成人中文使用者對英文冠詞之習得

The Acquisition of English Articles by Adult Chinese Speakers

The present study investigates the use of English articles in matrix and embedded sentences by adult Chinese speakers of L2 English and sets out to explain the native and non-native divergence in relation to Parameter Resetting Theory in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) within the framework of Principles and Parameters of Universal Grammar (UG). The study tests two competing theories, namely the Full Access Full Transfer theory (FT/FA) and the Partial Access to UG account of SLA theory to see whether or not the functional category words such as the and a/an are resettable in L2 grammar.95 participants were asked to take a grammatical judgment test correcting article usage and other grammatical points as distracters. The participants were adult university students from the FENM (Freshman English of Non Major Students) program at Tunghai University. They were grouped into three language proficiency levels based on the Tunghai English Placement Exam (TEPE) (Sims, 2006). Another group of 12 native speakers of English were invited as the control group. The results of the study suggest that there is a twofold divergence among the participants. There is a significant difference in the use of English articles between native and non-native speakers. It also demonstrates a discrepancy between non-native speakers in the interpretation of articles in matrix and embedded sentences. These results argue against the FT/FA account of UG and support the Partial Access to UG accounts.本研究探究成年中文使用者之英語學習者對於英文冠詞在主要句和從屬句的使用，並以普遍性語法觀點的第二語言習得理論中的「原則與參數理論」框架下的「參數重設理論」解釋：英語母語使用者和非英語母語使用者，對於英文冠詞在主要句和從屬句中的使用歧異性。在本研究中作者測試一組競爭性的理論分別為普遍性語法觀點的第二語言習得理論中之「全轉換／全運行」理論和「部分運行」理論，並觀測功能性範疇字群比如說定冠詞”the”和不定冠詞”a/an”在第二語言語法中是否可以重設。九十五位實驗參與者受邀進行一份語法判定測驗用以更正冠詞用法和其他文法錯誤點。這些成年的大學生實驗參與者都來自東海大學非英文系主修大一英文課程。這些參與者被分成三組，依照他們在東海大學英文分班測驗的（Sims，2006）獲得的成績。另有十二位英文為母語者組成實驗的對照組。實驗結果表明有一個雙層的歧異性介於受測者間。關於英文為母語和非母語的受測者對於冠詞的使用有顯著的差異性存在。實驗結果亦表明，非英語母語者對於冠詞在主要句和重屬句中的使用具有差異性存在。這些結論反駁普遍性語法中的「全轉換／全運行」理論並支持「部分運行」理論。