The Effects Of Chinese Perfective Aspect Marker Le On The Simple Past Use In English Interlanguage

Tense/aspect system, as the main grammatical device in expressing temporality, is an important issue in first and second language acquisition. Therefore, it receives much attention form both theoretical and applied linguists. English tense/aspect acquisition poses great difficulty for Chinese EFL learners, because Chinese and English are distinct in expressing temporality. English tense/aspect is mainly realized by adding verbal morphology or markings to verbs; however, Chinese has no tense category, but it can express temporality through such devices as temporal adverbials and context. English simple past, as a tense of high frequency and higher error rate is taken as the topic of this study. In Chinese, the concept of "past" is frequently expressed by the application of the perfective aspect marker le. So it becomes the aim of the present study to investigate the effects of the aspect marker le on the simple past use in English interlanguage of Chinese EFL learners. The author tries to explain this phenomenon from a new perspective—universal grammar.This study addresses the following questions:(1) Does Chinese aspect marker le significantly affect the English simple past use for Chinese EFL learners?(2) How does the Chinese aspect marker le affect the English simple past use for Chinese EFL learners of each proficiency level? Does this effect display a balanced development with the increase of the proficiency level of the Chinese EFL learners?The data consists of 90 English narratives with the topic of "An Unforgettable Event" and the Chinese translation by Chinese EFL learners of three proficiency levels—Grade One senior middle school students for primary level, college sophomores majoring in computer for intermediate level and university senior English majors for advanced level. Both the dependent and independent variables are coded and analyzed, using SPSS software. This study has obtained the following findings corresponding to the research questions: (1)For the English learners in general, the existence of the aspect marker le can greatly facilitate the English simple past use in the obligatory contexts for simple past (p = 0.02<0.05), which indicates that the presence of the aspect marker le can enhance the acquisition of English simple past.(2) But for English learners of different proficiency levels, the effects of the aspect marker le on English simple past use vary. The p values are 0.008(0.05), 0.027 (<0.05) and 0.257(>0.05) respectively for primary, intermediate and advanced level English learners, which means that the existence of the aspect marker le significantly facilitates the English simple past use for the primary and intermediate level learners but has no obvious effect for English learners of advanced level. With the increase of the proficiency level of the learners, the p value increases accordingly. So we can conclude that the influence of the aspect marker le displays a balanced development with the increase of the proficiency level of the Chinese EFL learners. It decreases when the students become better in mastering English.This study has both important theoretical and pedagogical implications. Moreover, the theoretical framework as well as the findings of the study have contributed to the researches on tense/aspect acquisition and hopefully can shed light on the future studies of other phenomena in English interlanguage.