Acquisition Of Argument Structure By Chinese Learners Of English

Verb argument structure, as the interface between syntax and semantics, is directlyrelated to the grammaticality of sentences. It has been the focus of previous linguists and thefocus of controversy for linguists‘research. In the field of language acquisition, previousstudies tried to make a breakthrough from the aspect of syntax or semantics or other aspects,so as to explain learners‘acquisition of verb argument structure. This thesis, takingmonovalence verbs, bivalence verbs and alternating verbs as target verbs, aims atinvestigating the acquisition of argument structure by Chinese learners of English withdifferent English proficiency levels in the framework of valency theory, thus furtherinvestigating whether learners‘awareness of verb valence influence their acquisition ofargument structure. The thesis addresses the following three questions:1) Do Chinese learners have awareness of English verb valency？2) Classifying English verbs in terms of valency, do they learn the argument structuresof different types of English verbs with the same level of difficulty?3) How does English proficiency level influence learners‘awareness of valence and theiracquisition of argument structure?90students of three different proficiency levels participated in this study. They were the8thgraders, the11thgraders and the2nd-year English majors with each group30students.Based on their years of exposure to English, it was found that their English proficiency levelincreases as their years of exposure to English increases. The thesis employed three types ofverbs as the target verbs with each type5verbs. Participants were required to participate inthree tasks: VJT, GJT and SPT.The results of the three tasks were analyzed and SPSS (16.0) was employed to compareand analyze statistics. The results are as follows:1) Chinese learners have awareness of English verb valency. Their awareness of thevalence of monovalence verbs and that of bivalence verbs are significantly better than that ofthe valence of alternating verbs; their awareness of the valence of bivalence verbs is slightlybetter than that of monovalence verbs and the difference is not statistically significant.2) Chinese learners have significantly less difficulty in acquiring argument structures ofmonovalence and bivalence verbs than their difficulty in acquiring argument structures ofalternating verbs; learners show slightly less difficulty in the acquisition of the argumentstructures of bivalence verbs than their difficulty in the acquisition of the argument structuresof monovalence verbs, but the difference is not significant. Comparing three tasks, it isrevealed that learners‘difficulty in acquiring argument structure is inversely related to their awareness of verb valence. That is, learners‘more awareness of the valency of a type of verbscorresponds to the less difficulty in learning the argument structure of that type of verbs. Theabove indicates learners‘awareness of verb valence influences their acquisition of verbargument structure.3) The comparison of learners of three different English proficiency levels shows thatlearners‘English proficiency level influences the awareness of verb valency and theiracquisition of argument structure. Learners‘awareness of verb valency and their acquisitionof argument structure develop as their English proficiency level increases. Their awareness ofvalency can also be adopted to account for the differences detected in their acquisition ofargument structure among learners of different English proficiency levels: Learners at ahigher English proficiency level have more awareness of the valency of the tested verbs, andcorrespondingly, they have less difficulty in acquiring the argument structures of these verbsand have better performance in acquiring these argument structures, and vice visa.This study suggests that cultivating learners‘awareness of verb valence can facilitatelearners‘acquisition of argument structure.