Embodied Meaning in Comprehending Abstract Chinese Counterfactuals
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Xueyan Li
Xueyan LI is an associate professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology. Her research focuses on psycholinguistics and cognitive neurolinguistics.
Yahui ZHAO is a graduate student at the School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology. His research focuses on psycholinguistics.
Huili WANG (Corresponding Author) is a professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Hangzhou City University. She is the Director of Hangzhou Collaborative Innovation Institute of Language Services. Her research focuses on psycholinguistics and cognitive neurolinguistics.
and
Xue Zhang
Xue ZHANG is a lecturer at the School of Foreign Languages, Dalian Polytechnic University. Her research focuses on second language acquisition and psycholinguistics.
Abstract
Embodied cognition theories propose that language comprehension triggers a sensorimotor system in the brain. However, most previous research has paid much attention to concrete and factual sentences, and little emphasis has been put on the research of abstract and counterfactual sentences. The primary challenges for embodied theories lie in elucidating the meanings of abstract and counterfactual sentences. The most prevalent explanation is that abstract and counterfactual sentences are grounded in the activation of a sensorimotor system, in exactly the same way as concrete and factual ones. The present research employed a dual-task experimental paradigm to investigate whether the embodied meaning is activated in comprehending action-related abstract Chinese counterfactual sentences through the presence or absence of action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE). Participants were instructed to read and listen to the action-related abstract Chinese factual or counterfactual sentences describing an abstract transfer word towards or away from them, and then move their fingers towards or away from them to press the buttons in the same direction as the motion cue of the transfer verb. The action-sentence compatibility effect was observed in both abstract factual and counterfactual sentences, in line with the embodied cognition theories, which indicated that the embodied meanings were activated in both action-related abstract factuals and counterfactuals.
About the authors
Xueyan LI is an associate professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology. Her research focuses on psycholinguistics and cognitive neurolinguistics.
Yahui ZHAO is a graduate student at the School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology. His research focuses on psycholinguistics.
Huili WANG (Corresponding Author) is a professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Hangzhou City University. She is the Director of Hangzhou Collaborative Innovation Institute of Language Services. Her research focuses on psycholinguistics and cognitive neurolinguistics.
Xue ZHANG is a lecturer at the School of Foreign Languages, Dalian Polytechnic University. Her research focuses on second language acquisition and psycholinguistics.
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- Abstracts
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Second Language Acquisition
- A Comparative Study of the L2 Pragmatic Competence of University Students in Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland: The Contributions of Sociocultural Context and Linguistic Proficiency
- Effects of Collocational Congruency, Frequency and L2 Proficiency on the Processing of English Adjective-Noun Collocations
- Embodied Meaning in Comprehending Abstract Chinese Counterfactuals
- Text Difficulty, Working Memory Capacity and Mind Wandering During Chinese EFL Learners’ Reading
- Testing, Evaluation and Assessment
- Scoring and Consequential Validity Evidence of Computer- and Paper-Based Writing Tests in Times of Change
- Cross-Cultural Communication
- A Cognitive Study on Politeness Intention Processing and Its Association with Pragmatic Failure in Cross-Cultural Communication
- English-Medium Instruction
- Lecturers’ Efforts in Building Rapport in the English-Medium Instruction (EMI) Context: Focus on the Use of Communication Strategies
- Book Review
- Review of Accessing Academic Discourse: Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory
- Systematizing Teacher Development: A Review of Foreign Language Teacher Learning
- Abstracts
- Chinese Abstracts
