On Chinese Learners’ Knowledge Representation Of English Wh-questions

In the field of SLA, the role of UG has always been concerned. Generally, L2researchersinvestigates whether L2learners whose L1does not manifest a certain UG principle display the knowledgeof the principle in SLA. Subjacency principle---one constraint on wh-movement in English wh-questionshas aroused great interest in L2researchers and a large number of relevant studies have been conducted.However, the results from the previous studies are conflicting. Some argue that L2learners are sensitive tosubjacency principle and UG is operating in the L2learners’ mental grammars, while some maintain thatL2learners have no access to subjacency principle and UG is not accessible to L2learners. Then in theacquisition of English wh-questions, what are the mental representations of L2learners? Do L2learners’show sensitivity to subjacency principle? Is UG accessible to L2learners?The present study investigates Chinese learners’ knowledge of English wh-questions within theframework of Minimalist Program. It explores the mental representations of L2learners in the acquisitionof wh-questions, and how the knowledge of English wh-questions develops over time. The study furtherexamines whether UG operates in the L2acquisition of English wh-questions and whether L2learners’ILGs are impaired or not. The study adopts questionnaire survey with a total of40subjects of three levelsof English proficiency: elementary, intermediate and advanced. The experimental instrument is GJ task.The findings drawn from the study are as follows:Firstly, Chinese learners can acquire the surface morphological properties of Englishwh-questions, i.e. wh-fronting and subject-auxiliary inversion. The learners are inclined to rejectungrammatical wh-questions without subject-auxiliary inversion. Moreover, they can correctly accept thegrammatical wh-questions since they have passed the syntax test.Secondly, Chinese learners are sensitive to subjacency principle and they can acquirefeature-driven movement. L2learners are reluctant to accept ungrammatical wh-questions which violatesubjacency principle. Furthermore, they have a tendency to reject strong violations more strongly due totheir greater degree of subjacency violation than that of weak violations.Thirdly, the knowledge of English wh-questions generally develops as L2learners’ English proficiency increases. Learners at all levels tend to reject ungrammatical wh-questions violating subjacencyprinciple. And the more advanced the learners are, the more strongly they reject ungrammatical subjacencyviolations.The present study shows that L2learners are sensitive to subjacency principle in the acquisitionof English wh-questions, suggesting that their mental grammars are constrained by UG and their ILGs arenot impaired. To a great extent, the results disconfirm the claim of the Interpretability Hypothesis. In sum,the present study has provided additional evidence for the role of UG in SLA and the nature of ILG.