An Empirical Study Of English Affix Learning Of Senior High School Students In South Of Henan

As one of the difficulty points in learners’ second language learning, vocabularyknowledge has drawn lots of researchers’ attention. However, with the development ofthe times, the focus of the study is changing from vocabulary size to the depth ofvocabulary, and from cross-sectional study to longitudinal study. English affixknowledge is an important part of vocabulary knowledge, and it is significant inimproving learner’ English reading proficiency. Affixation, as a basic method ofword-formation, plays a positive role in promoting English learners’ vocabularycompetence. In the course of teaching, English teachers with a good knowledge of affix,can offer students a great help with their study, for example, students can use themethods--comparison, contrast, and association to guess the meaning of new words. Thevocabulary knowledge is an organic system. In view of students’ situation of vocabularylearning, English teachers, with a good command of affix knowledge, can classify andsummarize the teaching materials, and they can make use of affix knowledge to find themutual connection and restricts among various subsystems, so as to improve learners’comprehension and memory.Based on Mochizuki’s (2000) Language Acquisition Order Hypothesis, the studyaims to examine students’ derivational affix knowledge and acquisition order. Thesubjects chosen for the present study are all from the south of Henan. They are grade1and grade2senior high school students, and the total sample size is327. In this study, theauthor used two affix knowledge tests, and collected errors from the students’compositions. By using error analysis, the affix errors in the affix tests and students’compositions are explored. The data are analyzed by using SPSS13.0., so as to find outthe features of learning affixes and the reasons that cause the errors.The results show that the features of learning affixes are as follows: the students’ receptive affix knowledge proceeds in the linear mode, but the productive affixknowledge develops quite slowly and irregularly, and the increase of the students’ depthof affix knowledge from Grade1to Grade2is not obvious. The amount of receptiveaffix and productive affix of the two grades is related to students’ vocabulary knowledge.Among all these errors, overuse of affixes and misuse of affixes occur most frequently.There is a certain order in students’ English affix acquisition: suffix knowledge isattained before prefix knowledge and receptive affix knowledge is attained beforeproductive affix knowledge. The reasons that cause the affixation errors are: thecomplexity and indistinctness of English affixes, the shortage of comprehensive languageinput, misuse of learning strategies, and influences of negative transfer. At last, in thelight of the data analysis and research results, the following tentative suggestions areproposed: derivational affix knowledge should be imparted in the language classrooms soas to help students master vocabulary knowledge and expand their vocabulary size in ashort time.