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ISSN : 1226-9654

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Vol.27 No.2

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Chinese late L2 learners’ semantic processing in Korean: An ERP study on the local/global semantic integration during sentence comprehension

The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology / The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology, (P)1226-9654; (E)2733-466X
2015, v.27 no.2, pp.183-200
https://doi.org/10.22172/cogbio.2015.27.2.006


& (2015). Chinese late L2 learners’ semantic processing in Korean: An ERP study on the local/global semantic integration during sentence comprehension. The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology, 27(2), 183-200, https://doi.org/10.22172/cogbio.2015.27.2.006

Abstract

The present study investigated the cognitive mechanism underlying L2 semantic integration during sentence comprehension in Korean by Chinese late L2 learners. Using the violation paradigm, ERP responses of 17 intermediate level L2 learners of Korean were recorded, to local semantic incongruence between an adjective and a noun (*broken soup (vs. sweet soup)), and to global semantic incongruence between an object noun and a verb (*to repair soup (vs. to cook soup)) respectively. No ERP components reflecting the detection of semantic anomaly were observed in the local incongruence condition, whereas a biphasic N400 & P600 ERP pattern was elicited by the critical verb of the global incongruence condition. These results imply that the L2 learners investigated in the present study have largely dismissed the local integration, and concentrated rather on the global integration, which is inevitable for the grasp of the verb argument structure and hence much more important to represent the core meaning of the unfolding sentence. Based on this evidence, we argue that L2 learners might well adopt reasonable strategies for maximizing processing efficiency, although they need not be identical to those of native speakers at every stage of L2 development.

keywords
ERP, local/global semantic integration, L2 processing of Korean, Chinese late L2 learners, 사건관련전위(ERP), 국지적/전역적 의미통합, 한국어 L2 처리, 중국인 후기 학습자

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