adoviance 语言学迁移.docx

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adoviance语言学迁移

AVOIDANCEOFPHRASALVERBS:

THECASEOFCHINESELEARNERSOFENGLISH

YanD.Liao&YoshinoriJ.Fukuya

UniversityofHawai‘iatMānoa

ABSTRACT

ThisstudyinvestigatestheavoidanceofEnglishphrasalverbs（PVs）byChineselearnersinrelationtotheirproficiencylevels（advanced,intermediate）,PVtypes（figurative,literal）,andtesttypes（multiple-choice,translation,recall）.EachofthesixgroupsofChineselearnerstookoneofthethreetestsandagroupofnativespeakerstookthemultiple-choicetest.TheANOVAresultsshowedthattheintermediatelearners,whoseL1lacksthePVstructure,tendedtoavoidusingPVsandpreferredtheirone-wordequivalents.Also,bothadvancedandintermediatelearnerstendedtoproducelessfigurativethanliteralPVs,whichwasmanifestedinthetranslationtestalone.Incorporatingthefindingsofthreepreviousstudiesonthesametopic,thisstudyclaimsthatlearners’PVavoidancebehaviorisamanifestationofILdevelopmentandthatthesemanticnatureofthePVstendstointeractwiththetranslationtest.

INTRODUCTION

ThephenomenonofavoidancebehaviorsinSLAwasfirstbroughttolightbySchachter（1974）,whopointedouttheimportanceofexaminingnotonlytheL2formsthatwereactuallyproducedbythelearnersofaforeignlanguage,butalsotheL2formstheyseemtoavoidusingconsistently.Sincethen,ithasdrawntheattentionofmanyresearchers（e.g.,Dagut&Laufer,1985;Hulstijn&Marchena,1989;Kamimoto,Shimura&Kellerman,1992;Kleinmann,1977,1978）.

Whencomparingtheerrorsinrelativeclauses（RCs）madebynativespeakers（NSs）ofChinese,Japanese,Persian,andArabianlearnersintheirEnglishcompositions,Schachter（1974）foundthatthedifficultyofRCforChineseandJapanesestudents,whichwaspredictedbyContrastiveAnalysis（CA）,manifesteditselfnotinthenumberoferrorsmadebythesetwogroupsoflearners,butinthenumberofRCsproduced,whichwasmuchsmallerthanthatproducedbythePersianandArabianspeakers.Sheconcludedthat“ifastudentfindsaparticularconstructioninthetargetlanguagedifficulttocomprehenditisverylikelythathewilltrytoavoidproducingit”（p.213）.ShefurtherpointedoutthatErrorAnalysis,whichhadbeenprevailinginprevioustransferstudies,wasdeficientinSLAbecauseitwasincapableofexplainingthephenomenonofavoidance.

Schachter’sstudyisinconclusivedespitetheimportantrevelationoftheavoidancebehaviors.Foronething,itdidnotcontrolproficiencylevelandthefrequencyofRCsinthetexts.Furthermore,asKleinmann（1977,1978）argued,“tobeabletoavoidsomelinguisticfeaturepresupposesbeingabletochoosenottoavoidit,i.e.,touseit”（1977,p.97）.However,inSchachter’sstudy,therewasnoproofthatthelearnershadtheabilitytouseRCs.Therefore,theChineseandJapaneselearners’so-calledavoidanceofproducingEnglishRCsmayhaveresultedsimplyfromtheirignoranceofthestructureratherthanconsciousavoidance.Avoidance,asinterpretedbyKleinmann,wasastrategythatL2learnersmightresorttowhen,withtheknowledgeofatargetlanguagewordorstructure,theyperceivedthatitwasdifficulttoproduce.

Tobetterpinpointavoidancebehavior,Kleinmann（1977,1978）examinedfourEnglishgrammaticalstructures（passive,presentprogressive,infinitivecomplement,anddirectobjectpronounstructures）performedbytwogroupsofintermediatelevelESLlearners:

NSsofArabic,andNSsofSpanishandPortuguese.Beforelookingatanypossibleavoidancebehavior,Kleinmannadministeredcomprehensionteststoestablishthepresenceofthelearners’knowledgeofthefourstructuresinquestion.TheresultsofthestudyshowedanavoidancepatterninaccordancewithCAdifficultypredictions.Thefrequencyofuseofthetargetstructureswasalsocorrelatedwithvariousaffectivemeasures（e.g.,confidence,facilitatinganxiety）.Thefindingsinthisaspect,togetherwiththeavoidancepattern,ledtothesuggestionthat“whileCAisafairlygoodpredictorofavoidance,thereisaninteractionoflinguisticandpsychologicalvariablesindetermininglearnerbehaviorinasecondlanguageinthatstructureswhichotherwisewouldbeavoidedarelikelytobeproduceddependingontheaffectivestateofthelearner”（Kleinmann,1977,p.93）.Therefore,thestudysupportedSchachter’spointthatavoidancebehaviorcanbepredictedbythestructuraldifferencebetweenL1andL2,althoughotherfactorsoperateatthesametimetodeterminetheactualoccurrenceoftheavoidancebehavior.

Ontheotherhand,someresearchersarguedthattheunderproductionofcertainlinguisticfeaturesdoesnotnecessarilysuggestavoidance,andthestructuraldifferencebetweenL1andL2alonemaynotbetheonlyreasonforunderproduction.Kamimotoetal.（1992）pointedoutthatinordertobeabletoestablishwhetheravoidanceisafeasibleexplanationforrelativeunderproductionofagroupoflearners,itisnecessarytolookattheL1form,distribution,andfunctionoftheentitysupposedlybeingavoidedintheL2,aswellasthemeansbeingusedtoestablishwhetherandtowhatextenttheentityisalreadypartoftheL2knowledgeofmembersofthatgroup.InadetailedstudyofChineseandEnglishRCs,Li（1996）foundthatintermediateandadvancedlearnersdidnotnecessarilyavoidstructuresthatwereapparentlydifferentinformfromtheirL1.HehenceconcludedthatitwasnottheapparentstructuraldifferencethatcausedChineselearnerstoconsciouslyavoidEnglishRCs,butthemoresubtlepragmaticdifferencesthatmadethemsubconsciouslyunderproducethisstructure.

Theabove-mentionedstudiespointedouttheexistenceandsomepotentialcausesofavoidancebehaviorinL2learners.ThefollowingsectiondiscussesthreestudiesontheavoidanceofEnglishphrasalverbs（PVs）.

AvoidanceofPhrasalVerbsinEnglish

ThePVstructureisapeculiarityofthefamilyofGermaniclanguages（Dagut&Laufer,1985;Darwin&Gary,1999）,andonthewholeoccursmorefrequentlyinspokenthaninwrittenlanguage（Cornell,1985;Dixon,1982;Side,1990）.APVisusuallydefinedasastructurethatconsistsofaverbproperandamorphologicallyinvariableparticlethatfunctionasasingleunitbothlexicallyandsyntactically（Darwin&Gary,1999;Quirk,Greenbaum,Leech,&Svartvik,1985）.VariousattemptshavebeenmadetoclassifyPVs.Somelookedattherelationshipbetweentheverbproperandtheparticle（e.g.,Fraser,1976）,whilesomeothersfocusedonthesemantics.Cornell（1985）observedthatlargenumbersofPVsarenon-idiomaticinnature,inthesensethattheirmeaningiseasytodeduceiftheverbelementisknown.Forexample,ifthemeaningofrushorsteamisknowntothelearner,itwouldnotbehardtounderstandrushawayorsteamoff.IntwostudiesontheavoidanceofPVs（tobediscussedindetailbelow）,DagutandLaufer（1985）andLauferandEliasson（1993）approachedtheclassificationwithdifferenttermsbutthesamenature.DagutandLaufer（1985）dividedthe15PVsusedintheirstudyintothreetypes:

（a）literal—phrasalverbswhosemeaningisastraightforwardproductoftheirsemanticcomponents:

goout,takeaway,comein;（b）figurative—inwhichanewmeaninghasresultedfromametaphoricalshiftofmeaningandthesemanticfusionoftheindividualcomponents:

turnup,letdown,...;（c）completive—inwhichtheparticledescribestheresultoftheaction:

cutoff,burndown,...（p.74）.

Similarly,LauferandEliasson（1993）workedwiththreetypes:

semanticallytransparent（themeaningofthewholeverb-particlecombinationcanbederivedfromthemeaningofitsparts）,semitransparent（thosethataretransparentwhenputintocontext）,andfigurativeor“semanticallyopaque”（p.37）,whichhavelexicalizedmeaning.Thefigurative,oridiomatic,PVswereconsideredsemanticallymoredifficultthanothertypesofPVs.Thedifferencebetweenfigurativeandnon-figurativePVswasalsolookedintoinbothstudies.

TherearethreestudiesontheavoidanceofPVsintheliterature.ThefirststudyisDagutandLaufer（1985）,whichlookedattheperformanceofIsraelilearnersofEnglishonPVs,alexicosyntacticformwithnoformalequivalentinHebrew.ThreegroupsofintermediateHebrewlearnerstookthreetests（amultiple-choicetest,averbtranslationtest,andaverb-memorizingtest）.ThestudyalsolookedintothefrequencyofavoidanceinthreePVtypes（literal,figurative,andcompletive）.TheresultsshowedthatthemajorityofthelearnersavoidedusingthePVs,preferringtheone-wordverbs.Furthermore,avoidancewasmostevidentwiththefigurativePVs.DagutandLauferconcludedthattheHebrewlearners’difficultyinproducingEnglishPVscouldnotbeexplainedbyanyintralingualfactorssuchasover-generalizationorfossilization.Instead,itcouldonlybeunderstoodbyaninterlingualapproach,thatis,structuraldifferencesbetweenL1andL2.Thus,thestudyprovidedstrongevidencethattypologicaldifferencebetweenHebrewandEnglishresultedintheavoidance.

DagutandLaufer’s（1985）studyhastwoweaknesses.First,themethodusedtoestablishparticipants’priorknowledgeofthelinguisticfeatureinquestionwasnotsound.ThechoiceofthePVsdependedprimarilyontheresearchers’impressionfromtheirteachingexperience,asthePVsusedinthestudywerechosenbecausetheywerelistedinoneofthestandardtextbooksandweresupposedtobecoveredinthecurriculum.Thus,aspointedoutbyKamimotoetal.（1992）,theirconclusionthattheyhad“agenuineavoidancephenomenon”（p.78）wasnotwellgrounded.TheunderproductionmayhaveresultedfrompureignoranceofthePVs.Second,althoughDagutandLaufer（1985）pointed