The acquisition sequence of English articles: A longitudinal case study of a Chinese ESL learner in the American context

A review of related literature concerning the acquisition of English articles indicated that articles were acquired by ESL learners along some identifiable stages. Based on different perspectives and different empiric data, several acquisition sequences for ESL learners were proposed. A review of related literature concerning the acquisition of English articles also showed a neglect in distinguishing a from an, in identifying the acquisition process related with the zero article, and in presenting a systematic description of noun phrases in conjunction with the use of articles; the lack of an in-depth longitudinal study of Chinese ESL learners' acquisition process of English articles; and the necessity of examining the currently suggested acquisition sequences of English articles with Chinese ESL learners.; As an attempt to test those suggested acquisition sequences as well as to explore those neglected areas, fifteen research questions were posited and a combined qualitative quantitative approach was employed to understand the acquisition sequence of English articles in the case of a Chinese beginning ESL learner in the American context. The longitudinal data collected during the 13-month were first thoroughly indexed by using the qualitatively-oriented computer software program, NUD.IST, and then statistically analyzed by using the quantitatively-oriented computer software program, SPSS. An in-depth examination of different types of articles as well as their relations with noun phrases and other types of determiners was conducted in light of the perspectives derived from both the accuracy paradigm and the dynamic paradigm. The rationale behind the bi-paradigm approach was the belief that no single approach could provide a comprehensive description of the complexities involved in the acquisition processes of English articles. Instead, a combined approach had the advantage of investigating and analyzing those complexities from different angles, hence complementing each other.; The analyses of the data revealed the acquisition sequence of English articles for the investigated informant was as follows: {dollar}ato zero articleto theto an.{dollar} The analyses of the data also indicated that the acquisition of different types of articles could be classified into distinctive developmental stages in terms of semantic functions and variation patterns. While providing the evidence to support the theoretical view that sequencing is fundamental in second language acquisition, the findings from this study, on the one hand, challenged several claims documented in the current L2 research literature and on the other hand, shed some new insights into the understanding of acquisition processes of English articles related to Chinese ESL learners.