Chinese Learners' Acquisition Of English Idiomaticalized Chunks

Language is a dual system consisting of the rule-based analytic system and the memory-based formulaic system of this language. The former is relatively closed, made up of lexis as well as limited grammar rules; while the latter is relatively open, consisting of chunks which bear the function of communication. The formulaic system enables the language learners to produce accurate, fluent and idiomatic expressions, meeting the demand for instant communication. The chunk-processing model in language acquisition corresponds to the "principle of economy" in information processing from the viewpoint of psycholinguistics. English idioms contain rich language information and connote the culture of English-speaking nations, reflecting the native speakers' conceptual structure. Idiom competence, as one of the important components of language competence, is the key to idiomatic expression and one of the important representations of conceptual fluency. How well one can understand and use English idioms has become an important criterion to judge learner's language competence.This study lays emphasis on the acquisition of English idioms. The theory of cognitive metaphor is applied the study of idioms in applied linguistics. Three hypotheses are advanced and testified on the basis of empirical study, that is, the awareness of conceptual metaphor, metaphor of image schema and conceptual metonymy can facilitate the acquisition of English idiomaticalized chunks. In practice, this study proves that conceptual metaphor is nationality-based, in other words, conceptual metaphors are not equivalent in different cultures, as some are universal and ubiquitous, while others are characteristic of specific nationalities.The whole dissertation consists of seven parts. Part One is the introduction. Based on the result of three pre-study questionnaires aiming to find out the learning difficulties and the status quo of idiom learning for Chinese learners of English, the background is introduced, followed by the significance of this study. It is pointed out that Chinese learners are generally lacking in the strategies to process and to learn English idiomaticalized chunks including phrasal verbs, and learners avoid using these chunks, the avoidance exists at different levels and therefore students are in need of teachers' instruction. It is of great importance for second language learners to attain the native-like idiomaticity and fluency, to master the native speaker's way of thinking or establish the native speakers' conceptual system. This is in accordance with the result from the questionnaire that over 80% of the teachers and students attribute the key factor affecting students' success in writing to the Chinese way of thinking. It is especially significant for learners to overcome the influence coming from the native way of thinking and to raise the conceptual fluency of the second language. It is the author's belief that cultivating second language learners' awareness of conceptual metaphor in idiom understanding should be facilitative in learning idioms in the target language, overcoming the native way of thinking and enhancing the conceptual fluency of the target language. Therefore, the author advances three hypotheses, namely, the awareness of conceptual metaphor can facilitate the Chinese learners' understanding and acquisition of English idiomaticalized chunks; metaphor of image schema can facilitate the Chinese learners' understanding and acquisition of English phrasal verbs; conceptual metonymy can facilitate the Chinese learners' understanding and acquisition of English idiomaticalized chunks.Part Two is the literature review. The relevant literature of second language acquisition on lexis including idioms, both of home and abroad, are reviewed and analyzed, limitations and weakness are summarised. Lexis acquisition of second language should include not only the acquisition of individual words in the analytic system but also that of chunks in the formulaic system. There are some obvious shortcomings in the research done so far on words. On the one hand, studies on the depth knowledge of lexis are scarce. The depth knowledge of lexis should involve not only the micro-knowledge such as pronunciation, spelling, part of speech, meaning, association and synonym, but also the meta-word knowledge such as the concept, the rules and variability. The acquisition of the collocational knowledge and conceptual knowledge of word is, to a large extend, affected by the conceptual knowledge of learner's native language. Collocation reflects the constitutional relations among lexical items; collocation competence reflects the learner's second language fluency, accuracy and idiomaticity, and the degree to which second language is interfered by the native language as well.On the other hand, more research are done on individual lexis, while studies on multi-word items or lexical chunks are relatively scarce, and it is even scarcer when it comes to the fixed structure such as idioms, including phrasal verbs. In effect, it's our belief that we may combine collocations in the depth knowledge of lexis with idioms in the multi-word items and thus form a continuum of collocations with free collocations in one extreme and pure idioms in the other, what lies in the middle are those restricted collocations and metaphorical idioms. It is these restricted collocations and metaphorical idioms that deserve our special attention in this continuum so far as the acquisition of word is concerned. Influenced by the conventional linguistic view, it is generally believed that there exist no problems in the acquisition of those free collocations and idioms as the former can be generated based on the grammar rules while the latter, for its structural frozenness and semantic opaqueness, does not have learnability or teachability, thus the acquisition of idioms is marginalized. Consequently, it misleads the second language learner that there are only two obvious models in word acquisition. A great number of restricted collocations and the acquisition of them are neglected. Scholars such as Howarth (1998) think that the reason why advanced language learners, either native speakers or second/foreign language learners, have a better command of language competence lexically lies in the fact that they successfully grasped more restricted collocations and idiomatical collocations (idioms). This also explains why some language learners learn the second language unsuccessfully, It can be seen that collocation competence and second language proficiency is highly correlated.Part Three provides a theoretical support for the learnability of English idiomaticalized chunks. Based on the theory of cognitive linguistics and the dual system of language, much importance is attached to the theory of metaphor, in particular, that of conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies and metaphors of image schema. As word meaning reflects the personality of the nationationality who speaks the language, different languages reflect different world views; the "thoughts of linguistic relativity" have important implications to the word acquisition in the second language. To learn another language is to establish a new kind of thinking system and conceptual schema. According to cognitive linguistics, metaphors exist not only in language and thoughts, but in people's conceptual system. One metaphor can generate a great many of coherent linguistic expressions which is called "idiom family"; different metaphors thereby constitute a network in a certain culture, influencing people's thoughts. There exists a conceptual system that contains a number of conceptual metaphors in every language. The metaphor of image schema is, in essence, conceptual metaphor, but not all conceptual metaphors are based on image schema, only those that are based on image schema can be called metaphor of image schema. Spatial metaphor is a typical kind of metaphor of image schema. Just like conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy not only constructs our language but our thoughts, attitude and behavior. Metonymical ways of thinking take place at the conceptual level, and conceptual metonymy is systematic as well. The metaphor in idioms reflects the conceptual structure and conceptual knowledge. Conceptual metaphor acts as the motivation of most idioms. Idiom in the formulaic system is actually analyzable.Part Four is the design of the empirical study. The present three experiments are designed on the basis of the studies done by Gibbs et al (1989; 1990), Kovecses et al (1996), Boers (2000) and the one by Li Fuyin (2004). Each experiment consists of a pre-test, a post-test, a questionnaire and a one-week delayed test. The design and the development of the learning materials are carefully chosen in accordance with the theories of cognitive linguistics and students' language proficiency. The subjects are 270 undergraduate students from Shaanxi Normal University.Parts Five and Six show the statistical results and discussions of the present study. By means of SPSS13.0, ANOVA is adopted. The results testified our hypotheses that the awareness of conceptual metaphor, metaphor of image schema and conceptual metonymy can facilitate Chinese learners' acquisition of English idiomaticalized chunks.Part Seven summarizes the conclusion of the study and the implications for foreign language teaching are discussed as well. The result can be applied to the teaching of words, sentences and text. The implication goes even further that rote memorization, together with imitation, is not the only way to understand and learn the idioms in the target language. Instead, it's better for the language learner to grasp their conceptual motivations and pay attention to the inherent association between the constituents of the idiom and the idiom meaning. It is the teachers' duty to draw students's attention to the differences existed in the conceptual structure between the two languages, to cultivate students' awareness of conceptual metaphor, to help them overcome the phenomenon of avoidance and believe that idioms can be learnt through understanding the metaphorical motivation. In doing so, the awareness of conceptual metaphor can be enhanced gradually, and in return it helps students have a good command of idoms and use them more idiomaticaly.