The Effect Of Noticing On Chinese College Students' Retention Of English Alliterative Chunks

Many researches in recent years show that second language proficiency positively correlates with knowledge of lexical chunks. However, the question is raised concerning how to commit the large number of chunks in natural languages to long-term memory on traditional time-limited L2 courses. A mnemonic method called "alliteration strategy" is proposed recently on the belief that chunk-learning could be facilitated by drawing learners' attention to a type of salient sound patterning—alliteration. Based on the study of Lindstromberg and Boers (2008a), this thesis is an attempt to investigate the effect of noticing on Chinese college students' retention of English alliterative chunks.Two experiments were carried out involving non-English major sophomores. Experiment 1 addresses the possibility that Chinese college students can notice alliteration in English phrases without instruction. A sorting task which involved four kinds of phonologically different phrases was carried out in this experiment. Experiment 2 assesses the likelihood that alliteration has mnemonic effect and this mnemonic effect could be amplified if learners are instructed to notice the phenomenon. Two groups were involved in this experiment, a control group and an experimental group (participants in Experiment 1 were not included). The participants in both groups took part in a reading-writing task, in which they were given a list of phrases (composed of alliterative phrases and no-repetitive phrases) to read and then were asked to write down the phrases they read as many as they could. Before the reading-writing task, the experimental group was instructed with examples to notice alliteration in phrases while the control group received no such instruction. One week later, the two groups were asked to finish a recognition task in which the previous phrases were mixed with distractors. Data of Experiment 1 were analyzed in a descriptive way and data of Experiment 2 were submitted to SPSS11.5 for statistical analysis. The results showed that:firstly, most Chinese L2 learners could not spontaneously notice the phenomenon of alliteration in everyday English phrases; secondly, alliteration had mnemonic effect, at least in relatively short English chunks; thirdly, drawing Chinese L2 learners'attention to alliteration in English chunks could enhance their short-term memory of these chunks; and finally, drawing Chinese L2 learners' attention to alliteration in English chunks could further strengthen their long-term retention of these chunks.Based on the results listed above, it is safe to conclude that noticing has facilitative effect on Chinese college students' memorization of English alliterative chunks.