The Effect Of Construction Frequency On The Acquisition Of English Caused-motion Construction

Frequency is one of the key factors that influence language acquisition.The frequency effect has a positive impact in the process of language acquisition.Ellis(2002)stated that frequency was the key factor to language acquisition.Language experience had an important influence on language acquisition.Besides,according to the usage-based linguistic theory,frequency plays a key role in the process of constructing language knowledge.Frequency is the determiner of construction formation,and the caused-motion construction is the typical English construction.However,most previous studies about the caused-motion construction focus on the theoretical discussion.At present the theoretical research of construction and corpus-based studies are more mature.The results are more plentiful and substantial.But the studies are poor in teaching application.Therefore,there is theoretical and practical significance in the research of the influence of frequency on the caused-motion construction within the framework of the usage-based language view.Construction Grammar and the usage-based model of language are the theoretical background of the thesis.It aims to analyze the influence of frequency on the acquisition of caused-motion constructions.The study aims to solve the following three questions:(1)Does the degree of prototype of type frequency influence the caused-motion construction? How is the intensity?(2)Does token frequency influence the acquisition of caused-motion constructions? How is the intensity?(3)Is there interaction between type frequency and token frequency? Which group's interaction is the best among the experimental groups? Does skewed input or the balanced input influence the caused-motion construction bigger?The subjects of this experiment are one hundred freshmen of Shandong University of Finance and Economics who aren't English majors.They were tested with English vocabulary proficiency tests designed by Nation in the first two weeksbefore the experiment.According to the grades of the vocabulary level test and average grades of their final exam,they were randomly divided into four experimental groups.The experimental conditions of four groups are: the experimental group one: high degree of prototype,high token frequency;the experimental group two: high degree of prototype,low token frequency;the experimental group three: low degree of prototype,high token frequency;the experimental group four: low degree of prototype,low token frequency.The results show that:(1)the degree of prototype of type frequency has a significant influence on the caused-motion construction.High degree of prototype has bigger influence than low degree of prototype.(2)token frequency has influences on the caused-motion construction acquisition.High token frequency has bigger influences on the construction than low token frequency.(3)there is the interaction between token frequency and type frequency.The influence of high degree of prototype and high token frequency is the biggest.And the influence of the low degree of prototype and low token frequency is the smallest.There isn't so big difference between skewed input and balanced input,but balanced input has a little bigger influence on the caused-motion construction.This paper combines frequency theory with the construction acquisition research,which is an attempt to apply frequency theory to the construction learning and teaching.It provides a new perspective for the study of English construction acquisition and implications for English learning and teaching.