台灣學生英文分裂句之第二語言習得

Abstract

本研究旨在探討以中文為母語的英語學習者對英文分裂句之第二語言習得情形，主要研究的議題包括第一語言轉移現象、對不同類型的分裂句之難易次序、分裂句之習得是否受對比效應之影響及英語程度是否影響分裂句之習得。本研究採用接受度判斷測驗。受試者分為實驗組及控制組。前者為六十位以中文為母語的大一學生，並按其英文程度分為初、中、高級三組。後者則為二十位英語母語人士。 首先，研究發現，受試者對英文分裂句的理解受到第一語言轉移的影響。在七種不同詞性的分裂句中，受試者最能接受的是名詞、無詞組、介系詞，其次是非限定性子句及副詞，再者是限定性子句，最後是形容詞。此外，針對不同的語法功能，受試者最能接受的是具修飾性的語法功能，其中又以具修飾性的名詞詞組接受度最高。在對比效應方面，受試者較能接受在對比情況下的分裂句，顯示對比效應對英語分裂句的難度有所影響。最後，在語言程度效應方面，受試者之英語程度越高對英文分裂句的接受度也越高，顯示學習者對英文分裂句的接受度會隨著其英語能力的提升而有所增進。The present study aims to conduct an empirical study to explore Taiwanese students’ second language acquisition of English it-clefts. The issues the study probed into include L1 transfer, the difficulty order of English it-clefts with different types of clefted elements, grammatical function effects, contrast effects, and proficiency effects. Besides, an Acceptability Judgment Task was designed to examine the subjects’ preference. Sixty college freshmen were recruited and further divided into three experimental groups, i.e., low, intermediate, and high, based on their English proficiency levels. In addition, twenty English native speakers participated in the study as our control group. The overall results indicated that L1 transfer had an influence on the acquisition of English it-clefts. As for the seven types of English it-clefts with different syntactic categories, our subjects accepted the types of NP, Zero, and PP, followed by N-F CL and ADV P better, and their acceptance rates for FIN CL, and ADJ P were the worst of all. Besides, it was found that different grammatical functions exhibited different degrees of learning difficulties for our subjects. English it-clefts with Adjunct cleftd elements were found to obtain the highest acceptance, the NP Adjunct in particular. With regard to contrast effects, English it-clefts with contrast were found to be better accepted than those without contrast. Finally, our L2 learners’ acceptance rates were found to be influenced by their L2 proficiency. The better the subjects’ L2 abilities were, the better their acceptance of English it-clefts was.