Syntactic Knowledge Of Native Speakers And Second Language Learners Reading Mode

The thesis adopts an empirical method, and with Chinese native speakers and second language learners being the respective investigated subjects, and the modifier 4- the modified / verb + object phrases being the research material, it explores the syntactic ambiguity elimination process of Chinese native speakers and learners of Chinese as a second language, who, respectively, are of different language levels. Through the study, the thesis is intended to understand the working process of people's syntactic analyses, so as to probe into the structure of human being's language acquisition working system and the general laws in this process.The study here consists of two parts:Experiment 1: It explores different influences exerted by syntactic knowledge on native speakers of variant language levels. It includes two sub-experiments. Sub-experiment 1-A investigates the reading patterns of native speakers as testees who have rather little explicit syntactic knowledge, when context is lacking. The result shows that testees tend to analyze the balanced ambiguous phrases with a modifier + the modified structure. Sub-experiment 1-B studies the reading patterns of native speakers who have rich explicit syntactic knowledge as testees. The result reveals that the testees incline to analyze the balanced ambiguous phrases with a verb + object structure.Experiment 2: It aims to discover whether second language learners can feel the influences of syntactic knowledge and which type of syntactic knowledge (explicit syntactic knowledge or implicit syntactic knowledge) influences learners' reading patterns. It includes two sub-experiments too. Sub-experiment 2-A studies the modifier + the modified / verb + object ambiguous phrases reading patterns by Chinese learners of elementary and intermediate levels. The result shows that the testees have not formed a uniform and clear reading pattern. Sub-experiment 2-B investigates the modifier + the modified / verb + object ambiguous phrases reading patterns by advanced Chinese learners. The result shows that testees tend to analyze the balanced ambiguous phrases with a verb + object structure.The study in the thesis proves the influence exerted by syntactic knowledge, especially the explicit type, on native speakers and second language learners. However, to second language learners, the formation of syntactic knowledge is a process, and only when learners get to a rather high language level, can they feel the existence of this influence and form a clear and uniform reading pattern.