A Case Study of Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition of Relative Clause

1、A Case Study of Chinese EFL Learners Acquisition of Relative Clause-Through Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis ByPeng LilingShanghai Maritime University June 2006AcknowledgementFirst of all, I would like to express hearty thanks to my supervisor Zhang Haiying, who made this thesis possible. She

2、 has given me invaluable suggestions and insightful comments, and guided me through the accomplishment of this thesis. I am deeply impressed by her strictness and erudition. My special gratitude also goes to Professor Wang Juquan. With his rich experience in the field of comparison between English a

3、nd Chinese, he provided me with a lot of instructive and valuable suggestions. I should also thank Professor Zheng Lixin, whose insightful and vivid classes on General Linguistics are always a source of inspiration to me. And I would like to thank all my teachers who also gave me many instructions d

4、uring classes.The accomplishment of this thesis also owes a great deal to Professor Han Zhonghua and Professor Wang Dawei. Their help and encouragement both in study and everyday life serve the great impetus for all of us. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends, classmates, especially

5、my roommates with whom I can share worries, frustration and happiness during my work on the thesis. And I want to extend my sincere thanks to my classmates Yan Jie and Lu Yanqi, who are so kindhearted to help me accomplish the most important part of my thesis-questionnaire, without which, there is n

6、o way to carry on with my paper.AbstractThis present thesis intends to apply contrastive analysis (CA) to the study of Chinese college students production of relative clauses and adopt error analysis to test whether the students errors result from the differences between their native language (NL) a

7、nd foreign language (FL) or from other factors.The thesis first introduces the background, purposes and organization of the research and gives a brief account of its theoretical bases, including contrastive analysis, error analysis and language transfer. Then the descriptions of English relative cla

8、uses are given. A contrastive analysis of relative clauses in English and Chinese are made from five aspects in chapter4. The most important part of this thesis is a case study in chapter5, including the purpose, subject selection, data collection, results and discussions. Through error analysis of

9、25 subjects production of relative clauses, the writer tries to find out whether the methodology of contrastive analysis difference=difficulty=error is valid or not in the present case study. To explain it clearly, this thesis is to find out whether or not the subjects will find difficulties where t

10、he two languages are different and thus will commit errors. In this endeavor, the contrastive analysis of English and Chinese relative clauses and the error analysis of the questionnaires will be of great value to both language learning and language teaching.Key words: Contrastive analysis, differen

11、ces, production of relative clauses, error analysis, language transfer, avoidance strategies.摘要本论文旨在运用比照分析理论来研究中国大学英语学习者定语从句的生成，并采用错误分析方法来判断学生在测试中的错误是否来自两种语言的不同或来自其他因素。首先，本文指出了这一选题的背景、目的和论文的组织结构，然后简要回忆了研究的理论依据，包括比照分析，错误分析和语言迁移。在描述了英语定语从句之后，本文从五个方面对英汉定语从句进行了较为全面的比照研究。本论文最重要的局部是第五章，包括个案分析的目的，受试者的选择，数据

12、收集，结果与讨论。通过错误分析理论，本文找出了25位受试者在生成定语从句中所犯的错误，来测试比照分析理论“差异=难度=错误这一假设在本研究中是否成立。更确切地说，该调查研究是为了弄清楚受试者在生成定语从句时是否会发现两种句式不同时会有难度，从而会犯错误。通过英汉定语从句的比照分析以及对问卷的错误分析，本文力图能对英语学习与英语教学带来一定的指导作用。关键词：比照分析，差异，定语从句生成，错误分析, 语言迁移，回避策略。Table of ContentsChapter1Introduction1Background of This Study1Purpose of the Present Stu

13、dy2Organization of This Thesis3Chapter2Literature Review5A Brief Review of Relevant Studies on RCs in China5Contrastive Analysis8Error Analysis10Procedures of CA and EA12Working Definition of Transfer17Clarification18Chapter3Descriptions of English Relative Clauses20Definition and Basic Structures20

14、Basic Types of English Relative Clauses and Relative Pronouns22Relativization of Subject23Relativization of Object26Relativization of Possessive28Summary28Chapter4General Differences Between English and Chinese Relative Clauses314.1Five General Points to Compare English and Chinese RCs314.2Descripti

15、ons of the Five Points in Detail31Adjacency to the Head Noun31Retention and Omission of the Restrictive Clause Marker334.2.3Ordering of the Relative Clause with Respect to the Head Noun34Formation of RCs34Asymmetry in Subject and Object Relative Clauses354.2.Extension Mechanism37Case Marking on the

16、Relative Marker (Variable vs. Invariable)404.2.5Pronoun Retention or Omission424.3Conclusion to Chapter443Chapter5A Case Study44Purpose44Subjects45Data Collection46Results and Discussion48Error Analysis48Errors Made by the Subjects in Sentence Combination49Errors Made by the Subjects in Picture Desc

17、ription60Avoidance63Four Types of Avoidance66Possible Reasons for Avoidance71Difficulty Order of Different Relative Types for the Subjects72Conclusion to Chapter577Chapter6Conclusion81Findings81Implications82Limitations and Suggestions83Bibliography85APPENDIX 90Chapter1IntroductionBackground of This

18、 StudyWhen I was in the middle school, what my classmates and I found the most difficult were relative clauses which is a very important part of English grammar and a good command of relative clauses almost means high score in examinations. The reasons can be found in the process of producing RCs. D

19、ue to the difficulty of RCs for comprehension, production, and imitation and due to their internal structure complexity, in order to acquire relative clauses, students have to learn the identification of identical noun phrases (NPs), relative pronoun substitution, word order rearrangement, and the p

20、rocess of embedding. In addition, English is syntactically very different from Chinese. A typical difference is that Chinese RCs are pre-nominal modifiers, while English RCs are post-nominal modifiers. Relative clauses (RCs) have been considered as the symbol of complex English structures and even t

21、o some extent, the indicator of mastery of English.English relative clauses are one of the most widely investigated structures in second language research. Relative constructions have received attention from linguists throughout the years. They are considered as complex post-nominal modifiers in Eng

22、lish. Therefore, they appear in the latter part of second-language English textbooks, and are taught at an intermediate level in an English class. For example, Basic English Grammar (Azar, 1995), which is used for beginning classes at the American English and Culture Program, the language institute

23、in Arizona State University, does not include relative clauses at all. Doughty (1990) also shows that English relativization is learned or acquired relatively late for students to whom English is second language or foreign language. This indicates the syntactic complexity of the relative clauses.Pur

24、pose of the Present StudyThis study is attempting to apply contrastive analysis to the study of Chinese EFL (English as Foreign Language) learners acquisition of English relative clauses. By a contrastive study of the characteristics and patterns of English and Chinese relative clauses, it first str

25、ives to answer the following questions: 1) Do the differences between English and Chinese relative clauses lead to difficulty in the subjects production and thus result in errors? If not, what are the other sources of their errors? If yes, how do the differences lead to errors? 2) What are the strat

26、egies that the learners obviously use in the questionnaire? Do they avoid producing relative clauses? If yes, what types of RCs do they avoid most and least or is there a difficulty order for them to produce RCs? In doing so, the author tries to test the validity of the methodology of contrastive an

27、alysis “difference=difficulty=error and to see whether or not the subjects will find difficulties where the two languages are different and thus will commit errors. In this endeavor, the present thesis tries to bring some values and suggestions to both language learning and language teaching through

28、 the contrastive analysis of English and Chinese relative clauses and the error analysis of the questionnaires. 1.3Organization of This ThesisThe thesis is laid out in six chapters:Chapter1 is a general introduction: the background, purposes and the organization of the paper.Chapter2 offers a brief

29、review of relevant studies on RCs and introductions to contrastive analysis, error analysis, and language transfer. The methodologies proposed by some linguists are illustrated to serve as a guideline for the present study; a clarification to the study is also provided.Chapter3 is a description of b

30、asic English relative clauses and relative pronouns.Chapter4 is a contrastive analysis of English and Chinese relative clauses, and the author mainly focuses on the differences between them, which will be used to investigate the negative transfer in Chinese learners production of relative clauses. C

31、hapter5 deals with a case study. The purpose, research questions, subjects, data collection, the results and discussions of the case study are explained in detail. In the case study, a questionnaire of one page is used to test 25 Chinese first-year college students production of relative clauses. Al

32、together 7 types of errors and 4 types of avoidance strategies are found based on the data collection and possible reasons for each type are identified. Of all the reasons, language transfer is the fundamental factor, which can attribute errors and avoidances to the syntactic differences between two

33、 languages. General syntactic difficulty order for the subjects will also be discussed.Chapter 6 is a conclusion including findings, implications, limitations and suggestions for further study.Chapter2Literature ReviewA Brief Review of Relevant Studies on RCs in ChinaGenerally, an increasing number

34、of contrastive studies between English and Chinese have been done at the level of sound system, vocabulary, grammatical structures, writing systems and culture. Morphologically, grammatical relations in English are symbolized by morphological devices; Chinese, on the other hand, is mainly an analyti

35、c language, in which grammatical relations are represented not by morphological devices but by word order and lexical devices (Ren Xueliang 1981:7-8). Semantically, while English is featured with hypotaxis, in which grammatical meanings and relations must be represented by linguistic devices, Chines

36、e is mainly characterized with parataxis, in which representation of grammatical meanings and relations often depends largely on contexts and hearers (Lian Shuneng, 1993: 1-2). Lv Shuxiang (1992), in his discussion about the comparison between English and Chinese grammar, calls for special attention

37、 to the area of differences where he assumes learning difficulties would arise. He also comes up with three possible findings when two different languages are compared:(1) for the same semantic function, one language has entirely different forms from the other language, which causes great difficulty

38、 for learners of the two language backgrounds, e.g. the different word order of questions in English and Chinese (2) for the same semantic function, one language has more formal devices than the other language, e.g. the more diversified devices to modify a noun in English than in Chinese, (3) for th

39、e same semantic function, when the formal device in the native language cannot be found in the target language, learners will encounter great difficulty, e.g. the difficulty of Chinese learners in learning English case and verb tense and the difficulty of English learners in learning Chinese particl

40、es呢, 吧, 啊and嘛etc. In China, contrastive analyses of English and Chinese have developed rapidly, however, contrastive analyses of English and Chinese relative clauses have been scant, not to say the studies on Chinese learners production of RCs. To date, there has been a few researches concerning Chi

41、nese EFL learners acquisition of English RCs. The writer mainly introduces the ones that are related to this paper. Of the researchers, Chen Yuehong made great contributions. In her paper (1998), Chinese Students Acquisition of Relative Clauses, she aims to investigate whether Chinese speakers with

42、advanced English proficiency are able to reset the wh-movement parameter in their acquisition of English relative clauses. In the study, a grammaticality judgment test is conducted on Chinese, French and English speakers. Results show that Chinese speakers are not able to reset the wh-movement param

43、eter, and thus are not clear about the structure of English relative clauses. This is due to interference from the native language and misanalysis of language input. In Chen Yuehong(1999), Why Chinese Learners Avoid Relative Clauses, she adopts two elicitation taskswriting and sentence combination t

44、o investigate 159 Hong Kong college students avoidance in producing relative clauses. She attributes the avoidance phenomena in her research to two factors, one of which is language transfer.In Xiao Yunnan and Lv Jie (2005), Empirical Research on Chinese Learners Acquisition of English Relative Clau

45、ses, they investigate the acquisition of four types of relative clauses by Chinese learners of English. The experiment shows that the score of the learners production of OPREP is higher than that of DO, although the former is more complex than the latter. The paper argues that the phenomenon results

46、 from the fact that the structural complexity pushes learners to pay much attention to linguistic form and reprocess it. The experiment also shows that the effect of matrix position on the production of relative clauses is not significant for the learners of higher level of English proficiency. This

47、 may be accounted for by the facts that the more proficient learners are more capable of processing meaning and forms, and that they can figure out immediately the head nouns of relative clauses. This helps offset the constraints of center-embedding on production.Zhang Yang (2005) also conducts a re

48、search in this aspect. The paper A Study on Pragmatic Transfer in Relative Clause is trying to classify the errors in the relative clause made by the L2 learners, and then analyze the causes of these errors from the perspective of transfer.All in all, the contrastive study of English and Chinese rel

49、ative clauses and transfer study in Chinese EFL learners acquisition of English relative clauses are far from being sufficient, hence researches in this field need to be enlarged and enriched urgently.Contrastive AnalysisContrastive analysis, also termed as contrastive linguistics or contrastive stu

50、dy, has always been a central issue in applied linguistics, second language acquisition research and foreign language teaching. It is a comparative analysis of two languages including their similarities and dissimilarities and was thought by many researchers to be a useful predictor of where second

51、language students would likely encounter problems in learning a second language in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. It grows from widespread acceptance, doubt, challenge, and criticism to reflection.In Robert Lados book Linguistics Across Cultures, a highly influential work on contrastive analysis, an import

52、ant claim on CA was made: the student who comes into contact with a foreign language will find some features of it quite easy and others extremely difficult. Those elements that are similar to his NL will be simple for him, and those elements that are different will be difficult. (Lado, 1957. Cited

53、from Rod Ellis, 1994:306)According to Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH), by establishing the differences between the learners NL and his second language or foreign language, areas of difficulty in second language acquisition could be identified, thus errors could be predicted. Where there are di

54、fferences between the source language (SL) and the target language, learners would encounter difficulties, and errors would be induced by the mother tongue interference; where the SL and the TL share certain similarities, learners would feel the ease of foreign language learning and thus their SL wi

55、ll facilitate their studies.In late 1960s, the validity of contrastive analysis was challenged. Its predictive value (i.e., identifying learning difficulties) was especially challenged by researchers. Firstly, because not all difficulties and errors could be traced back to the influence of the mothe

56、r tongue; secondly, what contrastive analysis predicted as a difficulty did not always in practice turn out to be true; and thirdly the purely theoretical problems of making adequate comparisons of languages led to doubtful opinions about its validity. The problems and doubts about the theories and

57、significance of CA eventually led to its downfall.Nowadays, contrastive analysis has received considerable reassessment and development. Its implicational value to language teaching and its role as a source of experimental studies into the phenomenon of first language influence has gained considerab

58、le acknowledgement and reflection. Odlin (1989), for example, claims, “teaching may become more effective through a consideration of differences between languages and between cultures. Gass and Selinker (1993) claim “bilingual studies, especially those achieved through the use of the tools of contrastive analysis, do provide us with an excellent source of hypotheses concerning specific instances of language transfer which can then be tested empirically. Error Analysis Following the criticism about