A Study On Elementary And Intermediate Foreign Students' Acquisition Of Chinese Rhetorical Questions

Chinese rhetorical question is a type of sentence which indicates either positive or negative meanings by asking a question. The following four patterns of Chinese interrogative sentences can be used as rhetorical questions which were yes-no questions, specially related questions, positive-negative questions and alternative questions. According to the different frequencies appear within the particular language circumstances, yes-no questions and specially related questions are being used more frequently than the others. The rhetorical question is characterized as the contrary between its form and meaning, which means the positive pattern expresses the negative meaning and the negative form refers the positive meaning. Due to the particular expression function of the Chinese rhetorical question, it could reflect the specific mood and emotional within the different communicational language environments. That is quite difficult for those foreign students who lack of the language sense. It could present various kinds of errors. Therefore, this seems to be one of the difficulties for teaching Chinese as a second language.This article is built on the basis of researching the Chinese rhetorical questions. From the perspective of the second language acquisition, associate with using the questionnaire surveys and quantitative statistics, it could help to understand the various errors while the foreign students studying and utilizing the Chinese rhetorical questions. For understanding the reasons and species of the errors, it requires emphasizing the aspects of understanding and operation capability. According to these, refers that relative suggestion particularly on the problems which exist within the current teaching materials and the Chinese rhetorical questions teaching. Thus could helps to provide the theoretical and practical references for the teaching.The article is composed of four chapters. For the preface, it generally states the current researching achievements for Chinese rhetorical questions, and then reveals the purpose, significance, contents, and method of the study. For the second chapter, specific for the elementary and intermediate foreign students' acquisition, it mainly illustrates the design and implementation of questionnaire surveys, the quantitative statistical analysis and the report of the survey results. For the third chapter is the suggestion about the Chinese rhetorical questions teaching. It provides some recommendations for the teaching materials and methods on the basis of the reasons and the species of the errors. For the last chapter, it is the conclusion in related to the aspects of the innovative and the inadequate within this study.