A Study Of Conceptualization Transfer In Progressive Aspect Acquisition By Advanced Chinese EFL Learners

Guided by the view of the difference between English pro-temporality and Chinese pro-spatiality and the Conceptual Transfer Hypothesis,and based on the "thinking-mode transfer framework",the dissertation outlines a comprehensive research framework of"linguistic transfer,conceptual transfer,and thinking-mode transfer",based on which it explores the conceptualization transfer and its representation(linguistic transfer)and essential property(thinking-mode transfer)in the acquisition of English progressive aspect by advanced Chinese EFL learners.First of all,based on the cross-validation of comparable corpus and parallel corpus,the dissertation makes a contrastive analysis of the progressive aspect in modern English and Chinese,and there are three main findings:(1)English progressive aspect mainly indicates the progress and duration of action,and its structure is a combination of "tense"and "aspect",which focuses on time,while Chinese progressive aspect can indicate both the progress of action and the duration of state,and its main marks are related to space;(2)The mutual correspondence between English and Chinese progressives is very low(less than 30%),and English progressive aspect is more marked than its Chinese counterpart;(3)Most structures of English progressive aspect are in the main clauses,and the high-frequency words in English progressive aspect are mainly dynamic verbs;whereas a considerable number of progressive aspect structures in Chinese are used as adverbials in sentences or are located in existential sentences,and there is no obvious difference between dynamic verbs and static ones among high-frequency words in Chinese progressive aspect structure.The above findings reflect the temporal/spatial differences between English progressive aspect and its Chinese counterpart,which are considered to be rooted in the essential differences between the strong temporality of English way of thinking and the strong spatiality of Chinese mode of thinking.Secondly,the dissertation verifies that the linguistic transfer occurs in the progressive aspect acquisition,which is the premise of conceptual(including conceptualization)transfer.Taking the progressive aspect of English and Chinese native speakers as a reference,this dissertation makes a contrastive analysis of the progressive aspect of advanced Chinese EFL learners and native English learners,and meanwhile divides the Chinese EFL learners into two groups(target language environmental and non-target language environmental learners)for comparison,based on ICLEv2 and LOCNESS corpora.The result finds all the four types of evidence for linguistic transfer:(1)The two groups of Chinese EFL learners enjoy intra-group homogeneity in terms of frequency,the distribution of various forms,high-frequency verbs and syntactic functions of progressive aspect;(2)The advanced Chinese EFL learners and native English learners show inter-group heterogeneity in terms of frequency,the proportion of present and past forms,high-frequency verbs and syntactic functions of progressive aspect;(3)In terms of the proportion of adverbial clauses,the English progressive aspect of Chinese EFL learners and the Chinese progressive aspect of native Chinese speakers demonstrate intra-group consistency;(4)The stative verbs in the interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners show strong spatiality,which shares the characteristics of Chinese progressive aspect and shows a difference from English progressive aspect at the same time,and which is the evidence of intralingual contrast.In addition,the progressive aspect in the interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners and that of Japanese EFL learners also exhibit inter-group heterogeneity,confirming that the interlanguage progressive aspect of Chinese EFL learners is influenced by L1 transfer.Based on the above findings,the conceptualization transfer in progressive aspect acquisition by advanced EFL learners is analyzed and discussed,and conclusions are drawn as following:(1)Chinese progressive aspect is much less marked than its English counterpart,so the use of English progressive aspect is far more difficult than the use of the simple present or past tenses for Chinese EFL learners.Therefore,they may adopt the "avoidance"strategy,resulting in the low frequency of the production of progressive aspect,which is an obvious manifestation of conceptualization transfer.(2)English progressive aspect must be combined with "tense" whereas Chinese is a tense-less language.Consequently,Chinese EFL learners are insensitive to "tense",and that causes two kinds of negative conceptualization transfer:one is the "lack/loss of tense markers",which is another reason for the low frequency of their English progressive aspect;the other is the tendency of using the present progressive aspect that is usually first learned by beginners,thus the overuse of present progressive aspect and extremely under-use of past progressive aspect compared with native English learners/speakers.(3)Both English and Chinese progressive aspects can indicates the progress and duration of action.Chinese EFL learners have basically acquired the dynamic verbs in the English progressive aspect,which should be a manifestation of positive transfer of conceptualization.However,the stative verbs contained in the interlanguage progressive aspect indicate the continuity of state rather than the ongoing of action/behavior,which is significantly different from English progressive aspect,but similar to Chinese progressive aspect.Therefore,it is an obvious negative conceptualization transfer.(4)The adverbial function of the interlanguage progressive aspect of Chinese EFL learners is significantly different from that of native English learners/speakers,but similar to that of Chinese progressive aspect,indicating that conceptualization transfer has occurred.The progressive aspect produced by Chinese EFL learners also manifests the phenomena of conceptualization transfer in such syntactic structures as run-on sentences,pivotal sentences,adverbial clauses and simple sentences.Finally,we further deduce that,the essential property of the conceptualization transfer in the progressive aspect acquisition by advanced Chinese EFL learners is thinking-mode transfer caused by the difference in the mode of thinking,which is rooted in the essential difference between the pro-temporal way of English thinking and the pro-spatial mode of Chinese thinking.In short,the view of difference between English pro-temporality and Chinese pro-spatiality has been further verified through the contrastive analysis of modern English and Chinese progressive aspects,and based on the essential differences between the two,the dissertation explores the essential property of conceptualization transfer in the acquisition of English progressive aspect by advanced Chinese EFL learners,and reflects various English progressive aspect acquisition behaviors of them and reveals the underlying causes of their difficulties,expecting to awaken Chinese EFL learners’awareness of the difference between English strong temporality and Chinese strong spatiality,help them utilize positive transfer more effectively and avoid negative transfer as much as possible,so as to optimize their interpretation and production of English progressive aspect.