چکیده:
This study investigates the role structural priming plays in production of passive structures among Iranian EFL learners. In order to answer the research question, which asked whether structural priming effects result in an increase in the production of the target structure (i.e., passive structures), 60 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. After taking the placement test, they were divided into four experimental and control groups, namely Experimental High-Proficiency, Experimental Mid-Proficiency, Control High-Proficiency, and Control Mid-Proficiency. Participants then took part in picture description sessions the results of which were subjected to a 2 x 2 analysis of variance. The results of the experiment showed that priming resulted in increased production of the target structure in question by experimental groups as compared with production by control groups. In addition, the results indicated that EFL level of proficiency made a significant difference in production of the target structures. It is believed that structural priming can be employed as an alternative technique for presenting certain grammatical structures
خلاصه ماشینی:
In order to answer the research question, which asked whether structural priming effects result in an increase in the production of the target structure (i.
Keywords: Structural priming, language production, passive structure, Iranian EFL learners The tendency to produce or repeat a recently produced or heard structure, technically called structural priming, (Bock, 1986) is the phenomenon by which processing of an utterance is facilitated by processing of another one which shares the same underlying syntactic structure (Branigan, 2007).
These studies have dealt with the question of whether priming is long lasting and results in implicit learning, or decays over time (Bock & Griffin, 2000; Branigan, Pickering, & Cleland, 1999; Levelt & Kelter, 1982; Wheeldon & Smith, 2003).
On the one hand, results from certain studies suggest that structural priming effects in language production are quite short-lived (Branigan et al.
This study, in line with previous research in the field, is intended to focus on passive structures in the production of Persian-speaking learners of English as a foreign language (EFL).
In addition to language production (Bock, 1986), structural priming has been researched with respect to issues such as first and second language comprehension, language processing, the mental representation of language among native speakers (Branigan, 2007), bilinguals (Bernolet, et al.
2007), and second language learners (Gries & Wulff, 2005; Kim & McDonough, 2008), and last but not least the impact of structural priming on retention or learning (Bock & Griffin, 2000).
The research question asked about the impact of structural priming on the production of passive structures among Iranian EFL learners.