The Role of L1 Influence and Lexical Aspect in the Acquisition of Temporality System in L2 English（模版作文）30

1、ithe role of l1 influence and lexical aspect in the acquisition of temporality system in l2 englishabstractthe acquisition of english verbal morphology has been mostly tested as a second language in englishspeaking settings with different l1 background students. this study analyzes narrative written

2、 data from 91 instructed chinese efl learners of five proficiency levels aging from 13 to 22, to examine the l1 influence and lexical aspects on the acquisition of temporality system of english exhibited by chinese efl learners in china. the students investigated have a forced early start in tense-a

3、spect use in l2 through classroom instruction, due to the grammatical characteristics of english, which is different from l1-chinese. this early start of english temporality system in primary school and the extended years of acquisition comparing with other l1 background learners, may be the reinfor

4、cing effect of -tense l1 chinese. empirical data supports the aspect hypothesis that the acquisition of tense and aspect by instructed chinese efl learners in china, is influenced by the lexical aspects. the learners regard accomplishments verbs and achievements verbs more representative for past ma

5、rking than activities verbs and states verbs. it seems learners follow the general pattern of lexical aspect hypothesis, in spite of l1 backgrounds, learning environments or ages. this may be another evidence of the universal grammar. what is intriguing in the present study, which has not been discu

6、ssed in the previous literature, is that, from the data we have collected, at the beginning, our subjects use past marking on achievements and accomplishments verbs, gradually extend the marking first to states verbs, then to activities verbs, not at the same time. potential sources contributed to t

7、his acquisitional sequence and methodological suggestions are discussed. key words: tense, aspect, past marking, lexical aspect hypothesis, instructed chinese efl learnersii提要提要对英语动词词法的习得的研究,多在目标语(英语)学习环境中进行,而研究的对象是来自不同语言背景的学生。 本文分析了 91 名五个不同语言水平,年龄介乎 13 到 22 岁,在中国课堂学习英语的中国学生的叙事作文,考察以汉语为母语的学生的英语时体习得

8、情况。具体来说,考察一语迁移和词汇体对学习者的影响。 研究发现,由于英语的语法特征和汉语不同,学生在习得阶段早期,就在课堂上被强迫开始学习和使用英语的时态系统。和其他不同一语背景的学习者,特别是母语中有语法时态学习者相比, 汉语母语学生习得时态系统的时间相对较长, 这可能是一语迁移导致习得阶段的延长，固化了早期习得的结果。 实验发现, 中国的课堂语言学习者的时体习得,同样受动词本身的词汇体的语义影响,即体先于时。学习者认为, 在谓语动词用过去时态的句子中,使用完成动词(accomplishments verbs)和瞬间动词(achievements verb) 更具代表性,比使用状态动词(st

9、ates verbs)和活动动词(activities verbs)更自然。这符合了二语习得理论中的词汇体假说,和前人实验结果相符,为普遍语法的存在提供了新的证据。 本文的创新点在于,根据收集的数据,我们发现,学习者首先学会给完成动词和瞬间动词标上过去时体, 然后再到活动动词,最后是状态动词。活动动词和状态动词的过去时体使用,不是同时习得的。 最后,本文探讨了此习得顺序的可能原因并提出了相关教学建议。 关键词关键词: 时 体 过去时体 词汇体假说 母语为汉语的课堂英语学习者iiicontentschapter one introduction .11.1 background.11.2 org

10、anization of the dissertation.2chapter two literature review.32.1 introduction.32.2 time, tense and aspect.42.3 the lexical aspect hypothesis.52.3.1 lexical aspect .52.3.2 lexical aspect hypothesis and its predictions for the l2 acquisition of english.72.3.3 previous studies on the lexical aspect hy

11、pothesis.82.4 the english and chinese temporality system.82.4.1 the english temporality system .82.4.2 the chinese temporality system.92.5 summary.10chapter three research method.113.1 introduction.113.2 the research questions of the present study.113.3 subjects.123.4 elicitation task.133.5 data pro

12、cessing.143.6 results.153.7 summary.17chapter four analysis and discussion.184.1 introduction.184.2 general developmental pattern and l1 influence.184.3 an examination of the lexical aspect hypothesis in the use of simple past.194.4 summary.21chapter five conclusion.225.1 summary.225.2 limitation an

13、d suggestions for future research.23ivreferences.251chapter one introduction1.1 background the ability to express temporal circumstance and properties of events plays an important role in communication. accordingly, the acquisition of temporality has been considered one of the most important aspects

14、 of foreign language learning and has received significant attention from researchers in the field of both first and second language acquisition in the past 20 years. the studies on the development of temporal reference by learners of l1 and l2 can potentially contribute in significant ways to our u

15、nderstanding of the process of language acquisition, particularly as we search for the universality of language acquisition through cross-linguistic comparisons. what is more, from a pedagogical point of view, tense acquisition process is considered one of the most important and difficult aspects of

16、 language learning and can play a part in developing optimal approaches and techniques for l2 teaching (lee, 2001). it is now widely accepted that the lexical aspectual classes of verbs influence the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology. however, to date, the studies dealing with the issue have ma

17、inly focused on learners of english as a second language (esl) in english settings. this dissertation intends to investigate the role of l1 influence and the lexical aspect hypothesis in determining the interlanguage development process by chinese learners of english with a focus on past tense. 1.2

18、organization of the dissertation this dissertation includes five chapters. the first chapter illustrates the research background and the importance of the present study. chapter two reviews related theories on tense, aspect, and the lexical aspect hypothesis. it also presents a brief comparison of t

19、he chinese and english temporality systems. reviews of previous studies on the lexical aspect hypothesis are provided. chapter three contains 2information about the present study including: research subjects, data collection, data processing and the results of the empirical study. chapter four discu

20、sses the possible influence of l1 chinese and lexical aspects on our learners. finally, we draw our conclusion from the data that: 1. the early start of english temporality system and the extended years of acquisition comparing with other l1 background learners, may be the reinforcing effect of -ten

21、se l1 chinese. 2. the acquisition of tense and aspect by instructed chinese efl learners in china is influenced by the lexical aspects. chapter two literature review2.1 introduction this chapter first begins with definition of relevant concepts: time, tense and aspect. then, it continues with the in

22、troduction of the lexical aspect hypothesis, namely, what lexical aspect is, its prediction for the l2 acquisition of english and previous studies on the hypothesis. lastly, it compares the temporality systems between english and chinese. 2.2 time, tense and aspect in language, the concept of time i

23、s expressed with categories of tense and aspect. tenses are the most intrinsic, inherent and important grammatical categories of verbs (tallerman, 1998). tense, a category that “relates the time of situation referred to some other time, usually to the moment of speaking” (comrie, 1976: 1-2). the ter

24、m tense is traditionally used to refer to the way the verb changes its endings to express its meaning. time is often shown as acquisition line (the time line), on which the present moment is located as a continuously moving point. past time present time future time but there is no identity between t

25、ense and time. present and past tenses can be used to refer to all parts of the time line. most uses of the past tense refer to an action or state which has taken place in the past, at a definite time, with a gap between its 3completion and the present moment. specific events, states, and habitual a

26、ctions can all be expressed using the past tense (crystal, 2004): i arrived yesterday. (event) they were upset. (states) they went to work yesterday.( habitual) tense serves to locate an event in time, and aspect says nothing about when an event occurred, but either encodes a particular way of conce

27、ptualizing an event or conveys information about when the event unfolds through time. from the semantic point of view, aspect is normally regarded as a property or characteristic of events and states (cruse, 2004). aspect shows the “different ways of viewing the internal constituency of a situation”

28、 (comrie, 1976: 3). as indicated in figure 2-1, aspect is divided into two linguistic categories: grammatical aspect and lexical aspect. grammatical aspect is not concerned with the external temporal points of reference of a given situation but with its internal temporal constituency, and it is expr

29、essed through morphological markers (ayoun & salaberry, 2008). linguistic time tense aspect present grammatical lexicalpast perfective atelic telicfuture imperfective states accomplishmentsprogressive activities achievementsfigure 2-1 linguistic time (ayoun & salaberry, 2008)2.3 the lexical aspect h

30、ypothesis this section will begin with an overview of the lexical aspect hypothesis, its predictions for the l2 acquisition of english, and previous studies on the hypothesis. 42.3.1 lexical aspect lexical aspect refers to the semantic property of the verb phrase or predicates (ayoun & salaberry, 20

31、08). most of the literature on tense-aspect has adopted andersens (1991) description of vendler hierarchy (vendler, 1957/1967). verb phrases or predicates fall into four aspectual classes which are defined on the basis of aspectual feature parameters. (a) states: the state of affair (soa) is constru

32、cted without changing and control (siewierska, 2004). for example, john is clever. the entity is primarily involved in a state. the situation does not have salient end points or gaps (comrie, 1985). for example, he knows something. (b) activities: the event in which changing and control are involved

33、 but there is no end point (siewierska, 2004). for example, she walked.(c) accomplishments: they are dynamic situations that have duration and involve an end result (ayoun & salaberry, 2008). for example, he walked to the station. he fixed the car. (d) achievements: they refer to dynamic situations

34、that involve an instantaneous change (ayoun & salaberry, 2008). for example, he recognized the place. telicity refers to whether the soa has an inherent end point and is fully realized upon reaching this end point or whether it lacks an inherent end point and is completely realized whenever it obtai

35、ns (siewierska, 2004). achievements and accomplishments are “telic” that they have an inherent outcome or end state, while states and activities are “atelic” to indicate that they lack such an inherent outcome or end state. dynamicity refers to whether the state of affair (soa) involves change. (sie

36、wierska, 2004) punctuality refers to whether the change is instantaneous or durative (bardovi-harlig, 1995). 5 the semantic features of these aspectual distinctions in association with lexical aspectual values are summarized in table 2-1. states and activities are distinguished by the dynamic proper

37、ty: states are dynamic, whereas activities are +dynamic. activities and accomplishments are distinguished by the telicity property: activities are telic, whereas accomplishments are +telic. finally, the distinction between accomplishments and achievements is realized through the punctual property: a

38、ccomplishments are punctual, whereas achievements are +punctual. table 2-1 semantic properties of aspectual categories (andersen, 1991)lexical aspectual categories semantic properties states activitiesaccomplishmentsachievements punctual-+telic-+dynamic-+ 2.3.2 lexical aspect hypothesis and its pred

39、ictions for the l2 acquisition of english the majority of studies on the acquisition of l2 english past tense morphology have tested two major hypotheses: the lexical aspect hypothesis (lah) and the discourse hypothesis (dh) (ayoun & salaberry, 2008). we will not cover dh for the present study. larg

40、e numbers of studies in l1 and l2 acquisition have accumulated evidence that verbal morphology initially develops to encode inherent lexical aspect rather than grammatical aspect or tense. this claim has been referred to as the lexical aspect hypothesis (lee, 2001). 6 the lexical aspect hypothesis i

41、s composed of four elements (andersen & shirai,1996, cited by lee, 2001) (here only the three elements that english possesses are mentioned): 1.learners first use past or perfective marking on achievements and accomplishments verbs and gradually extend the marking to activities and states verbs. 2.p

42、rogressive marking is initially restricted to activities verbs and later extended to accomplishments and achievements. 3.progressive marking is not incorrectly overextended to states. (i.e. the progressive will not be used with states verbs in english.)2.3.3 previous studies on the lexical aspect hy

43、pothesis having discussed the basic facts about tense and aspect, i would like to draw my readers attention to some previous studies on learners developmental pattern on the acquisition of temporality in english. previous studies conducted in this area have unveiled interesting phenomena and explana

44、tion for the past two decades, and have provided valuable insights into the acquisition of temporality by l2 english learners. ample evidence supports the lexical aspect hypothesis. the research on l1 acquisition conducted by antinucci and miller (1976), bronckart and cinclair (1973), and shirai and

45、 andersen (1995), studies on l2 acquisition done by robison (1990), lee (1997) and bardovi-harlig (1992, 1995) and shirai and kurono (1998) and many other empirical studies all affirmed the hypothesis (lee, 2001). 2.4 the english and chinese temporality system linguistic reference to time attributes

46、 can take many forms: some languages, such as chinese refer to time lexically by employing nouns and adverbs; others, like english, utilize grammatical reference (i.e., verb tense). “if both l1 time attributes and their linguistic references differ from those in l2, learners may find themselves in a

47、n 7environment where they cannot pick out the temporal attribute to which tense is a grammatical reference.” (hinkel, 1992: 557) 2.4.1 the english temporality system english is considered to be a synthetic language, which relies mainly on inflectional morphology to indicate the grammatical relations

48、 among sentence constituents (li, 2006). it is a full tense marking language. tense and aspect are not morphologically realized separately. yang and huang (2004) give an explanation of the english temporality system. tense is specified by tense morphology (-ed, -s, - ) or irregular tense forms like

49、was, were, had, went. when there is -ing, the reading is progressive aspect. when there is no -ing, we assume there is a zero aspectual morpheme - , which interacts with tense and lexical aspect of the verb to produce different aspectual readings. in the simple present, - produces a durative reading

50、 when it goes with a state. for example, he lives in guangzhou. it produces a habitual reading when it goes with a dynamic verb. for example, john gets up at seven everyday. in the simple past, - usually gives a closed reading to a situation located in the past. for example, the most likely interpre

51、tation for a telic state mary lived in guangzhou is that mary lived in guangzhou in the past and she no longer lives there. for +telic situation, the simple past is much simpler, because only closed and completive readings are possible. for example, when we hear they built a house, we understand tha

52、t the house has been completed and is already there. therefore, the simple past tense is actually a combination of past time location and perfective aspect. the perfect forms in english are also combinations of tense and either the imperfective or the perfective aspect (yang & huang, 2004: 52). 2.4.

53、2 the chinese temporality system chinese differs from english in that it does not appear to realize morphosyntacticadlly tense. it does not grammaticalize a past/ non-past distinction ( 8li &thompson, 1981; notman, 1988, cited by liszka, 2004). temporal locus is indicated in three major approaches:

54、discourse pragmatic devices such as contextual meanings and chronological order; adverbial lexical expressions such as yesterday(zuotian), the week before last week(qian yi zhou), last night(zuo wan), just now(gang cai), already(yi jing)and so on; or past and perfective markers acting as independent

55、 suffix after the verb such as le, guo, wan, and zo4, gwo in cantonese. for example: wo zuo tian zuo le gong ke. i yesterday did my homework. i did my homework yesterday. in this example, the adverbial lexical expressions yesterday and past and perfective marker le claim a state of affairs which hap

56、pened in the past and maybe have certain effect on present or relevance with present, which depends on the context. therefore, chinese is sometimes regarded as a “tenseless” language, that is to say, “the language does not use verb affix to signal the relation between the time of occurrence of the s

57、ituation and the time that situation is brought up in speech” ( li & thompson, 1981: 184) . 2.5 summary this chapter has settled on the working definition of time, tense and aspect in language use. it has elaborated the lexical aspect hypothesis which will be tested in the subsequent chapter. it als

58、o reviewed previous relevant literature on the hypothesis to locate possible issues to be investigated in the present research. lastly, it described the temporality systems in english and chinese to prepare for the examination of l1 influence on the research subjects. 9chapter three research method3

59、.1 introduction this chapter first brings out the two research questions, illustrates the information about the research subjects, the elicitation task, and the data processing. the results of present research are also reported in the final section. 3.2 the research questions of the present study pr

60、evious studies have tested the acquisition of tense/aspect morphology, more specifically, the lexical aspect hypothesis as a second language (l2) in english -speaking settings with mixed l1 backgrounds (most notably bardovi-harlig and her colleagues, 1992, 1996,1998), more rarely as a foreign langua