中国英语学习者wh-单子句习得中句法移位及特征词汇化难度的不对称性

Asymmetric difficulty in syntactic movement and lexicalization of features by Chinese English learners in single-clausal wh-questions

本文通过汉译英单句翻译考察了中国英语学习者对wh-单子句中[uwh*]特征与[Qu_(+AFFIX)]特征的重组难度。结果显示,无论在句法移位还是在特征词汇化过程中,[uwh*]特征都要比[Qu_(+AFFIX)]特征更容易习得;wh-移位和I-to-C移位受wh-词句法特征,尤其是汉语特征迁移的影响;特征重组的正确率会随着英语水平的提高而提高。研究结果说明,同一句法结构中不同特征的重组难度具有不对称性,L1与L2具有对应词汇且实现方式相同的特征要比实现方式不同的特征更容易习得。

This study investigates the difficulty in reassembling the [uwh*] feature and the [Qu_(+AFFIX)] feature in single-clausal wh-questions by Chinese English learners as revealed in their Chinese-English sentence translation tasks. The results show that the [uwh*] feature is easier to acquire than the [Qu_(+AFFIX)] feature in both syntactic movement and lexicalization. Wh-movement and I-to-C movement are both influenced by the syntactic features of wh-words, especially by the features transferred from Chinese relevant wh-words. The accuracy of feature reassembling enhances with the improvement of learners' English proficiency. These findings prove that different features of the same syntactic structure are reassembled with asymmetric difficulty. Those features realized in the same way between L1 and L2 with corresponding lexical items are easier to reassemble than those realized in different ways.