| In recent years,the continuation task has attracted the attention of the scholars in the field of foreign language teaching at home and abroad.The continuation task is an effective foreign language writing method,which combines reading and writing,is put forward by Chinese scholar Professor Wang(2012).This method combines the imitation of language with the innovation of content,and the learning and application of language.However,the continuation task has certain limitations,like the unidirectional interaction between the text and learner.Therefore,for the purpose of enhancing the intensity of interaction in the continuation task,Wang(2015)put forward to introduce interpersonal interaction into the continuation task,but there is still a lack of empirical research in this regard.On this basis,this thesis attempts to apply bi-dimensional and two-way interaction to the continuation task,and aims to discuss the effects of interaction intensity on alignment and second language(L2)use errors in the continuation task.This study adopts a single-factor between-subjects design.Altogether 70 freshmen non-English majors involved in the study.After a pre-test,class 19405 is assigned to be the experimental group(EG)while class 19406 is assigned to be the control group(CG).In the thesis,“interaction” is defined from the socio-cognitive view,and the.notion “interaction intensity”is manipulated from two lines: dimensions and directions of interaction.To be specific,the interaction intensity degrees of the two groups are high(bi-dimensional and two-way interaction)and low(uni-dimensional and one-way interaction)respectively.Through conducting a comparative analysis of the alignment effect at linguistic levels(including lexical,phrasal and clausal levels)and examining the frequency of L2 use errors in participants’ writings,the present thesis intends to explore possible relationships among interaction intensity,alignment strength and L2 use errors in participants’ writings.The major findings are listed as follows:(1)The alignment effect does exist at linguistic level(lexical level and syntactical level)in the continuation task.Lexical alignment is demonstrated in participants’ tendency to align with the reading text in terms of word choice as well as in their use of grammatical knowledge of verb tense and plurality of nouns.Besides,in terms of syntactical level,alignment effect at phrasal level is significantly higher than that at clausal level.(2)No matter what extent the interaction intensity is,the alignment effect does occur at linguistic level(lexical and syntactical level)in the continuation task.However,different levels of interaction intensity have a certain influence on alignment effect in the continuation task.The results reveal that the alignment effect generated by bi-dimensional two-way interaction is significantly higher than by uni-dimensional one-way interaction,which is manifested at lexical level and the phrasal level,but there is no significant difference in clausal alignment.(3)The alignment effect generated by interaction can significantly reduce L2 use errors in participants’ writings.However,the alignment effect under different levels of interaction intensity differ on language use error rates and error categories.In terms of the form-based errors,number agreement errors,tense errors and misuse of non-finite verbs in the experimental group are significantly lower than that in the control group,but there is no significant difference among other types of form-based errors.In terms of the meaning-based errors,that is,the error rates of Chinglish in the experimental group are much lower than those in the control group.This thesis verifies the existence of alignment effect in the continuation task,and provides empirical support for the claim that higher interaction intensity contributes to higher alignment strength.It advanced the studies on L2 interaction and has important implications for second language teaching and research. |
PDF Full Text Request