An Empirical Study On The Unlearning Of Null Subjects And Null Objects By Chinese EFL Learners

As an important language phenomenon in second language acquisition, null subjects and null objects mean that in normal syntactical structures subjects and objects do not appear explicitly but they have grammatical functions and semantic content(Zheng Chao, 2003). Unlearning refers to the phenomenon that when learners learn a second language, the influence of the first language on the second language gradually disappears with the increase of L2 input(Zyric, 2008). Because Chinese and English differ greatly in using subjects and objects, Chinese EFL learners, especially elementary learners often omit subjects or objects in their inter-language. Therefore, it is worth further investigating whether Chinese EFL learners can finally unlearn null subjects and null objects, and whether there are significant differences among unlearning of different types of null subjects and null objects.Within the theoretical framework of generative grammar, the present study conducts a grammaticality judgement task to investigate the unlearning of null subjects and null objects by 101 Chinese EFL learners, after making statistical analysis based on SPSS 17.0, the results show that :Firstly, in all three groups with different English proficiency, there exists a significant difference between the unlearning of null subjects and the unlearning of null objects. More specifically, Chinese EFL learners can more easily unlearn null subjects than null objects.Secondly, Chinese EFL learners have better performance on unlearning null matrix subjects and objects than unlearning null embedded subjects and objects, though significant difference is not found between the unlearning of null matrix referential subjects and null embedded referential subjects, between the unlearning of null matrix expletive subjects and null embedded expletive subjects. However, a significant difference is found between the unlearning of null matrix objects and null embedded objects.Thirdly, compared with the unlearning of null expletive subjects, Chinese EFL learners are more successful in unlearning null referential subjects. Furthermore, compared with the unlearning of null expletive subject ‘there’, they have better performance on unlearning null expletive subject ‘it’.Moreover, at the beginning of English learning, the elementary learners frequently allow sentences with null subjects and null objects as a result of L1 negative transfer. But with the enhancement of learners’ English proficiency, advanced learners can finally unlearn null subjects and null objects.As for the major findings in this thesis, the corresponding explanations are given respectively. Firstly, as for the asymmetry between the unlearning of null subjects and the unlearning of null objects by Chinese EFL learners, we suppose that inflection features, interface hypothesis and the asymmetry between sentences with null subjects and sentences with null objects in L2 input may account for this. Secondly, as for Chinese EFL learners’ better performance on unlearning null subjects and null objects in matrix sentences than those in embedded sentences, we propose that syntactic complexity, different learning time, syntactic level and cognitive prominence possibly result in this asymmetry. It is assumed that null subjects and objects in matrix sentences are much easier to unlearn because they have simpler syntactic structure, higher syntactic level and longer learning time, thus receiving more learning attention. Thirdly, as for Chinese EFL learners’ worse performance on unlearning null expletive subjects than null referential subjects, we propose that this is because the unlearning of null expletive subjects is greatly influenced by L1 negative transfer and null expletive subjects lacks semantic contents. Meanwhile, as for why Chinese EFL learners can more easily unleaner null expletive subject ‘it’ than ‘there’, we suppose it is because the input of expletive subject ‘there’ is less sufficient, the usage of ‘there’ is more difficult and the variants of ‘be’ in the sentence type of ‘there+ be’ are involved in the task, which adds to more difficulty in unlearning ‘there’ Finally, we assume that elementary learners’ poor performance on unlearning null subjects and null objects is possibly caused by L1 negative transfer, and advanced learners can finally unlearn null subjects and null objects as a result of parameter-resetting.