A Correlational Study Of L2 Metalinguistic Awareness And L2 Proficiency For University English Majors In China

Many researches have shown that instructed learners'L2 proficiency and their L2 metalinguistic awareness (or MA) have a moderate positive correlation. However, the operationalization of the construct of metalinguistic awareness is not commonly agreed among the researchers. Generally speaking, L2 metalinguistic awareness is operationalized as L2 learners'ability to correct, describe, and explain L2 errors. But more recently, this operationalization of metalinguistic awareness has been broadened to include additional L2 language-analytic ability, which was often considered as an important part in language learning aptitude. But this is still a controversial issue.So, in this thesis, the author focuses his research on the following two questions:1, what is the strength of correlation between the English majors'English proficiency and their English MA in Chinese universities? 2, Whether L2 learners'ability to correct, describe and explain L2 errors and the language-analytic ability are components of the same construct? In order to find the answers to these questions, the author used the self-made quantitative instruments to measure L2 learners'L2 proficiency and L2 MA for a correlational study. The research process falls into three stages. The first stage is design of the instrument and a tentative use in a university in Chongqing. The second stage is the refinement of the instrument and another pilot use. In the last stage, the tests of the research were administered in a teachers'university in Chongqing and the result was statistically analyzed.This paper is to give a report about a latest study with narrowly focused measures of L2 proficiency and metalinguistic awareness with latest operationalized construct in which the additional L2 language-analytic ability was tentatively included. It was found that there is moderate positive correlation between the L2 proficiency and L2 metalinguistic awareness of advanced Chinese university-level learners, though the correlation between L2 proficiency and the part of language analytic ability is least significant. Furthermore, the result of a principal component analysis suggests that learners ability to correct, describe, and explain highlighted L2 errors and their L2 language-analytic ability may be components of the same construct, which consolidates the proposal put forward in the some recent studies. At last, the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for L2 learning and teaching are considered.