论文部分内容阅读
Interpreting L2 Acquisition of English Psych Verbs -A Case Study of Chinese L2 LearnersThe present study is an attempt at tackling the learning problems in the acquisition of English psych verbs. Chinese learners of English tend to have inversion problems with some psych verbs: *The exams fear the students/ *The students frighten the exams. They also confuse He worries about her illness with *He worries her illness. Furthermore, we observe the English psych verbs do not pose the same level of difficulty to the learners. Learners soon recover from SE errors (if any) and OE errors, but even the advanced learners still make errors with inchoative worry-verbs. Our study answers the following four questions: (1) What are the factors that may influence the acquisition of psych verbs? (2) Given the influence of the identified factors, how can the process of acquisition be described? (3) Do the Chinese L2 learners acquire these verbs in the way as predicted? (4) To what extent is the observed process of acquisition the result of influence of the identified factors?Based on a review of the current studies of English psych verbs, both linguistic analyses and acquisition studies, our research classified English psych verbs into three types in the framework of the Lexical Semantic Structure Theory. We challenge the traditional thematic approach to the study of psych verbs and discuss how the CAUSE factor influences the acquisition of such verbs. Also in the light of discussion of their Chinese counterparts, four hypotheses were made about the acquisition pattern of English psych verbs by Chinese L2 learners.Then a GJ test was conducted to investigate the knowledge about the psych verbs of 174 subjects at three L2 proficiency levels and 10 native speakers. The results revealed that the acquisition route followed by Chinese learners in learning English psych verbs is: transitive SE verbs-* transitive OE verbs-* inchoative worry-verbs. Two other hierarchies were found: transitive SE verbs-* passive SE verbs; passive OE verbs-’-transitive OE verbs. The findings also suggested that overgeneralization of causative/inchoative alternation is an important factor in the difficulty of OE verb acquisition. These findings can be explained in the framework established for the present study.