EFL Learners’ Production of Relative Clause Structure: Evidence from Priming Effect
محورهای موضوعی : نشریه زبان و ترجمه
Parinaz Khayatan
1
(Department of English, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran)
Ahmadreza Lotfi
2
(Department of English, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran)
بهرام هادیان
3
(اصفهان، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد اصفهان (خوراسگان)، گروه زبان انگلیسی)
کلید واژه: priming, Language Use, Implicit learning, Learners’ grammatical production, Relative clause structure,
چکیده مقاله :
Priming has become increasingly prevalent in applied linguistics and has recently been used in language teaching, being considered as the speakers’ tendency to reuse the same structure that they encounter in previous discourse on subsequent production. The present research investigated whether priming lead to EFL learners’ possible short- and long-term improvement in producing relative clause (RC) structure. Participants comprised 40 female language learners with an average age of 18-25 years old. They were equally assigned to an experimental group and a control group. The needed data was gathered through a grammatical judgment test and a picture description task. The obtained results revealed that learners’ production descriptively improved shortly after priming intervention and similarly in the long run. However, no significant improvement was inferentially observed in short- and long-term production of relative clause structure. The results were discussed in terms of structural complexity, learners’ current state of knowledge, and their proficiency levels. The findings provide insights on priming as a means of enhancing opportunities for EFL and ESL learners’ grammar production.
پدیده انگیزش ذهنی بسیار در شاخه روانشناسی زبان استفاده شده است و اخیرا نیز مورد استفاده در گرایش آموزش زبان قرار گرفته است. انگیزش ذهنی به عنوان تمایل گوینده برای استفاده از ساختاری که قبلا شنیده یا بیان کرده است درگفتار بعدی تعریف شده است. این پدیده کاربردهای آموزشی فراوان در آموزش زبان به یادگیرندگان بیگانه و تولید گرامر داشته است. این تحقیق بنا برآن دارد که به بررسی تاثییر انگیزش ذهنی بر تولید ساختار موصولی در مقابل ساختار صفت و اسم در کوتاه و بلند مدت بپردازد. شرکت کنندگان شامل 40 یادگیرنده خانم در رده سنی 18 تا 25 سال بودند. 20 نفر برای شرکت در گروه گواه و 20 نفر برای شرکت در گروه آزمایش گماشته شدند. داده ها از طریق آزمون تشخیص گرامری بودن جملات و توصیف عکس جمع آوری شدند. یافته ها نشان دادن که اگرچه بهبودی در کوتاه و بلند مدت در عملکرد یادگیرندگان اتفاق افتاد ولی این تاثییر معنا دار نبود. این یافته ها با توجه به پیچیدگی ساختاری ، سطح دانش یادگیرندگان از ساختار موصولی، و سطح مهارت آنان از زبان مورد بحث قرار گرفت.
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