ASYMMETRY OF NULL SUBJECTS AND NULL OBJECTS IN CHINESE SPEAKERS ’ L2 ENGLISH Boping Yuan University of Cambridge

TERMS Null subjects/Null objects: 零主语、零宾语 -- 新编英汉语言学词典 戴炜华 主编 2007 上海外语教育出版社 AGR(EEMENT) ： ( 在性、数、格和人称方面的 ) 一致 T(ENSE) ：时态 INFLECTION ：屈折变化，指（形态学中）给单词添加词缀或根据语言 的语法规则以其他方式改变词形的过程。 Metalinguistic knowledge: 元语言学知识，指（语言学习中）学习者通过 琢磨和分析语言所得到的关于语言的形式、结构及其他方面。 -- 语言教学及应用语言学辞典 Jack C. Richards 等，外研社 2002 Restructuring ： The process by which learners recognize their interlanguage in the light of new evidence about the target language. --Second Language Acquisition Rod Ellis 2000 上海外教社

The Outline of the Article INTRODUCTORY NULL SUBJECTS AND NULL OBJECTS NULL SUBJECTS AND NULL OBJECTS IN L1 AND L2 ACQUISITION EXPERIMENT DISCUSSION CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTORY Example: Wo mai-le yi tai xinde jisuanji, shi Riben zao de. I have bought a new computer,which is made in Japan. Zhangsan shuo bu renshi. Zhangsan said he didn’t know him.

ChineseEnglish Null Subjects in Finite Sentences ＋/－＋/－－ Null Objects ＋/－＋/－－

Null Subjects and Underspecification of Inflection the underspecification of T and AGR features licence null subjects in Chinese Null Objects and Topic-Drop Parameter English - Topic-Drop Chinese + Topic-Drop NULL SUBJECTS AND NULL OBJECTS

NULL SUBJECTS AND NULL OBJECTS IN L1 AND L2 ACQUISITION L1 Acquisition Null subjectsNull objects English Hyams and Wexler(1993 )Period 1 55% 48% 7% 9% Adam Eve Chinese Wang,Lillo- Martin.Best( 1992) 55.73%20.2%

L2 Acquisition 1)Most of the research focused on the relationship between null subjects and verb inflection in L2 acquisition 2)Zobl(1994): involved null subjects and null objects,but didn’t offer an explanation for the asymmetry of null subjects and null objects

EXPERIMENT Focus: the unlearning of the null subjects and null objects by adult Chinese speakers in their acquisition of L2 English Hypothesis: If L1 transfer would take place, it should display an asymmetry of frequently allowing null subjects; but less frequently null objects, as Chinese-speaking children in their L1 acquisition.

Subjects Experimental Groups Control Group 159 Chinese-speaking learners 16 native of English (divided into 7 groups) speakers of English The criterion for determining stages of English levels: English proficiency test *the number of years studying English

Procedure 1) An acceptability judgment test was desiged

2)To read the sentences on some sheets of paper while listening to the same sentences in the recording, and then assign successive numbers proportionally to the sentences 3)To draw figures of the results

自变量： Groups (Group1~7, native speakers) 因变量： Mean scores of judgments 无关变量： 1) All sentences were randomized 2) Experimental sentence- Control sentence 3) Vocabulary was kept in a simple level 4)Nine sentence structures

5) To read the sentences on some sheets of paper while listening to the same sentences in the recording 6)The subjects were allowed to creat their continuum of acceptability. Converted Score = 10× (Individual raw number － Minimum) /(Maximum － Minimum)

Null Subjects Figure1~4

Null Objects Figure 5~9

Pairwise comparisons in Tukey Tests

Result Asymmetry of null subjects and null objects in Chinese speakers’ L2 English namely, Chinese learners are able to reject the incorrect null subject in English, but unable to detect the ungrammaticality of the null objects

DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION The unlearning of null subjects: triggered by the evidence in their input indicating the specification of AGR and T in English; The difficulty in the unlearning of null objects: the lack of informative evidence to unset [+topic-drop] setting in Chinese learners’L2 English.

几个问题： 1) 为什么汉语允许 null subject 和 null objects ，英语不可以 ? 为什么 asymmetry of null subjects and null objects in Chinese speakers’ L2 English 2)Pairwise comparisons in Tukey tests? 3) 在 Test sentence 中，为什么分了 9 个 structure ，然后分别 进行说明，分为 null subjects 和 null objects 两部分可不 可以？ 4 ）对于这个实验的全过程，有什么优缺点？ 5 ）本文研究的是 Chinese speakers’ L2 English ，如果反过 来， English speakers’ L2 Chinese 会是怎样一种情况？