This study uses a sentence recall task to investigate syntactic priming effects in English prepositional object dative (PO) or double-object dative (DO) structures by Korean speakers of L2 English. The purposes were (1) to determine whether syntactic priming occurs during L2 production, and if it does, then to determine how it affects the subsequent utterance of target structures; and (2) to determine whether syntactic priming during production is lexically specific or independent. Thirty-two sets of target-prime sentences were developed using 12 dative alternating verbs, creating DO-DO, DO-PO, PO-DO, PO-PO target-prime pairs. Syntactic priming effects occurred with the PO priming irrespective of targets (whether DO or PO) but only when the verb used in the prime was the same as the verb used in the target. The results suggest that lexical dependency of syntactic knowledge during L2 production does not accord with the lemma stratum model. A pedagogical implication of successful learning of lexical entries is discussed.

This study investigates the effects of syntactic priming on the learning of the ditransitive construction by 49 Korean elementary school English learners. In this study the effects of syntactic priming were scrutinized more in detail by implementing it in three different input frequency conditions: Skewed-first distribution, balanced distribution, and the control. Results indicated that syntactic priming overall had facilitative effects on the oral production performance of the participants. When it comes to the participants’ comprehension of the target construction, however, it was only in the skewed-first distribution that priming had a substantial learning effect. It is concluded that priming combined with the skewed-first type of input distribution would have generalizable and durable learning effects.

본 연구의 목적은 한국인 중학생을 대상으로 통사 점화를 통한 여격 구문 습득 과정에서 구문 유형(PO vs. DO)과 동사 유형(Same verb vs. Different verb)이 어떠한 영향을 미치는지 이해도 측면에서 살펴보는 것이다. 총 61명의 실험 참여자들은 구문 유형과 동사 유형에 따라 임의로 네 개의 실험 집단(POS, POD, DOS, DOD)으로 배정되었다. 실험 결과, DO 구조의 사후 이해도는 구문 유형(PO vs. DO)에 따라서만 통계적으로 유의미한 효과가 나타났으며, DOD 집단과 POD 집단의 평균 점수에서 통계적으로 유의미한 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났다. 그러나 동사 유형은 여 격 구문의 이해도에 유의미한 효과 차이를 가져오지 못하였고 구문 유형과 동사 유형의 상호작용 효과 역시 나타나지 않았다. 집단 내 사전-사후 검사 결과를 대조한 결과, DOD 집단의 DO 구조에 서만 통계적으로 유의미한 차이가 있는 것으로 나타났으며 효과 크기 역시 큰 것으로 나타났다 (d=0.75). 이 결과는 통사 점화가 암시적 학습의 형태로 L2 학습에 인지적 기능을 수행하며 L2 학 습 상황에서 복잡한 통사 구조의 학습에 긍정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있음을 시사한다.

The current study investigates the syntactic priming effects on sentence processing in Korean(L1) and English(L2) production through a measure of production time. The purpose of this study lies in investigating whether the priming condition facilitates the production process both in processors’ L1 and L2 production. Participants are 32 Korean native speaking (L1) university students who speak English as a second language(L2). The target structures were dative alternate structures: prepositional vs. double object dative structures in English and canonical(DAT-ACC) vs. scrambled(ACC-DAT) dative structures in Korean. The experimental paradigm involved the repetition of an auditory stimulus, followed by picture descriptions. The production time was measured by E-prime. As a result, while syntactic priming effects were observed both in L1 and L2 production, the syntactic primed condition did not reduce the production time in L1 utterances. However, the time was reduced in L2 utterances with failing in reaching to the statistically significant effects.