A Study On The Acquisition Of EDC By Chinese Non-English Major Undergraduates

Determiner is first put forward by Sapir in 1921. Up to the present, the study of determiners has been focused on its definition, recognition, sequencing and the relation between determiners and nouns. However, most scholars rarely attach importance to the study of its acquisition. Therefore, the present study, based on Cognitive Construction Grammar (CCxG), does a research on the acquisition of English Determiner Construction (EDC) by Chinese non-English major undergraduates.CCxG is construction-based cognitive approach which claims that constructions are form-meaning or form-function pairings (Croft & Cruse, 2004; Goldberg, 1995; Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987). Researches on CCxG mainly stay at the theoretical level, while research on application in language acquisition is still in a trial phase, and few scholars do a research on EDC comprehension from the perspective of CCxG.The present study, based on analysis of Close's (1975) classification, classifies EDC into three types: Definite Identifier Construction (DIC), Indefinite Identifiers Construction (IIC) and Quantifier Construction (QC). Regarding these three types of EDC, tests are designed for 80 non-English major undergraduates, in an attempt to answer the following two questions:(1) Do Chinese non-English major undergraduates prefer to depend on the meanings of individual words or the meaning of the whole structure when they understand EDC?(2) Do the three types of EDC pose the same degree of difficulties to Chinese non-English major undergraduates?The results of the present research indicate that non-English major undergraduates acquire EDC in different ways. The low-level subjects tend to understand EDC by interpreting the meanings of the individual words situated in it, while the intermediate- and advanced- level subjects are apt to comprehend EDC by interpreting the meaning of the whole structure and function. At the same time the results also display that the students at three proficiency levels master DIC best, then IIC, and QC worst. This tendency can be accounted for by way of usage frequency, L1 transfer and overgeneralization.This study, combining language acquisition with CCxG, explores acquisition of EDC and puts forwards relevant pedagogical suggestions on its teaching. Meanwhile, it hopes to deepen our understanding of EDC and provide new ideas and inspiration for its teaching.