中国高阶英语习得中的时间状语与一般过去时关系研究——以英汉时空性差异为视角

The relationship between temporal adverbials and the use of the simple past tense by advanced Chinese EFL learners:From the perspective of English pro-temporality and Chinese pro-spatiality

本文考察中国高阶英语习得中时间状语与一般过去时的关系。研究发现主要有三:1)英语以时间状语后置为优势语序,汉语以时间状语前置为优势语序,中国高阶英语习得中的时间状语语序分布呈现明显前置倾向,偏离英语目标语语序规律;2)高阶英语习得中的一般过去时表达已进入形态标记阶段,但常误用为一般现在时;3)时间状语总体上有助于高阶英语学习者的一般过去时习得。本文认为,学习者的时间状语语序分布和一般过去时偏误是英汉形式结构差异和认知概念差异共同作用的结果,其根源在于英语强时间性思维和汉语强空间性思维的思维模式差异使然。

This research intends to investigate the relationship between temporal adverbials and the use of the simple past tense by advanced Chinese EFL learners.There are three main findings:1)Temporal adverbials are preferred in the sentence-final position in English while in the sentence-initial position in Chinese,and those by advanced Chinese EFL learners are preferred to be used in the initial position,which is different from English;2)The learning of the simple past tense has developed into the use of verbal morphology,but it is often misused as the simple present tense;3)Temporal adverbials can basically facili-tate the acquisition of the simple past tense.The ordering distribution of temporal adverbials and the simple past tense errors can be attributed to the result of the interaction between structural and cognitive differences between the two languages,but the root cause lies in the English preference for pro-temporality and the Chinese preference for pro-spatiality in their different modes of thinking.