The impact of noun animacy on the processing of L1 and L2 action metaphors among Chinese English learners: An event-related potential study

Abstract

Background: Animacy is a key semantic property of nouns and an important factor influencing the processing of action metaphors.

Methods: This study investigates how the animacy of nouns influences the processing of action metaphors in first (L1) and second (L2) languages by conducting an event-related potential study of Chinese English learners' brain activity during a semantic judgment task using Chinese (L1) and English (L2) action metaphor sentences as materials.

Results: The results showed L1 conditions had shorter reaction times than L2 conditions, while high-animacy conditions produced longer reaction times than low-animacy ones; object-evoked N170 amplitudes did not differ significantly between L1 and L2, but in L2, high-animacy objects evoked smaller N170 amplitudes than low-animacy ones; the P200 amplitude evoked by L1 objects was larger than that evoked by L2 objects, with no significant difference between high- and low-animacy conditions; the N400 amplitude evoked by L1 objects was larger than that evoked by L2 objects, and high-animacy objects evoked larger N400 amplitudes than low-animacy ones only in L1.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that in action metaphor processing, the animacy level of an object noun modulates semantic extraction and integration in L1, as well as the allocation of attentional resources for L2. However, overall, sentences with high-animacy objects were more difficult to comprehend than those with low-animacy objects. Additionally, regardless of the animacy level of an object noun, more attention and cognitive resources were allocated to L1 processing than to L2 processing, facilitating faster semantic access to sentences.

Keywords: L1; L2; action metaphor; animacy; event-related potential.

Figure 1.

Example of the experimental procedure, with the left side representing a trial in Chinese (L1) and the right side representing a trial in English (L2).

Figure 2.

The time taken to make a correct key press response under 4 conditions. *P < .05.

Figure 3.

ERP results. The topmost chart displays the grand average amplitude under 4 conditions. The following 9 charts respectively illustrate the average amplitudes at the F3, Fz, F4, C3, Cz, C4, P3, Pz, and P4 electrode sites under each condition.