Effects Of Language Proficiency On Senior High School Students Linguistic Alignment Strength In The English Continuation Task

The continuation task,which closely combines language input and output,has aroused plenty of researchers’interest.Theoretically,Mr.Wang Churning,a renowned Chinese scholar,proposes the Xu-argument and emphasizes that language is learned via Xu.As a typical example of Xu,the continuation task can promote the interaction between comprehension and production,thus triggering alignment effect.Abundant empirical studies have confirmed that the continuation task is beneficial to language learning.Furthermore,the effect of promoting learning mainly relies on alignment effect.Hence,the research of the influencing factors on alignment in the continuation task is increasingly important.Nevertheless,the majority of studies conducted up to now chose college students as subjects and few studies focused on senior high school students.In addition,most of the studies targeted at task-related factors while few explored the effects of language proficiency on linguistic alignment.As a result,the current study aims to explore effects of language proficiency on senior high school students’ linguistic alignment strength in the English continuation task.The current study aims to address the following two questions:1)Is there any relationship between language proficiency and linguistic alignment strength manifesting at the lexical,phrasal and clausal levels?If yes,what is it?2)Is there any difference between high-achievers and underachievers in linguistic alignment strength manifesting at the lexical,phrasal and clausal levels?If yes,what is it?60 students at Senior 2 in a senior high school in Suzhou,Jiangsu Province participated in the current study.They are from two intact classes,including 30 high-achievers and 30 underachievers.The current study has yielded two findings:1)Language proficiency has a significant positive relationship with lexical alignment strength and phrasal alignment strength,though it has no significant relationship with clausal alignment strength.And the relationship between language proficiency and phrasal alignment strength is stronger than that between language proficiency and lexical alignment strength.In other words,language proficiency has positive effects on lexical and phrasal alignment strength,but it has no effects on clausal alignment strength.2)Lexical alignment strength and phrasal alignment strength of high-achievers are significantly stronger than that of underachievers.In contrast,there is no significant difference between high-achievers and underachievers in clausal alignment strength.The findings have confirmed effects of language proficiency on senior high school students’ linguistic alignment strength in the English continuation task.The pedagogical implications derived from the findings suggest that it is beneficial for teachers to adopt the continuation task in teaching writing.In the meanwhile,it is also beneficial for students to cultivate and practice alignment awareness,thus promoting them to efficiently finish the continuation task.