Chinese EFL Learners’ Processing Of English Compound Words

Morphological processing is one of key issues in language recognition and acquisition.Over the last four decades,an increasing amount of empirical studies have focused on the processing of morphologically complex words,including inflectional words and derivational words in first languages(L1).However,limited attention has been paid to compound words in either first or second languages(L2)despite its uniqueness and study value.At present,most previous studies has revolved around whether morphologically complex words are decomposed and which factors(e.g.semantic transparency,word)contribute to the processing process.However,it seems to be very difficult to reach a common consensus on these topics.Besides,how morpho-orthographic and morpho-semantic information is activated in the early stage of compound word recognition and whether L2 compound word processing is the same as or differs from L1 processing are far from settled.Within limited L2 studies,most studies concentrate on L2 learners whose L1s share the same alphabetic writing system as English.However,how L2 learners with hieroglyphic writing systems such as Chinese as L1 process L2 compound words is under researched.This study thus aims to investigate the processing of English compounds in early stage among Chinese EFL learners.The study adopted a masked priming paradigm(SOA=50ms)with compound words as primes and constituents as targets.40 advanced Chinese EFL learners(mean age=23.4;36 females and 4 males)were recruited.The study found significant priming effects in semantically transparent primes(e.g.,classroom)and semantically opaque primes(e.g.,honeymoon),irrespective of constituent position.But a statistically significant priming effect for orthographic controls(e.g.,investigate)was only found in the word-initial position,but not in the word-final position.In addition,a significantly different priming effect between semantically transparent and opaque primes was observed in the word-final position.It is concluded that the compound processing route of L2,in essence,is in similar fashion to that of L1.Chinese EFL learners were found to be sensitive to the morphological structure of compounds and decompose compound words rapidly and automatically like natives.But L2 learners is slower and less automatized than L1 speakers.It could be attributed to their cognitive resources limitations and foreign language learning instruction.These findings lend support to the Hybrid Model that a double locus of morpho-orthographic information and morpho-semantic information was found in early English compound recognition.