A Study On The Acquisition Of English Resultativc Construction By University Students

In recent decade, Goldberg’s Construction Grammar (CG) has attracted muchattention of linguists and applied linguists. Scholars have carried out all-round studiesto testify how and to what extent Construction Grammar approach can explain theprocess and result of language acquisition. Studies abroad have indicated that childrenare capable of acquiring some basic constructions such as Ditransitive Constructioneven at their early ages. However little has been known about whether and to whatextent constructions can be learnt by second language learners of English inclassroom setting. It still remains unknown about how and to what extent theseconstructions can be taught. Therefore we carried out an investigation on theacquisition of English resultative construction by Chinese university students. Theempirical study is expected to gain some empirical data to support the teaching ofresultative construction in China.We are trying to explore the following research questions:1. Are there any differences in the acquisition of English resultative constructionby learners of different language proficiency?2. In acquiring transitive verbs and intransitive verbs occurring in Englishresultative construction, which kind of verbs is easier for Chinese university studentsto learn?3. What kind of nouns is perceived by Chinese university students as acceptablesubjects of resultative construction?4. What kind of adjectives is perceived by Chinese university students asacceptable complement of resultative construction?We tested the subjects’ linguistic knowledge of English resultative constructionthrough the tool of Acceptability Judgment Task, Error Correction Task andTranslation and Answering Question Task.119English major students of a university in Jiangxi province have participated in this study. All the subjects are divided intothree language proficiency groups.Our empirical findings include the following:First，subjects from different language proficiency groups displayed significantdifference on only three categories of Acceptability Judgment Task, namely transitiveverb, intransitive verb and constraint on subject. The main tendency is that thesubjects’ acquisition of these aspects of resultative construction has been improvedwith the development of their language proficiency.Second, empirical data indicate that in acquiring English resultativeconstruction, Chinese university students at the same proficiency level will learn moreeasily the sentences containing transitive verbs than sentences containing intransitiveverbs.Third, our data indicates that Chinese university students tend to accept bothanimate and inanimate nouns as the subjects of resultative sentences. And they tend toaccept inanimate nouns more than animate nouns as the subject of English resultativesentences.Fourth, Chinese university students can accept both gradable and non-gradableadjectives as the complement of English resultatives.Last but not least three pieces of pedagogical implications of this study havebeen given. First, we should provide more relevant input of English resultativesentences in English textbooks of middle school and college. Second, teachers shouldtry to arouse students’ awareness of the cross-linguistic difference between Englishresultative and Chinese resultative when they are trying to teach this construction.This kind of cross-linguistic awareness may help students to minimize the influenceof negative transfer and hence promote their acquisition of new rules of the targetconstruction. Third, teachers should pay much attention to the instruction ofconstruction meaning.