Chinese EFL Learners’ Acquisition Of English Psych Verb Argument Structure Constructions

Psych verbs describe psychological events which are the most basic and universal experiences of human beings.Linguistic representations of psychological events are universal,which embodies not only the universality of human cognition,but also the different ways of construing psychological events by different nationalities.The “particularity” of linguistic representations of psychological events(ES and EO psych verbs have reversed argument structure)has aroused wide interest in the fields of theoretical linguistics and language acquisition.The existing researches have largely focused on psych verbs,inclined to the acquisition of experiencer object psych verb and transitive construction,concentrated on indusive production,grammar judgement and other experimental tasks,and have ignored that the linguistic representations of psychological events are the results of the integration of psych verbs and argument structure constructions and the whole picture of second language acquisition of the linguistic representation of psychological events.Guided by the assumptions of usage-based cognitive construction grammar,this study investigates the acquisition of English representations of psychological events by Chinese English learners through corpus and experimental methods.Focusing on the L2 construction acquisition mechanism,L1 influence and linguistic usage features,the present research aims to answer the following questions:1)What characteristics do Chinese English learners have in their usages of English psych verb argument structure constructions in terms of frequency distribution and prototypical exemplars?2)What are the characteristics of the usage of English psych verb argument structure constructions by Chinese English learners of different proficiencies? And does it show staged developments?3)What factors influence Chinese English learners’ reconstruction of English form and function of psychological events ? And how these factors interact?The present research,under the guidance of the commitments of cognitive linguistics,starts with the generalization of the semantic and syntactic structures of psychological events based on the relationship among “reality-cognition(conceptualization)-language” and psychological event image schema.An comparative analysis is adopted on the similarities and differences of English andChinese representations of psychological events,which enables the form of “the inventory of English and Chinese linguistic representations of psychological events”and provides references for the analysis of the usage of English psych verb argument structure constructions by Chinese English learners and English native speakers.On this basis,the present research conducts a corpus-based method and a experimental research to compare the similarities and differences of the usage of English psych verb argument structure constructions by Chinese English learners and English native speakers,in order to find out Chinese English learners’ developmental pattern of English psych verb argument structure constructions acquisition and investigate the factors that influence their acquisition.The corpus analysis shows NO apparent growth of psych verb argument structure constructions across Chinese English learners of five proficiencies,but with the improvement of language proficiency,the number and types of psych verb argument structure constructions used by Chinese English learners have increased and learners’ construction production trend matches that of native speakers(especially in terms of prototypical constructions of both ES and EO psych verbs).Learners’ development of psych verb argument structure constructions is unbalanced: few usages and incomplete knowledge of non-prototypical constructions,individual differences of psych verbs and different argument structure preference from native speakers.Learners’ error tendency of both ES and EO psych verbs and their construction preference indicate that learners’ English representation of psychological events is influenced by mother language thinking,which is showed in their profiling “experiencer” of psychological events and their preference of “low transitivity” in the linguistic representations of psychological state events and “weak agentivity” in the linguistic representations of psychological causative events.The experimental research further verifies corpus findings and investigates the factors of learners’ acquisition of psych verb argument structure constructions.Both sentence production task and sentence translation task prove the prototypical category features of psychological event representations and acquisition,and differences of language proficiency and individual differences of psych verb in learners’ production of psych verb argument structure constructions.ES psych verb argument structure constructions are acquired best by advanced Chinese English learners;EO psych verb argument structure construction are acquired with the increase of language proficiency.Psych verbs of high formal and semantictransparency facilitate learners’ production of psych verb argument structure constructions and decrease learners’ error rate.The experimental research also finds distinctive features of learners’ usage of psych verb argument structure constructions which are different from that of native speakers.In sentence production task,learners ignore the construal of psychological event situation and the representation of CAUSE-RESULT schema of psychological event,lack the awareness of argument structure meaning and the nuances of various constructions,and they rely on psych verbs in their English representation of psychological events and over-generalize the usage of transitive and passive constructions.In sentence production task,learners have mastered the usage of transitive construction of both ES and EO psych verbs,but lag behind in the extension of transitive construction of ES psych verbs,over-generalize the usage of transitive construction or incorrectly replace transitive construction with passive construction of EO psych verbs,which implies learners’ lack of correct construal of psychological event situations and knowledge of other argument structure constructions of psych verbs.Based on these results,the present research suggests that: 1)Different argument realization of ES and EO psych verbs derive from different representations of different types of psychological events;2)L2 psych verb acquisition is in essence the acquisition of L2 representation of psychological events,which includes the acquisition of psych verbs and argument structure constructions;3)The representation and acquisition of psychological events are of prototypical category features;4)L2 acquisition of psych verb argument structure constructions is general cognitive learning,usage-based and with generalization as its basic learning mechanism;5)As prior language use experience,L1 influences the cognitive tendency(psychological event construal)of L2 acquisition of psych verb argument structure constructions;6)The frequency,semantic prototypicality and prominence of both psych verbs and argument structure constructions play decisive role in the L2 acquisition of psych verb argument structure constructions.In sum,with the analysis of corpus data and experimental data of both Chinese English learners and native English speakers,the present research ascertains that the interaction among general cognitive mechanism,L1 influence and linguistic usage features influences Chinese English learners’ acquisition of psych verb argument structure constructions.And the results of the present research support the usage-based language acquisition model and Slobin(1996)’s “ thinking for speaking hypothesis”.