ERP실험을 통한 EFL 화자의 통사적 민감성 연구

This paper explores the syntactic sensitivity by EFL speakers through the ERP experiment, paying special attention to the syntactic reanalysis for the awareness on phases in the language processing within the phase-based structures (i.e., CP, vP), which include transitive verbs or intransitive verbs. Through ERP (event-related potentials), we investigate how EFL speakers respond to syntactic errors within a sentence and how sensitive they are to the syntactic information. Clahsen and Felser (2006a, b) claim that, based on the SSH (Shallow Structure Hypothesis), L2 learners who have learned their L2 after acquiring their native language process the L2 differently from native speakers. Zawiszewski, Gutiérrez, Fernández, and Laka (2011), however, report that L2 speakers show the language process as analogous to that of L1 speakers if the proficiency of L2 speakers is close to that of L1 speakers. On the basis of these studies, we examined whether Korean EFL speakers use the syntactic information and are sensitive to syntactic structures as in the language processing of L1 speakers and other English L2 speakers. To achieve the aim of this study, we try to explain the results by examining their ERP components and brain maps. Our results suggest that EFL speakers show LAN (left anterior negativity) in the comparison of transitive sentences as in Kim and Sikos (2011), unlike L1 and L2 speakers who record a P600 during the language process using structured syntactic information. Thus, this study verifies that EFL speakers also try to use syntactic information for processing the input phase information and are syntactically sensitive to the properties of verbs.