How referential uncertainty is modulated by conjunctions: ERP evidence from advanced Chinese–English L2 learners and English L1 speakers

Author: Xiaodong Xu; Meizhu Pan; Haoyun Dai; Hui Zhang; Yiyi Lu

Organization:School of Foreign Languages and Cultures

Form ofAchievement:journal paper

Brief Introduction: referential uncertainty is one of the most common language phenomena in daily communication, which can be affected by Syntax, Semantics and other factors. However, it is not clear how different conjunctions affect referential uncertainty.In this study, EEG technology was used to explore how conjunctions affect referential uncertainty and whether this effect can be affected by foreign language environment. The study finds that compared with causal conjunction (so) and coordinating conjunction (and), concessive conjunction (although) can significantly increase the ambiguity degree of referential uncertainty and induce the most significant Nref responses, which is true of both native speakers and non-native ones.Based on Nref responses, this study has confirmed for the first time the special influence of concessive conjunctions on referential uncertainty, and has repeated this experimental finding in native speakers and non-native ones.This achievement supports the theoretical hypothesis about textual conjunctions, that is, concession is a very complicated causal relationship, and thus the processing of it will greatly increase the load of sentence processing, increasing the degree of referential uncertainty.This paper was published in Second Language Research (Volume 35, Issue 2, 2019), a L1 journal of SSCI (enjoys a high-level impact factor, contribution difficulty and influence) in linguistics, and it was excerpted and reported in detail by Science Letter (May 17, 2019; p2665; Gale Document Number: GALE|A585211070).