Effects Of Input Frequency On Junior School Students' Acquisition Of Verb Argument Constructions

Language acquisition cannot be achieved without language input,which has always been an important subject in language acquisition and teaching research.With the expansion of the field of linguistic research and the innovation of research methods,more and more researchers begin to pay attention to the role of frequency in language acquisition.Against this background,many researchers have begun to study the impact of input frequency on second language acquisition,namely,the impact of input frequency on listening,speaking,reading and writing,or the impact on single words.In other words,there are few studies on the influence of input frequency on other aspects of second language acquisition.Therefore,through corresponding experimental research,this article aims to explore whether input frequency will affect the acquisition of verb argument constructions by junior school students.This research is on the basis of input hypothesis and usage-based language acquisition theory.Through investigation and experiment,it attempts to answer the following two questions: 1)Does input frequency have effects on junior school students' acquisition of verb argument constructions? If so,how does it affect their acquisition of verb argument constructions? 2)Do different VAC input interventions have differential impact on junior school student's acquisition of the target verb argument constructions? Based on this,the author hopes to provide effective suggestions for the future teaching of input frequency in second language acquisition.The participant were 80 first-grade students from class 3 and class 4 of No.2 Senior High School in Yuzhong County.To answer the first research question,all of the participant were required to complete the same survey twice.For the first time,they were asked to write the first verb comes to their mind for each VAC in the survey.For the second time,they had one minute to write all the verbs they can think of for each VAC.To answer the second question,the two classes were employed different input interventions.Then class 3 was used as experimental class,and class 4 was used as control class.The experimental class used“skewed frequency” and the control class used “balanced frequency”.The research lasted 4weeks.Through data collection,the type-token data and lead verb for 20 verb argument constructions and the top verb types and their token frequencies found in three distinct verb argument constructions between the textbook corpus and the participant were compared respectively as well as the 6 test results of the two classes were analyzed by using SPSS 20.0.Thus,the following conclusions can be drawn:First,input frequency does affect the acquisition of verb argument constructions of junior school students,namely,the acquisition effect increases with the increase of the input frequency.Through the data analysis of the two surveys,it is clearly shown that the lead verb written by the participant for each verb argument construction was highly consistent with the results extracted from the textbook corpus.Meanwhile,the order of verb types written by the participant in each verb argument construction was also highly in line with that extracted from the textbook corpus.Second,the acquisition of verb argument constructions is facilitated by input that is shewed.The results of the six tests illustrated that the mean of the experimental class with skewed input frequency were all higher than those of the control class with balanced input frequency,and the differences were significant.It can be drawn from the research results that the effect of input frequency on the acquisition of verb argument constructions should be fully emphasized in the practice of second language teaching and learning,that is,the effective use of input frequency should be attached great significance to.Teachers and learners should not only pay attention to the accumulation of verb argument constructions and the strengthening of practice,but also have a full understanding of how input frequency can play its best effect.