Professor Hui Zhang from Nanjing Normal University was Invited to Present Academic Speech in CCSL
On November 20, 2019, Hui Zhang, distinguished professor of Nanjing Normal University, was invited by the center to give an academic lecture. The title of the lecture was “the Neurocognitive Study of Processing Second Language Constructions”. This is the fifth of the “Language Recognition and Brain Science Lecture Series”. It was hosted by doctor Yang Qun, researcher of the center, and nearly 50 teachers and students inside and outside the university attended the lecture.
The main contents of the lecture are as follows: Most ERP studies of second language acquisition and processing adopt the violation paradigm，in which the dissection between syntax and semantics always results in the ambiguous explanations of language specific ERP components．Therefore，professor Zhang，starting from the holistic language processing， investigates the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the second language acquisition and processing by requiring subjects to make judgments on way constructions with different levels of acceptability.
The experiment results are as follows: 1) for the L1 group, the least acceptable way construction elicited the attention-driven P3a and memory comparison-driven P3b． 2) No ERP components were found in L2 group. The results imply that even advanced Chinese English learners cannot acquire the neurocognitive mechanisms of L1 construction acquisition and processing. Under the theoretical framework of L2 construction acquisition，professor Zhang explains and analyzes the reasons why Chinese English learners fail to acquire neurocognitive mechanisms of L1 construction acquisition and processing from three perspectives: the reliance of construction acquisition on general cognitive principles，the cross-linguistic mismatches of constructions and the frequency of constructions．
After the lecture, the teachers and students present exchanged information about the lecture. Professor Zhang answered the questions in detail, and the teachers and students benefited a lot.
