Difficulty Orders In Comprehension And Production Of English Relative Claues By Chinese EFL Learners

Relative clause is an important but difficult grammatical structure in English study. Over decades, more and more linguists have switched their attention to this grammatical phenomenon and carried out numerous relevant studies. With 140 English sophomores as the subjects, the present thesis studies the difficulty orders of Chinese EFL learners'English RC comprehension and production in the three tests of Grammaticality Judgment Test, Sentence Completion Test, and Writing Test. Through this research, the author hopes to answer the following three questions:1) What are the difficulty orders of relative clauses obtained in the tasks? Do the orders agree with the predictions of NPAH (SU>DO>OPREP) and PDH (OS/ODO/OOPREP>SS/SDO/SOPREP)?2) What are the difficulty orders of extra-position relative structures obtained in the tasks? Do the orders agree with the prediction of NPAH?3) To what extent does the factor of animacy influence the subjects'performance in SU and DO in Sentence Completion Test?After administration of the three tests in strict compliance with the procedure and cautious treatment and analysis of the students'answers, the author has made the findings as below:ⅰ. The difficulty orders of relative clauses obtained in the three tests all conform to the prediction of NPAH, but fail to be consistent with PDH. The orders obtained in the three tests are respectively:SU>DO>OPREP, SS>SDO>OS>SOPREP>ODO>OOPREP (Grammaticality Judgment Test); SU>DO>OPREP SDO>SS>OS>ODO>SOPREP>OOPREP (Sentence Completion Test); SU>DO>OPREP, OS>ODO>SS>OOPREP>SDO>SOPREP (Writing Test). Particularly, in Writing Test, it is OOPREP that breaks the predicted order of PDH.ⅱ. The difficulty orders of extra-position relative structures obtained in Grammaticality Judgment Test and Sentence Completion Test agree with the prediction of NPAH. But the order in Writing Test disagrees with NPAH and is statistically insignificant. The orders in Grammaticality Judgment Test and Sentence Completion Test are both: SU'>DO'>OPREP'. iii. In Sentence Completion Test, animacy has little effect on the students'performance in SU and DO.These findings serve to provide some suggestions for RC teaching. First, the results of the tests support the prediction of NPAH, which shows that for the learners, SU is easier than DO and DO is easier than OPREP. So the teachers are advised to lecture step by step according to the order of difficulty. Second, since OPREP entails both relativization and choice of preposition, the teachers are expected to give equal emphasis to the use of preposition while emphasizing the process of relativization. And the learners should try to accumulate as many preposition collocations as possible. Third, in spite of the low frequency of extra-position relative structure in daily English, the teachers should not ignore it. The learners should be at least required to identify and understand it. Fourth, the present study suggests little effect of animacy on SU and DO. Accordingly, the teachers can temporarily give no relevant instructions, awaiting future related studies for more advice.