An Experimental Study On The Acquisition Of English Null Subject By Chinese Efl Learners

Chinese as a typical pro-drop language allows the subject position to be null, and in some certaincircumstances the subject position must be null. However, English is a non-pro-drop language, except theelliptical sentence, subjects are not allowed to be null in English sentences. Due to the different settings ofpro-drop parameter between Chinese and English, subjects in English sentences are omitted by Chineselearners when they study English. This study aims to investigate the null subject phenomenon inChinese-speaking learners’ L2acquisition of English，trying to find out what are the different performancesamong the three different levels of Chinese learners’ rejection of English null subjects, and to explore towhat degree do Chinese topic constructions affect Chinese learners’ acquisition of English non nullsubjects.Based on the analysis of Null Subject Parameter and different properties between Chinese subject andEnglish subject, the recent study is intended to investigate Chinese learners’ rejection rate with null subjectsin both the matrix sentences and embedded sentences. The study adopts grammaticality judgment task, andthe task were given to108Chinese-speaking learners learning English as the second language. The subjectswere divided into three groups according to their levels of English proficiency: elementary, intermediateand advanced. According to our results in GJ task, the experimental data are analyzed by the aid of SPSSsoftware, and the major findings were summarized as follows: Firstly, compared with the null referentialsubjects, Chinese learners unlearn the null expletive subjects more easily. Of the two types of expletivesubject it sentences: impersonal ‘it’ referring weather/time/distance and anticipatory ‘it’. Chinese learnersare relatively more successful in rejecting the ungrammatical impersonal ‘it’ sentences. That is to say,impersonal ‘it’ and the expletive ‘there’ are easier for Chinese learners to unlearn. Secondly, Chineselearners are more accurate at rejecting null referential subjects in matrix sentences than that in embeddedsentences but less accurate at rejecting null expletive subjects in matrix sentences than that in embeddedsentences. Finally, about the null subject English sentences affected by Chinese topic constructions,elementary and intermediate learners judge these Chinese topic structure sentences as correct. Even advanced learners cannot reject these sentences successfully. As their levels of English proficiency increase,they can gradually get rid of the influence of Chinese topic constructions and reset the null subjectparameter in target language. The general developmental trend is that as learners’ proficiency levelincreases, their rejection of null subjects in English also increases.In conclusion, through observing the different distribution of null subjects in the acquisition ofEnglish by Chinese learners, this study provided some insights into the nature of Chinese L2learners’interlanguage grammars in the context of parameter resetting. In addition, the findings can provide someguidance for English teaching.