The Influence Of Chinese-English Differences In Representation Of Macro-Events On Chinese EFL Learners' Use Of Verb-Particle Combinations

Although it is widely acknowledged that word combinations constitute a significant part of native speaker linguistic competence and that they are problematic for EFL learners, learners'difficulties with them, especially those L1-induced ones, have not been investigated in much detail so far.With verb-particle combinations as the focus, the dissertation attempts to analyze L1-L2 differences in the way words combine from a cognitive linguistic perspective and shed light on L1-induced difficulties of learners with word combinations through analyzing their written production. It reports on an exploratory study that analyzes Chinese-English differences in representation of macro-events and investigates the influence of the differences on Chinese EFL learners'written production of verb-particle combinations (VPCs). Developmental features in learners'production are also observed.First, literature on word combinations and VPCs—the focus of the study—is reviewed and the need for the present study is pointed out.As L1-L2 differences in the way words combine are in essence conceptual and VPC is conceptually related to representation of macro-events in English, the present study then takes a cognitive linguistic perspective and analyzes how languages differ in representing macro-events as a result of disparity in conceptualization. The analysis is based on Talmy's (2000) typological analysis of lexicalization pattern of framing events and Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) image schema theory. It first takes a bottom-up approach to the analysis of cross-linguistic differences in form-concept association and illustrates how the same conceptual components of macro-events (co-event, framing event, etc.) are lexicalized in different surface forms across languages due to different degree of salience given in conceptualization. Languages thus divide into two typological categories according to their characteristic lexicalization patterns of framing events and VPC fits in the whole picture as the commonest syntactic realization form of major components (co-event and framing...