| Null arguments,namely null subjects and null objects,have been a hot topic in second language acquisition.As a type of topic-prominent language,sentences without subjects and objects can be allowed in Chinese;while as a type of subject-prominent language,the subjects and objects must appear explicitly in English syntactic structure.The difference between English and Chinese in using subjects and objects makes Chinese-speaking learners drop subjects or objects in English sentences unconsciously during their English learning,which has aroused wide attention of many scholars at home and abroad.However,studies about the unlearning of null subjects and null objects in English by middle school students are relatively rare.On the basis of the previous studies and within the theoretical framework of the Principle and Parameter Theory of Universal Grammar,this paper examines middle school students’ unlearning of null subjects and null objects from language understanding and language output by conducting grammaticality judgment test and translation test.120 Chinese middle school students of low,intermediate and advanced levels in Zhangzhou have finished the tasks.With the help of Two-Way Analysis of Variance,Simple Effect Analysis and One-Way Analysis,the experimental statistics were analyzed and processed by the software SPSS19.0.It has been found that:(1)When the subjects are engaged in grammaticality judgment and Chinese-English test,there is a significant asymmetry between unlearning of null subjects and unlearning of null objects,that is,Chinese middle school students can more easily unlearn null subjects than null objects.(2)There exists a significant difference between the unlearning of null arguments in matrix sentences and the unlearning of null arguments in embedded sentences no matter in grammaticality judgment task or translation task,that is,compared with the unlearning of null embedded subjects and objects,learners are more successful in unlearning null matrix subjects and objects.(3)Students have better performance on rejecting null expletive subject “it” than rejecting null referential subjects in their finishing grammaticality judgment task;whereas in Chinese-English task,students have less difficultyin unlearning null referential subjects than null expletive subject “it”.(4)The mean rates of rejecting the null arguments and translating the arguments increase with the rising of students’ proficiency.Therefore,English teachers should help students understand and use English subjects and objects correctly in the teaching process.Besides the necessary positive input,some negative evidences should be provided to raise the students’ sensitivity of non-null argument parameter,in this way students are able to reject the ungrammatical sentences with null subjects or null objects and reset L2 parameters.In addition,with the help of teachers,learners should try to find out the differences and similarities between Chinese topic constructions and English topic constructions by using comparative method so as to reduce the negative transfer effect of mother tongue. |
