An ERPs Study Of The Polysemous Senses Of AT In English-Chinese Learners’ Dictionaries: From Embodied Cognitive Perspective

The senses of polysemous words have been a difficult problem in the compilation of English dictionaries, since it has a directing bearing on the language learning of countless dictionary users. The senses of AT in the present English-Chinese learners’ dictionaries ranges from twelve to eighteen. However, the overlapping of numerous senses results in English learners’ mental fatigue, thus affects their acquisition.Cognitive linguists put forth a new perspective on the phenomenon of polysemy. They mainly concern about the complex meanings of the polysemy, and argue that each word has its image schema, which forms the prototype meaning. Under derivational mechanisms, such as metaphor, metonymy, etc., the prototype meaning extended to some distinct but related meanings which surrounded the prototype meaning to form a polysemous network. The overlapping of senses can be reduced with more attention being paid to the internal relationship of the senses, which will contribute to the dictionary users’ systematic acquisition of language.Based on the prototype theory, the image schema theory and the conceptual metaphor theory, and with reference to previous studies, this paper classified polysemous AT into six senses: the spatial sense, the temporal sense, the state sense, the object sense, the number sense, the logical relation sense. By studying the mental representation of AT of the advanced Chinese EFL learners, this thesis aims to provide the psychological reality of the six senses of AT. The thesis aims to explore the following question: Is there any difference between the advanced Chinese EFL learners’ mental representation of AT?The experiment adopted one factor and six levels repeated measures ANOVA experimental design(six levels: spatial sense, temporal sense, state sense, object sense, number sense, and logical relation sense). Sixteen graduates who majored in English in Sichuan International Studies University(SISU) are chosen as subjects in the experiment. ERPs technology will be used to find the differences between the advanced Chinese EFL learners’ mental representation of the six senses of AT(spatial sense, temporal sense, state sense, object sense, number sense, and logical relation sense) by testing their behavioral data and EEG data towards them. The experiment is conducted in the Key Laboratory of Sichuan International Studies University. The experiment was programmed by E-prime 1.0, and the sentences which need to be filled with prepositions are shown on the computer screen, then the subjects press any keys after understanding the sentence, then a preposition appeared on the screen, and the subjects are being requested to choose whether the preposition can fill in the sentence. The EEG data are collected and recorded by Neuroscan4.5 and Synaps2. After the off-line analysis of the data, the outcomes were put into the statistic software SPSS19.0. The analysis mainly focused on three ERPs components: N100, P300, and N400.The results can be concluded as follows:Firstly, according to the behavioral data, the RT of spatial sense(M=1152.28ms) is longer than other five senses, the RT of number sense(M=947.52ms) is longer than the temporal sense, the state sense and the object sense, the RT of the abstract logical relation sense(M=672.55ms) is the fastest. The further ANOVA of the subjects’ RT to the six senses of AT shows that there is a significant processing difference of in the comprehending of the six senses of AT [F=3.415, p=0.009<0.05].Secondly, according to the ERPs data, the six senses of AT all evoked the following ERPs components: N100, P300 and N400. The ANOVA of N100 shows that there is not a homogeneity of the variances of the amplitude of the six codes of AT [F=4.360, p=0.007<0.05], which shows that at least two variances are significantly different. According to the analysis of N100, the spatial sense is different from other five senses and the object sense is different from other five senses. The ANOVA of P300 shows that there is not a homogeneity of the variances of the latency of the six codes of AT [F=4.069, p=0.001<0.05], and there is a not a homogeneity of the variances of the amplitude of the six codes of AT [F=2.280, p=0.047<0.05]. According to the analysis of P300, the spatial sense is different from other five senses, the number sense is different from the state sense, and the object sense is different from logical relation sense. The ANOVA of N400 shows that there is not a homogeneity of the variances of the latency of the six codes of AT [F=3.273, p=0.000<0.07]. The amplitude of N400 of the most abstract logical relation sense was larger than that of the most concrete spatial sense and amplitude of N400 was constantly decreases with the increasing of the degree from abstract to concrete.To sum up, the classification of the six senses of AT(spatial senses, temporal sense, number sense object sense, state sense and logical relation sense) has psychological reality for the advanced Chinese EFL learners. It is suggested that the senses of AT in English-Chinese learners’ dictionaries should be spatial senses, temporal sense, number sense object sense, state sense and logical relation sense.