英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

The Role of L1 Influence and Lexical Aspect in the

Acquisition of Temporality System in L2 English

Name: ***

Student Number: 007

Sun Yat-sen University

August, 2009

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

说明和建议: 说明和建议:选题和题目 选题非常重要,好的选题,让你事倍功半;如果一开始选题不好,后面的步骤, 无论是资料收集还是写作,都会非常困难.我们建议你在定题目之前,一定和你的导 师沟通好,多听听导师建议. 首先,要选择你自己感兴趣的题目.试想想,如果在未来的半年内,你面对一个 你自己都觉得"闷"的题目,怎么会写出好论文呢? 你可以把几个开题的设想写成文字,然后给你的导师做"选择题" ,让导师分析 每个题目的可行性.千万不要给你导师一个"论述题" ,问导师"我可以做什么?" 或叫导师给你一个题目. 因为只有你自己才最了解自己的研究兴趣和特长的领域. 在选题时应注意以下几点: (1)选题的合理性:选题范围是否符合英语专业本科 毕业论文的要求?本手册第一部分第 1 章中指出,我们英语专业的学生,可以在"语 言""语言学""文学""文化""翻译""语言教育""应用语言学"等范围内考 , , , , , , 虑选择适合自己的论文题目.毕业论文可以是翻译评论,但不接受单纯的翻译文本. (关于选题,参见本手册第 1 章和第 2 章) (2)选题的可行性:本手册第一部分第 1 章中指出, 必须选择自己在规定时间内能够完成的题目. 我们要考虑到写论文的成本, 即我们为了写这个论文花的时间和精力.千万不要怕问题太小,字数不够.往往到最 后,不少同学是超字数的,反而是"有话说不完. "毕业论文一般规定在几个月时间 内完成;如果题目太大,内容太多,问题太复杂,不合适作为选题.在定题目前,一 定要广泛的阅读,找好切入点,问题越具体越好. 此外,论文的题目应该简明扼要,中心突出.好的论文标题,别人一看你的题目, 就很清楚你的研究领域,考察的问题和主要内容.有时为了避免论文的题目过于冗长 繁琐,你可以使用副标题来补充说明论文主题.这样也有助于后人查找相关文献时, 很快地找到你的文章做参考.

II

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

ABSTRACT

language in English–speaking settings with different L1 background students. This study analyzes narrative written 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-aspect 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 reinforcing 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 marking 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 discussed 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 this acquisitional sequence and methodological

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

suggestions are discussed.

Key Words: tense, aspect, past marking, Lexical Aspect Hypothesis, instructed Chinese EFL learners

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

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(states 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: 时 体 过去时体 词汇体假说 母语为汉语的课堂英语学习者

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

CONTENTS

Chapter One Introduction....................................................................................1

1.1 Background .........................................................................................................1

1.2 Organization of the Dissertation .........................................................................2

Chapter Two Literature Review ..........................................................................3

2.1 Introduction .........................................................................................................3

2.2 Time, Tense and Aspect.......................................................................................4

2.3 The Lexical Aspect Hypothesis...........................................................................5

2.3.1 Lexical Aspect...........................................................................................5

2.3.2 Lexical Aspect Hypothesis and its Predictions for the L2 Acquisition of

English ...............................................................................................................7

2.3.3 Previous Studies on the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis .................................8

2.4 The English and Chinese Temporality System ...................................................8

2.4.1 The English Temporality System ..............................................................8

2.4.2 The Chinese Temporality System .............................................................9

2.5 Summary ...........................................................................................................10

Chapter Three Research Method ......................................................................11

3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 11

3.2 The Research Questions of the Present Study................................................... 11

3.3 Subjects .............................................................................................................12

3.4 Elicitation Task .................................................................................................13

3.5 Data Processing.................................................................................................14

3.6 Results ...............................................................................................................15

3.7 Summary ...........................................................................................................17

Chapter Four Analysis and Discussion .............................................................18

4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................18

4.2 General Developmental Pattern and L1 Influence ............................................18

4.3 An Examination of the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis in The Use of Simple Past19

4.4 Summary ...........................................................................................................21

Chapter Five Conclusion ....................................................................................22

5.1 Summary ...........................................................................................................22

5.2 Limitation and Suggestions for Future Research ..............................................23

References ...............................................................................................................25

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

Chapter One Introduction

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 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 understanding 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 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 mainly 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.

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

1.2 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 the Chinese and English temporality systems. Reviews of previous studies on the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis are provided. Chapter Three contains information about the present study including: research subjects, data collection, data processing and the results of the empirical study. Chapter Four discusses 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 [-tense] L1 Chinese. 2. The acquisition of tense and aspect by instructed Chinese EFL learners in China is influenced by the lexical aspects.

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

This chapter first begins with definition of relevant concepts: time, tense and aspect. Then, it continues with the introduction 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.

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

2.2 Time, 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 term 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.

But there is no identity between tense 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 completion and the present moment. Specific events, states, and habitual actions 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 conceptualizing 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” (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

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

a given situation but with its internal temporal constituency, and it is expressed through morphological markers (Ayoun & Salaberry, 2008).

LINGUISTIC TIME

TENSE

Perfective Atelic

Imperfective Progressive

Figure 2-1 Linguistic Time (Ayoun & Salaberry, 2008)

2.3 The Lexical Aspect Hypothesis

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.

2.3.1 Lexical Aspect

Lexical aspect refers to the semantic property of the verb phrase or predicates (Ayoun & Salaberry, 2008). Most of the literature on tense-aspect has adopted Andersen s (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 constructed without changing and control (Siewierska, 2004). For example, John is clever. The entity is primarily involved in

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

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 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 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 obtains (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. (Siewierska, 2004) Punctuality refers to whether the change is instantaneous or durative (Bardovi-Harlig, 1995).

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] property: 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: Accomplishments are

[–punctual], whereas achievements are [+punctual].

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

Table 2-1 Semantic Properties of Aspectual Categories (Andersen, 1991)

Semantic

Properties

Punctual

Telic

Dynamic

2.3.2 Lexical Aspect Hypothesis and its Predictions 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.

Large 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).

The Lexical Aspect Hypothesis is 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. Progressive 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.)

States -- -- -- Lexical Aspectual Categories Activities -- -- + Accomplishments Achievements -- + + + + +

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

2.3.3 Previous Studies on the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis

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 explanation 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 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

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 an environment 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

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

inflectional morphology to indicate the grammatical relations 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, - Ø) or irregular tense forms like 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 - Ø, which interacts with tense and lexical aspect of the verb to produce different aspectual readings. In the simple present, - Ø produces a durative reading 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, -Ø usually gives a closed reading to a situation located in the past. For example, the most likely interpretation 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 that 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).

2.4.2 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 ( Li &Thompson, 1981; Notman, 1988, cited by Liszka, 2004). Temporal locus is indicated in three major approaches: 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 suffix after the verb such as le, guo, wan, and zo4, gwo in Cantonese. For example:

英语论文写作范文配上重点指导,是写term paper和做研究的必要参考资料。被国家数据库收录。

Wo 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 happened 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 situation 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 also 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.