrase once or twice but you are unfamiliar to the meaning of it, rate it a 2. If you have heard this verb/verb phrase sometimes and you are familiar with the meaning of it, rate it a 3. If you have heard this verb/verb phrase frequently and you are very familiar with the meaning of it, rate it a 4. If you have highly frequently heard this verb/verb phrase and you are extremely familiar with the meaning of it, give it a 5.”
After the familiarity pretest, the familiarity degree of each verb was analyzed statistically. For the concrete verbs, the mean rate is 4.773, the standard deviation is 0.138. The top 30 concrete verbs were chosen as the final stimuli (mean=4.838, S.D. =0.089). For the abstract verbs, the mean rate is 3.979, the standard deviation is 0.352. The top 20 abstract verbs were chosen as the final stimuli (mean=4.169, S.D.=0.265). A total of 120 sentences were created among which 60 are meaningful critical stimuli, 20 are meaningful filler stimuli and 40 are non-meaningful filler stimuli. The design features of filler stimuli refer to Experimental Methods for Simulation Semantics by Benjamin Bergen (2007: 277-301). Firstly, filler sentences are almost in the same length as the critical stimuli and arranged randomly among the presented stimuli so that the possible effects from trial to trial are minimized. Secondly, the filler sentences are all simple sentences indicating a certain action, so that they are indistinguishable from the critical stimuli from the superficial structure. Thirdly, part of the filler sentences is meaningful while the rest part is not meaningful. The meaningful filler stimuli do not imply any direction, for example,“He is swimming in the pool”. The non-meaningful stimuli include two kinds, either“semantically ill-formed or syntactically ill-formed. The subject of the filler sentences is also third person pronoun; the tense of the sentence is also progressive, so that the participants’judgments are not made upon the superficial properties of the sentences.
2.3 Procedure
All the participants are firstly required to fill in the profile of personal information including name, gender, major and English test score (TEM8 or CET4). The experiment was conducted in a quiet room of Dalian University of Technology DUT in about 15 minutes.
The experimental procedure is borrowed from Glenberg and Kaschak (2002). The experiment was programmed and operated by E-prime 2.0. An improved keyboard was used to respond. Small tags were attached to the keys on the keyboard. Three buttons are involved to react, one for revealing the sentence and the other two for yes or no judgment. Key“G”is tagged with a“+”sticker, Key“A”and“L” was tagged with“Y”(yes) or“N”(no). Thus the“yes”and“no”button was equal-distance (each 3 keys) away from the“+”middle button. The keyboard was rotated 90°so that it is vertical to the subject allowing these three buttons to be in a straight line. The rotated keyboard was placed on the table between the computer screen and the participants so that the participants’ response direction is straight away from the body or toward the body.
The participants were instructed to make sensible judgments of 120 sentences. Participants from two proficiency groups were further randomly divided into two groups. Half of the participants press A-is-yes and L-is-no button to make meaningful judgments. The other half press L-is-yes and A-is-no to make the meaningful judgment. At the beginning of the experiment, the instructions about the basic procedure of the experiment were given. When the fixation mark“+”appeared in the middle of the screen, participants press the“+” button on the keyboard to present the sentence. A training session is proceeded before the formal trial in order to let the participants familiarize with the experiment, such as the button-press order and the judgment test. After each training trial, the results appear on the screen as a reminder for the participants to know whether the choice was right. The sentences that have appeared in the training trial would not show up in the coming formal experiment. In the experiment trial, no results would appear in order to avoid unnecessary interruptions to the participants. All the stimuli were presented randomly.
Participants were instructed to use only their right index finger during the experiment. And they were told that reaction time and accuracy rate were taken into account for data analysis so that fast and correct response was required.
The experimental procedure is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Experimental procedure
2.4 Data Acquisition
The data were immediately acquired after the subjects finished each experiment. Reaction time and accuracy rate were recorded as the main behavioral indexes in the experiment. The results of the critical stimuli were extracted by E-merge and exported to Microsoft Excel for further filtering. Before the analysis of the experiment data, in order to ensure the validity of reaction time, the accuracy rate of every subject is calculated. The valid data are analyzed by using SPSS 22.0.
3. Results
3.1 Results of High Proficiency Group
The participants’reaction time and accuracy rate were used for data analysis in this study. According to the research objective of this study, the results of concrete-verb processing and abstract-verb processing are analyzed separately.
3.1.1 Concrete Verb Processing
The results were analyzed using Repeated Measures ANOVA, where sentence-direction (towards versus away) is within-subject factor, and response-direction is between-subject factor.
Incorrect reaction was firstly eliminated from the data. One participant’s data were eliminated because her mean reaction time surpassed 2.5 S.D. greater than the grand mean. This resulted in the modification of less than 2.44% of the data, leaving 40 valid samples for further analysis. The two sets of concrete-verb sentences, noun-manipulated pairs and verb-manipulated pairs are analyzed for the previous study proving that both types of concrete transfer could yield the significant effect. Here is the result of the mean reaction time and standard deviation of the concrete-verb sentence processing in each condition (Table 2).
Table 2 Concrete verb sentence processing (High proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2008.5000 61.11551 20
Yes-is-toward 2096.5500 39.80409 20
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2109.4000 57.05713 20
Yes-is-toward 1991.4500 51.90931 20
Table 2 shows the means of participants’reaction time of processing concrete-verb sentences. It can be seen from the data that the reaction time under each compatible condition is shorter than that under the incompatible condition. Specifically, when the sentence direction is away from the body, the yes-is-away respond (mean=2008.5ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward respond (mean=2096.55ms). When the sentence direction is toward the body, the yes-is-toward respond (mean=1991.45ms) is faster than the yes-is-away (mean=2109.4 ms) condition. Repeated Measures ANOVA results are shown in Table 3.
Table 3 Variance analysis of reaction time (High proficiency Group)
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 88.200 0.031 0.860
Reaction Direction 1 4470.050 1.587 0.212
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 212180.000 75.311 0.000
Table 3 shows that, firstly, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1,38)= 0.031, p=0.860. The reaction direction is not significant neither, F (1,38)= 1.587, p=0.212. Secondly, the interaction between sentence direction and response direction is significant, F (1, 38) =75.311, p=0. So the results of concrete verb processing of high proficiency group show a significant ACE, that is, when the indicated motion is matched with the response body action, the response is faster; and a slower response was made if the two transfer directions do not match. Mean reaction time shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Mean reaction time of concrete verb sentence processing (High Proficiency EFL group)
Since there is a significant interactive effect between the sentence direction and the response direction, simple effect analysis is engaged for further analysis as see in Table 4. Table 4 Simple effect analysis of RT of concrete verb processing
(High proficiency group)
Source of Variation df MS F Sig.
Reaction Direction Sentence Direction
(Away from body) 1 77528.03 2.52 0.173
Sentence Direction
(Toward body) 1 139122.03 4.38 0.213
Sentence Direction Sentence Direction
(Yes-is-away) 1 101808.10 36.14 0.000
Reaction Direction
(Yes-is-toward) 1 110460.10 39.21 0.000
The simple effect analysis results show that:
Firstly, in the two levels of sentence direction, there is no significant difference between the two reaction directions, F (1, 38) =2.52, p=0.173; F (1, 38) =4.38, p=0.213. The results indicate that in both conditions either the sentence direction (away from the body or toward the body) or the reaction time of the participants’body motion (forward and backward direction) is different but shows no significant effect.
Secondly, with respect to the reaction direction, the pair of sentence direction yields a significant difference, F (1, 38) =36.14, p=0; F (1, 38) =39.21, p=0. The data show that under both conditions including the reaction direction (away from the body or towards the body), the two levels of sentence direction (away from the body and toward the body) a significant difference is yielded.
In a word, the high proficiency group has a significant ACE during concrete-verb processing.
3.1.2 Abstract Verb Processing
Table 5 and Table 6 show the reaction time of the abstract-verb processing of high proficiency group in each condition.
Table 5 Abstract verb sentence processing (High proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2134.80 31.79378 10
Yes-is-toward 2157.30 30.20320 10
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2147.80 32.09638 10
Yes-is-toward 2159.00 50.00667 10
Table 5 shows that when the sentence indicates an away from body transfer, the yes-is-away response (mean=2134.8ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward response (mean=2157.3 ms). When the sentence direction is toward the body, the yes-is-away response (mean=2147.8 ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward (mean=2159.0 ms) condition.
Table 6 Variance analysis of abstract verb sentence processing (High proficiency group) Dependent variable: reaction time
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 540.225 .396 .533 Reaction Direction 1 2839.225 2.082 .158
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 319.225 .234 .631
Table 6 indicates that, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1, 18) = 0.396, p=0.533. The reaction direction is not significant, either, F (1, 38) = 1.587, p=0.212. The interaction between sentence direction and response direction is not significant, F (1, 18) =0.234, p=0.631.
Through data analysis of abstract verb processing we could find that there is no significant difference of reaction time no matter whether the sentence direction and the reaction direction is compatible or not. The high proficiency EFL group did not yield ACE during processing abstract verbs.
3.2 Results of Low Proficiency Group
The results are analyzed using Repeated Measures ANOVA, in which sentence-direction (towards versus away) within-subject factors, and the response direction is between-subject factor.
Incorrect reaction was firstly eliminated from the data. Three participant’s data were eliminated as the mean reaction time surpassed 2.5 S.D. which was greater than the grand mean. This resulted in the modification of less than 6.98% of the data, leaving 40 valid samples for further analysis.
3.2.1 Concrete Verb Processing
Here is the reaction time of the concrete verb processing of low proficiency group figured in each condition as seen in Table 7.
Table 7 Reaction time of concrete verb sentence (Low proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2306.3500 161.36662 20
Yes-is-toward 2399.9500 42.38728 20
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2424.7500 45.20698 20
Yes-is-toward 2286.1500 81.62899 20
Table 7 shows the mean of participants’reaction time of processing concrete-verb sentences. It can be seen from the data that the reaction time under the compatible condition is shorter than under the incompatible condition. Specifically, when the sentence direction is away from the body, the yes-is-away response (mean=2306.35ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward response (mean=2399.95ms). When the sentence direction is toward the body, the yes-is-toward response (mean=2286.15ms) is faster than the yes-is-away (mean=2424.75ms) condition. Repeated Measures ANOVA results are shown in Table 8.
Table 8 Variance analysis of reaction time (Low proficiency group) Dependent variable: reaction time
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 105.800 0.012 0.915
Reaction Direction 1 10125.000 1.108 0.296
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 269584.200 29.509 0.000
Table 8 shows that firstly, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1, 38) = 0.012, p=0.915. The reaction direction is not significant either, F (1, 38) = 1.108, p=0.296. Secondly, the interaction between sentence direction and response direction is significant, F (1, 38) =29.509, p=0. So the results of concrete verb processing of low proficiency group show a significant ACE. That is to say, when the indicated motion match with the response body action the response is faster, and a slower response was made if the two transfer directions do not match. Mean reaction time is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 Mean reaction time of concrete verb sentences (Low proficiency group)
Since there is a significant interactive effect between the sentence direction and the response direction, simple effect analysis is engaged for further analysis. See Table 9:
Table 9 Simple effect analysis of concrete verb processing (Low proficiency EFL group)
Source of Variation df MS F Sig.
Reaction Direction Sentence Direction
(Away from body) 1 87609.60 0.959 0.118
Sentence Direction
(Toward body) 1 192099.60 2.103 0.093
Sentence Direction Sentence Direction
(Yes-is-away) 1 140185.60 15.34 0.000
Reaction Direction
(Yes-is-toward) 1 129504.40 14.18 0.000
Table 9 shows that firstly, in two sentence direction levels, the pair of reaction direction holds no significant differences between the two levels, F (1, 38) =0.959, p=0.118; F (1.38) =2.103, p=0.093. The results indicate that in both conditions (either the sentence direction is away from the body or toward the body), the reaction time of the participants’body motion of forward and backward direction hold some difference, but the effect is not significant.
Secondly, in the two levels of participants’reaction direction, the pair of sentence direction yields a significant difference. Under the response direction (yes-is-away condition), there is a significant difference between the sentence direction of“away from the body”and“toward the body”, F (1, 38) =15.34, p=0. Under the response direction (yes-is-toward direction), there is a significant differences between the“away from the body”sentence direction and the“toward the body direction”sentence direction, F (1, 38) =14.18, p=0. According to the above analysis, it can be concluded that the processing of concrete-verb sentences shows a significant interactive effect between the response direction and the sentence direction. The low proficiency group yielded ACE while processing concrete verbs.
3.2.2 Abstract Verb Processing
Table 10 and Table 11 show the results of the abstract verb processing of low proficiency group:
Table 10 Abstract verb sentence processing (Low proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2471.00 31.00896 10
Yes-is-toward 2482.20 104.59106 10
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2484.40 53.06223 10
Yes-is-toward 2494.60 94.98210 10
From Table 10, when the sentence indicates an away-from-body transfer, the yes-is-away response (mean RT=2471.0ms) is a little faster than the yes-is-toward response (mean RT=2482.2ms). Under the condition that sentence direction is toward-body, the yes-is-toward response is faster than the yes-is-toward condition (mean RT= 2494.60ms). The variance analysis shows in Table 11.
Table 11 Variance analysis of abstract verb sentence processing (Low proficiency group) Dependent variable: reaction time
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 1664.100 0.280 0.600
Reaction Direction 1 1144.900 0.193 0.663
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 2.500 0.000 0.984
Table 11 shows that firstly, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1, 18) = 0.280, p=0.600. For the reaction direction, the effect is not significant either, F (1, 38) = 0.193, p=0.663; secondly, the interaction between sentence direction and response direction is significant, F (1, 18) =0.000, p=0.984.
The results indicate that, for the low proficiency group, there is no significant difference of reaction time no matter when the sentence direction is compatible or incompatible with the reaction time. The low proficiency group does not yield ACE during abstract verb processing.
3.3 Comparison of High Proficiency Group and Low Proficiency Group
According to the previous results, both high proficiency group and low proficiency group show the significant effect during concrete verb sentence processing, that is, when the sentence direction is compatible with the response direction, the response is faster than the incompatible situation. No ACE is shown in abstract verb sentence processing. So in order to compare the difference between high proficiency group and low proficiency group while processing action sentences, the reaction time and accuracy rate of concrete verb processing are calculated for further comparison. Paired sample T-test is applied to the comparison. Furthermore, the concrete transfer is caused by concrete verbs. The actions caused by concrete verbs are executed directly via the physical movement. In the view of embodied language comprehension, action simulation is based on our past experience of the action. Therefore, since the findings of the experiment show that there is no ACE when EFL learners in the high proficiency group process abstract actions. This is different from the previous study of native speakers showing that both concrete and abstract action caused mental simulation (Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002: 558-565). The differences for native and non-native speakers to process abstract words are due to the fact that abstract words involve more emotional aspects than concrete ones (Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews et al., 2009: 219-247). However, standing in a new angle to explain the concrete and abstract problem, De Groot and Nas (1991: 90-123) propose that in a bilingual’s mental lexicon, concrete words share the same conceptual representation of the source and target language, while abstract verbs exist independently in two languages [69]. As to the present study, the abstract action is not closely related to physical movement, making it hard for non-native speakers to simulate. According to Meteyard et al (2012: 788-804), concrete knowledge would be grounded in our internal experience and abstract words have more affective associations than concrete words. The greater the affective associations, the earlier those abstract words are acquired. Simulating abstract actions may be the procedure only seen in first language comprehension. Non-native speakers may process abstract knowledge simply through memorizing and translating from their first language.
One result of the present study is that under the compatible condition of processing concrete actions, the high proficiency group performs better with a high accuracy and fast reaction. This result reflects that the fluent non-native speakers have a higher speed of language comprehension that facilitates mental simulation. The action indicates in the sentence could be delivered rapidly through language processing. According to Dong (2005: 23-29), while processing the action, the bilingual’s mind still keeps the differences of the source and target language, but as the language proficiency is improved the difference is becoming less obvious. In the present study the most visualized difference of language proficiency is shown in the reaction time. Therefore, it can be concluded that language proficiency has effects on motor processing. 5. Conclusion
The paper is based on a behavioral study of embodied language comprehension by conducting a comparison experiment to testify whether EFL learners could prime ACE and further compare the results of the two groups to figure out the difference.
The participantss in this study are EFL learners. The critical sentences in this experiment contain concrete verbs and abstract verbs which denote two directions: away from the body and toward the body. From the approach of ACE, the compatible response direction reacts faster than the incompatible response direction does. This study aims to test whether EFL learners have the same effect with concrete and abstract verb processing, and compare the performance of two proficiency groups. The following conclusions can be drawn:
(1) EFL learners primes mental simulation in action sentence processing. Both high proficiency group and low proficiency group have the significant ACE in processing concrete-verb sentences. The processing rate is much higher when the sentence direction is compatible with the response direction. This finding shows that EFL learners have access to mental simulation just as native speakers do.
(2) While EFL learners process abstract-verb sentences, no mental simulation is activated, even for the high proficiency group. No significant ACE occurs when both groups process abstract actions, which shows that processing abstract action is harder than concrete ones. The reason is that abstract-action processing relies more on linguistic knowledge and social information. Non-native speakers who acquired abstract verbs may simply depend on memorizing and translating meaning into their mother tongue.
(3) Differences have been found when different language proficiency groups process concrete verb sentences. The reaction time and accuracy rate of the high-level group yield a significant difference compared with the low-level group. This means the low-level group spend longer time processing the action in English. The high-level group show advantage in foreign language comprehension as the rapid response facilitates mental simulation.
6. Pedagogical Implications
Under this topic of action simulation in foreign language comprehension, the results of the present study indicate that higher language proficiency primes a faster mental simulation in language comprehension. This result is easily connected with language teaching. The TPR (Total physical Response) approach is a teaching approach emphasizing the interaction between physical activity and language learning. This approach is suitable for young EFL learners to acquire a foreign language like a native child learning his/her mother tongue. Through this method, English learning becomes immersive by creating a learning environment using physical response connected with what the language describes, so that foreign language is acquired through bodily activity instead of traditional teaching approach of listening, memorizing and translating. So action simulation can be conducive to both native language and EFL learning. References
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作者簡介:王慧莉,女,博士,大连理工大学外国语学院教授、博士生导师。主要从事心理语言学,认知神经语言学研究;
徐熙然,女,大连理工大学外国语学院硕士研究生。主要从事心理语言学研究。
张菅,女,硕士,大连理工大学外国语学院讲师。主要从事认知语言学研究。
通讯地址:大连市高新园区凌工路2号大连理工大学外国语学院,邮编116024
E-mail:[email protected]
(责任编辑:柯贤兵)
Key Words:Embodied Cognition; Mental Simulation; Motor Processing; Foreign Language Comprehension
中圖分类号:H0 文献标识码:A 文章编号:1003-6822(2017)01-0017-15
1. Introduction
The study of language comprehension focuses on how language conveys meaning. Traditional Amodal Theory thinks that conceptual meaning is stored in memory as abstract, amodal, and arbitrary symbols combined by syntactic rules (Burgess & Lund, 1997: 177-210; Kintsch, 1988: 163-182). However, the amodal theories could not solve the grounding problem. According to the embodied view, language comprehension is grounded in bodily activity through the cognitive neural system so that mental image is processed from the external experience (Barsalou, 1999: 577-660; Glenberg, 1997: 1-55; Stanfield & Zwaan, 2001:153-156; Fincher-Kiefer, 2001: 336-343; 万晋红, 2009: 9-11). Under this basic framework of language comprehension, embodied theories including Perceptual Symbol System theory (PSS) (Barsalou, 2008: 617-645)[22], Indexical Hypothesis (IH) (Glenberg & Robertson, 1999:1-26) and Immersed Experienced Framework (IEF) (Zwaan, 2004: 35-62) argue that human cognition is completely grounded in sensory-motor systems. The summary of the three embodied theories can be seen in Table 1. These embodied theories are obviously reinforcing the explanation of language processing. Table 1 Summary of the three embodied theories
PSS IH IEF
Language Comprehension Processes Perceptual simulation is achieved through a simulator. Three steps: Indexing, Affordance and Meshing Three steps: Activation, Construal and Integration
Thus, the center of embodied language comprehension is the dynamic role of body in language comprehension. Compared with the traditional language theories, the embodied theory presents three characteristics: it is physical, mutual and situational. Firstly, language comprehension speaks of physical presence. Effective language acquisition is achieved through cognition with the body“in presence”. Focusing on the role of body, embodied language comprehension shows its scientificity and rationality. Secondly, embodied language comprehension grasps the interaction between the language comprehender and the environment. According to Thelen, Schoner, Scheier, et al, (2001: 34-86) cognition is embodied and cognition derives from the interaction between body and the world. Thirdly, the embodied view of language comprehension emphasizes the situational representation of human cognition. Cognition is a highly embodied and situational activity. Cognition happens in a real circumstance and is related to internal perceptual activity.
Many scholars in China have done some research into embodied language cognition. Qu et al. (2012: 834-842) reviewed theories under the rubric of embodied language comprehension: Indexical Hypothesis, Immersed Experience Frame and neural theory of language. Lu et al. (2007:275-281) stated that language is rooted in perception and motor system. Comprehending language is to simulate the situation that is described by the language. This mental simulation is based on the bodily experience as well as the emotional and social knowledge of the comprehender. Ye (2010:705–710) concluded three perspectives in embodied cognition including bodily condition, brain and sensory-specific modalities, and the environment.
In the previous behavioral studies on action simulation, the researchers mainly focused on the affordance factor, linguistic factor, the grammatical factor, or effector-specific factor. Few behavioral studies focused on the action simulation of EFL learners, especially Chinese English learners.
In order to investigate whether EFL learners understand language embodily and to explore how language proficiency affects second language processing, the following research questions are proposed: (1)Is ACE applicable to EFL learners?
(2)If so, does language proficiency affect motor processing?
(3)Do any differences exist while EFL learners are processing concrete-verb sentences and abstract-verb sentences?
2. Methodology
2.1 Participants
In order to approve whether language proficiency affects motor processing, participants are divided into two groups. Group One is the high proficiency group including 41 English major postgraduate students, coming from School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology in China. Among them 3 are males and 38 are females. The average age of participants in group one was 23.2. All of the participants passed TEM8 (Test for English Majors Grade 8 Certificate) with a qualifying criterion. They have been studying English for at least 11 years. Group Two is the low proficiency group including 43 non-English-major students from Dalian University of Technology in China. Among them 32 are males and 11 are females. The average age of the participants was 19.7. The participants were all native Chinese speakers who were studying English as the foreign language (EFL), majoring in science and engineering. All of the participants of group two passed CET4 with score less than 450 (the criteria score is 426).
The participants were all right-handed with normal or correct-to-normal vision. A reward was given after the experiment for their gratitude of cooperation.
2.2 Stimuli
The 60 critical stimuli are composed of 30 pairs of sentences, with each pair indicating two action directions: one is the motion forward-away from the body while the other one the motion backwards-towards the body. They are all simple sentences containing concrete transfer or abstract transfer. The transfer is manipulated by the verb in the sentence. According to Glenberg and Kaschak (2008: 905-919), concrete transfer describes the transfer of a physical object while abstract transfer describes a non-physical transfer. For instance,“You delivered the pizza to Andy”is concrete transfer and“You told Liz the story”is abstract transfer. The sentences are all in progressive tense, describing action that is being performed. The tense factor is considered according to Begern and Wheeler (2010: 150-158), as progressive tense can drive readers to mentally simulate the action with the strongest internal force rather than perfect tense or future tense. The subject of the stimuli is third person pronoun, and this factor is taken into account based on the idea of Bergen and Wheeler (2005: 238-243) that processing action sentences would trigger mental simulation for both second-person sentences and third-person sentences. That is to say mental simulation is activated in the ACE test regardless of the event described in the sentence is directly associated with the subject or not. The concrete-verb sentences are divided into two types with the directional representation of the sentence being controlled either by the verb or noun part of the sentences. For the abstract-verb sentences, the directional representation is controlled by verb phrase in the sentences. For example:
1a. He is beating the drum. [away from the body]
1b. He is beating his chest. [toward the body]
2a. She is closing the drawer. [away from the body]
2b. He is opening the drawer. [toward the body]
3a. She is donating a kidney to the lab. [away from the body]
3b. He is accepting a kidney from the lab. [toward the body]
The first two pairs of stimuli, 1a, 1b and 2a, 2b are concrete-verb sentences. In sentences 1a and 1b, the transitivity of the sentence is controlled by noun“drum”and “chest”. In sentences 2a and 2b, the transitivity is controlled by the verb“close”and“open”. Sentences 3a and 3b are abstract-verb sentences, the transitivity being controlled by verb phrases“donate to”and“accept from”.
The verbs were chosen from the research by Begern and Wheeler (2005: 238-243; 2010: 150-158). All 70 verbs and verb phrases are selected with 40 concrete verbs and 30 abstract verbs phrases. A familiarity pretest was conducted in order to test whether the verb or verb phrases are familiar to the students or not. 50 freshmen of different majors from Dalian University of Technology who finished the pretest didn’t participate in the experiment. Likert 5-point scale was employed as the method for the participants to rate their familiarity to the verbs or verb phrases. The instructions for the familiarity scale were as below,“If you have never heard of the verb/verb phrase and you don’t know the meaning of it, rate it a 1. If you have heard this verb/verb phrase once or twice but you are unfamiliar to the meaning of it, rate it a 2. If you have heard this verb/verb phrase sometimes and you are familiar with the meaning of it, rate it a 3. If you have heard this verb/verb phrase frequently and you are very familiar with the meaning of it, rate it a 4. If you have highly frequently heard this verb/verb phrase and you are extremely familiar with the meaning of it, give it a 5.”
After the familiarity pretest, the familiarity degree of each verb was analyzed statistically. For the concrete verbs, the mean rate is 4.773, the standard deviation is 0.138. The top 30 concrete verbs were chosen as the final stimuli (mean=4.838, S.D. =0.089). For the abstract verbs, the mean rate is 3.979, the standard deviation is 0.352. The top 20 abstract verbs were chosen as the final stimuli (mean=4.169, S.D.=0.265). A total of 120 sentences were created among which 60 are meaningful critical stimuli, 20 are meaningful filler stimuli and 40 are non-meaningful filler stimuli. The design features of filler stimuli refer to Experimental Methods for Simulation Semantics by Benjamin Bergen (2007: 277-301). Firstly, filler sentences are almost in the same length as the critical stimuli and arranged randomly among the presented stimuli so that the possible effects from trial to trial are minimized. Secondly, the filler sentences are all simple sentences indicating a certain action, so that they are indistinguishable from the critical stimuli from the superficial structure. Thirdly, part of the filler sentences is meaningful while the rest part is not meaningful. The meaningful filler stimuli do not imply any direction, for example,“He is swimming in the pool”. The non-meaningful stimuli include two kinds, either“semantically ill-formed or syntactically ill-formed. The subject of the filler sentences is also third person pronoun; the tense of the sentence is also progressive, so that the participants’judgments are not made upon the superficial properties of the sentences.
2.3 Procedure
All the participants are firstly required to fill in the profile of personal information including name, gender, major and English test score (TEM8 or CET4). The experiment was conducted in a quiet room of Dalian University of Technology DUT in about 15 minutes.
The experimental procedure is borrowed from Glenberg and Kaschak (2002). The experiment was programmed and operated by E-prime 2.0. An improved keyboard was used to respond. Small tags were attached to the keys on the keyboard. Three buttons are involved to react, one for revealing the sentence and the other two for yes or no judgment. Key“G”is tagged with a“+”sticker, Key“A”and“L” was tagged with“Y”(yes) or“N”(no). Thus the“yes”and“no”button was equal-distance (each 3 keys) away from the“+”middle button. The keyboard was rotated 90°so that it is vertical to the subject allowing these three buttons to be in a straight line. The rotated keyboard was placed on the table between the computer screen and the participants so that the participants’ response direction is straight away from the body or toward the body.
The participants were instructed to make sensible judgments of 120 sentences. Participants from two proficiency groups were further randomly divided into two groups. Half of the participants press A-is-yes and L-is-no button to make meaningful judgments. The other half press L-is-yes and A-is-no to make the meaningful judgment. At the beginning of the experiment, the instructions about the basic procedure of the experiment were given. When the fixation mark“+”appeared in the middle of the screen, participants press the“+” button on the keyboard to present the sentence. A training session is proceeded before the formal trial in order to let the participants familiarize with the experiment, such as the button-press order and the judgment test. After each training trial, the results appear on the screen as a reminder for the participants to know whether the choice was right. The sentences that have appeared in the training trial would not show up in the coming formal experiment. In the experiment trial, no results would appear in order to avoid unnecessary interruptions to the participants. All the stimuli were presented randomly.
Participants were instructed to use only their right index finger during the experiment. And they were told that reaction time and accuracy rate were taken into account for data analysis so that fast and correct response was required.
The experimental procedure is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Experimental procedure
2.4 Data Acquisition
The data were immediately acquired after the subjects finished each experiment. Reaction time and accuracy rate were recorded as the main behavioral indexes in the experiment. The results of the critical stimuli were extracted by E-merge and exported to Microsoft Excel for further filtering. Before the analysis of the experiment data, in order to ensure the validity of reaction time, the accuracy rate of every subject is calculated. The valid data are analyzed by using SPSS 22.0.
3. Results
3.1 Results of High Proficiency Group
The participants’reaction time and accuracy rate were used for data analysis in this study. According to the research objective of this study, the results of concrete-verb processing and abstract-verb processing are analyzed separately.
3.1.1 Concrete Verb Processing
The results were analyzed using Repeated Measures ANOVA, where sentence-direction (towards versus away) is within-subject factor, and response-direction is between-subject factor.
Incorrect reaction was firstly eliminated from the data. One participant’s data were eliminated because her mean reaction time surpassed 2.5 S.D. greater than the grand mean. This resulted in the modification of less than 2.44% of the data, leaving 40 valid samples for further analysis. The two sets of concrete-verb sentences, noun-manipulated pairs and verb-manipulated pairs are analyzed for the previous study proving that both types of concrete transfer could yield the significant effect. Here is the result of the mean reaction time and standard deviation of the concrete-verb sentence processing in each condition (Table 2).
Table 2 Concrete verb sentence processing (High proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2008.5000 61.11551 20
Yes-is-toward 2096.5500 39.80409 20
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2109.4000 57.05713 20
Yes-is-toward 1991.4500 51.90931 20
Table 2 shows the means of participants’reaction time of processing concrete-verb sentences. It can be seen from the data that the reaction time under each compatible condition is shorter than that under the incompatible condition. Specifically, when the sentence direction is away from the body, the yes-is-away respond (mean=2008.5ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward respond (mean=2096.55ms). When the sentence direction is toward the body, the yes-is-toward respond (mean=1991.45ms) is faster than the yes-is-away (mean=2109.4 ms) condition. Repeated Measures ANOVA results are shown in Table 3.
Table 3 Variance analysis of reaction time (High proficiency Group)
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 88.200 0.031 0.860
Reaction Direction 1 4470.050 1.587 0.212
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 212180.000 75.311 0.000
Table 3 shows that, firstly, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1,38)= 0.031, p=0.860. The reaction direction is not significant neither, F (1,38)= 1.587, p=0.212. Secondly, the interaction between sentence direction and response direction is significant, F (1, 38) =75.311, p=0. So the results of concrete verb processing of high proficiency group show a significant ACE, that is, when the indicated motion is matched with the response body action, the response is faster; and a slower response was made if the two transfer directions do not match. Mean reaction time shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Mean reaction time of concrete verb sentence processing (High Proficiency EFL group)
Since there is a significant interactive effect between the sentence direction and the response direction, simple effect analysis is engaged for further analysis as see in Table 4. Table 4 Simple effect analysis of RT of concrete verb processing
(High proficiency group)
Source of Variation df MS F Sig.
Reaction Direction Sentence Direction
(Away from body) 1 77528.03 2.52 0.173
Sentence Direction
(Toward body) 1 139122.03 4.38 0.213
Sentence Direction Sentence Direction
(Yes-is-away) 1 101808.10 36.14 0.000
Reaction Direction
(Yes-is-toward) 1 110460.10 39.21 0.000
The simple effect analysis results show that:
Firstly, in the two levels of sentence direction, there is no significant difference between the two reaction directions, F (1, 38) =2.52, p=0.173; F (1, 38) =4.38, p=0.213. The results indicate that in both conditions either the sentence direction (away from the body or toward the body) or the reaction time of the participants’body motion (forward and backward direction) is different but shows no significant effect.
Secondly, with respect to the reaction direction, the pair of sentence direction yields a significant difference, F (1, 38) =36.14, p=0; F (1, 38) =39.21, p=0. The data show that under both conditions including the reaction direction (away from the body or towards the body), the two levels of sentence direction (away from the body and toward the body) a significant difference is yielded.
In a word, the high proficiency group has a significant ACE during concrete-verb processing.
3.1.2 Abstract Verb Processing
Table 5 and Table 6 show the reaction time of the abstract-verb processing of high proficiency group in each condition.
Table 5 Abstract verb sentence processing (High proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2134.80 31.79378 10
Yes-is-toward 2157.30 30.20320 10
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2147.80 32.09638 10
Yes-is-toward 2159.00 50.00667 10
Table 5 shows that when the sentence indicates an away from body transfer, the yes-is-away response (mean=2134.8ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward response (mean=2157.3 ms). When the sentence direction is toward the body, the yes-is-away response (mean=2147.8 ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward (mean=2159.0 ms) condition.
Table 6 Variance analysis of abstract verb sentence processing (High proficiency group) Dependent variable: reaction time
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 540.225 .396 .533 Reaction Direction 1 2839.225 2.082 .158
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 319.225 .234 .631
Table 6 indicates that, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1, 18) = 0.396, p=0.533. The reaction direction is not significant, either, F (1, 38) = 1.587, p=0.212. The interaction between sentence direction and response direction is not significant, F (1, 18) =0.234, p=0.631.
Through data analysis of abstract verb processing we could find that there is no significant difference of reaction time no matter whether the sentence direction and the reaction direction is compatible or not. The high proficiency EFL group did not yield ACE during processing abstract verbs.
3.2 Results of Low Proficiency Group
The results are analyzed using Repeated Measures ANOVA, in which sentence-direction (towards versus away) within-subject factors, and the response direction is between-subject factor.
Incorrect reaction was firstly eliminated from the data. Three participant’s data were eliminated as the mean reaction time surpassed 2.5 S.D. which was greater than the grand mean. This resulted in the modification of less than 6.98% of the data, leaving 40 valid samples for further analysis.
3.2.1 Concrete Verb Processing
Here is the reaction time of the concrete verb processing of low proficiency group figured in each condition as seen in Table 7.
Table 7 Reaction time of concrete verb sentence (Low proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2306.3500 161.36662 20
Yes-is-toward 2399.9500 42.38728 20
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2424.7500 45.20698 20
Yes-is-toward 2286.1500 81.62899 20
Table 7 shows the mean of participants’reaction time of processing concrete-verb sentences. It can be seen from the data that the reaction time under the compatible condition is shorter than under the incompatible condition. Specifically, when the sentence direction is away from the body, the yes-is-away response (mean=2306.35ms) is faster than the yes-is-toward response (mean=2399.95ms). When the sentence direction is toward the body, the yes-is-toward response (mean=2286.15ms) is faster than the yes-is-away (mean=2424.75ms) condition. Repeated Measures ANOVA results are shown in Table 8.
Table 8 Variance analysis of reaction time (Low proficiency group) Dependent variable: reaction time
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 105.800 0.012 0.915
Reaction Direction 1 10125.000 1.108 0.296
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 269584.200 29.509 0.000
Table 8 shows that firstly, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1, 38) = 0.012, p=0.915. The reaction direction is not significant either, F (1, 38) = 1.108, p=0.296. Secondly, the interaction between sentence direction and response direction is significant, F (1, 38) =29.509, p=0. So the results of concrete verb processing of low proficiency group show a significant ACE. That is to say, when the indicated motion match with the response body action the response is faster, and a slower response was made if the two transfer directions do not match. Mean reaction time is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 Mean reaction time of concrete verb sentences (Low proficiency group)
Since there is a significant interactive effect between the sentence direction and the response direction, simple effect analysis is engaged for further analysis. See Table 9:
Table 9 Simple effect analysis of concrete verb processing (Low proficiency EFL group)
Source of Variation df MS F Sig.
Reaction Direction Sentence Direction
(Away from body) 1 87609.60 0.959 0.118
Sentence Direction
(Toward body) 1 192099.60 2.103 0.093
Sentence Direction Sentence Direction
(Yes-is-away) 1 140185.60 15.34 0.000
Reaction Direction
(Yes-is-toward) 1 129504.40 14.18 0.000
Table 9 shows that firstly, in two sentence direction levels, the pair of reaction direction holds no significant differences between the two levels, F (1, 38) =0.959, p=0.118; F (1.38) =2.103, p=0.093. The results indicate that in both conditions (either the sentence direction is away from the body or toward the body), the reaction time of the participants’body motion of forward and backward direction hold some difference, but the effect is not significant.
Secondly, in the two levels of participants’reaction direction, the pair of sentence direction yields a significant difference. Under the response direction (yes-is-away condition), there is a significant difference between the sentence direction of“away from the body”and“toward the body”, F (1, 38) =15.34, p=0. Under the response direction (yes-is-toward direction), there is a significant differences between the“away from the body”sentence direction and the“toward the body direction”sentence direction, F (1, 38) =14.18, p=0. According to the above analysis, it can be concluded that the processing of concrete-verb sentences shows a significant interactive effect between the response direction and the sentence direction. The low proficiency group yielded ACE while processing concrete verbs.
3.2.2 Abstract Verb Processing
Table 10 and Table 11 show the results of the abstract verb processing of low proficiency group:
Table 10 Abstract verb sentence processing (Low proficiency group)
Dependent variable: reaction time
Sentence Direction Reaction Direction Mean Std. Dev. N
Away from body Yes-is-away 2471.00 31.00896 10
Yes-is-toward 2482.20 104.59106 10
Toward the body Yes-is-away 2484.40 53.06223 10
Yes-is-toward 2494.60 94.98210 10
From Table 10, when the sentence indicates an away-from-body transfer, the yes-is-away response (mean RT=2471.0ms) is a little faster than the yes-is-toward response (mean RT=2482.2ms). Under the condition that sentence direction is toward-body, the yes-is-toward response is faster than the yes-is-toward condition (mean RT= 2494.60ms). The variance analysis shows in Table 11.
Table 11 Variance analysis of abstract verb sentence processing (Low proficiency group) Dependent variable: reaction time
Source df MS F Sig.
Sentence Direction 1 1664.100 0.280 0.600
Reaction Direction 1 1144.900 0.193 0.663
Sentence Direction
X
Reaction Direction 1 2.500 0.000 0.984
Table 11 shows that firstly, sentence direction does not yield a significant effect, F (1, 18) = 0.280, p=0.600. For the reaction direction, the effect is not significant either, F (1, 38) = 0.193, p=0.663; secondly, the interaction between sentence direction and response direction is significant, F (1, 18) =0.000, p=0.984.
The results indicate that, for the low proficiency group, there is no significant difference of reaction time no matter when the sentence direction is compatible or incompatible with the reaction time. The low proficiency group does not yield ACE during abstract verb processing.
3.3 Comparison of High Proficiency Group and Low Proficiency Group
According to the previous results, both high proficiency group and low proficiency group show the significant effect during concrete verb sentence processing, that is, when the sentence direction is compatible with the response direction, the response is faster than the incompatible situation. No ACE is shown in abstract verb sentence processing. So in order to compare the difference between high proficiency group and low proficiency group while processing action sentences, the reaction time and accuracy rate of concrete verb processing are calculated for further comparison. Paired sample T-test is applied to the comparison. Furthermore, the concrete transfer is caused by concrete verbs. The actions caused by concrete verbs are executed directly via the physical movement. In the view of embodied language comprehension, action simulation is based on our past experience of the action. Therefore, since the findings of the experiment show that there is no ACE when EFL learners in the high proficiency group process abstract actions. This is different from the previous study of native speakers showing that both concrete and abstract action caused mental simulation (Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002: 558-565). The differences for native and non-native speakers to process abstract words are due to the fact that abstract words involve more emotional aspects than concrete ones (Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews et al., 2009: 219-247). However, standing in a new angle to explain the concrete and abstract problem, De Groot and Nas (1991: 90-123) propose that in a bilingual’s mental lexicon, concrete words share the same conceptual representation of the source and target language, while abstract verbs exist independently in two languages [69]. As to the present study, the abstract action is not closely related to physical movement, making it hard for non-native speakers to simulate. According to Meteyard et al (2012: 788-804), concrete knowledge would be grounded in our internal experience and abstract words have more affective associations than concrete words. The greater the affective associations, the earlier those abstract words are acquired. Simulating abstract actions may be the procedure only seen in first language comprehension. Non-native speakers may process abstract knowledge simply through memorizing and translating from their first language.
One result of the present study is that under the compatible condition of processing concrete actions, the high proficiency group performs better with a high accuracy and fast reaction. This result reflects that the fluent non-native speakers have a higher speed of language comprehension that facilitates mental simulation. The action indicates in the sentence could be delivered rapidly through language processing. According to Dong (2005: 23-29), while processing the action, the bilingual’s mind still keeps the differences of the source and target language, but as the language proficiency is improved the difference is becoming less obvious. In the present study the most visualized difference of language proficiency is shown in the reaction time. Therefore, it can be concluded that language proficiency has effects on motor processing. 5. Conclusion
The paper is based on a behavioral study of embodied language comprehension by conducting a comparison experiment to testify whether EFL learners could prime ACE and further compare the results of the two groups to figure out the difference.
The participantss in this study are EFL learners. The critical sentences in this experiment contain concrete verbs and abstract verbs which denote two directions: away from the body and toward the body. From the approach of ACE, the compatible response direction reacts faster than the incompatible response direction does. This study aims to test whether EFL learners have the same effect with concrete and abstract verb processing, and compare the performance of two proficiency groups. The following conclusions can be drawn:
(1) EFL learners primes mental simulation in action sentence processing. Both high proficiency group and low proficiency group have the significant ACE in processing concrete-verb sentences. The processing rate is much higher when the sentence direction is compatible with the response direction. This finding shows that EFL learners have access to mental simulation just as native speakers do.
(2) While EFL learners process abstract-verb sentences, no mental simulation is activated, even for the high proficiency group. No significant ACE occurs when both groups process abstract actions, which shows that processing abstract action is harder than concrete ones. The reason is that abstract-action processing relies more on linguistic knowledge and social information. Non-native speakers who acquired abstract verbs may simply depend on memorizing and translating meaning into their mother tongue.
(3) Differences have been found when different language proficiency groups process concrete verb sentences. The reaction time and accuracy rate of the high-level group yield a significant difference compared with the low-level group. This means the low-level group spend longer time processing the action in English. The high-level group show advantage in foreign language comprehension as the rapid response facilitates mental simulation.
6. Pedagogical Implications
Under this topic of action simulation in foreign language comprehension, the results of the present study indicate that higher language proficiency primes a faster mental simulation in language comprehension. This result is easily connected with language teaching. The TPR (Total physical Response) approach is a teaching approach emphasizing the interaction between physical activity and language learning. This approach is suitable for young EFL learners to acquire a foreign language like a native child learning his/her mother tongue. Through this method, English learning becomes immersive by creating a learning environment using physical response connected with what the language describes, so that foreign language is acquired through bodily activity instead of traditional teaching approach of listening, memorizing and translating. So action simulation can be conducive to both native language and EFL learning. References
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作者簡介:王慧莉,女,博士,大连理工大学外国语学院教授、博士生导师。主要从事心理语言学,认知神经语言学研究;
徐熙然,女,大连理工大学外国语学院硕士研究生。主要从事心理语言学研究。
张菅,女,硕士,大连理工大学外国语学院讲师。主要从事认知语言学研究。
通讯地址:大连市高新园区凌工路2号大连理工大学外国语学院,邮编116024
E-mail:[email protected]
(责任编辑:柯贤兵)