Abstract
The present study adopted a repetition priming paradigm to investigate the bidialectal (bilingual) representation of speakers with different native dialects by event-related potential (ERP) technique. Proficient Mandarin–Cantonese and Cantonese–Mandarin bidialectals participated in the study. They were required to judge whether a word was a biological word or not, when the words (target word) were represented under four types of repetition priming conditions: Mandarin (prime)–Mandarin (target), Mandarin (prime)–Cantonese (target), Cantonese (prime)–Cantonese (target) and Cantonese (prime)–Mandarin (target). Results of reaction time and accuracy primarily indicated larger repetition priming effects in Mandarin–Mandarin and Cantonese–Cantonese (within-language) conditions than that in Mandarin–Cantonese and Cantonese–Mandarin (between-language) conditions. But more importantly, P200 and N400 mean amplitudes revealed distinct repetition priming effects between two types of participants. Specifically, both P200 and N400 indicated that the repetition priming effect in Mandarin–Mandarin condition was larger than that in Cantonese–Cantonese condition for Mandarin–Cantonese participants, whereas it was opposite for Cantonese–Mandarin participants. In addition, P200 also suggested opposite patterns of repetition priming effects in between-language priming conditions for two groups of participants. The repetition priming effect in Mandarin–Cantonese condition was larger than that in Cantonese–Mandarin condition for Mandarin–Cantonese participants, while for Cantonese–Mandarin participants, it was opposite (Mandarin–Cantonese < Cantonese–Mandarin). The results implied a clear asymmetric representation of two dialects for proficient bidialectals. They were further discussed in light of native dialect and language use frequency.
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Acknowledgements
This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81372113), the Production-learning-research project of Ministry of Education of Guangdong (No. 32712014), the Scientific cultivated specialized fund of the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University (No. 2013106), and Science and Technology Plan Project of Guangzhou (No. 201508020004).
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Yi, A., Chen, Z., Chang, Y. et al. Repetition Priming Effects in Proficient Mandarin–Cantonese and Cantonese–Mandarin Bidialectals: An Event-Related Potential Study. J Psycholinguist Res 46, 1367–1383 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9495-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9495-x