Acquisition of Non-restrictive Relative Clause by Chinese English Learners英语硕士毕业论文开题报告

1 1可以修改后上交，2 2红色部分由很多事打印错误3 3研究问题2还需要更加具体附件二：贵 州 师 范 大 学硕士研究生学位（毕业）论文开题报告 论 文 题 目 Acquisition of Non-restrictive Relative Clause by Chinese English Learners 研 究 生 姓 名 学 号 200806214 导师姓名、职称 学院（教学部） 外语学院 专 业 外国语言学与应用语言学 研 究 方 向 二语习得 贵州师范大学研究生处培养管理科制表一、立论依据（选题的研究意义、国内外研究现状分析）一、研究意义 1.1 Research Orientation The relative clause (RC) is an important construction in English and functions as attributive in a sentence. English RC includes restrictive relative clause (RRC) and non-restrictive relative clause (NRC). RRC is used to modify the noun, and can not be omitted, or the whole meaning of the sentence will not be complete. The conjunctions which, that, who, whom, whose, why, where, when, are used to introduce English RRCs. For example, （1）I picked up two towels that were lying on the floor. （2）John gave a check to the farmer whose cows Bill stole. The RRC in example (1) is introduced by that and is used to modify “towels” , and the RRC in example (2) is introduced by whose, and is used to modify “farmer”. NRC merely offers the additional information to the noun it modifies, or to the whole sentence. NRC is often set off by commas, and the clause can not(已经说过很多次学术论文中不能用省写形式！) be introduced by “that” or “a zero relative pronoun”. Moreover, NRCs are introduced by which, as, who, whom, whose, where, when. Sometimes the guide word which refers to the contents of the main clause. For example,（3）He did not remember his father, who died when he was three years old.（4）It was raining hard , which kept us indoors. In example (3) the NRC is introduced by who to modify “farmer”, but this NRC just add the additional information to the main clause, hence it can be omitted. “Which” in the NRC in example (4) refers to the meaning of “It was raining hard” and the NRC is also can be omitted as in example (3).Due to” its universality in languages of the world, its unique syntactic properties and its high frequency in everyday use of language” (Izumi, 2003:286), RC is paid great attention to in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition. Moreover, in English classrooms of China, a lot efforts are made to learn this construction, however, it still poses great difficulty for Chinese English learners (CELs), especially NRC, so it is of great importance to study the RC development of CELs.RC belongs to postpositive attributive in English, that is, RC is put after the noun it modified. Different from English, the attributive is always in the preposition in Chinese, whether it is a word, a phrase or a clause. The example “(5) 我认识许多住在费城的人(Wo ren shi xu duo zhu zai fei cheng de ren.) ” in Chinese is “(6) I know some people who live in Philadelphia.” in English. In example (5) and (6) the RCs are in preposition and postposition respectively.Affected by Chinese, CELs face more difficulties in their learning process. So it is necessary to do more studies in this field. The present study focus on Chinese English learnerss acquisition of non-restrictive relative clause. 1.2 Literature Review 1.2.1 A Brief Review of the Studies abroad As a topic that many SLA researchers are constantly interested in, RC is being given a variety of explanations since the 1970s. The different hypotheses intended to explain the process of the RC acquisition, such as the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH) proposed by Keenan and Comrie in 1977, the Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis (PDH) issued by Kuno in 1974, the Parallel Function Hypothesis (PFH) put forward by Shelton in 1974, the Subject-Object Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH) suggested by Hamilton in 1994, and the Information Flow Hypothesis (IFH) mainly proposed by Gibson and Desmet in 2004. Of the five hypotheses, the NAPA, the PDH and the SOHH are of great influence. The NAPA and the PDH are complementary to each other in spite of different emphases. Later, on the basis of these two hypotheses Hamilton proposed SO Hierarchy Hypothesis in 1994, describing the difficulty hierarchy in studying different types of RCs. 1.2.1.1 Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH)After investigating over 50 languages, Keenan & Comrie proposed the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH), which is one of the best known linguistic universals. It focuses on what the head noun served in a RC and describes the constraints on the formation of RCs in different languages. Keenan & Comrie found that as far as the functions the head noun served in a RC were concerned, in all the investigated language the head noun was allowed to function as subject, serve as direct object in most investigated languages, as indirect object in some investigated languages, and there is an accessibility hierarchy like the following: SU DO IO OPREP GEN OCOMP (“” means more accessible), which was called Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH). This hypothesis also has an implication, if a language has a kind of RC, there must exist a kind of RC left of it in the hierarchy, but maybe there is no RCs right of it in the hierarchy. As Keenan & Comrie stated: a) If a language can relativize any position on the AH, then it can relativize all higher positions. b) For each position X on the hierarchy, there are possible human languages which relativize X but no positions lower than X.” (Keenan & Comrie, 1977:66) The following is the six kinds of RCs in The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. (Hamilton 1995: 102) Table1 The Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy （所有的表格用三线格-三条横线，两边不封口）, 比如ClassMSD 1 2 37889893.575.786.76Name of the RCsExaplesSubject (SU) Direct Object (DO) Indirect Object (IO) Object of Preposition (OPREP) Genitive (GEN) Object of Comparative (OCOMP) The man who knows the womanThe man that the woman knows The man that the woman gave a pencil toThe desk that the woman put the pencil on The man whose pencil the woman took The man that the woman is taller than (Note: means “is more accessible than”)According to the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy Hypothesis (NPAH), the kind of RC (SU) in “The man who knows the woman.” can exist in all types of language, but the kinds of RCs (DO, IO, OPREP) like in “The man that the woman knows.”, “The man that the woman gave a pencil to.” and “The desk that the woman put the pencil on.” may not all appear in one language. Moreover, if a language has RC (OPREP) like in “The desk that the woman put the pencil on.” there must be the types of RC like SU, DO, IO, but may not exist GEN and OCOPM in the language. Later some SLA researchers found the hypothesis can be used in SLA. Many studies have issued that this accessibility hierarchy is grounded in the psychological ease of comprehension, and that SLA children have more difficulties in learning RCs formed at low positions on the hierarchy than learning RCs formed high positions on the hierarchy. For example, in Table1 Chinese English learners learn “The man who knows the woman.”(SU) more easily than learn “The man that the woman knows.” (DO), which is learnt more easily than “The man whose pencil the woman took” (GEN). Gass (1979) first tested this on ESL learners, he adopted two tasks: the sentence combination tasks and the grammaticality judgment task, and found that except for GEN RCs, all other types of relatives are learned in order as predicted by the NPAH. Eckman, Bell and Nelson (1988) also argued, (Cook 2000: 143)If the Accessibility Hierarchy is somehow built in to the L2 learners expectations of language, they do not need to learn all the relative types separately they simply have to discover how far down the hierarchy the language goes. So, once learners identify the maximum point on the hierarchy for the language, they can assume that all the types above it are possible. However, the NPAH just focuses on the function of the head noun in the RC, which, however, is not the only factor affecting the difficulty of RC learning. Hence, after the NPAH, some other hypotheses are suggested.1.2.1.2 Perceptual Difficulty Hypothesis (PDH)Based on perceptual consideration of the human memory system, Kunos PDH (1974:117-136) predicts that center-embedding structure is perceptually more difficult to process than right-branching structure because of short term memory limitation. When the RC is embedded after the subject of the main clause, that is, the RC is in the subject position, which is called center-embedded. In this way, the comprehension process of the main clause is interrupted. The subject of the main clause must be carried unattached until the processing of the embedded RC is finished, and the verb of the main clause is encountered. The recall of the subject of the main clause, therefore, presents much difficulty. However, such difficulty does not appear when the RC is imbedded after the object of the main clause, that is, in the object position of the main clause, which is called right-branching. The difficulty of acquisition of RCs is predicted based on whether the RC interrupts the main clause or not. According to PDH, regardless of the type of RCs, the hierarchy of acquisition depends on whether the head noun is separated by RC from the main clause, or in other words, it depends on whether the RC is center-embedded or right-embedded, which is illustrated in the following examples: (7) Center embedding: a. The cheese that the rat that the cat chased ate was rotten. (8) Right embedding: b. The cat chased the rat that ate the cheese that was rotten. (Kuno,1974:119) According to PDH, example a is supposed to be more difficult than example b. In example a, the head noun “lion” functions as subject in the main clause, and the main clause “The lion knocks down the cow.” is interrupted by the RC “that pushes the horse”, and the memory process of the main clause is also interrupted, but in example b, the memory process is not interrupted as the RC “that pushes the horse” is right after the main clause “The lion knocks down the cow”, and right after the head noun “cow”, which functions as an object in the main clause . Hence, example b is learnt more easily than example b？. PDH predicts the acquisition order of English RCs is: OS/OO SS/SO (here “” means “is easier than”).Another example is given as follows:(9) a. SO: The mouse that the white cat chased ate the cake.b. SS: The white cat that chased that mouse ate the cake.c. OS: The white cat chased the mouse that ate the cake.d. OO: A black cat caught the mouse that the white cat chased.In the four sentences, (9a) and (9b) are more difficult to learn than (9c) and (9d) for the center-embedded relatives in (9a) and (9b) interrupt the processing of the main clauses while right-embedded relatives in (9c) and (9d) do not.In the PDH, only embeddedness is considered. This is quite opposite to the NPAH that considers only the differences among different types of RCs themselves but not embeddedness of the RC in the main clause. In fact, these two hypotheses are in a complementary relationship with each other making its own contribution to determining the ease or difficulty of learning RCs. 1.2.1.3 Parallel Function Hypothesis (PFH)The PFH, suggested by Shelton (1974), is based on the function of head noun in the main clause and that of the relative pronoun in the embedded clause. In a complex sentence, if the head noun have the same grammatical function in the main clause as the relative pronoun in RC, then the sentence will be easier to process than one in which the head noun have different grammatical functions from the relative pronoun. For example, the sentence “The girl who loved John came from America” is easier to understand, because both the head noun in the main clause and the relative pronoun in the relative clause have the same function as the subject; however, the sentence “The girl whom John loved came from America” is more difficult to understand, because the head noun in the main clause and the relative pronoun in the relative clause function as subject and object respectively. In Sheldons study (1974: 272-281), she classified relative clauses into four types: (1) SS: The lion that pushes the horse knocks down the cow. (2) OS: The lion knocks down the cow that pushes the horse. (3) SO: The lion that the horse pushes knocks down the cow. (4) OO: The lion knocks down the cow that the horse pushes. The classification is given along the following two dimensions: whether the head NP functions as S or O in the main clause, and whether the coreferential NP in the relative clause functions as S or O in the relative clause. (Hansen 1986: 145) The predicted order of acquisition of relative clause can be presented as follows: SS / OO OS / SO. (Sheldon, 1974) Although some researchers agree with Sheldons findings, others do not. For example Gass and Ard (1980) reanalyzed Sheldons data from the combination task to compare with Sheldons findings. It was found that in the L2, the types SS and SO were easier than type OO, which was easier than type OS. “It is not parallel function that counts but whether the NP is the subject of the main clause. Therefore the results go significantly in the opposite direction of what is predicted”. (Cook 2000: 148) 1.2.1.4 Subject-Object Hierarchy Hypothesis (SOHH)Subject-object hierarchy hypothesis (SOHH), proposed by Hamilton (1994), presents the implicational relationship among four types of RCs (SS, SO, OS, OO) based on the notion of processing discontinuity. There are two types of processing discontinuities: one is set up by center-embedding of RCs in the main clause, or in other words, the main clause is interrupted by RC; the other is created by the phrasal boundaries within the embedded clause that separate the relative pronoun and the wh-trace created by relativization. The number of discontinuities determines the order of difficulty of different RCs.According to SOHH, the difficulty order goes as follows: OS OO/SS SO (“” means “is easier than”). To be specific, OS is supposed to be the easiest to process for it has only one discontinuity while both OO and SS have two discontinuities, thus resulting in more difficulty in processing them than OS. Similarly, SO structure is considered to the most difficult due to three discontinuities. To illustrate the prediction of SOHH more clearly, more example sentences are given as following:(11) a. OS: They saw the boy whoi s ti entered the room.b. OO: A man bought the watch thati s the woman vp wanted ti.c. SS: The man whoi s ti needed a job helped the lady.d. SO: The boy whomi s the teacher vp praised ti went to the library often.( Note: “” means “phrasal boundary”; “t” equals “wh-trace”; “i” implies “co-index”; “s” stands for “sentential code”; “vp” equals “verb phrase” )In these four sentences, (11a) merely sets up one discontinuity: i.e. a continuous S. (11b) and (11c) contain two discontinuities: VP and S in the former and S, center-embedded RC in the latter. (10d) sets up three processing discontinuities: VP, S and center-embedded RC. Obviously, in terms of difficulty sequence of these four sentences, (11d) is regarded as the most difficult and (11a) the easiest one with (11b) and (11c) in the medium.In essence, SOHH is a hybrid of the two hypotheses, NPAH and PDH (Izumi, 2003) for it takes both aspects of RC types and embedded matrix positions of RCs into consideration.1.2.2 The Study of RCs at HomeIn domestic, some researchers have made investigations on RCs acquisition of ？（介词问题）CELs. For example, Xiao Yunnan and lv ？Jie (2005); Cai Jinting and Wu Yian (2006); Li Jinman & Wang Tongshun (2007). The results of their studies are different more or less, and are partly compatible with the hypotheses discussed above. And some of the studies retest the previous hypotheses. Among those studies, the article When Accessibility Meets Animacy: Chinese EFL Learners Behavior on English Relative Clauses from （介词问题）Li Jinman & Wang Tongshun (2007) is worth mentioning because in this article the animacy of noun phrases in complex constructions with relative clauses is taken into consideration. Based on an analysis of a CELscorpus of two experimental studies, this study shows that accessibility and animacy interact to influence the difficulty distribution of different types of English relative clauses. Generally speaking, Chinese English learners use subject-relative clauses more frequently and more accurately than object-relative clauses (the same as the prediction of NPAH). But when the antecedent before the relative clause is inanimate, the differences between subject and object relative clauses are reduced greatly, and when the antecedent and the noun phrases in the relative clause are animate simultaneously, the object relative clauses turn out to be even more frequently used than subject relative clauses 1.2.3 Summary of the Previous StudiesFirstly, most previous researches on the acquisition of relative clauses concentrate on the difficulty order of RC acquisition, which is studied mainly from two perspectives: the first one is the functions the head noun serves in the relative clause, which NPAH focuses on. So the different RC types come into being: SU, DO, IO, OPREP, GEN and OCOMP; and the second one is the embeddedness of a relative clause, which PDH is mainly of. The embeddedness is in two positions, the main clause subject position and the main clause object position. SOHH takes both the two aspects into consideration. PFH pays attention to the grammatical function of the head noun in the main clause and the relative pronoun in the relative clause.Secondly, most previous researches focus primarily on RRCs, (so in the previous parts the RC refers to RRC) but the studies on NRCs are rare. Thirdly, almost all the previous hypotheses mainly talk about several main types of RCs or some main aspects of RCs. And the different introducing words are not taken into consideration. The present study is an attempt to study the acquisition from a new perspective, the similarities and differences between English RCs and Chinese RCs may have some influences on CELs acquisition of NRC. In this dissertation the acquisition of the introducing words and different functions of NRCs will be investigated.1.3 Theoretical Framework1.3.1 Language Transfer“Transfer” is originally a psychological term. After introduced into the field of SLA, the concept language transfer comes into being and it has been a central issue in second SLA. The word transfer is derived from the Latin word transferre. Trans means across or over, and ferre means to bear, thus transferre means carry over. As a psychological term，psychologists defined “transfer” as a type of learning activities by which learners previously acquired knowledge about the learning skills will influence the out come of their later learning or training behavior. They maintain that transfer can be both positive and negative. 1.3.1.1 Definition of Language TransferMany linguists have done considerable researches on the impact of the mother tongue on SLA. And different versions of definitions are given by different scholars. The well-known representatives are Lado (1957) and James (1980, 2001), Corder (1967, 1971), Gass (1992)，Schaehter(1974), Odlin(1989，2001), Selinker(1969, 1972, 1992), and Ellis (1965, 1989, 1994, 1999).These scholars have given different definitions of this term. According to Selinker (1969: 67-92), the theory of language transfer in its simplest form states that the learning is