心理语言学线上论坛

5月5日 Robert J. Hartsuiker 教授讲座

Speaker: Robert J. Hartsuiker

Title: Syntactic blocking: When syntactic representations are not shared across languages

Time: 15:00 – 16:30, Wed, 5 May, 2021 

           (Beijing, Hong Kong time)

Venue: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/779556638

            https://cuhk.zoom.cn/j/779556638

About the speaker

Robert J. Hartsuiker是根特大学实验心理学系的认知心理学教授。他是欧洲社会认知心理学主席。 他是《认知心理学杂志》的主编和《心理学》的副主编。 他的研究重点是语言的产生和理解，语音的控制和监视以及多语种研究。 他在期刊上发表了100多篇关于这些主题的期刊论文，包括《心理学公报》，《心理学》，《认知》和《认知心理学》。 在Google学术搜索中，他的著作被引用了9000多次； 他的H指数是48。 

Syntactic blocking: When syntactic representations are not shared across languages

Robert J. Hartsuiker

Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University

Cross-linguistic structural priming suggests that proficient bilinguals share syntactic representations across their languages (e.g., Hartsuiker, Pickering, & Veltkamp, 2004). Such priming can occur even when the syntactic structures are not fully identical in the two languages. The shared representations must therefore abstract across such differences. What then determines whether representations are or are not shared across languages? In this talk, I will propose the syntactic blocking hypothesis, according to which a structure S in one language and a counterpart S’ in another language can only have a shared representation if neither language distinguishes between S and S’. Thus, priming can occur between a passive with SVO structure in one language and one with SOV structure in another language, but not if either language allows both word orders. In that case, the need to distinguish between different word orders blocks the formation of an abstract representation for the passive that is independent of word order. I will discuss structural priming studies using picture description, translation, and artificial language learning tasks that are consistent with the syntactic blocking hypothesis. I will conclude with suggestions to further test this hypothesis.

Virtual Psycholinguistics Forum: 

(https://cuhklpl.github.io/forum.html)