Chinese EFL Learners' Acquisition Of Verb BE From The Perspective Of "Compensation Hypothesis"

English verb Be as a very complicated word in syntax, is not only used very frequently but also a grammar item that leaves an outstanding track on Chinese learners in the acquisition process. The error variants of verb Be are not only quite common, but also their development of the route and the time of acquisition bear a long time. From"Compensation Hypothesis"(Wang Chuming 2003), this study takes learners'internal context as the theoretical basis. Quantitative research and qualitative research will be used together in this research. And it will focus on quantitative research methodology and is accompanied with qualitative explanations. The quantitative research is adopted to discuss how Chinese learners'internal context leads to L1 transfer in the acquisition of verb Be thoroughly and deeply. What's more, this paper also analyzes and sums up the distribution and characteristics of English verb Be utilized by EFL learners with different English levels (the beginner-level group; the intermediate-level group; the advanced-level group) through the writing task and some translations related to verb Be. Some qualitative analysis methods are also utilized such as think-aloud protocol and interview to understand the learners'internal context deeply and to reveal that context has a great influence on verb Be acquisition on FL context. The data collection methods are semi-structured questionnaire, interview, participant observation,retrospection and portfolio collection.The results show that L1 contextual knowledge (internal context) plays an important role in inducing L1 transfer for Chinese EFL learners'acquisition of English verb Be. Because authentic L2 context compatible with L2 use lacks in the EFL learning setting, L2 learning is characterized by L2 sharing the same context as L1 and this sharing would inevitably mediate transfer between the two languages in use. That is, lacking of authentic L2 context compatible with L2 use is likely to incur a mismatch of L2 forms with L1 contextual knowledge thus giving rise to L1 transfer. (L1 contextual knowledge mediates transfer from Ll to L2) This conceptualization of transfer is called"Compensation Hypothesis"by Wang Chuming(2003). Through analyzing the research material, this study obtains the following findings on the characteristics of verb Be acquisition: 1) The beginner-level learners have already mastered the main verb Be with small individual differences. While compared to the main verb Be, the beginner-learners'grasp of the auxiliary verb Be and semi- auxiliary verb Be is poor. These kinds of errors are mainly reflected in tense and voice. However, with the improvement of L2 proficiency, the learners'acquisition of the auxiliary verb Be and semi- auxiliary verb Be is also developing positively. The advanced-level learners have a fairly good command of these kinds of verb Be in spite of apparent individual differences; 2) The beginner-learners tend to use a redundant verb Be or ellipsis verb Be in sentences. Besides, they are also prone to overuse there be structures. Semantically-driven by EFL learners'L1, the beginner-learners often match the semantic schema of that Chinese Shi with the target Be, neglecting the proper structure of the target language; 3) The intermediate-learners have acquired auxiliary verb Be in simple constructions. It's more difficult for the beginner-learners and the intermediate-learners to use English verb Be with plural countable nouns as subjects, compared with other controllers as subjects. The reason is possibly that EFL learners always learn plural form of words later than the singular form. So the singular form of the verb Be (e.g. is was) is acquired earlier and then over-generalized, which may cause more number agreement errors with the plural countable nouns as the subjects; 4) Although the advanced-level learners have well mastered the syntactic properties of the auxiliary verb Be and semi- auxiliary verb Be, the complex constructions of these kinds of verb Be still pose a difficulty for all those learners. It is assumed that the different syntactic property of the English verb Be determines their degree of acquisition difficulty. Because the usage of the auxiliary verb Be is the most difficult in the four"BEs", it is acquired the worst by the learners, while the semi-auxiliary verb Be and copular verb Be next. The acquisition of the main verb Be is like other verbs. They have similar usage, therefore it is the easiest for the learners; 5) The mismatch of L2 forms with L1 contextual knowledge is assumed to be one of the most important causes to the erroneous problems when the EFL learners acquire the use of the verb Be.As a whole, in the present study, the acquisition of English verb Be is of dynamic characteristics. With the time of learning and the improvement of L2 proficiency, the learners'errors involving verb Be decrease. However, it is not always the case. For example, in some errors of tense use or in the use of a redundant verb Be, the advanced-level learners haven't made much progress as we have expected. Besides, lacking of authentic L2 context compatible with L2 use is likely to incur L1 transfer, and thus influence the proper acquisition of English verb Be.In the last part of this thesis,according to the findings,the researcher discusses some implications from perspectives of EFL learners and instructors to EFL learners'acquisition of English verb Be and the foreign language teaching. The instructors should provide EFL learners with contextually appropriate and rich L2 input in foreign language learning.