Doctoral Dissertation Research: Wh-scope marking in English interlanguage grammars - transfer and processing effects on the second language acquisition of English complex questions

博士论文研究：英语中介语语法中的Wh范围标记——英语复杂问题二语习得的迁移和加工效果

• 批准号: 0518382
• 负责人: Bonnie Schwartz
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of Hawaii
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-06-15 至 2006-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0518382&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Wh; scope

"What does this project find why ESL learners make strange errors?" Although complex questions of this type (called wh-scope marking questions) are clearly ungrammatical in English, they can readily be observed in the language of learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). This research project compares two groups of ESL populations, German and Japanese learners, with the goal of investigating the extent to which this syntactic error reflects actual linguistic competence (i.e., a difference in the learner's grammar from the grammar of the target language, English) or whether this error is a temporary performance phenomenon resulting from processing difficulties. Wh-scope marking questions are completely acceptable in German, whereas they are not in Japanese. Given that second language (L2) learners are known to transfer knowledge from their native language (L1) into their L2 grammar, we expect that such transfer will occur for the German L2 learners; in their case, this type of error would be a competence-induced error. For the Japanese L2 learners, however, transfer cannot be the reason for the occurrence of the wh-scope marking question, since wh-scope marking forms neither part of the English input that they encounter nor part of their native language knowledge; in this L1-L2 constellation, the error might be a performance phenomenon. In order to investigate whether transfer and/or processing is at the root of wh-scope marking for the two groups of ESL learners, three kinds of measurement will be used: (a) an off-line (paper and pencil) acceptability judgment task, frequently used in L2 research to assess a learner's grammatical competence; (b) an on-line, self-paced reading task, which is one of the standard measurements used in psycholinguistic research to detect processing patterns; and (c) an elicited production task, intended to test whether wh-scope marking is restricted to language comprehension or if it also occurs in language production.The results of this research project will shed light on two basic factors involved in the acquisition of a second language: transfer and processing. By gathering data on wh-scope marking from native and non-native speakers, the research project will increase our understanding about similarities and differences in processing patterns between these two groups. Findings about how the wh-scope marking construction is processed have the potential to distinguish between two theoretical approaches to its syntactic analysis. The results of this study may inform L2 pedagogy and may improve L2 instruction as well as research on L2 teaching methods by determining which linguistic constructions are not processable by a particular learner at a given stage of his/her interlanguage development. An electronic corpus of interlanguage data elicited through quite diverse techniques will be produced. Finally, the project will bring together researchers from three universities in the US, Germany and Japan, thus strengthening the international network of linguistic researchers and promoting a partnership across the involved university programs.

“这个项目是什么发现为什么ESL学习者犯了奇怪的错误？”尽管这种类型的复杂问题（称为Wh-Scope标记问题）在英语中显然是无语法的，但可以很容易地以英语学习者的语言作为第二语言（ESL）观察到它们。 该研究项目比较了两组ESL人群，德语和日本学习者，目的是调查该句法错误在多大程度上反映了实际语言能力（即，学习者语法与目标语言的语法，英语的语法差异），或者这种错误是否是处理困难的临时表现现象。 在德语中，wh-scope标记问题是完全可以接受的，而它们不在日语中。 鉴于已知第二种语言（L2）学习者将知识从其母语（L1）转移到其L2语法中，我们希望德国L2学习者会发生这种转移。在他们的情况下，这种错误将是能力引起的错误。 但是，对于日本的L2学习者而言，转移并不是出现WHSCOPE标记问题的原因，因为WH-SCOPE标记既不构成他们遇到的英语输入的一部分，也不构成其母语知识的一部分；在这个L1-L2星座中，误差可能是性能现象。 为了研究两组ESL学习者的转移和/或处理是否处于WH-SCOPE标记的根源，将使用三种测量方法：（a）在L2研究中经常使用的离线（纸和铅笔）可接受性判断任务，以评估学习者的语法能力； （b）在线，自定进度的阅读任务，这是心理语言研究中用于检测处理模式的标准测量之一； （c）旨在测试wh-cope标记是否仅限于语言理解或是否也发生在语言生产中。该研究项目的结果将揭示获得第二语言涉及的两个基本因素：转移和处理。通过收集有关本地和非本地人说的WH-SCOPE标记的数据，该研究项目将提高我们对这两组之间处理模式的相似性和差异的理解。 有关如何处理WH科经标记结构的发现有可能区分其句法分析的两种理论方法。 这项研究的结果可能会为L2教育学提供信息，并可以通过确定特定学习者在其中间语言发展的给定阶段无法处理哪些语言结构，从而改善L2教学以及对L2教学方法的研究。将产生通过相当多样化的技术引起的中间语言数据的电子语料库。 最后，该项目将汇集来自美国，德国和日本三所大学的研究人员，从而加强了国际语言研究人员网络，并在相关大学计划中促进了伙伴关系。