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Constraints on Wh-long distance movement in adult Chinese for L2 acquisition and the implication for L2 teaching
Abstract
Previous studies on the sensitivity of Subjacency by adult L2 learners whose native language does not observe the rule have drawn different conclusions concerning adult sensitivity to Universal Grammar (UG) principles. This study further explores this issue by investigating not only Subjacency but also the Empty Category Principle (ECP). Using Chinese L2 learners of English, the present study tests their limitations on extraction out of several island conditions and their sensitivity to Wh-arguments (what, who, which) and Wh-adjuncts (when, where, how and why). Participants in the study included 180 Chinese freshmen and sophomores in a Chinese university, who were non-English majors and had never been exposed to an English speaking country and 16 Chinese L2 learners who were studying at University of Massachusetts at the time of study and who had at least 3 years of intensive English training before and had continually employed English afterwards. 25 English-speakers also participated in the study as a control group. They were asked to perform a grammaticality judgment task and a reading comprehension task on Subjacency and the ECP. The proficiency of the first group was measured with CELT and Assessment of Syntactic Capabilities tests. The study has found Chinese L2 learners demonstrated limitations on extraction from island conditions. Once they had sophistication in English, their performance score on Subjacency tasks showed no difference from that of the native English-speaking group. The informants also treated the different island conditions differently. They also distinguished Subjacency violations in relative clauses from that in noun complement clauses. In the reading comprehension task, the 180 Chinese informants had similar patterns to the control group and the children in DeVilliers' study. They allowed Wh-LD movement when the COMP in the embedded clause was not filled in English; when the COMP in medial was filled, they (like children and native speakers), gave answers to the lower clause when the trace was properly governed; they distinguished argument questions from adjunct questions by giving more answers to the former than the later questions. The study considers the implications of the above results for L2 teaching.
Subject Area
Linguistics|Multicultural Education
Recommended Citation
Li, Xiaoli, "Constraints on Wh-long distance movement in adult Chinese for L2 acquisition and the implication for L2 teaching" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9233090.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9233090