Negative Feedback As A Facilitative Device For English Questions Acquisition: An Interactional Perspective

Interactional feedback has long been focused and argued among scholars since1980s when it was put forwards. Interacting process encompasses “input process” and“output process”. Input was regarded as a facilitative device for quite a long period;However, Michael Long (1981) argued in his “Interaction Hypothesis” that the drivefor acquisition is interaction of discourse. The hypothesis combines languagestructure learning in a meaning constructing process in an interactional context withfeedback.Locutors in interaction offer such negative feedback as request of clarification,confirmation, repetition and recast. Negative feedback, by virtue of making students’noticing focus on certain language points, may propel English structure acquisition.Research in this thesis immerses English question acquisition into a languagefeedback interaction, weighting effect of all kinds of feedback which are offeredduring interacting process.The thesis, based on “developmental stage of English question” set out byPienemann&Johnnston (1988), divides English question into six stages according toits difficulty and acquisition sequence. Reseaching in thesis applies logditudinalreserching methods with combination of qualitative and quantative analyses, concernsthe effect of all kinds of negative feedback on English question development anddifferent degree of effect of negative feedback, and throws light into the Englishquestions teaching by discovering limitations and strenghths of Implicit negativefeedback in an interactional context.