Chinese Learners’ Problematic Use Of The English Articles

Articles are the most difficult part for ESL to be fully mastered. There are a large number of studies on article acquisition abroad, but in China, few studies are experimental. Thus, this paper conducts an experimental research on Chinese learners" overuse of English articles and expects to discover the dominating factors behind it.The second part is a brief literature review, and after that, the study presents three hypotheses on the basis of Bickerton’s (1981) Semantic Wheel Model.H1:Chinese learners of English tend to use articles in the [+SR,+HK] and [-SR,-HK] singular contexts more accurately than in another two contexts.H2:Chinese learners of English tend to overuse the more in [+SR] than in [+HK] contexts, and this may be because of the complexity of article semantics.H3:The difference between Chinese and English noun phrase, or more appropriately speaking, the difference between their inter-constructions, is the significant reason leading to the misuse of zero article of Chinese learners.To test the three hypotheses, an experimental study has been conducted. And after data collection and analysis, the author gets the following conclusions:First, the accuracy rate of Chinese learners’article use is positively correlated with their English proficiency level.Second, as in Huebner’s (1983) Environment and examples for the semantic categories [+SR,+HK], Type2and Type4are proved to be the easiest while Type1is the most difficult for Chinese L2learners to master. The accuracy rate of Type4and Type2are greatly higher than that in Typel.Third, Chinese learners tend to use the in [+HK] contexts rather than [+SR] contexts, because the overuse of the in [+HK] contexts is higher than that in [+SR] contexts.Fourth, the accuracy rate of the doesn’t go up with the increase of proficiency level.Fifth, the difference between Chinese and English noun phrase, or more appropriately speaking, the difference between their inter-construction, is the major reason for the misuse of zero article of Chinese learners.On a basis of this study, at last, some pedagogical suggestions are given to English teachers and hope this study can bring some implications to the further study.