Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning

Wenxi Zhou

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16

| Peer-Reviewed

Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning

Wenxi Zhou

Published in American Journal of Applied Psychology (Volume 9, Issue 4)

Received: 16 July 2020 Accepted: 30 July 2020 Published: 5 August 2020

Views: Downloads:

Download PDF

Share This Article

Twitter
Linked In
Facebook

Abstract

Repetition, as a common phenomenon of behavior, has been made extensive use of to illustrate mental representations. In the world of language, such repetition can be massively observed as well, which is called structural priming, people’s preference to reuse or better process the present structure due to its syntactic similarity to the previously processed or produced structures. Research around structural priming has been explosively conducted in within-language and cross-language contexts since Bock firstly introduced structural priming into language field in 1986. Research on structural priming centralizes on the underlying driven mechanisms of structural priming and its occurrence and function in language production and comprehension. As researchers investigate structural priming deeper, it is necessary to assess the current status of the research on structural priming and make directions for future research. This review is to offer an overview of the recent research on structural priming and recommendations for future investigations. For deeper and more thorough investigation of structural priming, the author points out that researchers can dive into investigations of structural priming in different range of subject, especially in second language learners and probe into social influencing factors of the occurrence and magnitude of structural priming in a more natural experimental paradigm.

Published in	American Journal of Applied Psychology (Volume 9, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16
Page(s)	124-130
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Structural Priming, Syntactic Priming, Implicit Learning, Residual Activation, Second Language Acquisition

References

[1]	Levelt, W. J. M. & S. Kelter 1982. Surface form and memory in question answering. Cognitive Psychology 14: 78-106.
[2]	Bock, J. K. 1986. Syntactic persistence in language production. Cognitive Psychology 18: 355-387.
[3]	Bock, J. K. & Z. Griffin. 2000. The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129: 177-192.
[4]	Pickering, M. J. & H. P. Branigan. 1998. The representation of verbs: Evidence from syntactic priming in language production. Journal of Memory and Language 39: 633-651.
[5]	Potter, M. C. & L. Lombardi. 1998. Syntactic priming in immediate recall of sentences. Journal of Memory and Language 38: 265-282.
[6]	Branigan, H. P., M. J. Pickering & A. A. Cleland. 2000. Syntactic co-ordination in dialogue. Cognition 75: B13-25.
[7]	Chang, F. K. Bock & A. E. Goldberg. 2003. Can thematic roles leave traces of their places? Cognition 90: 29-49.
[8]	Vernice, M., M. J. Pickering & R. J. Hartsuiker 2012. Thematic emphasis in Language production. Language and Cognitive Processes 27: 631-664.
[9]	Zhao, C & S. Jiang. 2019. Conceptual structures modulate structural priming in L2 complex sentence production. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 51: 422-434.
[10]	Bock, J. K. & H. Loebell. 1990. Framing sentences. Cognition 35: 1-39.
[11]	Bock, K., H. Loebell & R. Morey. 1992. From conceptual roles to structural relations: Bridging the syntactic cleft. Psychological Review 99: 150-171.
[12]	Messenger, K., H. P. Branigan & J. F. McLean. 2012. Is children’s acquisition of the passive a staged process? Evidence from six- and nine-year-olds’ production of passives. Journal of Child Language 39: 991-1016.
[13]	Gámez, P. B.& M. Vasilyeva. 2015. Exploring interactions between semantic and syntactic processes: The role of animacy in syntactic priming. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 138: 15-30.
[14]	Chen, Q. R., X. D. Xu, D. L. Tan, J. J. Zhang & Y. Zhong. 2013. Syntactic priming in Chinese sentence comprehension: Evidence from event-related potentials. Brain and Cognition 83: 142-152.
[15]	Tooley, K. M., M. J. Traxler & T. Y. Swaab. 2009. Electrophysiological and behavioral evidence of syntactic priming in sentence comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 35: 19-45.
[16]	Jiang, L. 2009. Semantic priming in the priming of English dative constructions. Modern Foreign Languages 32: 59-67.
[17]	Goldberg, A. 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[18]	Thothathiri, M. & J. Snedeker. 2008a. Give and take: Syntactic priming during spoken language comprehension. Cognition 108: 51-68.
[19]	Thothathiri, M. & J. Snedeker. 2008b. Syntactic priming during language comprehension in three and four year old children. Journal of Memory and Language 58: 188-213.
[20]	Kim, C., K. Carbary & M. Tanenhaus. 2014. Syntactic priming without lexical overlap in reading comprehension. Language and Speech 57: 181-195.
[21]	Tooley, K. & K. Bock. 2014. On the parity of structural persistence in language production and comprehension. Cognition 132: 101-136.
[22]	Fine, A. & T. Jeager. 2016. The role of verb repetition in cumulative structural priming in comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 42: 1362-1376.
[23]	Melinger, A. & C. Dobel. 2005. Lexical-driven syntactic priming. Cognition 98: B11-B20.
[24]	Pickering, M. J. & V. S. Ferreira. 2008. Structural priming: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin 134: 427.
[25]	Newman, S. D., K. Ratliff, T. Muratore & T. Burns. 2009. The effect of lexical priming on sentence comprehension: An fMRI study. Brain Research 1285: 99-108.
[26]	Segaert, K., G. Kempen, K. M. Petersson & P. Hagoort. 2013. Syntactic priming and the lexical boost effect during sentence production and sentence comprehension: An fMRI study. Brain and Language 124: 174-183.
[27]	Traxler, M. 2015. Priming of early closure: evidence for the lexical boost during sentence comprehension. Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience 30: 478-490.
[28]	Traxler, M., K. Tooley & M. Pickering. 2014. Syntactic priming during sentence comprehension: Evidence for the lexical boost. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 40: 905-918.
[29]	Chang, F., G. S. Dell & K. Bock. 2006. Becoming syntactic. Psychological Review 113: 234-272.
[30]	Branigan, H. P., M. J. Pickering & A. A. Cleland. 1999. Syntactic priming in written production: Evidence for rapid decay. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 6: 635-640.
[31]	Kaschak, M. P., T. J. Kutta & C. Schatschneider. 2011. Long-term cumulative structural priming persists for (at least) one week. Memory & Cognition 39: 381-388.
[32]	Kaschak, M. P., T. J. Kutta & J. Coyle. 2014. Long and short term cumulative structural priming effects. Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience 29: 728-743.
[33]	Kutta, T. J. & M. P. Kaschak. 2012. Changes in task-extrinsic context do not affect the persistence of long-term cumulative structural priming. Acta Psychologica, 141, 408-414.
[34]	Bernolet, S., S. Collina & R. Hartsuiker. 2016. The persistence of syntactic priming revisited. Journal of Memory and Language 91: 99-116.
[35]	Ferreira, V. S. & J. K. Bock. 2006. The functions of structural priming. Language and Cognitive Processes 21: 1011-1029.
[36]	Hartsuiker, R. J., S. Bernolet, S. Schoonbaert, S. Speybroeck & D. Vanderelst. 2008. Syntactic priming persists while the lexical boost decays: Evidence from written and spoken dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language 5: 214–238.
[37]	Hartsuiker, R. J., H. H. J. Kolk & P. Huiskamp. 1999. Priming word order in sentence production. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 52A: 129-147.
[38]	Hartsuiker, R. J. & C. Westenberg. 2000. Word order priming in written and spoken sentence production [J]. Cognition 75: B27-B39.
[39]	Scheepers, C. 2003. Syntactic priming of relative clause attachments: Persistence of structural configuration in sentence production. Cognition 89: 179-205.
[40]	Yu, Z. & Q. Zhang. 2020. Syntactic structure and verb overlap influence the syntactic priming effect in Mandarin spoken sentence production. Acta Psychologica Sinica 52 (3): 283-293.
[41]	Yang, W., Y. Qin & X. Li. 2019. Cross-linguistic priming of syntactic hierarchical configuration information in Chinese EFL learners. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 51 (2): 273-284.
[42]	Kaschak, M. P. 2007. Long-term structural priming affects subsequent patterns of language production. Memory & Cognition 35: 925-937.
[43]	Kaschak, M. P., R. A. Loney & K. L. Borreggine. 2006. Recent experience affects the strength of structural priming. Cognition 99: B73-B82.
[44]	Jaeger, T. F. & N. E. Snider. 2008. Implicit learning and syntactic persistence: Surprisal and cumulativity. In the 30th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci08) (p. 827).
[45]	Segaert, K., L. Wheeldon & P. Hagoort. 2016. Unifying structural priming effects on syntactic choices and timing of sentence generation. Journal of Memory and Language 91: 59-80.
[46]	Wang, M. & X. Wei. 2018. Cumulative effect of structural priming in Chinese EFL learners’ written production. Foreign Language Education. 39 (2): 68-73.
[47]	Arai, M., R. van Gompel & C. Scheepers. 2007. Priming ditransitive structures in comprehension. Cognitive Psychology 54: 218-250.
[48]	Cao, X. & L. Mou. 2013. Syntactic priming in Chinese L2 speakers’ production. Chinese Language Learning (4): 80-86.
[49]	Cleland, A. A., & M. J. Pickering. 2006. Do writing and speaking employ the same syntactic representations? [J]. Journal of Memory and Language 54: 185-98.
[50]	Kim, Y. & K. McDonough. 2008. The effect of interlocutor proficiency on the collaborative dialogue between Korean as a second language learners. Language Teaching Research 12: 211-234.
[51]	Jiang, L. 2012. The cross-language structural priming of passive constructions and its mechanism. Modern Foreign Languages 35 (1): 54-61.
[52]	Xia, S. & P. Wang. 2017. Syntactic priming and L2 learning of complex structures. Modern Foreign Languages 40 (1): 69-79.
[53]	Bernolet, S., R. J. Hartsuiker & M. J. Pickering. 2013. From language-specific to shared syntactic representations: The influence of second language proficiency on syntactic sharing in bilinguals. Cognition 127: 287-306.
[54]	McDonough, K. 2006. Interaction and syntactic priming: English L2 speakers’ production of dative constructions. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 28: 179-207.
[55]	Wang, M. 2009. Effects of language proficiency and task type on structural priming in L2 production of English dative constructions. Modern Foreign Languages 32 (3): 276-286.
[56]	Jackson, C. N. & H. T. Ruf. 2017. The priming of word order in second language German. Applied Psycholinguistics 38 (2): 315-345.
[57]	Shin, J. A. & K. Christianson. 2012. Structural priming and second language learning. Language Learning 62 (3): 931-964.
[58]	McDonough, K. & A. Fulga. 2015. The detection and primed production of novel constructions. Language Learning 65 (2): 326-357.
[59]	Gallotti, M., M. T. Fairhurst & C. D. Frith. 2017. Alignment in social interactions. Consciousness and Cognition 48: 253-261.
[60]	Gries, S. T. 2005. Syntactic priming: A corpus-based approach. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 34 (4): 365-399.
[61]	Wang, Q. & C. Wang. 2019. Learning English relative clauses by extension. Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice (03): 1-5.
[62]	Wang, Q. & Q. Cao. 2020. Structural priming in continuation tasks. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages 43 (01): 25-32
[63]	Xin, S. & L. Li. 2020. Influence of text complexity of continuation task on alignment and accuracy. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages 43 (01): 33-41.
[64]	Wang, C. 2012. The continuation task: An effective way to facilitate L2 learning. Foreign Language World 5: 2–7.
[65]	Wang, C., & M. Wang. 2014. Effect of alignment on L2 written production. Applied Linguistics 36: 503–526.

Cite This Article

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Wenxi Zhou. (2020). Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning. American Journal of Applied Psychology, 9(4), 124-130. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Wenxi Zhou. Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning. Am. J. Appl. Psychol. 2020, 9(4), 124-130. doi: 10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Wenxi Zhou. Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning. Am J Appl Psychol. 2020;9(4):124-130. doi: 10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16,
  author = {Wenxi Zhou},
  title = {Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning},
  journal = {American Journal of Applied Psychology},
  volume = {9},
  number = {4},
  pages = {124-130},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajap.20200904.16},
  abstract = {Repetition, as a common phenomenon of behavior, has been made extensive use of to illustrate mental representations. In the world of language, such repetition can be massively observed as well, which is called structural priming, people’s preference to reuse or better process the present structure due to its syntactic similarity to the previously processed or produced structures. Research around structural priming has been explosively conducted in within-language and cross-language contexts since Bock firstly introduced structural priming into language field in 1986. Research on structural priming centralizes on the underlying driven mechanisms of structural priming and its occurrence and function in language production and comprehension. As researchers investigate structural priming deeper, it is necessary to assess the current status of the research on structural priming and make directions for future research. This review is to offer an overview of the recent research on structural priming and recommendations for future investigations. For deeper and more thorough investigation of structural priming, the author points out that researchers can dive into investigations of structural priming in different range of subject, especially in second language learners and probe into social influencing factors of the occurrence and magnitude of structural priming in a more natural experimental paradigm.},
 year = {2020}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning
AU  - Wenxi Zhou
Y1  - 2020/08/05
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16
T2  - American Journal of Applied Psychology
JF  - American Journal of Applied Psychology
JO  - American Journal of Applied Psychology
SP  - 124
EP  - 130
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2328-5672
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16
AB  - Repetition, as a common phenomenon of behavior, has been made extensive use of to illustrate mental representations. In the world of language, such repetition can be massively observed as well, which is called structural priming, people’s preference to reuse or better process the present structure due to its syntactic similarity to the previously processed or produced structures. Research around structural priming has been explosively conducted in within-language and cross-language contexts since Bock firstly introduced structural priming into language field in 1986. Research on structural priming centralizes on the underlying driven mechanisms of structural priming and its occurrence and function in language production and comprehension. As researchers investigate structural priming deeper, it is necessary to assess the current status of the research on structural priming and make directions for future research. This review is to offer an overview of the recent research on structural priming and recommendations for future investigations. For deeper and more thorough investigation of structural priming, the author points out that researchers can dive into investigations of structural priming in different range of subject, especially in second language learners and probe into social influencing factors of the occurrence and magnitude of structural priming in a more natural experimental paradigm.
VL  - 9
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download

Author Information

Wenxi Zhou

Faculty of Teacher Education, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

Download PDF

Sections

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Wenxi Zhou. (2020). Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning. American Journal of Applied Psychology, 9(4), 124-130. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Wenxi Zhou. Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning. Am. J. Appl. Psychol. 2020, 9(4), 124-130. doi: 10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Wenxi Zhou. Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning. Am J Appl Psychol. 2020;9(4):124-130. doi: 10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16,
  author = {Wenxi Zhou},
  title = {Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning},
  journal = {American Journal of Applied Psychology},
  volume = {9},
  number = {4},
  pages = {124-130},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajap.20200904.16},
  abstract = {Repetition, as a common phenomenon of behavior, has been made extensive use of to illustrate mental representations. In the world of language, such repetition can be massively observed as well, which is called structural priming, people’s preference to reuse or better process the present structure due to its syntactic similarity to the previously processed or produced structures. Research around structural priming has been explosively conducted in within-language and cross-language contexts since Bock firstly introduced structural priming into language field in 1986. Research on structural priming centralizes on the underlying driven mechanisms of structural priming and its occurrence and function in language production and comprehension. As researchers investigate structural priming deeper, it is necessary to assess the current status of the research on structural priming and make directions for future research. This review is to offer an overview of the recent research on structural priming and recommendations for future investigations. For deeper and more thorough investigation of structural priming, the author points out that researchers can dive into investigations of structural priming in different range of subject, especially in second language learners and probe into social influencing factors of the occurrence and magnitude of structural priming in a more natural experimental paradigm.},
 year = {2020}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Structural Priming: A New Perspective of Language Learning
AU  - Wenxi Zhou
Y1  - 2020/08/05
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16
T2  - American Journal of Applied Psychology
JF  - American Journal of Applied Psychology
JO  - American Journal of Applied Psychology
SP  - 124
EP  - 130
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2328-5672
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajap.20200904.16
AB  - Repetition, as a common phenomenon of behavior, has been made extensive use of to illustrate mental representations. In the world of language, such repetition can be massively observed as well, which is called structural priming, people’s preference to reuse or better process the present structure due to its syntactic similarity to the previously processed or produced structures. Research around structural priming has been explosively conducted in within-language and cross-language contexts since Bock firstly introduced structural priming into language field in 1986. Research on structural priming centralizes on the underlying driven mechanisms of structural priming and its occurrence and function in language production and comprehension. As researchers investigate structural priming deeper, it is necessary to assess the current status of the research on structural priming and make directions for future research. This review is to offer an overview of the recent research on structural priming and recommendations for future investigations. For deeper and more thorough investigation of structural priming, the author points out that researchers can dive into investigations of structural priming in different range of subject, especially in second language learners and probe into social influencing factors of the occurrence and magnitude of structural priming in a more natural experimental paradigm.
VL  - 9
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download