Visual Context Modulates L2 Long-Term Structural Priming For The Chinese Ba Construction

This study investigates how visual context influences second language (L2) long-term structural priming for the Chinese ba construction. The experiment consisted of a baseline phase, an exposure phase, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest. L2 Chinese learners (N = 120) were assigned to 1 of 4 groups for the exposure manipulation. The 3 experimental groups were exposed to simultaneous text and audio stimuli using the ba construction, accompanied by different visual contexts: a TV episode for the video group, isolated pictures for the picture group, and no nonlinguistic context for the text group. The picture and the video groups showed a greater increase in production of the ba construction from the baseline to the immediate posttest than the text group, but only the video group continued producing higher rates of the ba construction in the delayed posttest after a 3-day interval. The production of the ba construction remained unchanged for the control group throughout the experiment. We conclude that visual context enhances L2 structural priming and that the continuous video context can support long-term priming effects. This is the first study to directly compare the magnitude of L2 long-term structural priming in different visual contexts, shedding light on the mechanism by which context facilitates L2 learning.