A Study Of The Acquisition Of English If-conditional Sentences By Chinese Learners

The present thesis reports an empirical study about theacquisition order of four types of English if-conditionals by Chineselearners. It also explores the possible L1 influence on the acquisitionof conditionals and discusses the teaching strategies of this particularstructure in Chinese environment.English conditionals require coordination of verb forms in boththe if and the result clauses and the fact that verb forms often do notretain their normal temporal meaning makes it even more complex.Therefore, English conditional structure is a big obstacle for Chineselearners to overcome. While there has been no lack of interlanguagestudies tracing L2 learners'developmental paths of variousgrammatical constructions, the studies about the acquisition ofif-conditionals are relatively rare; the present study is intended as acontribution to this overlooked and undeveloped field. It will provideus with important empirical evidence and shed light on Chineselearners'acquisition of if-conditionals.Brown's (1973) Cumulative Complexity principle andO'Grady's (1997) Developmental Law are used as the theoreticalframework for predicting the acquisition orders of the if-clause andthe main clause of four types of English if-conditionals: presentfactual conditional, predictive conditional, hypothetical conditionaland counterfactual conditional.A written cloze test simulating oral conversations is used toelicit the production of English conditionals from 70 Chinese collegestudents. And 10 native speakers of English also take the test toprovide the base-line data. After the test, 20 students are randomlyselected to take part in the following interview. After collecting the if-conditional test, we make use of thestatistic tool SPSS version 10.0 (Statistical Package for SocialSciences) to analyze the data. It mainly includes the followingstatistic methods:1) From the general description of statistical data, such as Mean and Standard Deviation, we get a general idea of how well the students perform in the test;2) Then one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) is used to examine whether the between-group variable—conditional type has any effect on the scores of the IF-C and the MC;3) When there is any significant main effect for the conditional type factor, a LSD comparison test is conducted to examine which type has a significantly higher or lower mean than the others;4) In addition, the means plots are created to visualize the effects. Based on the statistical results and the interview, we finallycome to the following conclusions:1) Chinese college students do not have a good command of English if-conditional sentences, most of them think the structure is very difficult for them to learn and the most difficult problem is the coordination of the verb forms in both if and the main clauses;2) The acquisition order of the if-clause in the result is in accordance with the predicted acquisition order in the hypothesis based on Cumulative Complexity principle and the Developmental Law;3) Chinese learners can't produce present factual conditionals and the most obvious evidence is the use of modal will in the main clause, which is the chief reason that causes the discrepancy between the order in the result and the predicted acquisition order of the main clause;4) We also find there is strong evidence of L1 transfer effects, such as the preference for smallest rule changes in the passage from one developmental stage to the next one. Based on our findings, the author puts forward some suggestionsfor the teaching of English conditionals: present factual conditionalswhich are neglected by many ESL/EFL textbooks should be taughtfirst and introduced early; practical teaching must include anemphasis on the meaning of conditionals as they are actually used,and prepare students for the usage they will encounter; Englishteachers should enhance learners'awareness of the coordination ofthe verb forms in the two clauses; help learners to use the temporalcues and context to make better judgments of the temporal referencesof antecedents and consequences. In addition, some supplementaryactivities are included to assist learners in their acquisition ofconditionals. Chapter One gives an introductory account of the thesis,including origins, aims and significance of the research, and outline...