ABSTRACT

Previous experimental work shows that negation processing can be direct in bipolar contexts where positive/negative states of affairs can be expressed by available lexical opposites (remember/forget) in monolingual speakers. However, in a unipolar context where such opposites are not available (sing/not sing), the processing first proceeds through the positive and only then the negative state of affairs. We test this claim with bilinguals to answer two questions. To what extent do (a) the processing routes and (b) the conceptual representations of the negated statement differ in bipolar/unipolar contexts when bilinguals process negation in their L1 and L2? 40 Chinese–English bilinguals were tested in a Negative Stroop Task (Expt. 1), in which they were instructed to verify whether the positive/negative English/Chinese colour expressions matched the colour they were printed in, either in bipolar (black/white) or unipolar contexts (green/not green). We also zoomed in on the conceptual representations of negation and tested another 40 Chinese–English bilinguals in an Orientation Task (Expt. 2). Participants compared positive/negative descriptions against pictures regarding the location of a star in either bipolar (left/right) or unipolar contexts (East/not East). The results suggest that language can drive changes when bilinguals process negation, with variations in the bipolar and unipolar contexts.

摘要

先前的实验工作表明，否定处理可以直接在双极语境中进行，其中正面/负面的事态可以通过单语使用者中可用的词汇对立面（记住/忘记）来表达。然而，在这样的对立面不可用的单极环境中（唱歌/不唱歌)，处理首先通过积极的事态，然后是消极的事态。我们用双语者来测试这个说法来回答两个问题。当双语者在其 L1 和 L2 中处理否定时，（a）处理路径和（b）否定陈述的概念表示在双极/单极上下文中有何不同？40 名中英双语者在负性 Stroop 任务（Expt. 1）中进行了测试，在该任务中，他们被要求验证正/负英语/中文颜色表达是否与他们打印的颜色相匹配，无论是双极（黑/白) 或单极环境（绿色/非绿色）。我们还放大了否定的概念表示，并在定向任务中测试了另外 40 名中英双语者（Expt. 2）。参与者将正面/负面描述与有关双极（左/右）或单极环境（东/非东）中恒星位置的图片进行比较。结果表明，当双语者处理否定时，语言可以推动变化，在双极和单极语境中存在变化。