| Embodied multiple representation view maintains that the representation of concepts is pluralistic and relies on linguistic,emotional,social,cultural,and other experiences in addition to sensorimotor experience.In recent years,numerous neuroimaging and behavioral empirical studies have found that abstract and concrete concepts activate both the sensorimotor and linguistic systems.Nevertheless,concrete concepts rely more on the sensorimotor system,while abstract concepts rely more on the linguistic system.So far,most domestic and international related studies have taken single words as materials that only entail a shallow processing level,and paid less attention to the congruency effect of lexical abstractness in phrases.Moreover,the studies on the congruency effect of lexical abstractness mainly focus on the first language processing,and less attention is paid to the second language processing.In view of this,the present study adopts a behavioral paradigm and the RT technology to examine whether there is the congruency effect of lexical abstractness when Chinese EFL learners are processing English verb-noun structures,further exploring the different representational mechanisms between abstract and concrete concepts.The specific research question is: Is there the congruency effect of lexical abstractness when Chinese EFL learners are processing English verb-noun structures?This study adopted a single-factor(abstractness)within four levels(a verb with the low degree of freedom + a graspable noun;a verb with the low degree of freedom+ a non-graspable noun;a verb with high degree of freedom + a graspable noun;a verb with high degree of freedom + a non-graspable noun)within-subject design.All materials were four types of sensible verb-noun structures within different degrees of abstractness which were randomly composed of verbs(VHDoF and VLDoF)and nouns(graspable and non-graspable nouns).In essence,these verb-noun structures were random combinations of abstract words with concrete words(abstract verb +concrete noun;abstract verb + abstract noun;concrete verb + concrete noun;concrete verb + abstract noun).Thirty-five postgraduates who majored in English from Sichuan International Studies University were invited to complete a sensibility judgment task where they were instructed to read the presented verb-noun structures and decide whether they were sensible or not.The experiment was programmed and run by E-prime 3.0.The behavioral data generated from the experiment were imported into SPSS 16.0 for descriptions and analysis.The experimental results are as follows:(1)The differences of reaction time among the four types of verb-noun structures were significant,F(2.692,80.342)= 34.983,p =.000 <.05,whereas the differences of accuracy rate among them were not significant,F(3,93)= 1.563,p=.204 >.05,demonstrating that lexical abstractness affected Chinese EFL learners’ processing of English verb-noun structures.Further analysis revealed that verb-noun structures with the congruent abstractness(VLDoF + GN;VHDoF + NonGN)were processed significantly faster than verb-noun structures with the incongruent abstractness(VLDoF + NonGN;VHDoF + GN),indicating that the congruency effect of lexical abstractness was produced during the English verb-noun structures processing by Chinese EFL learners(t =-9.0512,p =.000 <.05;t =-5.692,p =.000<.05;t =-4.520,p =.000 <.05;t =-6.675,p =.000 <.05).(2)In the process of verb-noun structures with the congruent abstractness,the verb-noun structures combined by a VLDoF with a GN were significantly faster than the verb-noun structures combined by a VHDoF and a NonGN(t =-2.572,p =.015<.05),suggesting that the concreteness effect was produced when Chinese EFL learners were processing verb-noun structures.In the process of verb-noun structures with the incongruent abstractness,the verb-noun structures composed of a VHDoF and a GN were significantly faster than the verb-name structures consisting of a VLDoF and a NonGN(t =-2.898,p =.007 <.05),which is contrary to results found by Scorolli et al.(2011).This contrary may be caused by the noun dominance or cultural and social experience.In summary,the congruency effect of lexical abstractness was generated during Chinese EFL learners’ English verb-noun structures processing,which supports the embodied multiple representation view.In other words,abstract concepts rely more on the linguistic system,whereas concrete concepts rely more on the sensorimotor system.Moreover,Chinese EFL learners’ process of English verb-noun structures is also influenced by cultural and social experience,further strengthening the embodied multiple representation view. |
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