engleski

Do Asian languages as L1 influence the processing of negation in English as L2? Evidence from Cambodian sample.

Research in different languages has shown that sentential negation is processed slower than affirmation. It is believed that negation processing is a two-step process - first, a sentence is processed as an affirmation, while negation is added in the second step. This results in significant differences in processing time between affirmation and negation, but not in accuracy. Studies on Chinse have shown additional difficulties in negation processing which might interfere with learning English as L2. The aim of this study is to investigate negation processing in English as L2 in Cambodian sample. Fifty international high school students participated in the study. They were all bilingual, with Khmer or Chinese as their L1 and English as L2. The participants were given a questionnaire consisting of affirmation-negation sentence pairs. The results show difficulties in accurate comprehension of English negations. These differences might not be related to the knowledge of English, but rather to the differences in cognitive processing between English and Asian negations. The results suggest that additional attention might be required when teaching negations in Asia and using them in exams, as negative statements might reveal more about students’ negation processing than their knowledge.

negation processing, English, Cambodian

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