A Study On The Comprehension Of English Caused-motion Construction By Senior High School Students

Caused-motion construction “NP1+V+NP2+PP” reflects a basic experience ofhuman beings. It has one fixed syntactic structure with polysemous senses. Theprototypical sense of this construction is “X causes Y to move Zpath”, involving directcaused-motion (Sense A). The extensions of this prototypical sense include obligationof motion (Sense B), enablement of motion (Sense C), negation of motion (Sense D)and assistance of motion (Sense E).Previous studies of English caused-motion construction (ECMC) mainly focuson its acquisition, whereas this study tries to explore the comprehension of ECMCand the factors affecting the comprehension. Based on the Construction Grammar, thepresent study tries to answer the following questions:1) How do senior high school students comprehend ECMC?2) What are the factors that affect students’ comprehension of ECMC?This paper is an empirical study, which through a questionnaire survey and aone-to-one interview tries to explore the overall situation of the comprehension andthe factors that affect their comprehension on five types of ECMC by Senior3students. Firstly, the study does a quantitative research to analyze the frequencies offive types of ECMC by Senior3students. After classifying the reasons of theirjudgments, an interview is performed afterwards. In the end, a qualitative analysis issystematically conducted to reveal the factors affecting the participants’comprehension of ECMC.The findings of this study are as follows:(1) Senior3students show differentcomprehension levels on five types of ECMC. The questionnaire survey reveals thatsenior high school students’ comprehension of ECMC entailing Sense A ranks the first;conversely, Sense D of ECMC ranks at the bottom; Sense E, Sense B and Sense C ofECMC are located in between successively.(2) There are three factors affecting thestudents’ comprehension on ECMC. Firstly, students are inclined to be influenced byChinese negative transfer on the comprehension of ECMC. Secondly, Chinese thoughtpattern is a stumbling block for their comprehension of ECMC. The last factor isstudents’ previous thinking mode of English learning.While teaching the English caused-motion construction, teachers should inputECMC step by step, from its typical sense to its extended senses; thereby, students can obtain a more panoramic understanding for this construction. Teachers should explainthe differences between Chinese caused-motion construction (CCMC) and ECMC tostudents and try to lower the impact of CCMC upon their comprehension of ECMC tothe least. Meanwhile, it significantly contributes to students’ comprehension ofECMC by means of cultivating their ability to think in English instead of using theirprevious thinking set of English learning.