The Order of Difficulty in Relative Clause Learning for Chinese EFL Students

Abstract

英文的關條子句，由於其內部結構的複雜性，對於以英文為外國語(EFL) 的學生，一直是不易理解或造句的。本研究昌在測試中國EFL學生，在有關英語關條子句習得上的三個主要假設的預測度:即Keenan 和Comrie (1977)提出之「名詞組可獲性等級假設J (NPAH)，Kuno (1 974)提出之「是良知困難假設」(PDH) ，以及Hamilton (1994)提出之「主、受詞等級假設」 (SOHH) 。此外我們也探討英文程度不同的學生在不同關條子句題型中表現之差異。另外，也探索母語結構對目標語結構習得的影響及程度。研究資料收集自84位高一學生在句子理解及句子合併兩個測試實驗中之表現。研究結果顯示完全支持NPAH 和PDH 之預測，以及部份支持SOHH 之預測。就實驗題型及其文程度而言，高、低程度學生在句子理解實驗上表現類似，但高程度學生在句子合併實驗中顯著優於低程度之學生。此結果顯示，當學生程度越好，他們越能控制自己在外語各方面的表現。最後就母語轉移而言，對比分析法預測中國學生可能面對三類困難(1)關條子句和先行詞相對位置(2) 關條子句的標記方式(3)反身代名詞的出現。資料顯示學習英語的中國學生並沒有如預期顯出第一點之困難，相反的，他們在標記方式上不能正確使用關條代名詞，介系詞常遺漏或錯誤，以及特別在代名詞殘留方面有問題。

Because the internal structure is complicated, English relative clauses (RC) are difficult to produce and to comprehend, especialIy for EFL learners. In this project we aimed to test the predictions of three major hypotheses of RC acquisition in an EFL context: Keenan & Cornrie's (1977) Noun Phrase Accessibilities Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH), Kano's(1974) Perceptual Difficulties Hypothesis (PDH), and Harnilton's (1994) SO Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH). We sought also to investigate the differences between students with different levels of English proficiency when they performed various tasks with regard to RCs. We tackled the extent of L1 transfer to discover how their native language influenced Chinese students when they learned English RC. Analyses of the data collected from 84 Chinese tenth graders in senior high school in two tasks - a sentence comprehension test and a combination test - indicated fulI support for the NPAH and the PDH and partial support for the SOHH. In terms of task effects and language proficiency, subjects with superior English proficiency (G1) had similar performance to those with inferior proficiency (G2) in the sentence comprehension test, but G1 outperformed G2 significantly in the combination test. Hence the better the L2 learners' target language proficiency became, the better they regulated their language use in various tasks. With reference to L1 transfer, the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) predicts that Chinese leamers rnight confront difficulties in three areas - the position ofrelative c1ause with respect to the head noun, the way that a relative clause is marked, and the occurrence of a pronorninal reflex. Our data showed that Chinese learners of English exhibited no difficulty in producing correct positions of RC with respect to the head noun as predicted. In contrast, they had trouble with the usage of relative markers, prepositions, and especialIy pronoun retention.