Processing of English passive construction in L1 Thai learners

Abstract

The objective of this research study is to examine Thai learners’ comprehension of English passive sentences focusing on Thai thùuk-passives, which are usually found in adversative contexts (Po-ngam, 2008; Prasithrathsint, 2010) which are prototypical in thùuk-passives and can also be used in neutral contexts (Prasithrathsint, 2001, 2006), and on be-passives in English, which can be found in all contexts. This work classified English verbs into three types using adversity and naturalness in Thai thùuk-passives, namely Verb Type 1 (adversative and natural in Thai thùuk-passives, e.g., destroy), Verb Type 2 (non-adversative and natural in Thai thùuk-passives, e.g., buy), and Verb Type 3 (unnatural in Thai thùuk-passives, e.g., heal).

In EXPERIMENT 1, an acceptability judgment task (AJT) was employed to measure Thai learners’ comprehension of English passives after they finished reading each sentence. Twenty intermediate and twenty advanced learners participated in this experiment. A two-way ANOVA revealed that proficiency levels affected Thai learners’ acceptability of and they judged sentences with Verb Type 1 significantly more acceptable that those with Verb Type 2 and those with Verb Type 3. Moreover, sentences with Verb Type 2 were likely to be more acceptable than those with Verb Type 3. Positive transfer from L1 possibly helped Thai students accept Verb Type 1 more than the other two verb types.

In EXPERIMENT 2, a self-paced reading task (SPRT) was used to examine learners’ online comprehension of English passives. Twenty intermediate and twenty advanced learners participated in this experiment. A two-way ANOVA indicated that proficiency levels likely affected their reading times and they read sentences with Verb Type 1 faster than those with Verb Type 2. They, additionally, tended to read sentences with Verb Type 3 faster than those with Verb Type 2. Since Verb Type 1 is the most natural verb type in Thai thùuk-passives, positive transfer can be at work when learners read English passives, unlike Verb Type 2 which is non-prototypical. Additionally, they processed Verb Type 3 relatively fast since the sentences were atypical in L1.

In summary, Thai learners performed well when the stimuli sentences comprised Verb Type 1 in the two experiments. Adversity, moreover, played a crucial role in learners’ comprehension of English passives. In addition, language transfer was discovered to be more obvious in the advanced learners. This is possibly due to the fact that they were highly aware of dissimilarities between L1 and L2 passives. The patterns found in the two tasks focusing on different comprehension processes differed to some extent possibly due to task effects.