Business English Major Students’ Interlanguage Analysis from PT Perspective Zhang Lin(Harbin University of Commerce)

Abstract: As teachers, we attach importance to learning the learners’ weaknesses and strengths, and the learners’ current level of L2 ， the teacher could make a effective and targeted teaching plan or chose a suitable pedagogy to guide the learners more effectively. Processability Theory (PT) is a theory of L2 development, the learner can produce and comprehend only those second language linguistic forms that they can accept at that time,i.e., they can do what they are able to do (Pienemann, 1998).In the research project, we made use of PT and emergence criterion to collect and analyze the data corpus in order to identify students’ stage of learning ESL, and helped them find out the study strategies and overcome the psychological constrains. In our research, we mainly wanted to test Business English Major students’ skill to use 3rd person present tense, the past tense, the noun plural forms, SVO, Y/N questions, and wh-questions to find the most suitable pedagogy. Key Words: Processability Theory (PT); Interlanguage Analysis; Business English

Data Collection Both the two ESL learners of this inter-language analysis, informant A (Liang Dong) and informant B (Zhang Lei), were the English major students of Harbin University of Commerce. They were the sophomores of junior college, whose level were a bit lower than the common four-year-educational system’s learners. There were two general tasks to each informant. Task 1 was the separate section to the students. In this section, the informants were required to finish three short dialogues with the teacher individually. There were three sub-tasks in this task. Task 1.1 was the dialogues which provided the sufficient context for the student to talk habitual Actions to test the use the present tense, while Task 1.2 was yesterday’s activity, which forced the learners to practice the past tense. The final step of this section is Task 1.3, an informal interview to test learners’ ability to ask wh-questions. The second task was the group work, picture differences to test the learners ability to ask Y/N questions(Pienemann, 1998).

Table 1 indicates the sufficiency of the contexts of the experimentation, which is the essential precondition to the ESL acquisition analysis. Many essays of L2 acquisition study, based on emergence criterion, show that the more abundant contexts are provided, the more veracity can be educed. Clahsen (1988) scored the results based on three obligatory contexts; and De Villiers (1973) and Clahsen (1984) utilized five obligatory contexts. Moreover, Pienemann (1998) put that all the use of grammatical rules can be considered as emergence criterion, if the data corpus is big enough; the morphemes are various and the language formulaic expressions are deprived of.

Table 2 is the brief conclusion of the whole group on Morphology. According to the table, we can see that both the informants have commenced the acquisitive processions of the three given morphemes. According to Pienenmann’s PT research principles, the percentage data, which are far more than.10 in Table 2, can illustrate and attest that the learners have entered the acquisition activities on the three morphology items (Pienemann,1998) then they still tend to misuse the items frequently, since the percentage of 3rd-person singular and Past tense are not very contented enough. At the same time, we must notice that Table 1 is just showing the group results of the research. It is not the universal stander to both the learner, but a general description to the research. The details will be further analyzed in the discussion part.

Compared with the acceptable percentage data of Table 2, the statistics of Table 3, which illustrate the present stage of the two learners on the acquisition of syntax are far from satisfaction. The results of the SVO structure are just content. Most of the SVO sentences (.89) achieve the stage two. But to the usage data of Y/N questions and Wh-questions, the results show that the learners are just beginning to present to the 4th stage of Y/N questions items and the 5th of Wh-quesitons items, and still tend to be confused by these two structures. Most Y/N questions sentences made by the group belongs to the stage 1, which can not be taken as the proves of acquisition, even they are the correct sentences (Jansen, 2002). And so do the Wh-questions sentences.. The further analysis will be presented among the following paragraphs.

The statistics show that all the task-based conversations in the researching project are informal and spontaneous, which can reflect the learners’ real English level in relatively real time. And the researchers set at least four obligatory contexts to ensure that the research can reach the emergence criterion (Zhang, 2001).

Comparing Informant A with Informant B, the former still shows lower level than the latter in learning ESL. So the Table 4 and Tablr 5 are not contradictive, morpho-syntax is at the same learning stage. Take the structure SVO as an example, almost 80% of them are incorrect ones because there are no agreement between NP and lack of agreement between subject and object. For example, in Task1.1, Informant A often says, “ He work in home, (L23) He always get up earlier. (L27) he pick, pick some leader,( L27)”. And 60% of Y/N questions are formulaic expressions. For example, in task 2.2, informant A said eight “Is there…” from L23 to L40.

The data of Table 5 illustrate the individual acquisition stage of the two informants. On the table we can see that the informant A is more familiar with the SVO sentences, while be less proficient in the usage of Y/N questions and Wh-questions. Most sentences of the last two items are still settling in the first stage, which means that the learner can only use these questions with the formulaic uses. Although the learner has used the questions at stage 4, the insufficient example can not be comprehended as the proof that the learner has start the acquisition of this stage (Zhang, 2001). So do the actuality of the Wh-questions of informant A. The status of informant B is dissimilarly with A. The frequent emergency of further stage sentences shows that the learner has started the acquisition activities already. So, according to the data and analyses of the first 5 Tables, we can elicit the Table 6 as the summarization of the research:

We hope, and we believe, the practice of Inter-language Analysis and PT Perspective method can improve our analyzing abilities on the judgment of the learners’ stages, to adjust our teaching policies in time. It also can assist us with the ameliorating of our decision making abilities and advance our teaching reform in the future.