A Comparative Study On Acquisition Features Of English Grammar

Chinese ethnic Koreans in Yanbian area, whose native language is Korean, the second language Chinese and a foreign language English, have been learning the three languages since elementary school. Therefore, Yanbian ethnic Koreans’English education and acquisition is the third language education and acquisition based upon ’Korean and Chinese (Zhang Zhen’ai,1998). English acquisition of Yanbian ethnic Koreans is similar to that of Chinese Han students in sharing Chinese as their known language (Chinese is Yanbian Han students’native language and English is their second language). Meanwhile, English acquisition of Chinese ethnic Koreans is also similar to that of Koreans in sharing the same native language. As such, the thesis is intended to explore monolinguals’and bilinguals’acquisition features of English grammar through the empirical study.The thesis is based on the quantitative research and collects the data in the form of test papers. The test paper contains9grammar points, chosen after comparing junior English syllabus, English curriculum standards and textbooks in China and Korea. There are four question types in the test paper, that is, multiple choice, error correction, translation and word order arrangement. The statistics is based on the accuracy of each question and the comparative analysis of acquisition features is done according to the data of the three groups.The thesis draws a conclusion as follows:generally, Chinese Han students acquire the English grammar better than Chinese ethnic Korean students, and Chinese ethnic Korean students do better than Korean students. It may explain that the surface distance between languages plays an important role in the second and third language acquisition. When the surface form of word order in the native language is similar to that in the target one, the native language will help the learners to acquire the target language. If the surface forms of the two languages are totally different, the native language will be an obstacle to acquiring the target one. Thus, the similar word order between Chinese and English helps Chinese Han students acquire English grammar better than the other two groups, while the different surface forms between Korean and Chinese play a interference role in English acquisition of Koreans. Different from the two monolingual groups, Chinese ethnic Korean students can benefit from both the similarities between Chinese and English and those between Korean and English. However, the differences between the three languages also can make it more difficult for Chinese ethnic Korean students to acquire English grammar.