Semantic Option And Teachability: A Study Of The Acquisition Of The Article System By Chinese Senior High School Students

The composition of English article system is very simple, whereas it has beenrecognized as one of the most difficult grammar to teach and learn in secondlanguage acquisition (SLA). This thesis aims to investigate English articleacquisition of Chinese EFL learners under the framework of the FluctuationHypothesis (FH) put forth by Ionin et al.(2004). Besides, the binary articleinstruction method proposed by Master (1990) is introduced to show the necessityand effectiveness of article teaching in L2learners’ English article acquisitionprocess.Both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted in the present empiricalresearch to study the acquisition of English articles by Chinese senior high studentsfrom two parallel chasses. In other words, the forced choice elicitation task (takenfrom Ionin et al.,2004) and an in-depth interview with three designed questions willbe carried out. By examining the use of articles in four semantic contexts ([＋definite][＋specific],[＋definite][－specific],[－definite][＋specific], and [－definite][－specific]), the researcher intends to explore answers to the followingquestions:1) Do Chinese EFL learners fluctuate between the definiteness setting andthe specificity setting when selecting proper articles for NPs?2) Are overuse errorscommitted by Chinese EFL learners in accordance with the predictions for articlechoice in FH?3) Can effective article instruction help lead Chinese EFL learners to set the parameter to the appropriate value?EXCEL2003and SPSS17.0are employed as data analysis means to deal withthe results of the forced choice elicitation task. Two major findings are elaborated asfollows: As far as the FH for L2English article choice is concerned, data haveverified that L2learners do fluctuate between the definiteness setting and thespecificity setting of the Article Choice Parameter (ACP) and subjects’ overuseerrors accord with the predictions in FH as well. As for the effectiveness of articleinstruction, results have also shown that overuse errors in post-test of group A havedecreased in [＋definite][－specific] context and [－definite][＋specific] context,which can provide evidence for the fact that effective article instruction plays therole of input to lead language learners to set the parameter to the appropriate value.