Syntactic blocking on L2 acquisition of Mandarin Ba-construction

• Published in: Applied psycholinguistics 2023-03, Vol.44 (2), p.157-178
• Main Author: Hou, Xiaoming
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0142-7164; 1469-1817
• DOI: 10.1017/S0142716423000103

The Mandarin Ba-construction is one of the most challenging constructions for L2 learners. The present study attributes the difficulty in developing the taxonomic representation of the Ba-construction to the interference of competing constructions. I conducted a syntactic priming experiment to investigate the representational relationship between the Ba-construction and its SVO counterpart in native Mandarin speakers and L2 Mandarin learners with or without the equivalent of the Ba-construction in their L1. It was found that native speakers and L2 learners whose L1 features a structure equivalent to the Ba-construction represented the two constructions distinctly, manifesting as a resistance to priming and a robust syntactic preference for the Ba-construction in the picture description task. Conversely, L2 learners whose L1 does not possess an equivalent of the Ba-construction were sensitive to syntactic priming, which indicates a lack of taxonomic representations of the Ba-construction in relation to its SVO counterpart. Such reduced differentiation between the two target constructions suggests a blocking effect that stems from L1 interference.