Subjectivity Or Objectivity

This thesis investigated whether advanced second language (L2) learners have made symmetric achievement in formal computation of inanimate-subject sentences (IA sentences) and other subjectivity-diluted structures (SD structures) and in their pragmatic meaning. Both quantitative and qualitative research involving sentence production task and judgment tasks, was adopted to make clear advanced L2 learners' ability in formal computation and awareness of meaning of different expressions.Forty advanced L2 learners participated in the quantitative research in which they were presented with five series of pictures and performed a sentence writing production task based on those pictures and then did a judgment task. In the qualitative experiment 5 native speakers attended an oral interview about the sentence making task and sentences made by L2 learners. Besides, they together with 20 L2 learners assessed 3 paragraphs same in content but different in sentence structures. This was to find out whether formal computation and pragmatic meaning, two essential aspects in language performance, are focused by L2 learners as appropriately as native speakers.The major findings are: 1) Advanced L2 learners can be skilled in formal linguistic computation, even "overdone" from the eyes of some native speakers. 2) Unlike native speakers, advanced L2 learners lag behind in understanding the meaning of different expressions in social use; 3) It is difficult for L2 learners to make symmetric achievement in both form and meaning, even at the advanced level.The results generally confirmed L2 learners' failure at the interface between language form and meaning.