L2 Learners' Production And Processing Of The English Past Tense And Progressive Aspect

Tense and aspect are two essential and representatio nal systems to encode temporal relations in human languages.Big differences exist between English and Mandarin Chinese in the tense-aspect morphology marking.English is an inflectional language and rich in both tense and aspect markings.However,Chinese is an isolated language and only rich in aspect marking but lack of tense marking.The typological differences in English and Chinese have an impact on Chinese learners of English concerning the acquisition of English tense and aspect morphology.This dissertation is to investigate L2 learners' production and processing of the English past and progressive aspect and explain its cognitive mechanism.In L2 tense-aspect acquisition research,the Aspect Hypothesis(AH)has predicted the intricate form-meaning relations underlying the association of verbal morphology and lexical aspect.Over the past thirty decades,the AH has garnered ample empirical support in L2 acquisition of tense-aspect marking research.However,regarding the acquisition of English past tense and progressive aspect,three important issues still need further investigation.1)Whether the association of lexical aspect and verbal morphology is universal or is influenced by the mode of production(spoken vs.written)in the learners' tense-aspect production;2)For different L1 background learners,whether they display the same developmental pattern in the association of lexical aspect and verbal morphology or different patterns in tense-aspect production;3)How lexical aspect of verbs influences L2 learners' tense-aspect processing.To address the above important issues,this dissertation conducted two corpus-based studies and an online processing experiment to investigate the production and processing of second language learners' past tense and progressive aspect.Specifically,the first study is based on data from the spoken and written corpora of L1 Chinese English learners and native English speakers.It focused on investigating the overall frequency distribution of the English past tense and progressive marking used by Chinese learners of English and how lexical aspect of verbs and learners' L2 proficiency levels have an effect on learners' use of the English past tense and progressive marking,comparing with native English speakers.The second study is based on data from oral corpora of L1 Chinese,Spanish,and German leaners of English and native English speakers.It aims to investigate the overall frequency distribution of the English past tense and progressive marking used by learners and native speakers;how L2 learners' and native speakers' use of the English past tense and progressive marking influenced by lexical aspect of verbs;how learners' L1 s and proficiency levels have an effect on L2 learners' use of the English past tense and progressive marking.The third study explored how Chinese learners of English and native English speakers online process of the English past tense and progressive aspect.It focused on how lexical aspect of verbs,learners' L1 and L2 English proficiency level have an effect on their processing speed,comparing with native English speakers.The major findings are:1)The patterns of L2 learners' tense-aspect production are both universal and also influenced by the mode of production(spoken vs.written).What is universal is that whatever mode of production(spoken vs.written)it is,lexical aspect has an effect on both learners' and native speakers' past tense and progressive production.That is,achievement verbs are strongly associated with past tense and activity verbs are robustly combined with progressive aspect.They have become the prototypes of past tense and progressive aspect markings.These findings are in line with the Aspect Hypothesis.However,what is influenced by the mode of production is that learners use the English past tense markings more frequently in written than in spoken English,and use progressive markings more frequently in spoken than in written English.The frequency of extension of progressive markings to stative verbs is higher in spoken English than that in written English by Chinese learners.Especially,the intermediate learners are more likely to wrongly overextend stative progressives in spoken than in written English,but they retreat from overextensions at the advanced level,though not completely.This finding is contrary to the fourth prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis,that is,progressive markings are not incorrectly overextended to stative verbs.It is concluded that the prototypes of the association of lexical aspect and verbal morphology are universal while the non-prototypes of the association are very likely to be influenced by the factors such as learners' proficiency levels and modes of production.2)For the learners from different language backgrounds,their patterns of use of English past tense and progressive aspect show both universality and effects of learners' L1 and L2 proficiency levels.The universality means,whatever their L1 background and whatever their L2 proficiency levels are,L1 Chinese,Spanish and German learners display the same developmental pattern: the strength of association of past tense marker with the four lexical aspectual classes is ordered as follows:achievement verbs > accomplishment verbs > activity verbs > state verbs.And for the progressive marker,it follows: activity verbs > accomplishment verbs > achievement verbs > state verbs.This finding supports the Aspect Hypothesis.However,the results show that Spanish learners of lower L2 proficiency level overextend stative progressives more frequently than other L1 background learners.Therefore,it can be concluded that the prototypes of the association of lexical aspect and verbal morphology are universal while the non-prototypes of the association are very likely to be influenced by the factors,such as the learners' L1 background and L2 proficiency levels.3)In different ways,lexical aspect influences L2 learners' English past tense and progressive morphological processing.Though there is no grammatical past tense marking in L1 Chinese learners' native language,the prototypical associations of English tense-aspect categories,such as achievement verbs with past tense and activity verbs with progressive engender shorter reading time than non-prototypical associations for both L1 Chinese learners and native speakers.However,in processing non-prototypical associations,in terms of states with English past tense and progressive marking,significant differences were observed between nati ve speakers and L1 Chinese learners.The difference between the Chinese learners of lower L2 proficiency level and native speakers is also significant in the processing of states in English past tense and progressive aspect marking,but not between the learners with higher proficiency level and native speakers.Therefore,it can be concluded that prototypical categories are less likely to be influenced by factors such as learners' L1 and L2 proficiency levels.Based on the above findings,this dissertation revisited the Aspect Hypothesis.It also proposed an integrate model from the cognitive-functional perspective to explain the complex and dynamic cognitive mechanism s of L2 learners' production and processing of English tense-aspect morphology.The acquisition mechanisms of the prototypical and non-prototypical categories in tense-aspect marking are different.On the one hand,both the acquisition of prototypes and non-prototypes are driven by frequency-based constructions in the input.On the other hand,the non-prototype category more emphasizes the association of form and meaning in actual use of the language than the prototype,and is therefore more likely to be influenced by the factors such as the learnes' L1 backgrounds,L2 proficiency levels,and modes of production.The integrated model can largely explain the observed results of L2tense-aspect production and processing in this study.The values and significance of this dissertation are as follows.First,by strictly controlling the variables,selecting comparable corpus data and experimental processing materials,and using newer quantitative methods to analyze the variables,the study deeply revealed the mechanisms of L2 learners' production and processing in English tense and aspect acquisition.Second,investigating the prototypes and non-prototypes in tense-aspect marking,and their interaction with linguistic and non-linguistic factors deepened the understanding of the complex and dynamic cognitive process of L2 learners' production and processing of English tense-aspect marking.This study offered new perspectives and orientations for the future empirical research.Third,this dissertation examined both the production and online processing of English tense-aspect by L2 learners,and thus expanded the scope of related research,and provided new and reliable empirical data for testing the predictability and enriching the explanation for the Aspect Hypothesis.Therefore,it enforced the adequacy of the theoretical explanation.Fourth,based on the findings of the research,this dissertation proposed an integrated model from a cogn itive–functional perspective.It provided an important reference for researchers on the topic in terms of methodology and empirical data for the exploration of this relate d topic,and has an important guiding role in English tense-aspect teaching.