The Positioning Of Temporal Adverbial Clauses In Written English And Japanese Produced By Chinese Learners

Previous studies on the distribution of English adverbial clauses have found that the word order of temporal adverbial clauses is influenced by various factors.In recent years,an increasing number of Chinese scholars have begun to conduct research on temporal adverbial clauses of Chinese English learners,however,studies on the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses produced by Chinese learners of languages other than English has not yet been reported.Japanese,which is often regarded as a language "similar" to Chinese,also bearing a large number of Chinese learners,hence it was chosen together with English to become the research object in this study.The purpose of this study is to investigate the ordering distribution patterns in temporal adverbial clauses from Chinese English learners and Chinese Japanese learners,respectively and constraining factors.In this corpus-based study,valid samples of temporal adverbial clauses produced by Chinese English majors and Chinese Japanese majors were extracted from the Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0(WECCL 2.0)and the Written Language Corpus of Japanese Learners(TESOL)respectively.Quantitative and qualitative analyses were carried out on the distribution of these clauses and the characteristics were compared.The following results are observed:(1)There is a great difference in the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses between Chinese English learners and Chinese Japanese Learners in their written production.Chinese English learners have a balanced tendency to locate temporal adverbial clauses either before or after the main clause,while Chinese Japanese learners obviously tend to locate temporal adverbial clauses only before the main clause.(2)The position of temporal adverbial clauses produced by Chinese English learners is significantly different from that of native English speakers,whereas the ordering distribution of temporal adverbial clauses produced by Chinese Japanese learners is highly consistent with that of native Japanese speakers.(3)The position of temporal adverbial clauses produced by Chinese English learners is influenced by the competing force of negative mother language transfer,iconicity of sequence and processing force,while the order of temporal adverbial clauses produced by Chinese Japanese learners is not influenced by any of the three.(4)The negative mother language transfer is the most influential factor causing the difference between the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses from Chinese English learners and that of native English speakers.By contrast,in addition to the positive transfer of the first language,the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses produced by Chinese Japanese learners is also influenced by the structural constraints of the left-branching language.The findings of this research can offer meaningful implications for language teaching and learning.English learners and teachers can take effective measures to help learn the position of English temporal adverbials correctly and efficiently,and consequently improve their English writing.For learners studying English and Japanese at the same time,this study can help them to understand the concept of language transfer,and their advantages and weaknesses in the learning progress of these two languages,so as to work with a clear target to master the language more efficiently.