A Corpus-based Study Of Article Fossilization Among Chinese English Learners

Language fossilization is a hot issue in the field of second language acquisition.It is also a great obstacle which prevents second language learners from achieving native-like language competence.Ever since the concept of fossilization was put forward by the American linguist Selinker in 1972,domestic and overseas scholars have never stopped their endeavor in fossilization study which has developed from theoretical level to empirical level.But in China,researchers remain inclined to introduce and discuss the conceptual meaning and causal factors of fossilization theoretically.The few empirical studies are mostly investigations of language fossilization in a broad sense,such as phonetic fossilizaiton,grammatical fossiliaztion,lexical fossilization,pragmatic fossilization etc.Research of fossilization in a narrow sense,such as article fossilization,is much less.As a type of frequently used functional words,English articles are not as simple as they seem to be.Seen from the viewpoint of linguistics,articles are a most complex grammatical phenomenon.For Chinese English learners whose mother tongue has no article system,the mastery of the usages of articles is much more difficult.Article fossilization comes into being as long as learners are repeatedly trapped in misuses of articles.But so far,article fossilization has seldom been seriously addressed by scholars in the field of second language acquisition.In order to enrich article fossilization research,this paper retrieved the errors tagged with npl,np2,np5,np6,np7,aj3,ad3,wd4,wd5 in St2,St3,and St4 of Chinese Learner English Corpus(CLEC)with the aid of the retrieval tool Ant Conc 3.4.4w,from which the author analyzed,generalized and calculated the article errors on the basis of error analysis.By combining the pseudo-longitudinal approach with typical-error approach,and qualitative study with speculative discussion,the research analyzed the status and fossilization of articles misuses among Chinese English learners at different proficiency levels comparatively,discussed the causes of article fossilization,and finally proposed some countermeasures of article fossilization.The corpus-based investigation of article fossilization among Chinese English learners has significant implications for article teaching and learning.Major findings of the present research include:First,there indeed exists English article fossilization among Chinese English learners and the most easily fossilized article errors are absence of the,oversuppliance of the,and confusion of a with an;Second,causes of the fossilization of English articles mainly include negative Chinese transfer,intralingual factors,the complexity of the English article system,lack of appropriate input,and lack of corrective feedback;In addition,English article fossilization can be dealt with by reducing the effect of negative Chinese transfer,ensuring the adequacy and appropriateness of input,and providing proper corrective feedback in time.