中国大学生写作中非谓语动词错误分析-基于CLEC语料库的研究.docx 32页

+本科毕业设计（论文）题目：中国大学生写作中非谓语动词错误分析-基于CLEC语料库的研究学 院 外国语学院专 业 英语学生姓名 学生学号 指导教师 提交日期 Chinese EFL learners’ Errors in Non-Finite Forms of The Verbs-based on CLEC CorpsA ThesisSubmitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirementsfor the Degree of Bachelor of Artsto the School of Foreign Languages ofSouthChinaUniversity of Technology June 12, 2014摘 要动词是英语语法体系的重要组成部分,在英语写作中起着非常重要的作用。一个完整的句子里,动词是不可或缺的.如果缺少动词,英语句子的基本内容都无法表达。然而在学习英语写作中,错误是不可以避免的。通过数据显示,学生在非谓语动词使用方面出现错误占很大比例.而非谓语动词又恰好是教学中的难点，因此对非谓语动词的偏误分析研究对于英语教学具有重要意义。在二语习得偏误研究的影响下,产生了许多学者针对不同的程度英语学习者进行分类研究的浪潮。而中国大学生是中国英语学习者高水平的代表，能够真实反映英语学习者的水平和英语教学中存在的问题。本论文的偏误分析主要从收集学习者偏误入手,数据来源于CLEC语料库，以偏误分析理论为基础，通过对比分析理论，中介语理论和偏误分析理论。结合中国学习者英语语料库（CLEC），对中国非英语专业大学生习得非谓语动词的错误进行分析、概括和归纳。本研究旨在回答两个问题: (1) 中国学习者英语语料库的两个子语料库中的英语非谓语动词在错误频率上是否存在显著性差异? (2) 中国非英语专业大学生在习得非谓语动词过程中所犯错误的来源是什么？本文从 CLEC中选取两个子语料库 St3和 St4，分别代表通过大学英语四级和通过大学英语六级的两组学生英语水平。对其进行归类，并对比这两个子语料库中的非谓语动词在错误频率上是否有显著性差异。通过测试和访谈，旨在找出这些错误产生的来源。本文最后还提出了些有关教学的针对性建议。与此同时，本文在一定程度上可以进一步帮助中国英语专业学生比较全面的了解和掌握英语动词使用,有效避免以后写作学习中再出现类似的情况。关键词：中国英语专业学生, 动词, 第二语言习得, 偏误分析AbstractThe verb is an important part of English grammar system and it plays a very important role in English writing. A verb is indispensable in a complete sentence. That is to say, If the verb is missing, words cannot express successfully. However, in English writing,?making mistakes cannot be avoided. The statistics show that a large?proportion?of?errors are caused by non-finite forms of the verbs.Furthermore, non-finite of the verbs are difficulty points in English education. Therefore, a study on verb error analysis is of great significance in English Teaching.Under the influence of second language acquisition research, many researchers have becomeinterested in different level of English learners’ situation. Chinese college students are the typical representatives of the high-level English learners in China. They can reflect the common existing problems in English education. This study is a corpus-based study of errors of English non-finite verbs committed by Chinese college non-English major learners. Two general research questions are aimed to be answered, which are: (1) Is there any significant difference in the error frequencies of English non-finite verbs between two sub-corpora of Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC)? (2) What are the sources of errors of English non-finite verbs committed by Chinese college non-English major learners? In this study, two sub-corpora (St3 and St4) have been chosen from CLEC. Interviews are also conducted in order to find out the sources of these errors. Furthermore, this paper also promotes some valuable suggestion for English teaching in our classroom set. In this study, we mainly focus on errors in the written language to further help Chinese English Majors master the use of English non-finite verbs, so as to avoid errors in the similar situation again.Keywords: Chinese English Majors, theNon-finite Forms of the Verbs, Second Language Acquisition, Error AnalysisAcknowledgementsAppreciation is expressed for every supporting. The first is my tutor Mrs. Zhang, the chief teacher of the English section at South China University of Technology, who has examined every word with the critical eye of a skilled reviser. She has provided me with a huge source of useful materials for this study benevolently and monitored theentire processof this thesis with a strong sense of responsibility.I could not have produced this study without the help of this invaluable consultant who have kindly read and reread my manuscript. Second, I did take a fancy for all the teachers who have taught me during my golden age. Looking back to those days of old, they did their best to mold me into a no nonsense, responsible, respectable student. Otherwise, with no access to the language knowledge they taught, I would have accomplished nothing at all, like a fish stranded in a dry rut.The third is my good friend Lu, who has given me the benefit of her expertise as a top student of English major who has had long experience in both writing and polishing in agency. Last but not least, I am also deeply grateful to all the students who participated in my research. Without their attentive cooperation, my research would have been impossible.And finally, many thanks go to my parents, who give care and support in one way or another. Thanks to their love and understanding, the whole academic writing is full of surprise and inspiration.Contents摘要AbstractAcknowledgementsChapter One Introduction81.1 Background of the present study81.2 Objectivities of the study81.3 Structure of the thesis10Chapter Two Literature Review122.1 Second language learner errors122.2 Contrastive Aanalysis132.3 Interlanguage142.4 Error Analysis Theory142.5 Non-finite verbs152.6 Summary of the present study16Chapter Three Methodology183.1 Research questions183.2 Subjects183.3 Instruments193.4 CLEC203.5 Data collection and analysis20Chapter Four Analysis of errors in non-finite verbs234.1 Error frequencies of English non-finite verbs234.2 Sources of errors of English non-finite verbs254.2.1 Participles for infiniting or vice versa264.2.2 Tense of non-finitives27Chapter Five Teaching Suggestions on non-finite verbs29Chapter Six Conclusion316.1 Major findings316.2 Limitations31References33Chapter OneIntroductionTo error is human, to forgive divine.This saying is from An Essay on criticism by Alexander Pope. All people commit sins and make mistakes. In Language learning, students also make errors and mistakes. This is all too natural. What’s more, most of those errors come from the essential part of a language, that is, verb. It has oriented me to focus on this perspective of research. Over four years of English language study at a university have provided me with an opportunity to observe the L2 learning process of the Chinese English major students in the classroom setting. 1.1 Background of the present studyIt is well known that a verb is playing a critically significant role in a sentence because it is the essence of an individual language. Without verb, there would be no sentence, no text and no meaning. It attracts many researchers’ attention to study on theprofound mystery of verb. The large number of research articles produced in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s demonstrate that researchers have strongly emphasized the high position of verb competence in the language communication (Wilkin, 1972:77). According to the functional form, Henzl claims verbs can be divided into the predicate verb and the infinite verb. The so-called verb does not use the same expression without morphological expression means. In 1986, Zydatis studied on radio, newspapers, television news and so on, and found that the infinite verb has been used most frequently.1.2 Objectivities of the studyWe have seen that the main way of investigating L2 acquisition is by collecting and describing samples of learner language. The description may focus on the kinds of errors learners make and how these errors change over time, or it may identify developmental patterns by describing the stages in the acquisition of particular grammatical features or it may examine the variability found in the learner language (Ellis, 1984). Errors are viewed differentially. It seems unfair that errors look the same on the surface but are viewed differently depending on who commits them. That is, errors are not generally thought of in the same way for different people. L2 learners’ errors are not generally considered as “unwanted forms’, because they have not learned the target language rules. (Ellis, 1994). Error Analysis will be introduced in detail. Error Analysis makes great contributions in SLA for it is not only useful for teachers to know what errors learners make, but also helps learners to learn when they can self-correct the errors they make. Moreover, in all the error analysis researches, verbs play a significant role. Even if a English major who has learned English for many years, he still always commits errors of verbs. In this chapter, the author will focus on the study of errors in the non-finite verbs.Before SLA developed in the 1960’s, there was no special theory for second language learning. People used general learning theory from psychology, which is Behaviorism, to explain human learning, including language learning. According to the Behaviorist learning theory, old habits get in the way as we learn habits. We have already a language system in our mind, our mother tongue, and we are going to learn a new language, the second language. Since the first and second language may share a common meaning but have different ways of expressing it, an error is likely to arise in the L2, simply because the learner borrows something from his first language. If a structure is the same in the first language as that in the second, negative transfer results. Errors are the results of non-learning as they say, because the learner does not learn, he simply takes what they have learned from the past. Teachers in previous decades believed that errors should be avoided. This can be done through comparing the learner’s native language with the target language; differences would be identified and used to predict areas of potential errors. This is the work of researchers in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The procedures they adopted are Contrastive Analysis.The growing awareness of the significance of error analysis has triggered increasing interest in English Learners among experts. The present situation of Chinese English major has urged deeper research on this aspect. Chinese English education has been long suffering from severe criticism for being inefficient. The result is that, even after 12 years of English language learning, most English major students still find it hard to master sufficient verbs, let alone communicate with foreign friends fluently.The development of science, the rapid change in society, the receptive and flexible nature of English with regard to the influence of other cultures and languages--all these have resulted in a dramatic increase in verb, a growth which in turn contributes to the richness and resourcefulness of English language. Moreover, the rate of this growth is faster than at any other time in past. What researchers assume about the importance of error analysis coincides with instructors’ and learners’ view point. Due to observation, the author finds that student who cannot avoid errors in English has greatly hindered successful comprehension and that students’ biggest handicap is not the lack of reading strategies, but the failure to achieve automated recognition of verb forms. Though the significance of the present study has been widely recognized, Verb error is equally perceived as one of the most difficult and controversial aspects in English learning.For this purpose, the present study tries to answer the following questions:Is there any significant difference in the error frequencies of English non-finite verbs between two sub-corpora of Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC)? What are the sources of errors of English non-finite verbs committed by Chinese college non-English major learners?To research effectively, the author choosesComparative Analysis Theory, Interlanguage Theory and Error Analysis Theoryas the theoretical framework. And because the present study is a qualitative analysis, it is claimed that the author should know the differences and similarities between the learner’s first language and the target language.1.3 Structure of the thesisThis thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to the whole research, which includes the research background and significance of the present research as well as the organization of this thesis.Chapter 2 presents the literature review of previous exploration in relation to errors in Second Language learning, including Comparative Analysis Theory, Interlanguage Theory, Error Analysis Theoryand Non-finite verbs acquisition with the aim to provide a theoretical basis for the further empirical study. This chapter also functions as guidelines for the following experiments.Chapter 3 introduce the researching process, as how did the author collect the date and what did the author do to make the experiment more reliable, which includes Research questions , subjects, instruments, CLEC and Date collectionChapter 4 deals with Analysis of infinite Verb errors.Chapter5 promotes some teaching suggestions for English education.Chapter 6 draws a conclusion to the previous study. Ultimate limitations of the present study are also discussed.Chapter TwoLiterature ReviewThis chapter first begins with the previous studies on Errors in second language learning and show some authority researchincluding Comparative Analysis Theory, Interlanguage Theory and Error Analysis Theorywith the aim to provide a theoretical basis for the further empirical study. Then focus on how these learners makeerrors. It may identify developmental patterns by describing the stages in the acquisition of particular features or it may examine the variability found in leaner language.Then introduce the definitions of nonfinite verbs. Lastly, based on these frameworks, it makes a conclusion to show prior work, where the voids are and how to make up it. 2.1 Second Language Learner ErrorsLearners make errors in both comprehension and production. For example, a learner miscomprehends the sentence. Once the samples of learner language have been collected, the errors have to be identified. First, it is necessary to make a distinction between errors and mistakes.A mistake refers to a performance error which is either a random guess or a slip of the tongue caused by fatigue, excitement, ect. Usually it could be readily self-corrected. Thus, mistakes occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows. As Linli said, An error is systematic deviation by learners who have not yet mastered the rules and lack the related knowledge. It represents a lack of competence. That is to say, errors occur because the learner does not know what is correct in a know system. (Linli, 2007) So competence error is more difficult to correct than performance error.An elaborate procedure for identifying errors in a second language is to ungrammatical sentences. A Covert error refers to superficially well-formed sentences, but it makes no sense in the context.2.2 Contrastive AnalysisTo teach effectively, it is claimed that a teacher should know the differences and similarities between the learners first language and the target language and the target language. Then, the teacher will be able to predict where difficulties may arise. For this pedagogical purpose, a procedure called Contrastive Analysis developed. Lado(1957), one of the advocates of Contrastive Analysis, states that,” The teacher who has made a comparison of the foreign language with the native language of the students will know better what the real problems are and can provide for teaching tham”.As a result of contrastive analysis, researches summarize a few features. A first language item may split into twp items in the second language; an item both the first and second language do not have; a first language item is absent in the second language; two first language items combine into one in second language; a first language item is in correspondence with the second language item. There differences between the first and second language pose different level of difficulty for L2 learners. That is, some cases cause more difficulty than other cases. This is referred to as the hierarchy of difficulty. Examples from Chinese verb and English verb1. 借-lend, borrow2. 娶嫁-marryBetween 1 and 2 in the above list, you can predict, based on the hierarchy of difficulty, that it would be the order for the most difficult to the least difficult.According to contrastive Analysis Hypothesis, L2 errors are the result of differences between the learner’s first language and the target language. The main source of errors in L2 is due to transfer of L1 habits, thus errors can be predicted by a contrastive analysis of the L1 and L2. The greater the differences between L1 and L2, the more errors that will occur. The strong form of the hypothesis claims that these differences can be used to predict, in advance, all errors that occur. The weak form of the hypothesis claims that these differences can be used only to identify, after errors occur, some errors that actually arise.Researches have shown that the L1 is not the only source, and probably not even the major cause, of grammatical errors. Therefore, the strong form of the CA Hypothesis is unrealistic and unreliable; few support it today. The weak form of the hypothesis claims only to be diagnostic, identifying sources of errors after they arise. A contrastive analysis can be used to identify which errors are the results of interference,2.3 InterlanguageResearch shows that speakers of a native language do not suddenly become speakers of another language. They go through a process of making and testing out \hypotheses about the target language, with or without the assistance of formal instruction. They begin with knowledge about language in general, gained from their native language, and move toward the target language. Bit by bir, they readjust their mental model of the new language, improving their communication competency in that language. Successful hypotheses become mental constructions that correspond to the rules of the new language. Unsuccessful hypotheses are revised or discarded. At any particular moment, the language student produces is located on an interlanguage continuum between the native language and the target language. Truly successful students make the journey to a high level of competency in the target language, while less successful students become fossilized somewhere along the interlanguage continuum.As seen above, we have got a general view of interlanguage.Asinterlangugae is an independent and continuously forthcoming process, we should hold a correct attitude to the process of teaching and learning, errors of students should not be viewed as so harmful as before. In this thesis, we will discuss some wrong ingredients based on the interlanguage theory later.2.4 Error Analysis TheoryWe have seen that the main way of investigating L2 acquisition is by collecting and describing samples of learner language. The description may focus on the kinds of errors learners make and how these errors change over time, or it may identify developmental patterns by describing the stages in the acquisition of particular grammatical features or it may examine the variability found in the learner language (Ellis, 1984). Since the strong version of contrastive analysis fails to predict the majority of errors learners make, many researchers began to adopt the weak version. They stopped making predictions before errors were made, and waited till errors were actually made. They studied learner errors as part of learner language. Error Analysis makes great contributions in SLA for it is not only useful for teachers to know what errors learners make, but also helps learners to learn when they can self-correct the errors they make.Errors could be significant in three ways:they provide the teacher with information about how much the learner had learned;they provide the researcher with evidence of how language was learnt;they serve as devices by which the learner discovered the rules of the target language. Adapted from Corder (1967)One general implication that can be drawn from EA is that learners are constructing, either consciously or unconsciously, a system for understanding and producing sentences in the target language.2.5 Non-finite VerbsNon-predicate verb is one of the difficulties in English grammar. Its acquisition process can be a quite complicated one. Some Chinese researches have made some researches to this single grammar point. Zhang Ling( 2009) in her The Comparison of Grammatical Function for No-predicate Verb, discusses the usage of Non-predicate verb from the perspective of syntactic function. According to the theory of Transformational Grammar by Chomsky, XuHui(2009) illustrates the verb and object phenomena in the non-predicate area; he points out the usage of non-predicate verb under the guidelines of Transformational Grammar. Cheng Fen (2010) analyses the errors made by Chinese college non-English major learners. Through the corpus-based study, the error frequencies of English non-predicate verbs between two sub-corpora of CLEC have been compared. According to her, the errors of English non-predicate verbs could be attributed to hypercorrection, false analogy, misanalysis, literal translation and teacher talk.Furthermore, some other researchers do many empirical studies on English participles. Ningqiang(2006) analysed the misuse of English participles of the college students of graduate and undergraduate on the basis of error analysis. And he put forward that there is no significant differences on the acquisition between those two groups. He also concluded that there are three major error types: the literal-translation-based interlingual error, the intralingual error, and the teacher talk induced error. In Caoying’s (2010)study, she maily focused on the theory of interlanguage and error analysis. But she chose the arts students in college as her subjects. She carried on her research from nearly all usage and fuctions of the participles. Finally, she found out four major types of errors committed by art-students; overlooking the logical subject of participles, wrong use of absolute construction, dangling participles and so forth. Moreover, their English proficiency may not be an absolute factor that determines their acquisition of participles. That is, the upper graders has a better mastery of some forms are due to their inadequate system of interlanguage and unstable English grammatical system. These two researches pay more attention to the aspect of errors analysis and the function of interlanguage. And they only study the acquisition of English participles.2.6Summary of the present studyFor various sources lead to their occurrence, there are still some advantages for us to analyze and explain them from many aspects.Firstly, the author are one of the EFL who has the vivid self-conscience for English learning.Secondly, the author are one of the English major students, which enable her to collect many reliable data during daily study.Thirdly, the developed internet has provided us another huge resource of information to research nowadays.Last but not least, the conclusion we draw can be closer and useful to the similar student like us.From the above researches reviewed, we can see that the acquisition of non-predicate verb is really difficult, and also very important. Its acquisition process is absolutely complicated; as a result, the acquisition research on this grammar point at home and abroad is far from enough, it is necessary and meaningful to do more empirical research on it.Chapter ThreeMethodologyAfter reviewing the literatures, general research of this study are presented at the beginning of this chapter. Then there will be an introduction to subjects, instruments, corpus and the procedures of data collection and analysis. 3.1 Research questionsIn order to have a comprehensive understanding of the errors of English non-finite verbs that Chinese college English learners make, two general research questions are addressed: 1. Is there any significant difference in the error frequencies of English non-finite verbs between two sub-corpora of CLEC? (1)If there is any significant difference, what does the difference indicate? (2)If there is not, what are the common characteristics of these errors？2. What are the sources of errors of English non-finite verbs committed by Chinese college English learners? 3.2 SubjectsThe subjects of this study included 17 students from two classes in SCUT. They were required to take part in a test during this study. All of the 17 students had studied English for at least 8 years, including 6 years in high school and 2 years at college before the test. They had actually learned all the grammatical knowledge about English non-finite verbs. All of them were juniors and were from various majors. Table 1 shows the information about these students. An Error Analysis of English Non-finite Verbs by Chinese College Learners Students Who Pass CET4Students Who Pass CET6Male StudentsFemale StudentsTotaable 1 Information about subjects 5 of them were males, while 12 of them were females. Among them, 6 students had passed CET4, while 11 students had passed CET6. 3.3 InstrumentsThe instruments used to test the subjects in this study were a test of English infinitives and participles and an interview towards each of the subjects. The test was composed of two parts, which were respectively 11 multiple choices and 11 blank-fillings. All the multiple choices and blank-fillings were chosen from two books which were ―Usage of English Non-finite Form of the Verb‖ written by Wang Daofa and ―College English Grammar‖ written by XuGuanglian. Some questions were adapted to test students’ acquisition of certain usages of English non-finite verbs. These questions were checked by two foreign teachers to ensure that each question had but only one correct answer. The two foreign teachers were English teachers in Anhui University and both of them were from America. Students were required to finish this test in twenty minutes. After the students had finished, they were interviewed immediately in order to find out the sources of errors they had just committed. The questions of the interview were self-designed. Actually, the interview questions focused on two aspects, which were whether they knew every word of each sentence and why they chose the answers which proved to be wrong. If a student made an error because there was a word that he or she did not know, the result would affect validity. Thus, most of the words used in the test were from high school vocabulary list. Chinese translation was given for rarely-used words. Therefore, students would not be distracted by words they did not know and could concentrate on the test items. Besides, students were asked to explain their reasons for choosing or writing the answers which were proved wrong in order to find out their thinking process when they were answering these questions. The Interviews were conducted in Chinese to make sure the successful obtainment of valid data without interference caused by the language barrier. The outline of the interview was put in the appendixes for reference. 3.4 CLECCLEC contains 1 million words of English compositions collected from Chinese learners of English with differing levels of proficiency, covering senior secondary school students, English-major, and non-English-major university students in China. The corpus is error tagged according to an error marking scheme of 61 types of error, including various lexical, grammatical, semantic and sentence level errors. These tags have been retained in this version. Which provided us a effective tool for later experiment. The formation of the CLEC facilitates the comparison study among English learners of different majors and different English proficiency levels. This paper chose St3 corpus and St4 corpus. St3 corpus consists of written samples from college non-English major learners who are ready to pass CET4, while St4 corpus consists of writings from college non-English major learners who are ready to pass CET6. For the convenience of analysis, software AntConc 3.2 which is an easy-to-use freeware and statistic software SPSS are used in this study to analyze the data collected from CLEC. 3.5 Date collection and analysisThe proceduresof data collection and analysis of this study were arranged as follows: First, as explained before, sub-corpora St3 and St4 of CLEC were chosen as the interlanguage corpora. With the aid of software AntConc 3.2, the data from the two sub-corpora were collected and identified. According to the error tagging system in CLEC, vp5 represents errors of English non-finite verbs. Vp4 (finite verb for non-finite verb or vice versa) is a broad error tagging. It refers to the errors in confusing English finite verbs and non-finite verbs. As this study only takes the errors in misusing different kinds of English non-finite verbs into consideration, the study will leave out vp4 errors and only choose vp5 errors for analysis. Besides, the error tagging of vp5 makes it clear that vp5 errors only include infinitive error in form and use, infinitive for participle or vice versa and past participle for present participle or vice versa. Errors of gerunds were excluded. Thus, the analysis of errors of gerunds was not included in this thesis. For the convenience of the study, the original tagged errors of vp5 were classified into three types. Table 2 illustrates the classification of errors of English non-finite verbs in CLEC. Then, based on collected data, SPSS would be used to compare the error frequencies of English non-finite verbs between the two sub-corpora. Table 2 Classification of errors of English non-finite verbs TagClassification of ErrorsVp51Error occurs when participles are used for infinitives or vice versavp52Error occurs in the form of infinitives, including infinitives with ―to‖ areused for infinitives without ―to‖ or vice versavp53Error occurs in the use of infinitives, including the absence of a prepositionvp54Error occurs when past participles are used for present participles or vicevp55Error occurs in the voice of non-finite verbsvp56Error occurs in the tense of non-finite verbsvp57Past participle errors in spellingThe errors of En