A Corpus-based Study on Chinese College English Learners’ Interlanguage Fossilization in Subject/verb Agreement

摘要

In the process of FLA，incorrect linguistic features，such as morpho-syntactic，semantic or pragmatic errors etc. will permanently stay in Chinese learners’interlanguage and become a habit or a method to comprehend or produce the target language (TL). This kind of cessation of learning is the“fossilization”phenomenon in the research field of second language acquisition (SLA). In 1972，Larry Selinker，an American linguist，put forward the theory of“Interlanguage”to expound the process of SLA，defining it as an independent transitional language that is of systematicity，variability，transition and permeability. Focusing on the characteristics of fossilization and its causal variables，this paper aims to analyze the Chinese college English learners’(CCELs) fossilization in Subject/Verb agreement. Based on the Error Analysis Hypothesis (EAH)，the errors of S/V agreement committed by non-English and English majors of all grades have been collected from two corpora: Chinese Learner English Corpus and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0. The analysis results indicate that 1) the frequencies of learner errors do not decrease with the increase of study time; 2) there is no significant difference among the S/V agreement errors committed by English majors of four grades (p＞0.01). Therefore，it is highly probable that fossilization does exist in S/V agreement among CCELs. Its causal variables can be attributed to neuro-biological，environmental，cognitive psychological，and socio-affective aspects. Based on these results，two effective measures of“de-fossilization”are put forward: subjectively，learners should exert their initiative to expose themselves to sufficient TL input，and objectively，teachers should emphasize the essential differences between learners’unidiomatic expression and the native speakers’(NS) authentic English through instant corrective feedback and pay closer attention to the selection of teaching materials.

目录

Abstract

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

1.1.1 Children’s L1 acquisition v.s. adult L2 acquisition

1.1.2 Interlanguage fossilization: research highlights in SLA

1.1.3 Corpus-based study: new perspective for fossilization research

1.1.4 Subject

1.1.5 Outline of the thesis

1.2 Definitions of Relevant Terms

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Main Theoretical Achievements

2.1.1 What is fossilization?

2.1.2 Critical period effects in L1 acquisition and SLA

2.1.3 Native language transfer

2.1.4 Some other theoretical studies on fossilization

2.2 Some Empirical Evidence

2.2.1 The longitudinal approach

2.2.2 The typical-error approach

2.2.3 The advanced-learner approach

2.2.4 The corrective-feedback approach

2.2.5 The length-of-residence approach

Chapter 3 Theoretical Rationale and Problem Statement

3.1 Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis

3.2 Error Analysis Hypothesis

3.3 Problem Statement

Chapter 4 Research Design

4.1 Hypothesis

4.2 Means

4.3 Procedure

4.3.1 Step 1: S/V agreement error frequencies of CLEC

4.3.2 Step 2: characteristics of S/V agreement errors

4.3.3 Step 3: focus on the S

4.3.4 Step 4: One-Way ANOVA

Chapter 5 Results and Discussion

5.1 Statistical Analysis of the Data

5.1.1 S/V agreement error frequency of CLEC

5.1.2 Characteristics of S

5.1.3 Characteristics of English majors’S

5.1.4 Summary

Chapter 6 Enlightenments to English Learning and Teaching

6.1 Initiative in Learning

6.2 Teacher’s Role in “De-fossilization”

Chapter 7 Conclusion

7.1 Summary of the Study

7.2 Limitations and Directions for Future Research

References

Appendix 1 S/V Agreement Error Samples from CLEC

Appendix 2 Titles of 12 Argumentations in WECCL 2.0