英语口语he/she错误产出研究:注意的作用

A Study on Misuse of he/she in Oral English:Effects of Attention

英语口语he/she错误产出现象在中国学习者中十分常见。问卷结果显示,高达70%的中国大学生(中低级水平英语学习者)认为,he/she错误的主要原因在于注意缺乏,且对阴性代词she错误的注意尤为缺乏。三角验证(结合语料和问卷数据展开的组内与组间对比和交互验证)结果显示,注意提示有助于中国中低级水平英语学习者有效减少he/she错误产出,主要表现为she错误率的显著性下降和she错误自我修补频数的显著性提高。主要认知原因在于:注意作为有意识的选择性自我监控,在初级阶段英语学习者的he/she错误产出中具有提醒、定向和监察功能。

It is of great importance to understand the mechanism of language production by exploring the misuse of personal pronouns in English. Related empirical studies are rare in China although Chinese EFL learners are commonly found to misuse he/she in oral performance. Based on the Triangulation Model （triangulated testing with transcribed recording data, scores of students＇ performance, questionnaires and interviews）, this paper attempts to address the following questions： （1） What constitutes the main reason of Chinese college students＇ misuse of he/she？ （2） Will attention help reduce the misuse of he/she？ What is the underlying cognitive motivation for its effective or ineffective reduction in he/she misuse？ The questionnaire-based survey shows that up to 70% of the focus Chinese college students （with a beginning to intermediate English proficiency） consider lack of attention as the major cause of he/she misuse, especially in the case of the feminine pronoun she. Our inter-group comparison suggests that the misuse of he/she in oral English is highly related to the gender of personal pronouns, where the feminine pronoun she is much more frequently misused than the masculine pronoun he, but as against the attention circumstance, the production of such misuseis insensitive to genders. he/she misuse would not Furthermore, under both be significantly influenced circumstances the frequency of self-repair of genders. The intra-group comparison indicates that： attention exerts a significant impact on the misuse of he/she, which is demonstrated in the significant effect of attention on both the production of she errors and the frequency of its self-repair; however, no such effect can be found with he errors. Our integrated analysis of subjective questionnaires and objective performance of students has confirmed that attention plays a significantly positive role in avoiding he/she misuse, which can be seen from the lowering of she errors and the increase of its self-repair. Thus, increasing attention is particularly helpful for Chinese EFL learners （with a beginning to intermediate English proficiency） to refrain from the misuse of he/she. According to the theory of self-monitoring, the cognitive motivation underlying our results lies in the fact that, attention as conscious and selective self-monitoring bear such multiple functions as alerting, orienting and detecting; for possible he/she misuse and particularly the misuse of feminine pronoun she. Therefore, English learners in the state of concentrating attention may develop forecast-type cognitive awareness, make preferable arrangement of cognitive resources, conduct emphatic cognitive detection, and finally effectively lower the production of he/she misuse. Pedagogical implications of this research can be found in the necessity of strengthening the noticing of attention in oral English teaching to help junior Chinese EFL learners effectively avoid he/she misuse, especially the errors of the feminine pronoun she. It should be noted that our research only focuses on Chinese EFL learners with a beginning to intermediate English proficiency and the misuse of he/she. Further research is expected to target Chinese EFL learners at different levels of English proficiency; hence a comprehensive investigation of the misuse of third person pronouns could be carried out.