1. Introduction

Introduced the theory of cognitive construction grammar, emphasizing that grammar knowledge is a psychological network composed of form meaning matching constructions. Explored the connection relationships of construction networks and their importance in understanding the organization and representation of grammatical knowledge. It is pointed out that second language construction acquisition is a process of constructing syntactic structures and semantic mapping networks. Empirical research is needed to address the issue of psychological reality and representation connectivity in second language construction networks. This study focuses on English causative constructions and explores the connection patterns and activation mechanisms of second language construction representation through cross construction priming experiments.

2. Research background

In depth exploration of the structural network connectivity relationship and its importance in psychological representation. Early research suggested that there is a vertical network relationship between constructs, connecting abstract upper constructs and specific subtypes through inheritance connections. However, recent studies have shown that grammatical networks also include horizontal connections between constructs at the same abstract level. Taking the CM, RES, and IN constructions in English as examples, these constructions have conceptual similarities and may form metaphorical extensions and asymmetric inheritance connections. Meanwhile, the CM and RES constructs, as different subtypes of the result construct family, may be interrelated through horizontal linkage. In addition, the chapter also discusses the application of the structural priming paradigm in exploring structural correlations, pointing out that priming effects reflect the activation, diffusion, and connectivity patterns of psychological networks. Although previous studies have used the structural priming paradigm to verify construct associations, there has been insufficient attention paid to non alternating constructs. Ungerer's (2021) study suggests that there is a cross construction priming effect between the English CM and RES constructions, suggesting that they may have a bidirectional association on the horizontal network. However, there is a lack of research on how second language learners integrate different structural representations. The aim of this study is to investigate the cross construction priming effect and directionality of Chinese English learners in processing three types of English causative constructions through structural priming experiments, in order to verify the psychological reality of construction representation associations and provide evidence for understanding second language cognitive structures and optimizing teaching strategies.

3. Research Design

This chapter introduces a study aimed at exploring the cross construction priming effect of Chinese English learners in reading comprehension of English causative constructions through maze tasks. The experimental design was based on Ungerer's (2021) method, with independent variables including start-up conditions and target conditions, and the dependent variable being the reaction time in the critical region. The research subjects are 115 first-year graduate students majoring in English from two universities in Guangdong and Fujian provinces. The experimental materials include 25 CM constructions, 15 RES constructions, 15 IN constructions, and 61 filler sentences. The experimental sentence adopts the past tense, is concise and easy to understand, and has no verb repetition. The target sentence is divided into two key regions, which contain important semantic and structural information required to distinguish constructions. The familiarity of the target word and verb frequency were included as covariates in the statistical analysis. Prior to the experiment, a pilot test was conducted, and the formal experiment was conducted on the PsyToolkit platform. Participants read word by word to form complete English sentences. The presentation form and operation process of experimental sentences are explained in detail in the text.

4. Experimental results

The processing performance of Chinese English learners under different construction initiation conditions was analyzed through maze tasks and reaction time measurements. After data preprocessing, it was found that the subjects had a high level of mastery of the experimental sentence. There are differences in the critical zone reaction time under different initiation conditions, indicating that the initiation sentence has an impact on the processing of the target sentence. Through the analysis of the linear mixed effects model, it was found that the interaction effect between the starting condition and the target condition is significant, and the frequency of verbs has no effect on the processing speed. The pairwise comparison results show that the cross structural priming effect has both promoting and inhibitory effects, and the directionality of priming exhibits asymmetry and unidirectionality. These findings provide important evidence for understanding the linkage mechanism of structural representation in Chinese English learners.

5. Discussion

This study found through experiments that Chinese English learners exhibit a cross construction priming effect when processing non alternating causative constructions online, indicating that second language learners are highly sensitive to inter construction correlations. The experimental results revealed the promoting effect of CM configuration on the IN configuration and the inhibitory initiation between CM configuration and RES configuration. The promotion effect enhances processing speed by activating the same or related information, while the inhibition effect may be caused by prediction violations in sentence processing. The study adopted an understanding based priming paradigm, distinguishing between two types of priming effects: facilitation and inhibition.

6. Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the activation of structural representation connections in the perception of structural semantic similarity among Chinese English learners discovered through maze task experiments, as well as the resulting facilitating and inhibitory cross structural priming effects. Research has shown that cross construction initiation is a comprehensive phenomenon that involves the simultaneous activation of construction form and meaning. In addition, the study revealed the differences between inherited connections and horizontal connections in construct networks, indicating that learners establish different grammatical connections in their psychological networks. The paper emphasizes the importance of second language acquisition research from the perspective of cognitive construction grammar, which has enlightening significance for language educators to optimize teaching strategies. Finally, the paper proposes that future research should further explore the patterns and network construction processes of structural representation connections, while considering the various factors that may affect structural representation connections.