1. Introduction

The sharing of bilingual syntactic representations is a core issue in psycholinguistic research, involving whether the syntactic structures of two languages are shared by bilinguals. The phenomenon of cross linguistic syntactic priming suggests that activation of one language syntactic structure may trigger another language syntactic structure. With the increase of trilingual speakers, the issue of trilingual syntactic representation has received attention. When trilingual learners learn a third language, there are syntactic representations of the first and second languages in their language system, and the relationship between trilingual syntax and first and second language syntax dynamically changes with the improvement of trilingual proficiency. This study focuses on Chinese English French trilinguals of different proficiency levels and explores the influencing factors of trilingual syntactic representation through a cross linguistic syntactic priming experiment.

2. Literature review

Two perspectives on bilingual syntactic representation were discussed: independent representation and shared representation, and Hartsuiker et al.'s research was used as an example to support the bilingual syntactic sharing theory. Meanwhile, the impact of word order consistency and second language proficiency on bilingual syntactic sharing was explored. In terms of trilingual syntactic representation, the research of Hartsuiker et al. and Huang et al. was introduced, which found that trilinguals achieved syntactic sharing in certain syntactic structures, but the impact of word order consistency and trilingual proficiency on trilingual syntactic sharing is still unclear. Finally, the research question of this article is proposed, aiming to explore the sharing of trilingual, first language, and second language syntax among Chinese English French trilinguals at different levels through cross linguistic syntactic priming experiments, as well as the role of native language factors and word order consistency in trilingual syntactic representation.

3. Research Design

This chapter introduces the design of a study on the syntactic representation of Chinese English French trilinguals. The research subjects are undergraduate students majoring in French at a certain university in China, and the syntactic structures are examined as active and passive sentences. The active sentence order in Chinese, English, and French is consistent, but the passive sentence order is not completely consistent. Two experiments were designed for the study: Experiment 1 was a cross lingual syntactic priming experiment between Chinese and French, examining whether the syntax of the first and third languages is shared; Experiment 2 is a cross lingual syntactic priming experiment between Chinese French and English French, examining whether the syntax of the first and third languages, as well as the second and third languages, is shared. Experiment 1 adopts a 2x2 mixed design, with the independent variables being the syntactic structure of the initiating sentence and trilingual proficiency, and the dependent variable being the syntactic structure of the target sentence. The experimental materials consist of 96 sets of start target trials, including 48 Chinese start sentences to be completed and 48 sets of French target words. The experiment uses sentence completion tasks, where participants need to write French sentences using the target word in French. The results of Experiment 1 showed that participants with different trilingual proficiency levels exhibited a one three language cross linguistic syntactic priming effect, and the strength of the priming effect was not affected by the participants' trilingual proficiency level. The independent variables of Experiment 2 are the syntactic structure of the initiating sentence, the initiating language, and French proficiency, while the dependent variable is the syntactic structure of the target sentence. The experimental materials include 120 sets of start target trials, including 60 incomplete start sentences and 60 sets of French target words. The results of Experiment 2 showed that there is cross linguistic syntactic priming between the first and third languages, but there is no such priming between the second and third languages. When the initiating sentence is a passive sentence, the initiating language will affect the production of passive French sentences by the subjects. The experimental results indicate that the first and third language syntax of the subjects are shared representations, while the second and third language syntax are independent representations. This indicates that the subjects first achieved syntactic sharing between the first and third languages, but never achieved syntactic sharing between the second and third languages; The influence of native language factors on trilingual syntactic representation is greater than word order consistency.

4. Discussion

This chapter explores the trilingual syntactic representation of Chinese English French trilinguals and finds that there is cross linguistic syntactic priming between the first and third languages, but not between the second and third languages. This indicates that the first and third languages have achieved syntactic sharing, while the second and third languages have not. The research results do not support the theory of multilingual syntactic sharing, as the subjects have low second language proficiency and lack sufficient second language input and output. The influence of native language factors on trilingual syntactic representation is greater than word order consistency, and the stable abstract syntactic representation of the first language is the foundation for achieving syntactic sharing between the second and third languages. Although the passive sentence order of the first and third languages is different, syntactic sharing has been achieved, while the passive sentence order of the second and third languages is the same, but syntactic sharing has not been achieved. This confirms that word order consistency is not a necessary condition for syntactic sharing between two languages. The discussion on multilingual syntactic sharing theory points out that it cannot be generalized whether the corresponding syntactic structures in the three languages can achieve syntactic sharing. Mother tongue factors and second language proficiency have a significant impact on trilingual syntactic representation.

5. Conclusion

Two cross lingual syntactic priming experiments revealed the sharing of trilingual syntax between Chinese English French speakers and their first and second languages, as well as the influencing factors. Research has found that one language and three languages can achieve syntactic sharing, while second language and three languages cannot share, mainly due to the influence of second language proficiency. The influence of native language factors on trilingual syntactic representation is greater than word order consistency. The study supplemented the theory of multilingual syntactic sharing, pointing out that syntactic sharing between trilingual and monolingual languages is influenced by native language proficiency, while syntactic sharing between second and third languages is influenced by second language proficiency. Future research can further explore the three language syntactic representation patterns and their development process.