Chinese College Learners' Semantic Option Of English Articles In Noun Phrases

Articles are the most frequent morphemes in English. There are few features of a language that cause more problems for non-native speakers than the use of English article system. There are a pile of studies on English articles abroad; the research at home has mainly focused on description of the grammar, with few to probe into the experimental study. Thus, this paper carries out an experimental study on Chinese college learners' semantic option of English articles in noun phrases and aims to find out the effect of different semantic contexts on their article choice.After a brief literature review, the present study draws three hypotheses on the basis of Bickerton's (1981) Semantic Wheel Model, according to which English noun phrases can be classified by two discourse features of referentiality: specific referent ([±SR]) and assumed known to the hearer ([±HK]). The hypotheses are:First, semantic features of noun phrases have an effect on the accuracy rate of article use, that is, the accuracy rate of article use varies according to different semantic contexts; Type 2 is the easiest for Chinese college learners while Type 1 is the most difficult and least accurate.Second, the definite article is more overused in [+SR] contexts than in [+HK] contexts.Third, the misuse of indefinite article and zero article is influenced by improper judgment of countability of noun phrases instead of the effect of the two semantic features.In order to test these hypotheses, this study collected and analyzed the scores on article-focused test from 85 non-English majors of third-year learners in Shaanxi Normal University. The data was analyzed by statistical software SPSS (11.0). The procedures of statistical analysis were: first, descriptive statistical analysis was conducted to describe CET 4 scores and article-focused scores. Second, Pearson correlation analysis was carried out to test the correlation between CET 4 scores and article-focused scores. Third, two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done to test the effect on article-focused scores of the two independent variables, four semantic contexts and English proficiency level; at the other hand, ANOVA was employed again to test the effect on article-focused scores of another two independent variables, article types and English proficiency level. Finally, Paired-sample T test was used to compare the overuse rate of the definite article in [+SR] and [+HK] contexts.The final analysis comes to the following conclusions:First, the article accuracy of Chinese college learners is positively correlated with their English proficiency level. The Pearson correlation coefficient is. 416, which is significant at. 01 level (two-tailed).Second, the two features of referentiality, namely [±SR] and [±HK], have a statistically significant influence on the article accuracy of Chinese college learners (F=69.75, p＜.05).Third, Type 2 and Type 4 are proved to be the easiest while Type 1 is the most problematic for Chinese college learners. The accuracy rate on Type 4 and Type 2 are significantly higher than that on Typel. Hypothesis i is partly upheld.Fourth, Chinese college learners tend to associate the with [+HK] contexts rather than [+SR] contexts, for the overuse rate of the in [+HK] environments is significantly higher than that in [+SR] contexts (t=-9.96, p＜.01 level). Hypothesis 2 is not supported.Fifth, the accuracy order in terms of the article type is: a＞the>φ, and the difference in accuracy among the three articles also reaches statistical significance (F=96.887, p＜.01).Sixth, the accuracy rate of the does not increase with proficiency level; the low and high proficiency groups get high accuracy on the definite article, while the upper-intermediate group performs worst. That means the is experiencing U-shaped process.Seventh, proper detection of noun countability poses difficulty for Chinese college learners. Hypothesis 3 is upheld.Based on this research, several suggestions are pointed out for teachers in English article instruction: First, more attention needs to be paid to the systematic and formal instruction and learning of English articles. Second, the generic usage of English articles should be reinforced. Third, the concept of countability needs further clarification. Fourth, it is necessary to increase the awareness of zero article.