Errors of Commission in Cantonese L1 Speakers of English
There has recently been a growth in theoretical research into second language (L2) acquisition seeking to address the issue of morphological variation in learners of English whose first language (L1) is Chinese. Hawkins and Liszka (2003) see variation as a consequence of a general inability to reset formal syntactic features leading to a generalized problem with Chinese speakers L2 morphological competence. This contrasts with White (2008) and Lardiere (2007) who suggest there is a localized problem with morphological realization rather than a syntactic deficit. The spontaneous L2 English speech of two groups of Cantonese L1 speakers, one a group of young learners at the developmental stage and a second, a high level end-state speaker, provides evidence that morphological variation is the result of underlying impairment in the formal features of the syntax that generate tense and agreement morphology. In the endstate grammar a reduction in the number of errors of commission appears to be the result of a reorganisation of lexico-semantic features during acquisition rather than indicating that the formal syntactic features have been acquired. The absence of formal features in the L2 grammars suggests that in L2 English pedagogy the focus of instruction should shift from grammatical type towards lexical token in order to best assist the acquisition of morphology.
James Strang
Linguistics The University of York
国际会议
2009 International Conference on Applied Linguistics & Language Teaching(2009应用语言学暨语言教学国际研讨会)
台湾
英文
426-434
2009-04-01（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）