Speed Of Chinese Learners' Processing Of English Perfect Aspect

Tense and aspect of verbs have always been the focus of foreign language researchers and teachers as well. The English perfect aspect, as an important and difficult point in English teaching, has attracted much attention. However, the mastery of this grammar point is not optimistic for Chinese-speaking English learners. Some studies noted that the acquisition of the verb's grammatical aspect might be affected by its lexical aspect. Thus, this study compared the Chinese and English lexical aspect systems in order to observe whether their differences would affect Chinese-speaking English learners'acquisition of the English perfect aspect.The subjects were first-year high school students, first-year university English majors, and postgraduates in English linguistics and applied linguistics. On the basis of their English proficiency, they were grouped into three levels:beginners, intermediate learners, and advanced learners, respectively.30 subjects of each level were randomly selected to participate in a computer-based reaction-time (RT) experiment, using E-Prime 1.1, and receive a survey on their familiarity with the experimental English verbs (30 in total).According to the relationship between the lexical aspect of a Chinese verb and that of its English equivalent, the 30 experimental English verbs were divided into two categories: convergent and divergent. All the experimental verbs were used in the English perfect aspect. Since each verb was designed to be used both correctly and incorrectly in the English perfect aspect, the experimental material consisted of totally 60 English sentences.This study had two independent variables:the subjects' English proficiency (the between-subjects variable), and the relationship between the lexical aspect of a Chinese verb and that of its English equivalent (the within-subjects variable). The dependent variable was the subjects'reaction time to the sentence involving the English perfect aspect. A 3 (subjects'English proficiency:beginners vs. intermediate learners vs. advanced learners)×2 (relationship between the lexical aspect of a Chinese verb and that of its English equivalent:convergent vs. divergent) mixed design was adopted. Thus, using a psycholinguistic approach, this research aimed to investigate whether L1 influence could be manifested in EFL or ESL learners'speed of processing the English perfect aspect.The results of the experiment showed that the speed of Chinese-speaking learners' processing of the English perfect aspect manifests the influence of L1 lexical aspect. When the lexical aspect of a Chinese verb and that of its English equivalent were convergent, the subjects'reaction time to the English perfect aspect was shorter and the response accuracy was higher. When their relationship was of a divergent type, the subjects' reaction time to the English perfect aspect was longer.Besides, the research found that when the lexical aspect of a Chinese verb and that of its English equivalent were inconsistent, with the development of the subjects'English proficiency, the negative transfer of L1 influence decreased. Among the 3 groups of subjects, the beginners were the most likely to be negatively affected by L1 influence. As the advanced learners had acquired the English aspect system relatively the best, they performed better on the English perfect aspect than the other two groups.This study has theoretical and methodological contributions. Theoretically, it proves and enriches the theories on the L1 influence in ESL and EFL learners'acquisition of the target language's tense and aspect. Methodologically, it contributes a new perspective to the studies on the manifestation of L1 influence in ESL and EFL learners'acquisition of the target language's tense and aspect. Furthermore, this study has pedagogical implications. Being aware of Chinese-speaking learners'acquisition development of the English perfect aspect and the differences between the Chinese and English lexical aspect systems, English teachers in China could deliver their instructions more reasonably and effectively, and the Chinese students could also learn the English perfect aspect more efficiently.