A Study Of The Acquisition Of English Reflexive Pronouns Among Chinese Middle School Students

There are similarities and the differences between English and Chinese reflexive pronouns in being restrained by their antecedents,which make it difficult for the middle school students to acquire Principle A of English reflexive pronouns.Therefore,based on White et al.?1997?truth value judgment task,this study tested the acquisition of Principle A of English reflexive pronouns among 60 junior and senior high school students in a middle school in Zhangzhou,and the data was analyzed by Repeated ANOVA and one-way ANOVA of SPSS?21.0?,a social science statistical software,in an attempt to answer the following questions:?1?Does the middle school students tend to choose subject as the antecedent of English reflexive pronoun in the process of their acquisition of English reflexive pronouns??2?Is the acquisition of Principle A of English reflexive pronouns affected by the parameter of restricted antecedents of Chinese and English reflexive pronouns??3?Is there any difference between junior high school students and senior high school students in their acquisition Principle A of English reflexive pronouns in mono clausal sentence,bi finite clausal sentences and non-finite clausal sentences?The results of the study are as followed,?1?the result of Repeated ANOVA indicates that the main effect of"level"was significant in the junior and senior groups,?F?1,58?=11.954,P=0.001<0.05?,and the main effect of"sentence pattern"was also significant,?F?1,58?=24.073,P=0.000<0.05?.The mean value of"subject type of mono-clausal sentences"?M₁=3.0000 and M₂=3.3000?in the junior and senior groups was higher than that of"object type of mono-clausal sentences"?M₁=2.9333 and M₂=3.1333?,which shows that the junior and senior high school group have significant differences in acquiring“mono-clausal subject type”than“mono-clausal object type”.In addition,76%and 86%of the subjects in the junior and senior high school groups respectively chose the subject as the antecedent of the English reflexive pronouns,however,67%and 70%chose the object as the antecedent of the English reflexive pronouns,indicating that the junior and senior high school students tend to choose subject as an antecedent of the English reflexive pronouns in the process of the acquisition of English reflexive pronouns.?2?In finite bi-clausal sentences,there were only 23%students of junior and 50% students of senior reset the parameter and made the right choice,there were 33%students of junior and 26%students of senior took the value of Chinese parameter into English and made the wrong choice.In non-finite bi-clausal sentences,there were 20%students of junior and67%students of senior reset the parameter and made the right choice,there were 27%students of junior and 23%students of senior took the value of Chinese parameter into English and made the wrong choice.?3?The one-way ANOVA showed that there were significant differences in the sentence types in junior group?F₁?5,179?=16.399,P=0.000<0.05?,but the multiple comparisons showed that only“subject type”and“long-distance type in finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.000<0.05?;“subject type”and“local type in finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.000<0.05?;“subject type”and“long-distance type in non-finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.001<0.05?;“subject type”and“localtypeinnon-finitebi-clausalsentence”showedsignificant difference?P=0.000<0.05?.“object type”and“long-distance type in finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.000<0.05?;“object type”and“local type in finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.000<0.05?;“object type”and“long-distance type in non-finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.003<0.05?and“object type”and“localtypeinnon-finitebi-clausalsentence”showedsignificant difference?P=0.000<0.05?.The difference of the sentence types in senior group is also significant?F₂?5,179?=7.716,P=0.000<0.05?,but the multiple comparisons showed that only“subject type”and“Long-distance type in finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.000<0.05?,“subject type”and“Long-distance type in non-finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.002<0.05?,“object type”and“long-distance type in finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.004<0.05?and“object type”and“long-distance type in non-finite bi-clausal sentence”showed significant difference?P=0.018<0.05?.In addition,the right rate of senior group was higher than the junior group.In bi-clausal sentence,both of the groups did better in non-finite bi-clausal sentences.And the phase theory could explain the differences between these two groups.Therefore,we can draw a conclusion that:1)The middle school students tend to choose subject as an antecedent of English reflexive pronouns in the process of the acquisition of English reflexive pronoun.2)the acquisition of Principle A of English reflexive pronoun is affected by the parameter of restricted antecedents of Chinese and English reflexive pronouns3)There are some differences between junior high school students and senior high school students in the acquisition of Principle A of English reflexives pronouns in mono clausal sentence,bi finite clausal sentences and non-finite clausal sentences.The senior group do better than the group of junior group in the task.Both of them do better in mono-clause part.In bi-clause part,they do better in infinite bi-clause than that in finite bi-clause.So we suggest that teachers focus on the input of target language and the environment of English teaching,teachers pay attention to the parameter of restricted antecedents of Chinese and English reflexive pronouns and teachers should pay attention to the syntactic functions and binding features of English reflexives and arrange the grammar teaching appropriately.