An Investigation Of Frequency Effects On Chinese University Students’ Learning Of Two English Constructions

Frequency has been widely acknowledged as one of the important factors in the process of second language acquisition. This dissertation reports two small-scale studies that investigated the frequency effects on Chinese learners’EFL development, specifically, how practice frequency is related to the development of their explicit and implicit knowledge of the participle and the subjunctive constructions, and what cognitive and psychological mechanisms and learner beliefs and strategies may mediate such frequency effects. Data analysis yielded the following findings:First, practice frequency has effects on the development of both explicit (error correction) and implicit (free speaking) L2knowledge; the more practice, the greater the development. However, with implicit knowledge, practice has to reach a certain frequency (six in this study) before it can exert relatively obvious effects on knowledge development, and these effects are more in terms of accuracy than in terms of automaticity. When learners simultaneously exercise explicit and implicit knowledge, practice frequency has some effects on the performance of the task with controlled, discrete items (grammaticality judgment), but no effects on the performance of the task involving idea development (free writing). Put together, the results attest to the utility of practice in developing constructional knowledge, and at the same time underscore the slower development of implicit knowledge compared with explicit knowledge.Second, practice frequency exerts different effects on the development of participle and subjunctive constructions. The participle is very difficult to acquire as implicit knowledge due to its low perceptual salience, low cue reliability, low communicative value and its possible syntactic dependency on non-adjacent elements. As a result, practice frequency has some effects on the development of its explicit knowledge but no effect on that of its implicit knowledge. This suggests that the learning of this construction calls for learners’ conscious attention and explicit learning. In contrast, the subjunctive is a little more difficult as explicit knowledge than the participle because of its greater formal complexity but, given the design of this study, easier as implicit knowledge than the participle because of its higher token frequency, higher perceptual salience, higher cue reliability and greater communicative value. As a result, practice frequency has no effect on the development of its explicit knowledge, but has positive effects on the development of its implicit knowledge. This suggests that learning without conscious awareness works for this construction. Put together, the results indicate that practice frequency effects are mediated by linguistic factors. Third, learners employ certain processing and production mechanisms in the learning and use of the target constructions. Useful processing mechanisms include Rehearsal, Noticing, Focus-on-form, Uptake, Activation of long-term knowledge in face of current input, Monitoring, Automatization. The production mechanisms include Automaticity; Use of rules and/or of exemplars, Avoidance, Focus-on-meaning, Making meaning-use-form connections, Use of L1, Hypothesis testing, Application of implicit and proceduralized knowledge, Monitoring, and Automatization. Learners generally do not seem to like learning grammar, especially in the explicit mode, and some learners are appreciative of the practice task in helping them with L2learning and use. Put together, the findings suggest that not every processing mechanism is beneficial for the learning of L2constructions, that learners vary a lot in the mechanisms they use and in the beliefs and strategies they have, and that practice frequency effects are mediated by learner factors.Theoretically, the present research shows that practice frequency has differential effects on the development of explicit and implicit L2knowledge. Besides, it has identified linguistic factors and learning and production mechanisms that affect frequency effects on the learning of different constructions. Pedagogically, it attests to the utility of a feasible practice task, helps teachers make decisions as to what kind of constructions to focus on in designing tasks under the incidental condition, and makes them better informed when leading their students to a more beneficial processing mode and more effective uses of production mechanisms.