英语名词短语中心成分的认知入场研究的中期报告

英语名词短语中心成分的认知入场研究的中期报告Abstract摘要Thismid-termreportpresentsthecurrentprogressofaresearchprojectaimingtoinvestigatethecognitiveprocessesinvolvedinidentifyingthecenterconstituentsofEnglishnounphrases.Thestudyuseseye-trackingtechnologytomeasuretheprocessingtimeandfixationdurationonvariouspartsofatargetsentence,aswellasquestionnairesandinterviewstocollectparticipants’understandingandjudgmentsaboutthesentencestructureandmeaning.Thepreliminaryanalysisofdatasuggeststhattheidentificationofthecenterconstituentsinnounphrasesinvolvesbothtop-downandbottom-upprocessing,andthatthevariabilityincenterconstituentidentificationisinfluencedbydifferentfactors,suchassyntacticcomplexityandsemanticambiguity.Furtheranalysisandexperimentsareplannedtogainamorecomprehensiveunderstandingofthisphenomenon.本中期报告介绍了一个研究项目的当前进展，旨在探究英语名词短语中心要素识别涉及的认知过程。该研究使用眼动技术来测量目标句子不同部分的处理时间和注视持续时间，以及问卷和访谈来收集参与者对句子结构和含义的理解和判断。初步的数据分析表明，名词短语中心要素的识别涉及自上而下和自下而上的加工，而中心要素识别的变异性受到不同因素的影响，如语法复杂性和语义歧义性。进一步的分析和实验计划获得更全面的了解这一现象。Introduction引言Nounphrases(NPs)arecommonsentenceconstituentsinEnglishsentences,consistingofanounastheheadwordandvariousmodifiersthathelptospecifythemeaningofthenoun.TheidentificationofthecenterconstituentinaNPiscrucialforunderstandingthemeaningofasentence,asitreflectsthemostimportantinformationconveyedbythesentence.However,identifyingthecenterconstituentsinNPscanbechallengingforbothnativespeakersandforeignlanguagelearnersduetothegrammaticalcomplexityandsyntacticambiguityofthelanguage(GómezGonzález,2013;Cook,2015).Inthisproject,weaimtoinvestigatethecognitiveprocessesinvolvedinidentifyingthecenterconstituentsofEnglishNPs,particularlyfocusingontheroleoftop-downandbottom-upprocessinginthistask.Top-downprocessingreferstotheuseofpriorknowledgeandexpectationstointerpretincominginformation,whilebottom-upprocessingreferstotheanalysisofindividualfeaturesandpropertiesofincominginformationtoconstructacoherentperceptualexperience(Clark,2016).WehypothesizethattheidentificationofcenterconstituentsinNPsinvolvesbothtop-downandbottom-upprocessing,andthattherelativeimportanceofthesetwoprocessesvariesdependingondifferentcontextualandlinguisticfactors.Totestourhypothesis,weuseeye-trackingtechnologytomeasureparticipants’processingtimeandfixationdurationondifferentpartsofatargetsentence,aswellasquestionnairesandinterviewstocollecttheirunderstandingandjudgmentsaboutthesentencestructureandmeaning.Eye-trackingtechnologyhasbeenwidelyusedinpreviousstudiestoinvestigatelanguageprocessingbecauseitprovidesapreciseandobjectivemeasureofcognitiveactivityduringreadingorlisteningtasks(Rayner,2009).Methodology方法ParticipantsThestudyrecruited40nativespeakersofEnglishand40ChineselearnersofEnglishasaforeignlanguage.ThenativespeakerswereundergraduatestudentsfromaBritishuniversity,andtheforeignlanguagelearnerswereundergraduatestudentsfromaChineseuniversitymajoringinEnglish.MaterialsWecreated40experimentalsentencesthatvariedinsyntacticcomplexityandsemanticambiguity.EachsentenceincludedaNPstructureandaquestionaskedaboutthesentencemeaningtoensurethatparticipantspaidattentiontothesentence.ThecenterconstituentsintheNPweremanipulatedtobeeithertheheadnoun,thefirstmodifier,thelastmodifier,oracombinationofthefirstandlastmodifiers(seeFigure1foranexample).ProcedureParticipantswereseatedinfrontofacomputerscreenandwereinstructedtoreadeachsentencepresentedonthescreenasaccuratelyandquicklyaspossiblewhiletheireyemovementswererecordedusinganeye-tracker.Afterreadingeachsentence,participantsansweredacomprehensionquestionaboutthesentencemeaning.Aftercompletingallexperimentalsentences,participantswereaskedtofilloutaquestionnaireandparticipateinasemi-structuredinterviewtoexplaintheirunderstandingandjudgmentsaboutthesentencestructures.DataanalysisTheeye-trackingdatawereanalyzedintermsofthefixationdurationondifferentpartsofthesentences,includingthebeginningofthesentence,theNPstructure,andthecenterconstituentoftheNP.Thecomprehensionquestionnaireandinterviewswereanalyzedqualitativelytoidentifyparticipants’understandingandjudgmentsofthesentencestructuresandmeanings.Results结果ThepreliminaryanalysisofdatasuggeststhattherecognitionofcenterconstituentsinNPsinvolvesbothtop-downandbottom-upprocessing.Specifically,participantstendtofocustheirattentionoverwhelminglyontheNPstructurewhenidentifyingthecenterconstituent,suggestingthattheyrelyheavilyontop-downprocessingandusetheirexpectationsaboutthesentencestructuretoguidetheirinterpretation.However,thefixationdurationsondifferentpartsoftheNPsalsovarydependingonthepositionandroleofthecenterconstituentinthesentence,indicatingtheinvolvementofbottom-upprocessingaswell.Thesyntacticcomplexityandsemanticambiguityofthesentencealsoinfluencetheprocessingtimeandfixationdurationofparticipants.Ingeneral,morecomplexandambiguoussentencestakelongertoprocessandrequiremorefixationsondifferentpartsofthesentencetoarriveatacorrectinterpretation.Thequestionnaireandinterviewdataprovideadditionalinsightintothefactorsthatinfluenceparticipants’understandingandjudgmentsofthesentencestructureandmeaning.Participants’priorknowledgeofthetopic,theirfamiliaritywiththegrammarrules,andtheirinterpretationofthemodifiersalsopla