An Empirical Study On Relationship Between Explicit Knowledge And Implicit Knowledge In Second Language Acquisition

Under second language acquisition background, explicit knowledge refers to language knowledge thatcan be acquired consciously by language learners (Ellis,2004). In other words, that knowledge can belearned or taught unmistakably in English classroom teaching. While Paradis (1994) defines implicitknowledge as occasionally acquired, implicitly stored, automatically used knowledge. In other words,language learners acquire unconsciously that knowledge through reading and communication.Krashen(1981) claims that language output of language learners mainly depends on implicit knowledge oflanguage learners, and explicit knowledge just plays a role to monitor language output. Second languageacquisition mainly depends on implicit knowledge (Ellis,2005; Ellis,2006a); actually second languageacquisition mainly refers to the development of implicit knowledge (Krashen,1981), however, in Englishclassroom teaching, knowledge taught by teachers mainly focuses on explicit knowledge. Therefore, it isimportant and significant whether explicit knowledge transforms into implicit knowledge for languagelearning and classroom teaching.There have been many previous researches on explicit and implicit knowledge over years, but thoseresearches mainly focus on correlation between explicit/implicit instruction and the development of foreignlanguage proficiency. Although most of previous researchers primarily make studies or explanations intheory, the empirical study on the relationship between implicit/explicit knowledge is few at home andabroad. Among those previous theories,“interface” theory is the most representative one that expoundsrelationship between explicit and implicit knowledge. Based on weak interface position(Ellis,2004), thisstudy applies the Oral Imitation Test which measures implicit knowledge and the MetalinguisticKnowledge Test which measures explicit knowledge making a study on60Henan Normal Universitystudents’ implicit/explicit knowledge of17grammatical structures in order to make a study on the processof Chinese students’ foreign language learning whether explicit knowledge can transform into implicitknowledge or not and to what extent explicit knowledge can transform into implicit knowledge?According to the analysis on correct ratio of each participant’s and each grammatical item, there is amuch higher correspondence between explicit and implicit knowledge. What’s more, the transformation ratio from explicit knowledge into implicit knowledge is high. What has been found manifests that undernon-target language background most of implicit knowledge is transformed from explicit knowledge inforeign language learning. In addition, the transformation between explicit knowledge and implicitknowledge is related to the properties of grammar structures. The transformation ratio of some grammarstructures is higher, like Third-person-s, Plural-s, Indefinite article, Adverb placement, Regular past tense,Yes/no questions, Comparatives, Modal verbs and since/for. The other grammar structures is hard totransform concerning explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge, like Ergative verbs, Dative alternation,Unreal conditional, Embedded question, Verb compliments, Relative clauses, Question tags.On one hand, this study tentatively testifies “interface” theory between explicit knowledge andimplicit knowledge; on the other hand, this study provides the direct and valid evidence for explicitinstruction and puts forward corresponding teaching suggestions: different teaching methods should beapplied to deal with different properties and difficulty in order to promote the occurring of transformationbetween explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge and enhance the performance of foreign language ofChinese language learners.