A Study On Chinese EFL Learners' Article Acquisition From The Perspective Of Syntax-pragmatics Interface

English articles,as a kind of functional words,have long been neglected in traditional grammar whereas under the framework of Chomsky's Minimalist Program they are deemed as functional category and thus receive much attention from scholars of both L1 and L2 acquisition.Previous studies on English article acquisition are primarily undertaken from the perspective of semantic feature,prosodic transfer,morphological distribution and syntactic system but few are conducted from the angle of interface.The present study intends to investigate Chinese EFL learners' article acquisition and further explore what brings about their learning difficulty of English articles from the perspective of syntax-pragmatic interface.The present study enrolls three groups of Chinese EFL learners at different proficiency levels and the total number is 135.After excluding invalid questionnaires,90 in total come into final data analysis.Based on their performance on Oxford Quick Placement Test,these subjects are subdivided into elementary,intermediate and advanced group.In addition,5 English native speakers are also recruited to serve as the control group.The Forced Choice Elicitation Task adopted here is designed by SLA research group from University of Essex and delivered by Dr.Neal Snape.It is aimed at investigating L2 learners' English article acquisition.Data obtained are analyzed by SPSS and discussed in accordance with correlative theories.Results indicate Chinese EFL learners have not acquired English article system yet.However,with the development of Chinese EFL learners' proficiency level,their article acquisition improves accordingly;besides,pragmatic contexts exert an influence on Chinese EFL learners' article acquisition.In terms of definite article acquisition,Chinese subjects' performance in encyclopedic contexts is better than in larger situation but worse than in anaphoric contexts;as regards indefinite article acquisition,Chinese EFL learners' article use in specific de re contexts is far outperformed by the one in non-specific de re as well as in non-specific de dicto contexts.All these data further suggest that Chinese EFL learners have not mastered the mapping rules between syntax and pragmatics yet and their learning difficulty lies in syntaxpragmatic interface not in syntax;Chinese EFL learners' interlanguage grammar is not impaired and UG is still accessible in SLA.In the present study,it is confirmed that Interface Hypothesis still holds water with subjects at their developmental process;in the process of article acquisition,Chinese EFL learners' learning difficulty and misuse of articles are well accounted for by syntax-pragmatics interface.This study will provide pedagogical suggestions and guidance on article teaching and learning in China and enrich the literature of Chinese EFL learners' English article acquisition from the perspective of syntax-pragmatic interface.