A Study Of The Acquisition Of Chinese Causative Construction By English-speaking Learners

Causation is the common semantic categories in language. It refers to one entity imposeforce on the other entity, which experiences a physical change in location or state thereafter.The construction grammar represented by Goldberg divided the causation into two parts: thecaused-motion construction, which refers to one entity impose force on the other entity, whichexperiences a location change and moves throng a certain path; the resultative construction,which refers to one entity impose force on the other entity, which experiences a properties andstatus change. And the resultative construction is a metaphorical extension of the caused-motion construction. Based on the definition and analysis of causative construction onGoldbergian construction grammar, the thesis compares the four elements’ features betweentwo groups of English causatives and Chinese causatives with the guidance of the generaltheory and constructive method of the contrastive linguistics and other linguistic theoryconcerned.English prefer to use lexical way to express causative meaning rather than use analytic toexpress causative meaning; while Chinese is in the other way around which means that thereis not an equivalent part of causative expression in Chinese. Those make it difficult forEnglish learners to acquire the Chinese causative construction. The selection of subject andobject, the location of the causative light verb and the expression of the causative result inChinese caused-motion construction and the selection of subject and object and the locationand relationship between causing force and causative result in Chinese resultativeconstruction will impact on the acquisition of Chinese causative construction by English-speaking learners. By three tests, the Production Test, the Acceptability Judgment Task, andthe Translation Test, the thesis explores fifty-four English-speaking learners’ acquisitioncondition of Chinese causative construction to investigating the acquisition of the Chinesecausative construction by English-speaking learners. Base on the proficiency of Chinese, thefifty-four English-speaking learners are divided into three stages: fifteen participants in thebeginner class, twenty-two participants the intermediate class and seventeen participants inthe advanced class. And fifteen native speakers are as control. The result shows that the Chinese level proportional to the acquisition of the causative construction forEnglish-speaking learners. For the English learners of higher Chinese lever, more form of thecausative construction they acquired, the accuracy rate is higher. Meanwhile, mother languagemay hinder the ability of acquiring the second language, especially for the acquisition ofChinese psych verbs in resultative construction. And, language environment plays a positiverole in the acquisition. The sentence you experience everyday more, the accuracy rate wouldbe higher.Therefore, we should lead learners to distinguish Chinese causative construction andEnglish causative construction consciously even at their initial stage with the help ofexamples. Meanwhile, inputting more different syntactic structures of Chinese causativeconstruction into target language is necessary. Besides, we should decrease the negativeinfluence of L1.