A Case Study Of Thai Students' Acquisition Of Chinese Polysemous Verbs

Polysemic verb with guest phrases is the difficult part for Chinese for foreigners teaching. Currently there are few papers about the study, therefore, it is of great importance for Thailand students to study Chinese polysemic verbs with guest phrases. The paper selects 18 common polysemic verbs as objective, forecast its difficulty by adoption of comparative analysis method, which compares Chinese polysemic verbs with Thai verbs on the basis of senses and guest phrases situation. Then, from the perspective of second language acquisition, it makes investigation and statistics about the situation combined with questionnaire and interview, gets the influential factors and major error types and puts forward corresponding teaching suggestions. The study is mainly divided into two parts as following:Chapter 1. It conducts overall analysis toward Chinese polysemic verbs and related Thai verbs on static state. Firstly, it conducts senses comparison between Chinese polysemic verbs and related Thai verbs, we found that:(1)there’s no major difference between 18 Chinese and Thai verbs on common meaning.(2)number of Chinese senses is much more than Thai.(3)Polysemic verbs are more compared with univocality verbs and corresponding situation is consistent.(5)When less senses existed in Chinese, similarities is much more than differences in most Chinese and Thai verbs. After that, it carries out comparison and analysis to Chinese polysemic verbs and corresponding Thai polysemic verbs with guest phrases, it turns out that:(1) From the comparison of Thai and Chinese, Chinese verbs with object are more than that of Thai, and the types with object are more abundant and complicated with a stronger capacity with object than that of Thai.(2) Both in Chinese and Thai, the verbs with patient object are the most, secondly is locative object, and then result, mode and implement object. Reason object is the least in both the two languages consistently.(3) Polysemic verb is the same as Thai verb that the quantity of senses and types and quantity of carried objects do not present in direct proportion.(4) In Thai verbs, common senses with objects are more than non-common senses with objects with a stronger capacity of carrying objects than that.(5) When Chinese and Thai carry the same object, the primary differences are more than the same points, while the differences mainly are reflected in word order. Otherwise, no correspondent verbs can be available, other verbs shall be selected to express it. Through contrastive analysis of polysemic verbs in Chinese and relevant verb senses, as well as object carrying situations of the both two, we put forward difficulty grades of polysemic verbs with objects for Thai students to learn Chinese from the perspectives of sense quantity, quantity of senses with objects, acquisition difficulty of senses with objects types, level of learners, etc.Chapter 2. Through the combination of questionnaire and interview in dynamic condition, we investigate Thai students for their acquisition situation about polysemic verbs with objects. Firstly, we make questionnaire acquisition statistics towards the 18 polysemic verbs from understanding rate of polysemic verbs with different types of objects and overall understanding rate of learning polysemic verbs with different types of objects for different levels of students, and we find:(1) the acquisition situation of the 18 polysemic verbs: the sequence from high to low is Listen, Speak, Send, Wash, Pull, Come, Sing, Look, Eat, do, Run, Write, Pat, Point, Hit, Sell, Wear. The acquisition condition of the six categories of polysemic verbs is as following: the sequence from high to low is three senses, two senses, six senses, five senses, seven or more senses and four senses. Generally, the less the senses are, the acquisition condition of polysemic verbs with less types of objects is better, while the more the senses are, the acquisition condition of polysemic verbs with more types of objects is worse to some extent.(2) The sequence of acquisition condition of objects types is homology, objective, cause, result, doer, recipient and time, miscellany, equality, object, tool, mode, reason. The object types that are not commonly used and provided with high input frequency are better acquired by students.(3) The acquisition condition of commonly used senses of polysemic verbs with different objective types is generally better than that of not commonly used senses of with different objective types.(4) The sequence of acquisition condition of proficiency level from high to low is intermediate level, advanced level, primary level.(5) Generally, the overall comprehension rates of acquisition of six categories of polysemic verbs with different object types is 81.3%. The better the acquisition condition is, the better the comprehension condition is. Secondly, the acquisition condition is analyzed from many aspects such as senses, objects, proficiency levels, and 12 factors affecting Thai students’ acquisition of polysemic verbs with objects are concluded. What’s more, main error types are analyzed from seven perspectives including negative transfer of native language and the generalization of senses of polysemic verbs and by enumerating students’ wrong sentences. At last, aiming at the acquisition reasons and error, suggestions for teaching polysemic verbs with objects are put forward from the perspective of textbook compilation and teaching.