A Study On The Second Language Acquisition Of Comparative Sentences In Chinese By Beginners

The study investigates forty foreign students enrolled in four parallel classes in the School of International Studies of East China Normal University. From the analysis of both elicited writing data and test papers, we get a general picture of how well the beginners have mastered the grammatical item of "Comparative sentences" in Chinese language. Then, based on both the results of research on acquisition of "Comparative sentences" by Chinese children and the teaching grammar syllabus for foreign students learning Chinese, we find the similarity and differences between first and second language acquisition. Drawing on the theories of Second Language Acquisition, and taking account the characteristics of Chinese language, we explore the causes and rules of the "inter-language", and as a result, we form our own conclusions and give a further thinking on theory. It is a new attempt to apply the general language acquisition theories to Chinese grammar learning, the result of which will shed light on the teaching of Chinese to foreign students.By adopting the cross-sectional study and through the collection and description of some language data, we look into the features of the acquisition of the grammatical item of "Comparative sentences" in Chinese language in this period. To sum up, the thesis discusses the problems as follows:1. As syntax is concerned, in what way the beginners' command of the grammatical item of "Comparative sentences" is symmetrical or asymmetrical, and what the trend and cause is.2. As acquisition is concerned, whether the order in SLA is the same as that of the "natural order" as in FLA, and what causes the similarity or differences.3. Whether the students' actual learning is in accordance with what the teaching syllabus plans, if not, what the causes are, and what this means for our future teaching and research..In our analysis on the syntactical level, we find many asymmetrical aspects, such as that between the affirmative sentences and negative ones, between the marked sentences and the unmarked, as well as that between the complete sentences and the elliptical ones. Also, the length of the sentence and the number of componential elements make a difference.We make a further analysis of the data from the point of view of language learning mechanism and psychology. And we find the following factors affect the acquisition of the...