On The Acquisition Of English Nongeneric Uses Of The By Chinese Learners

Based on the theoretical framework of Minimalist Program and InterlanguageGrammar Impairment Hypothesis, the thesis tries to study on the acquisition of fournongeneric usages of the to examine the resetting process of the and the question whetheruniversal grammar (UG) is accessible in second language acquisition (SLA). Within thetheoretical framework of Minimalist Program, articles are considered as a part offunctional categories. The differences of functional categories and their features are thecrucial factors in differentiating languages. According to Minimalist Program, secondlanguage acquisition is a process of resetting the features of functional categories in thesecond language. So the present study on the resetting of article the in interlanguagecontributes to the issue of UG access.The thesis investigates the misuses and correct uses of nongeneric uses of the definitearticle by using the CLEC corpus and statistical software Antconc. Chi-square is used toanalyze the data. We draw the following conclusions through discussion and analysis:(1)Chinese learners can reset the parameter value of nongeneric use of English definite articlesuccessfully. UG is fully accessible to Chinese learners, and their interlanguage isunimpaired;(2) there are significant differences among learners of different levelsconcerning the misuse of the four nongeneric uses. Though high-level learners make errorswhen using the definite article, the number of errors will decrease with the improvement oftheir English;(3) the significant differences suggest a hierarchy of difficulty among thefour nongeneric uses, with cultural use being the most difficult followed by structural use,textual use and situation use in order.