language processing

This study focused on the pedagogical application of priming in an EFL context. Structural priming refers to the speakers’ tendency to produce the structure they encountered in recent discourse in subsequent production compared to an alternative form. Given the limited number of studies in the literature with a focus on the application of priming in L2 teaching and the problems that L2 learners face during speech production, the present study aimed at investigating whether the implication of priming leads to a more frequent oral and written production of the relative clause (RC) structure compared to adjectival modification of nouns (AN) in long- and short-terms as an instance of implicit learning. Participants consisted of 60 EFL female L2 learners, aged between 18-25 years old. Two experimental and 1 control groups were defined and 20 participants were allocated to each group. By applying a pretest, a treatment, an immediate posttest, a delayed posttest design, a picture description task, and a grammaticality judgment test (GJT), the data were gathered. Results of the descriptive and inferential analyses revealed that the implication of priming led to an improvement in the rate of the RC construction when the participants were involved in the written production of the L2, as compared to oral modality. Results are discussed based on structural complexity and procedures involved in L2 production. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are considered, too.

In the framework known as processing approach to grammar, it is argued that processing provides a full-fledged functional explanation for all syntactic phenomena including constituent ordering. Linguistic structure is simply built in a way that eases processing difficulty of sentences and results in efficiency of language use. It seems that the operation of that part of the linguistic representation system that leads to formulation of concepts utilizing lexical access procedure is governed by processing mechanisms. The processing mechanisms, as it has put forward by Hawkins (1994) are those that make it possible for humans to recognize (and produce) grammatical structure in a rapid and efficient manner. The formulator is also planned in a way that minimizes the processing load. Therefore, it appears that some ordering regularities and grammatical constraints in word order and syntactic phenomena such as movement are motivated by the flawless performance of this phase of human linguistic processor. According to performance theory and efficiency principles, constituent ordering is influenced by processing efficiency, i.e. the ordering of constituents is intended to facilitate processing. The research aims to study the processing basis of relativisation and syntactic movement known as scrambling and the effects of grammatical weight in Persian by drawing upon evidence from self-paced reading. Adopting an online reading time paradigm, the research was aimed at studying the role of grammatical weight in likelihood of post-verbal movement and processing loads of pairs of corresponding sentences. Hypotheses: Questions increasing the motivation and triggering initiation of doing this research are how different structural configurations of sentences with identical truth condition modify processing level and if the increase of grammatical weight could result in likelihood of syntactic movement. The final questions are how the movement of grammatically heavy constituents including relative clause and scrambled constituents explained in terms of processing implications. Accordingly, four hypotheses were developed in the course of the research. The aforesaid paradigm, as an efficient experimental technique to assess processing speed of syntactic structures, was designed by Open Sesame Software. Two sets of 24 sentences in three levels of weight (light, medium and heavy) and two structural levels (unmarked preverbal constituent and post-verbal one) were presented to 40 randomly selected Persian-speaking participants (between the ages 18 and 40) with university education. The first set consisted of sentences containing relative clause in two configurations and the second set of pairs of scrambled (post-verbal) and unscrambled sentences. Sentences were followed by a yes/no question. Data was analyzed using SPSS and ANOVA test. Findings: In light level, the mean reading time of sentences with canonical constituent ordering was less than those with post-verbal constituents. However, this trend got reversed by the increase of grammatical weight of the constituent subjected to scrutiny. In other word, the post-verbal movement of constituents resulted in reduction of mean reading time in medium-weight sentences. This decline was markedly more significant in heavy sentences. The ordering of constituents and the likelihood of movement is highly weight-sensitive. As a conclusion, the end-weight principle as an incentive to optimize the processing efficiency was approved in Persian.

The role of orthography in difficult speech perception tasks has already been proved (Dehaene & Cohen, 2011). Since the processing of heterographic homophones is believed to be more difficult than other words (Hino & colleagues, 2013), the present study aimed at identifying the role of orthography and word forms in perception of such words during top-down processes, such as speech perception. A kind of priming experiment was programmed on the basis of a mixed word processing and retrieval model. This model was the result of combining the models proposed by Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer (1999) and Dell (1990). 41 participants took part in the experiment and the data analysis confirmed the research hypothesis by 95 percent of certainty.

During the last two decades, in psycholinguistic studies, particular attention has been focused on bilingual speakers in order to understand the cognitive relation between the two languages, especially in terms of their activation and retrieval. One of the most important reasons is that language processing and the speed of word retrieval are different between bilinguals and monolinguals. In this study, the speed of language processing and noun-verb retrieval in either of L1 and L2 and between L1 and L2 (Persian and English) were investigated through picture naming task in 42 BA students of English Language and Literature of Allameh Tabatabaee University. According to the results of this study, in inter-languages mode, the speed of verb processing and retrieval in English is significantly more than that in Persian. Moreover, in intra-languages mode, in Persian, the speed of noun processing and retrieval is significantly more than the speed of verb processing and retrieval. In the next stage, the results were analyzed by considering the gender variable. With respect to the purposes of this research in investigating the cognitive differences in the speed of word processing and retrieval in L1 and L2, a superior cognitive performance can be concluded in females.