Chinese EFL Learners’ Use Of The Indefinite Article With Abstract Nouns

The present study investigates Chinese EFL learners’ use of the indefinite article or null article with four different types of abstract nouns.It is important and yet difficult to learn the indefinite article especially with abstract nouns.Apart from difficulty to learn,it is also difficult for teachers to teach.This study attempts to explore whether and how noun type plays a role in determining the indefinite article use.Besides,this study also investigates the effects of English proficiency and task type on the indefinite article use.Three different English proficiency groups of seventy-three first-year non-English majors at Nanjing University participated in the present study.They were assigned to two tasks,namely,a forced-elicitation task and an acceptability judgment test.Both tasks examined participants’ use of the indefinite article with four types of nouns.Ten participants from each of these groups were then randomly selected for immediate retrospective interviews.Detailed analyses of the data have yielded the following results:1.Participants’ use of the indefinite article differs significantly in accuracy across four types of abstract nouns in both tasks.That is,participants’ use of the indefinite article is strongly influenced by noun type.Learners are relatively successful at using a/an with Type 1/state nouns as well as Type 4/bounded independent nouns.However,they struggle with abstract nouns that are associated with dynamic event verbs,i.e.Type 2/continuous action nouns and Type 3/non-continuous action nouns.2.Participants’ use of the indefinite article differs significantly depending on English proficiency.As their English proficiency increases,learners’accuracy with the indefinite article use improves.Compared with learners of low English proficiency,learners of high English proficiency are exposed to more English language input and have more consciousness of noticing,and thus are more proficient with the indefinite article use.3.In terms of task type,no significant difference is found between participants’performance of using the indefinite article with abstract nouns in productive and that in receptive context except for Type 2/continuous action nouns.It can be inferred that this type of abstract nouns is particularly difficult to learn regardless of task type,compared with other types.The present study casts some light on the existing body of literature on Chinese EFL learners’ use of the indefinite article with abstract nouns on the concept of boundedness and also offers insight into the relationship between noun type and article use.Moreover,this study could also be seen as a tentative study to examine the role of English proficiency and task type in this domain.Last but not least,this study inspires researchers and instructors as well as learners to realize the heterogeneity of nouns.Therefore,instructors can find better ways to teach the indefinite article and learners can have a better understanding so as to better master its use.