A Survey Study On The Acquisition Of English Ditransitive Construction Of Junior High School Students Based On Construction Grammar

Construction Grammar(CG)emphasizes that the language system is comprised of “construction”,so SLA is actually equal to a kind of “construction”acquisition.Besides,different types of construction and individual factors(such as gender and age)will have certain influence on SLA of English learners.Meanwhile,of English verb structures in junior high school,English ditransitive construction(DC)owns the most typical feature of junior high school grammar.Additionally,previous researches of the ditransitive construction,whose research subjects mainly concentrated on college English learners,almost focused on the comparative study between English DC and Chinese DC as well as the corpus-based study of English ditransitive construction.Oppositely,the researches on the acquisition of DC of junior high school students with different genders and age(i.e.grade)are less.Hence,based on construction grammar theory,the thesis studies the acquisition of English DC of junior high school students,aiming to investigate the current situation of students' acquisition of English DC in junior high school,as well as factors impacting on the acquisition of English DC(i.e.the types of English DC,students' gender and age),and thento test the interaction between dual factors.Furthermore,the thesis puts forward some suggestions to improve teaching effect of English DC in junior high school in the future.On the foundation of construction grammar theory,using one common method in the study of SLA--Grammaticality Judgment Test(GJT),the thesis takes 240 students from one junior high school in Hohhot as research subjects(120 boys and 120 girls;120 in grade 7 and 120 in grade 8)to investigate the overall situation of the acquisition of different types of English DC through the form of questionnaire.The main research questions are: 1.What is the overall judgment of junior high school students when they acquire English ditransitive construction? 2.Do the types of English ditransitive construction affect the acquisition of junior high school students? 3.Do junior high school students of different genders and grades have differences in the acquisition of various English ditransitive constructions? 4.Is the acquisition of ditransitive construction of junior high school students significantly influenced by the dual factors of “genders and types of ditransitive construction” or the dual factors of“grades and types of ditransitive construction”? Then the quantitative data about the questionnaire will be analyzed with the help of statistical analysis software SPSS 22.0 and Amos 22.0 including descriptive statistics,path analysis,Independent sample t-test,and Single-variable Two-way ANOVA.The research ultimately finds that: 1.Junior high school students who cannotaccurately judge different kinds of English DC also have a certain difference in their ability to judge them.Besides,students have the greatest difference in judging false convert-giving DC but they have the least difference in judging false overt-giving DC.Generally speaking,students do their best in understanding and judging overt-giving DC;2.To some degree,different types of English DC can influence the acquisition of English DC,among which true non-giving DC has the greatest impact;3.The significant difference exists in the acquisition of English DC among junior high school students with different genders and grades.The acquisition of English DC among girls is better than that among boys,and that among students in grade eight is better than that in grade seven.4.Junior high school students' acquisition of English DC is significantly affected by two factors--both genders and types of English DC or grades(i.e.age)and types of English DC,thus the interaction between two influencing factors has been justified.Combining research results with construction grammar,the present study attempts to provide some advice for teachers to improve the effect of English grammar teaching especially English DC teaching in junior high school.Firstly,teachers are suggested to notice the overall meaning of verbs,and teach from the whole to part;secondly,teachers are supposed to highlight the metaphor involved in ditransitive construction;thirdly,teachers are suggested to emphasize the matching between form and meaning during the teaching procedure;fourthly,paying attention to the influence of mother tongue transfer and comparative analysis between English DC and Chinese DC makes sense for teachers when teaching grammar;fifthly,teachers are responsible for creating corresponding construction context to improve students' interests in grammar learning;last but not least,teachers had better integrate textbook contents to promote teaching coherence.As construction grammar has advocated,this study provides a new perspective for English grammar teaching in junior high school,especially for English DC teaching,which is of referential significance to promote English DC teaching effect for junior high school students.At the same time,some relevant suggestions for ditransitive construction teaching in the future are proposed to facilitate better acquisition of English ditransitive construction of junior high school students with different genders and grades.What's important,the study also enhances the breadth and depth of the study of English ditransitive construction,and points out a new direction to further study in the future.