An Empirical Study On The Attrition Of English Subject-verb Agreement In The Chinese Context

Language attrition, the inverse process of language acquisition, was first recommended as an independent field of academic study at the Conference on the attrition of language skills by Richard Lambert in1980. Since then, the study of language attrition has been conducted. Many achievements in this field have been made both home and abroad in the past few decades. In China, some experts, such as Zhong(2003), Li(2004) and Ni(2006) mainly illustrate the basic concepts and hypotheses about the language attrition. The domestic empirical researches about the related theories are not as many as those in foreign countries. Only some papers talk about the attrition of vocabulary, negation form and-ed form in the Chinese context. So this paper tries to do some research, mainly in the form of questionnaires, analyses of students’writings as well as some tests, to provide necessary evidence for some attrition theories.Compared with some researches on the attrition of vocabulary and negation, the present study chose the subject-verb agreement structure as the main objective to analyze the attrition theory (Interference Hypothesis).The research questions discussed in this study are (1) Do Chinese students who go on with the regular study of English make fewer subject-verb agreement errors than students who may not have continued studying English regularly? Is there any attrition when they just stop learning English for2months?(2) Of the three principles regarding the subject-verb agreement, which is the most easily attrited and why? Will the interference hypothesis justify the attrition of English subject-verb agreement acquired in the Chinese context?Questionnaires and written compositions about the mastery of the subject-verb agreement structure were made among70female students selected from the English Education major and Primary Education major(English-oriented)among hundreds of first year students in Chuzhou University. Both majors have the similar English courses but the number of classes is not the same. English education majors have more English classes than those Primary Education majors according to the teaching syllabus. This paper mainly explores the students’mastery of subject-verb concord and what parts are the most easily attrited regarding the three guiding principles. The data collection fell into two parts:1) the questionnaire to establish the students’ baseline started before the summer vacation (Time1) and a written composition;2) the follow-up started2months later plus a written composition (Time2).The result of the study can be summarized as follows:(1) Chinese students who go on with the regular study of English do make fewer subject-verb agreement errors than students who may not have continued studying English regularly and there is attrition when they just stop learning English for only2months.(2) Of the three principles regarding the subject-verb agreement, the grammatical principle is the most easily attrited and the reasons may lie in that Chinese language and English Language are different types of language systems, which sometimes cause conflicts. The interference hypothesis can be adopted to explain the attrition of English subject-verb agreement acquired in Chinese context while the evidence for the regression hypothesis is scarce.The paper is made up of5chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the attrition and the subject-verb agreement structure and points out the significance of the study. The second chapter reviews the literature both abroad and at home. In the third chapter, the research methodology is introduced in detail. The fourth chapter analyses and discusses the data collected and the last chapter summarizes the whole study and provides the limitations of the study.