1.3 Research Questions and Significance

In the present study, the debate on the processing of regular and irregular forms will be reexamined in a foreign language context, and some important factors will be investigated as well. To be specific, Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) will be investigated to examine their processing of the past tense forms of regular and irregular English verbs. The research questions are as follows:

●Research question 1

What is the role of frequency, phonological similarity and regularity in Chinese EFL learners' processing of the past tense forms of regular and irregular English verbs?

●Research question 2

What is the role of Chinese learners' English proficiency, their age of the first exposure to English and their duration of exposure to English in their processing of the past tense forms of regular and irregular English verbs?

●Research question 3

Which theories, the single-mechanism models or the dual-mechanism models, can better explain Chinese EFL learners' processing of the past tense forms of regular and irregular English verbs?

The first research question focuses on the factors of the past tense forms of regular and irregular English verbs and they are within-subjects factors. The second research question focuses on the factors concerning foreign language learners and they are between-subjects factors. And the third research question aims to examine which theory can provide a better account of the Chinese EFL learners' processing mechanism of the past tense forms of regular and irregular English verbs.

The significance of the current study is as follows. First and foremost, the research on foreign language learners' processing of regular and irregular forms could shed new light on the nature of the mental representation of the human languages. This could advance our understandings of the complex mechanisms of the processing of regular and irregular forms and in turn explore the operating mechanism of the human brain. This is not only a central topic in cognitive science and neuroscience, but also the ultimate goal of linguistic inquiry.

Secondly, it provides further evidence for and new insight into the existing models and approaches from the perspective of a foreign language, for the current models are all put forward based on the processing of native languages. Pinker (1999) claimed that the distinction between memory and rules systems in general, and the symbolic rule-based default in particular, is a linguistic universal, which makes it possible to probe the issue of language processing mechanism in second or foreign language contexts. If this is the case, then one should find evidence for these two systems and a symbolic default operating in different languages and by different language users.

And finally, very few studies have systematically investigated the claims of the current models and approaches in the foreign language context. It is important to do so, because foreign languages are quite different from native languages, even the second languages. An investigation of the processing of the past tense forms of regular and irregular English verbs in a foreign language context is an indispensable supplement for the research on the processing of regular and irregular forms. It enables us to identify the ways in which foreign language learners process regular and irregular forms in their L2. Do they rely on two different systems (symbolic and associative), as suggested by the dual-mechanism models, or only one of these systems (symbolic or associative), as proposed by the single-mechanism models? Some important differences and similarities in the underlying processing mechanism between foreign language learners and native speakers might be better understood if foreign language learners do rely more heavily on one system than on the other, relative to native speakers.