Studies of Psychology and Behavior

Studies of Psychology and Behavior >

2023 , Vol. 21 >Issue 2: 169 - 176

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12139/j.1672-0628.2023.02.004

The Interplay Between Honorific Processing and Syntactic Category Processing: ERPs to Written Mandarin Chinese

  • JI Liyan ,
  • JI Aiai
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  • 1. School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117;
    2. Mental Health Education Center, Tiangong University, Tianjin 300387

Received date: 2022-06-10

  Online published: 2023-05-18

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Abstract

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we examined how pragmatic information relevant to interlocutor identity interacts with syntactic category processing during Chinese sentence comprehension. We used a full factorial design that crossed pragmatic consistency with syntactic category coherence of a noun phrase (NP). The results showed that the interaction between syntactic category and the correctness of pragmatic was significant. The ERP effects for pragmatic violation could only be observed when the syntactic category was coherent. Pragmatic violation elicited a sustained positivity in a subset of the participants, half of the participants showed a LAN and late negativity for pragmatic violation. Taken together, these results suggest that the processing of syntactic category processing has a function primacy over pragmatic processing. Furthermore, the strategy of resolving the pragmatic violation and the corresponding brain activities varies according to participants’ pragmatic abilities.

Key words： word category; second person pronoun; honorifics; pragmatic; event-related potentials

Cite this article

JI Liyan , JI Aiai . The Interplay Between Honorific Processing and Syntactic Category Processing: ERPs to Written Mandarin Chinese[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2023 , 21(2) : 169 -176 . DOI: 10.12139/j.1672-0628.2023.02.004

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