摘要:

This study explores how L1 and L2 Chinese speakers use world knowledge and classifier information to predict fine-grained referent features. In a visual-world-paradigm eye-tracking experiment, participants were presented with two visual objects that were denoted by the same noun in Chinese but matched different shape classifiers. Meanwhile, they heard sentences containing world knowledge triggering context and classifiers. The effect of world knowledge has been differentiated from word-level associations. Native speakers generated anticipations about the shape/state features of the referents at an early processing stage and quickly integrated linguistic information with world knowledge upon hearing the classifiers. In contrast, L2 speakers show delayed, reduced anticipation based on world knowledge and minimal use of classifier cues. The findings reveal different cue-weighting strategies in L1 and L2 processing. Specifically, L2 speakers whose first languages lack obligatory classifiers do not employ classifier cues in a timely manner, even though the semantic meanings of shape classifiers are accessible to them. No evidence supports over-reliance on world knowledge in L2 processing. This study contributes to the understanding of L2 real-time processing, particularly in L2 speakers’ utility of linguistic and non-linguistic information in anticipating fine-grained referent features.

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