The Dative Alternation In English By Asian Learners

This study explores the dative alternation among Asian English learners,which focuses on the competitive relationship between the double-object dative construction and the preposition dative construction.Based on the International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English(Shin’ichiro Ishikawa 2017),the study is expected to annotate the parameters from the language-internal factors and language-external factors.Language-internal factors include length,the complexity of the recipient/ the theme,pronominality,definiteness,person the recipient,animacy.In terms of the language-external factors,country,register(written,spoken)and English learners’ language proficiency are taken into account.Further on,comparing the data of native speakers and English learners,the study is supposed to use Chi-square test or fisher exact test to find out whether a given factor has influence on the choice of the dative construction.The data analysis reveals that a simple,pronoun,definite,local and animate recipient is more likely to appear in the double-object dative structure and the prepositional dative structure;at the same time,a simple,non-concrete,inanimate and non-local theme prefers the prepositional dative structure.However,compared with previous studies(Deshors 2014;Gries &Deshors2015;Rothlisberger et al.2017),some findings of the present study are distinctive.On the one hand,this study finds the definiteness of the theme and the pronominality of the theme actually have no significant influence on the choice of English learners’ choice of the dative construction.On the another hand,of all the Asian countries or areas,the performance of learners from Pakistan stands out.With the transfer of their mother tongue,these learners tend to use the prepositional dative structure frequently.Finally,learners of higher English level are expected to behave more like the English natives.In other words,they all prefer the double-object dative structure.Based on probabilistic grammar,this study explores Asian English learners’ performance on dative alternation.By contrasting with native speakers,this study is intended to figure out the differences between Asian English learners’ performance and native speakers.The results of the study hopefully can shed some light on English teachers’ understanding of dative alternation.