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2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

The Relationship between the Parsing of Prepositional Phrases and Non-syntactical Information: The Perspective of Japanese EFL Learners' Working Memory Capacity

Research Project

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Project/Area Number 24720266
Research Category

Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)

Allocation TypeMulti-year Fund
Research Field Foreign language education
Research InstitutionTohoku Gakuin University

Principal Investigator

NAKANISHI Hiroshi  東北学院大学, 文学部, 准教授 (10582918)

Project Period (FY) 2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
Keywordsワーキングメモリ / リーディングスパンテスト / 前置詞句付加構文 / 先行文脈
Research Abstract

This research investigates whether and how Japanese EFL learners deploy non-syntactical information (i.e., lexical constraints and prior context) in parsing. It also examines whether the ability to make use of information while parsing depends on individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity. We used sentences with temporarily ambiguous prepositional phrases as experimental sentences to investigate the parsing process of learners. The results showed that Japanese EFL learners, regardless of their WM capacity, could interpret the experimental sentences using lexical constraint information and prior-context cues. In addition, even small WM capacity readers can integrate not only weak-biased discourse cues but also strong-biased discourse cues into sentence processing on-line. These results suggest that Japanese EFL learners compensate their non-automatic syntactic processing for other types of information, such as lexical and discourse cues.

  • Research Products

    (4 results)

All 2014 2013

All Journal Article (1 results) Presentation (3 results)

  • [Journal Article] The Relation of Lexical Constraints and the Parsing of Prepositional Phrases : From the Perspective of Japanese EFL Learners'Working Memory Capacity2013

    • Author(s)
      Nakanishi,H
    • Journal Title

      The Tohoku English Language Education Society

      Volume: 33 Pages: 87-98

  • [Presentation] The Contribution of Working Memory Capacity to the Parsing Strategy for Japanese EFL Learners2014

    • Author(s)
      Nakanishi, H
    • Organizer
      LIF 2014
    • Year and Date
      20140000
  • [Presentation] Japanese EFL Learners and the Contribution of Working Memory Capacity to Processing Sentences with Prepositional Phrases2013

    • Author(s)
      Nakanishi, H
    • Organizer
      AAAL2013
    • Year and Date
      20130000
  • [Presentation] ワーキングメモリ容量と英文理解2013

    • Author(s)
      中西弘
    • Organizer
      ことばの科学2013オープンフォーラムシンポジウム
    • Year and Date
      20130000

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Published: 2015-06-25  

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