The Ordering Distribution Of Temporal Adverbial Clauses Used By Chinese English Majors

Since the 1960s,Greenberg,a great linguistic typologist,has discovered that the ordering is an important feature that affects language,and the ordering can largely reflect changes in the language as a whole.In 1980s,some foreign scholars have begun to study the ordering of adverbial clauses.A few Chinese scholars also gradually pay attention to this topic.But in Chinese English learners’ view,as long as they can express the meaning of the sentence,the sentence can be placed randomly.In fact,different orderings represent different meanings and functions.However,until now,there are few empirical researches on the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses in China,especially for Chinese English majors.So this current thesis aims to explore the characteristics of the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses used by Chinese English majors and the differences compared with native speakers and find the potential causes that have brought such differences.The writing materials of English majors in Northeastern University are analyzed from quantitative and qualitative perspectives.All the data are retrieved,sampled and calculated by the professional tools of AntConc 3.4.4,Concordance-sampler 1.0 and Loglikelihood and Chi-square Calculator 1.0.The results show that for Chinese English majors,the data of pre-posed temporal clauses and post-posed temporal clauses are almost the same.There is a significant difference between native speakers and Chinese English majors concerning the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses.Specifically,there is a significant difference for when-and after-clause.However,there is not any significant difference between two kind of users for once-and until-as well as before-clause.With respect to before-,after-,once-and until-clause,both native speakers and Chinese English majors follow the iconicity of sequence in their use of such clauses.As for when-clause,native speakers follow this principle while Chinese English majors do not follow.Regarding before-clause,discourse force brings a great influence on the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses for both native speakers and Chinese English majors.For when-,after-and once-clause,the discourse force has an impact on native speakers while it does not have any impact on Chinese English majors.As for until-clause,neither native speakers nor Chinese English majors are influenced by discourse force.With respect to syntactic parsing theory,native speakers tend to follow such theory but Chinese English majors do not.These differences are caused by conceptual transfer of mother tongue,distinctive cognitive styles and so on.Finally,the author points out such findings can be applied to English language teaching and learning in general.English teachers,learners,interpreters,translators and the Ministry of Education could consider the results of this study and take some effective methods to make Chinese English learners acquire the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses correctly and quickly so as to truely improve Chinese English leaners’ability in English writings.