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A Corpus-based Study On Chinese College English Learners' Interlanguage Fossilization In Subject/verb Agreement

Posted on:2011-01-07Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:L Y HuangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360308455421Subject:Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
In the process of FLA, incorrect linguistic features, such as morpho-syntactic, semantic or pragmatic errors etc. will permanently stay in Chinese learners'interlanguage and become a habit or a method to comprehend or produce the target language (TL). This kind of cessation of learning is the"fossilization"phenomenon in the research field of second language acquisition (SLA). In 1972, Larry Selinker, an American linguist, put forward the theory of"Interlanguage"to expound the process of SLA, defining it as an independent transitional language that is of systematicity, variability, transition and permeability. Focusing on the characteristics of fossilization and its causal variables, this paper aims to analyze the Chinese college English learners'(CCELs) fossilization in Subject/Verb agreement. Based on the Error Analysis Hypothesis (EAH), the errors of S/V agreement committed by non-English and English majors of all grades have been collected from two corpora: Chinese Learner English Corpus and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners 2.0. The analysis results indicate that 1) the frequencies of learner errors do not decrease with the increase of study time; 2) there is no significant difference among the S/V agreement errors committed by English majors of four grades (p >0.01). Therefore, it is highly probable that fossilization does exist in S/V agreement among CCELs. Its causal variables can be attributed to neuro-biological, environmental, cognitive psychological, and socio-affective aspects. Based on these results, two effective measures of"de-fossilization"are put forward: subjectively, learners should exert their initiative to expose themselves to sufficient TL input, and objectively, teachers should emphasize the essential differences between learners'unidiomatic expression and the native speakers'(NS) authentic English through instant corrective feedback and pay closer attention to the selection of teaching materials.
Keywords/Search Tags:interlanguage, fossilization, corpus, error analysis, defossilization
PDF Full Text Request
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