英语学习中的“瓶颈问题”--中国学生主谓一致结构习得的证据

The Bottleneck Problem in English Learning: Evidence From the SV-Agreement Performance by Chinese EFL Learners

本研究依据二语习得的“瓶颈假说”,通过语法可接受度判断实验,探讨何种主谓一致结构(SV-结构)构成中国学生英语学习中“最难、最持久”的挑战,即“瓶颈问题”,并探讨其形成机制。初二、高二和大学生三组共143人参加了实验。结果发现,长距离SV-结构,不管其主语是单数,还是复数,都给中国学生带来了更难、更持久的挑战。其中,中心名词是复数而局部名词也是复数的SV-结构构成了英语学习“最难、最持久”的挑战,是中国学生英语学习的“瓶颈问题”,中国学生对该结构的学习很难随着外语水平、年龄和英语学习时长的增加而显著提高。英汉跨语言差异、SV-结构的频率及突显度、学习者注意资源的分配及其对句子主语的“数”的信息表征等因素共同造成了外语学习的“瓶颈问题”。

Based on the Bottleneck Hypothesis(BH) in second language acquisition(SLA) research,this experimental study examined which type(s) of SV-agreement constitute(s) the most challenging bottleneck problem for Chinese EFL learners via an acceptability judgment test and explored the mechanisms that contributed to the problem. 143 students recruited from a middle school, a high school, and a university participated in the experiment. The results showed that long-distance SV-agreement posed persistently more challenge than other SV-agreement types for Chinese EFL learners regardless whether the subject noun phrase was singular or plural.Furthermore, in the long-distance SV-agreement sentences, participants were the least accurate when a plural head noun was followed by a plural local noun. This latter type of SV-agreement presented the greatest and most persistent challenge, therefore constituting a bottleneck problem in Chinese students’ learning of English since their accuracy barely improved with the increase of their English proficiency level, age, or length of English learning. A combination of factors is believed to have resulted in this bottleneck problem, including differences between English and Chinese, low salience of SV-agreement, the allocation of the learners’ attentional resources, and their representation of the number information of the subject noun phrases.