A Corpus-based Study On The Variation In Chinese College English Learner’s Interlanguage

Interlanguage refers to the second language learners build up between the native andforeign language learning for a middle ground approach to learning or terminology. Manylanguage scholars through research found that second language learners for Interlanguage, forexample, are used to exist Interlingua variation using the expression or the use of the thirdperson singular of the verb BE.The second language learner commonly master the verb BE and the third person singularfirstly through their SLA. So many scholars have studied on these two forms, but there werefew on the variation of them. The previous studies on interlanguage variation were mainlyfrom the longitudinal perspective abroad while the relative studies at home are few and notattracted attention. Ellis (1984) conducted a longitudinal study of3children (1Portuguese,2Pakistani) acquiring English as a second language. Two language forms were selected for thestudy: third person singular-s, and copula is. Two language forms are variable with thedifference of the subject type. However, subjects from Ellis’ study are small with certaindefects existing.“…any researcher who has grappled with L2data has had to recognize andfind a way of dealing with variation.”(Ellis,1999, p.119) Therefore, the present study will bebased on corpus to put the investigation into the real material to make the research convincingand persuasive, hoping it may help a lot to learning and teaching in future.The present study is a corpus-based one that is organized on the basis of interlanguagevariation, combining the quantitative and qualitative analyses, which aims to studyinterlanguage variation phenomenon on the influence of changes in both grammaticalstructure and level of English learners. This paper addresses the following questions:1) Dothe subject type and learner’s English proficiency have influence on the variation of thecopula is? If yes, how?2) Do the subject type and learner’s English proficiency haveinfluence on variation of the third person singular-s?3) What are the possible reasons thatcause these variations?Three sub-corpora, St2, St5and St6in CLEC, are chosen as subjects. St2representsSenior Middle School students and contains208088words; St5represents freshmen andsophomores of English major college students, most of whom will take the TEM-4andcontains214510words altogether; St6represents freshmen and sophomores of English majorcollege students, most of whom will take the TEM-8and contains226106words altogether.Wordsmith is adopted to concordance the variation in three corpora and all the relevant datafrom three corpora are calculated by SPSS16.0.Through the analyses of the data, the following results are found:(1) The subject type and Learner’s English proficiency have influence on the variation of the copula is. It was found that contracted’s was most commonly produced when thepreceding element was a personal pronoun; full or zero copula occurred more when thepreceding element was a noun phrase, and the number and frequency of errors of the copula isdecrease as the learners’ English proficiency level develops(2) The subject type and Learner’s English proficiency have influence on variation of thethird person singular–s. It was found that–s was supplied on the verb most frequently whenthe subject was a pronoun rather than a noun, and the number and frequency of errors of thethird person singular-s decrease as the learners’ English proficiency level develops.(3) The possible reasons for these variations are the language environment, the learnerproficiency and learners’ attention to form.Through the detailed analyses above, the writer sincerely hopes that these suggestionscan facilitate the teacher’s teaching as well as the learners’ learning. For one thing, it will beeffective if the teaching–learning situation is improved. The emphases should be put on thearea where the copula “is” and the third person singular “-s” errors occur frequently; for theother, as the corpus techniques develops fast in recent years, teachers can make full use ofCLEC and even establish their own students corpus and students can facilitate languagelearning as well. However, the present study has certain defects and deficiencies. The majorpoint is that the study is a cross-sectional one that can not imply second language learner’sprocess of acquiring second language.