Study Of "De-fossilization" In High School English Grammar Teaching On The Analysis Of Langacker's Grammar

Fossilization is defined in terms of permanent cessation of language acquisition before the learner has attained the native-like competence, no matter what the age of the learner or the amount of instruction he receives in the target language. As it is prevalently inevitable but easily unheeded, fossilization has been attracting researchers' and pedagogic practitioners' attention in Second Language Acquisition. Having witnessed the lack of fossilization research in high school English grammar teaching by meticulous literature review, the present study adopts questionnaire research and experimental study to investigate the existence of fossilization and the way of dispelling fossilization on the analysis of the new linguistic theory——Langacker's Grammar.Frankly speaking, Langacker's Grammar is new to China at present, so the theoretical research on it is initial and obscure, while the empirical research is much less. However, sorting out the main points and peculiarities of the theory, the paper has found out the inner integrated part between Langacker's Grammar and the study of grammar fossilization. On one hand, Langacker's Grammar restores the essence of grammar. Traditional grammar theories, regarding grammar as pure rules, easily lead to poor learning efficiency and fossilization on account of decontextualized learning regardless of the meaning. On the other hand, Langacker's Grammar pounds at the deficiency of previous research of fossilization. Viewing some surface linguistic materials of the target language or some of its grammatical rules as the object of study, many studies of fossilization ignore the fact that forms are just vehicles and inseparable from meanings. Both of the researches are separating themselves from the focus of context and meaning of language. But fortunately, there is an emerging theory paying close attention to the meaning. It is Langacker's Grammar that focuses on meaning and context, emphasizes cognitive motivation of grammars and attaches importance to usage-based grammar learning, from which de-fossilization may draw some inspiration.The empirical research of the present study consists of a questionnaire study and an experimental study. According to Han and Bao Liying etc., given that stabilization is reversible but fossilization is not, the study regards the prelude of fossilization, namely stabilization, as the object of study.The purpose of the questionnaire is not only to look into the fossilization's status-quo, causes, and possible solutions, but also to find out the quasi-experimental grammar items which may suffer from fossilization. In line with Advanced Learners Approach, the study elicits bright students in key high school to complete L2 learners' self–report on fossilization in order to deduce the situation of fossilization of the others from the advanced learners. It proves that fossilization exists universally indeed, and that “input” should be pivotal factor to the cause and the solution of fossilization. Therefore, for the part of students, improving the input of language quality and quantity, and making good use of the class and teachers may be the effective way of ?de-fossilization?.Aiming to investigate whether the suggestions inspired by Langacker's Grammar have an effect on “de-fossilization”, the experimental study of the paper carries out a contrast test using four grammar items based on the result of the questionnaire study. The author is responsible for the experimental group, while the control group remains the same. Tested by SPSS19.0's T-Test, the study results point to the effectiveness of the three suggestions.By theorizing fossilization and conducting empirical study of ?de-fossilization?, the paper works out three suggestions of de-fossilization. To begin with, explain the motivation of grammar to help students construct grammar schema. Moreover, create context with the aim of enabling students to perceive the meaning of the grammar rather than to drill grammar patterns mechanically. Last but not least, guide students to learn language based on the usage of the language with the bottom-up approach.There is rare research applying Langacker's Grammar to English Grammar Teaching, and also there is little study on fossilization in English grammar teaching in Hainan. With an insight of the new requirement of the English educational reform, the present paper links fossilization with the new linguistic theory. Hopefully, it will contribute to the development of empirical study of fossilization and hold significant implications for language pedagogy in China.