Study Of The Acquisition Of Progressive Aspect From The Perspective Of Markedness Theory

Tense and aspect have become a hot topic and flourishing domain in recent decade in the field of SLA. Scholars abroad have been studying the acquisition of the progressive aspect from different perspectives since earlier period. However, these studies seldom consider the effect of functional complexity on the acquisition of progressive aspect.Markedness theory was first introduced in 1930s by N.Trubetzkoy and R.Jakobson in Prague school of linguistic theory. Eckman introduced the markedness theory into the second language acquisition in 1930s. One contribution of markedness theory to SLA is to predict the acquisition order. The general finding is that the acquisition is easier for unmarked features and more difficult for marked features.This paper studies the acquisition of the progressive aspect within the markedness theory framework and aims to examine the following aspects: 1) whether the proficiency of English progressive aspect varies with the overall English proficiency? 2) whether the marked meanings are learned after the unmarked meanings? The experiment is done on 108 college students in Hebei University of Technology (60 non-English majors from Grade One and 48 English majors from Grade Three). This experiment also chooses 10 native speakers as control group to highlight the differences between native and non-native speakers. The data is analyzed by SPSS and the findings are summarized as follows 1) the acquisition of the progressive aspect by acquirers at different levels are not significantly different. It means fossilization occurs to Chinese students in the process of acquiring the progressive aspect. 2) the unmarked functions are acquired before the marked functions. The result is in accordance with the prediction of markedness theory and indicates area for further instructions.The author further discusses the result with related theories in SLA, explores the underlying reasons of the acquisition order and finally states the pedagogical significance of the research.