A Study on the Focuses and Fronts of International Second Language Acquisition Researches -Statistical Analysis of the Articles Published in Language Learning(2012-2016)

Keywords word frequency and co-word analysis are adopted in an attempt to to investigate the focuses and fronts of inter-national second language acquisition(SLA) researches by analyzing the key words in articles published in the internationally re-nowned SLA academic journal Language Learning from 2012 to 2016. It is found that the best researched topics in SLA are vocabu-lary acquisition, explicit knowledge, form-focused teaching, language use, and so on, among which learner's language attracts themost attention. In terms of research methods, they become more diversified and interdisciplinary, as empirical studies take a domi-nant position and experiments still play a leading role, displaying an interdisciplinary feature.

Error Analysis of English Pronunciation Acquisition by Chinese Non-English Majors

Chinese non-English majors are a large group of English learners.In the process of English pronunciation acquisition,issues such as incomplete phonological knowledge,transfer of mother tongue,and overgeneralization,lead to confusion of phonemes and stress,misunderstanding of syllable structure,and errors of assimilation,drop,and epenthesis.The accuracy of English pronunciation can only be improved by knowing both English and Chinese phonological systems,strengthening the teaching of English phonological knowledge,and adopting various phonological training activities.

Error Correction and Feedback in Second Language Acquisition

This paper is aimed at investigating the different ways of English teachers correcting errors in second language acquisition in classroom and offering constructive pedagogical proposal on error correction in oral English class. Transcripts totaling450 minutes of classroom interaction taken from 5 non-native English classes of different types(reading, writing, speaking, and integrated English learning) were analyzed on error correction and feedback in second language acquisition. Results include the frequency and distribution of the six different feedback types used by five teachers. The findings here illustrate an overwhelming tendency for teachers to use recasts in class. Four other feedback types-elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, clarification request,and repetition—lead to student-generated repair more successfully and are thus able to initiate what the authors characterize as the negotiation of form.

A Critical Review of Motivation in Second Language Acquisition Research

As one of the major factors affecting second language learners' success to their acquisition achievement,motivation has been examined in a wide variety of research papers.It is thus instructive to conduct a critical review of both theoretical and empirical developments in SLA research from over the last few decades.This approach will provide a broad,and integrated perspective onto the current understanding of the complextopic of motivation.Such an undertaking is valuable for teachers,and researchers alike,in developing useful teaching methods,and finding futureavenues of SLA motivation research respectively.The following paper provides an overview of recent theoretical and empirical findings,examines some of the problems and contradictions found in current SLA research,and gives an initial departure point for future directions of research in the area of motivation.The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the implications for teachers,and possible classroom strategies that are drawn from the current body of motivation research.

A Brief Study of Second Language Learning Strategies From the Perspective of Error Analysis

Language teaching is not a one-way process.It interacts with language learning in an extremely intricate way.To improve language teaching,we need to take the process of language learning into account.This paper tries to explore and understand what strategies the second language learners consciously or subconsciously adopt during their language learning process through the analyses of the linguistic errors they commit,so as to provide some insights into language teaching practice.

A Review of Universal Grammar Concerning Second Language Acquisition Research

Chomsky’s Universal Grammar(UG)theory not only answers"the logical problem of language acquisition",but also provides insights and thoughts for second language acquisition(SLA)research on both theoretical and empirical level.However,there are many problems of UG-based research.On the theoretical aspect,UG-based approach left untouched many areas apart from"core grammar"and the continual development of the theory is problematic to second language researchers.On the empirical aspects,most experiments reveal problems with the design and data collection process.In short,the evaluation of UG concerning SLA should be developmental and comprehensive.

Pedagogical Implications for Second Language Acquisition

Second language acquisition is influenced by various factors,among which age and environment are two major factors.Language acquisition and language learning are two different concepts,but they are correlated and they interact with each other.Therefore,in second language teaching teachers and researchers should follow the rules of second language acquisition and second language learning and analyze the factors such as learners' possible errors,motivation,learning strategies and personalities.

A Literature Review of Research on Error Analysis Abroad

Error constitutes an important part of interlanguage.Error analysis is an approach influenced by behaviorism,it based on the cognitive theory.The aim of error analysis is to explore the errors made by second language learners,exploring the mental process of learners’second language acquisition,which is of great importance to both learners and teachers.However,as a research tool,error analysis has its limitations.In order to better understand and make best use of error analysis,its background,definition,basic assumptions,classification,procedure,explanation,implication as well as its application will be illustrated.Its limitations will be analyzed from the prospectives of its nature,definition categories.The literature review abroad sheds insight on implication for second language teaching.

Errors in Language Learning

Researchers have realized the importance of focusing on learners＇ errors. Then, as teachers, how should we treat students＇ errors in their second language acquisition？ This essay attempts to overview the background theories about learners＇ errors, especially those committed in the process of second language acquisition, and more importantly, to give some suggestions on how to deal with students＇ errors in the process of second language acquisition.

Crosslinguistic Influence of the First Language: Interlingual errors in the writing of ESL Saudi learners

Writing as a productive skill is challenging for the learners as it requires rich linguistic and cognitive abilities to match words with ideas well. A learner of any language as Second Language (SL), for example English, Arabic, Chinese, or German, enters an early, natural, and inevitable stage of making various errors in writing compositions. The errors could be due to dissimilar linguistic systems of the two languages (L1 and L2) or the lack of understanding the SL linguistic rules. This study focuses on investigating the frequent and common inter-lingual errors (the negative influence) committed by Arabic-speaking learners of English as Second Language (ESL). The study is based on Error Analysis (EA) of the essays of a group of English major undergraduate students from the University of Bisha, Al-Namas, Saudi Arabia. Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH)is included to predict most of the errors in the collected samples. The findings of the study show that common errors in the data are interlingual (54.03%). The errors within the Grammatical Category include the misuse of tenses, dropping the subjects, dropping verb to be-copular and word order misplacement. The majority of errors in the study are due to the interference of L1 linguistic system including the different orthographic, phonological,morpho-syntactic components. For instance, the participants’ dropping subjects in English can be attributed to the fact that Arabic as L1 and as Null Subject Language (NSL), unlike English, allows subject drop. The results also find that within the Lexical Category,preposition and article errors are the most frequent errors and that spelling errors are the most dominant errors within the Mechanics Category. The study gives some pedagogical implications and suggestions to avoid and minimize the interlingual errors of such type. For instance, teachers need to focus more on enlightening their students about the contrastive language systems from the early stage of learning ESL.

Corpora research of language transfer

The paper firstly reviews the developments of language transfer research. Utilizing the results supplied by CEM and AntConc, the present writer conducts analyses of the lexicai errors committed by the students in TEM-8 test and reveals the contributions to SLA and EFL language teaching that language transfer may make.

The Effect of the Native Language and Culture on EFL Writing of Chinese Students

According to an error analysis on Chinese college students' writing,the native language and culture have great influence onsecond-language writing.On the basis of error analysis,this paper put forward some countermeasures to improve Chinese students' Eng-lish writing skill.

Investigation on International Students＇ Ultimate Attainment in Chinese Structural Auxiliary Word ＂De＂ （的） Acquisition

This article studies the situations of international students＇ ultimate attainment in Chinese structural auxiliary word ＂De＂ （的） acquisition through questionnaires. And we found whether international students can use all types attributive ＂De＂ （的） correctly is mainly affected by the following two factors： （1） Influenced by frequency of attribute type appears and （2） affected by its own clarity of grammatical rules. We also noticed that the international students who are able to discriminate the ＂De＂ （的） and ＂Di＂ （地） in the predicates position better than the ＂De＂ （的） and ＂Di＂ （地） in the objects position.

Effective Error Correction in Writing in An EFLclassroom

Error correction in writing is effective in an English as a foreign language (EFL) learning context, as error correction is an essential means of accuracy improvement in EFL writing. Studies of error correction show that error correction is benefitial for EFL writers not only in the short term but also in the long run.

WHY SHOULD THE LANGUAGE TEACHER STUDY LINGUISTICS

随着语言研究的不断深入，语言学与其他学科之间的关系日趋密切，从而使语言学逐渐成为一门跨学科的边缘性科学。这里所讲的语言学是指一门以语言学理论为指导，以英语语言为研究对象的课程。本文从八个方面阐述了语言（英语）教师为什么要学习语言的道理。同时揭示并剖析了有些人思想上存在的一些误解并予以更正。总之，学习语言学对一位英语教师来说是非常有用的。

The Role of L1 in EFL Learners' Acquisition of Perfect Aspect

Most EFL learners have difficulty during the process of second language acquisition, for they cannot output the available and appropriate grammatical form of target language. This article tends to clarity the acquisition of present aspect during second language acquisition. This paper also shows an analysis of the errors of the perfect aspect in EFL learners' language output.EFL learners have to spend much time understanding language transfer of L2, for it is a major cause of difficulties in the acquisition of English tense by EFL learners. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the acquisition of present perfect tense.(1)Analyze f grammatical error of present perfect tense.(2) Illustrate the role of L1 in the acquisition of present perfect tense.

A Brief Analysis of Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis

This paper makes a brief analysis on the contrastive analysis hypothesis, and it is hoped to be helpful for the English teachers.

A Study on the Negative Phonetic Transfer of English Learners in Henan Province

Due to the influence of dialect,many English learners in China tend to speak English in the way they usually speak during second language acquisition,which results in negative transfer on English pronunciation.In order to reduce this phenomenon and improve the students’English pronunciation level,it is necessary for us to study the topic and put forward solutions.By using the contrastive analysis,this paper compares the pronunciation of English,Chinese and Henan dialect so as to find out the influence of Henan dialect on English learners at segmental level and suprasegmental level.The results show strong correlation between the pronunciation of English and Henan dialect for English learners.Therefore,this paper analyzes the mistakes and reasons that learners of Henan province are prone to make in the process of learning,and puts forward corresponding suggestions for teaching on students’negative transfer,so as to enhance the awareness of negative transfer for teachers and students.

同一期刊,不同实践:基于语料库的《应用语言学》互动元话语研究

研究论文是学者与学科社群沟通的主要媒介,但少有研究关注在一份期刊内,不同研究主题的写作实践在多大程度上存在差异。本研究通过比较《应用语言学》期刊语言习得和话语分析论文中互动元话语的使用情况,弥补这一不足。基于每个研究主题30篇研究论文的语料库,结果显示,语言习得领域的作者显著更频繁地使用增加性和结果性过渡标记语、重述语和非嵌入式引用,而话语分析者更倾向于使用例证、线性和非线性引用以及主题转换。这些差异都可以归因于学科研究范式的特点,这导致了学术写作中不同的知识构建和互动模式。研究结果为元话语在构建学科知识的修辞功能提供了实证证据,并对学术英语教师提供了教学意义,帮助应用语言学学者更好地了解国际发表的语言特点。

汉语助词“了”习得研究现状与前瞻

文章通过对汉语助词“了”的习得研究进行梳理,发现目前的研究具有以下特点:①当前汉语“了”习得研究的研究对象主要集中于母语为英语、韩语、日语、泰语、越南语等的汉语学习者;②研究内容主要集中于“了”的偏误类型、习得顺序、习得过程等;③研究方法表现出由个案研究转向群案研究、由基于少量语料的研究转向基于语料库的实证研究、由解释力较弱的研究转向采用统计方法的解释力较强的研究、由横向研究转向纵向研究的特点。基于此,文章对汉语助词“了”的未来研究方向进行了预测。