【作者】 张勤；

【导师】 褚孝泉；

【作者基本信息】 复旦大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2012， 博士

【摘要】 标记概念,最早由布拉格学派提出。语言学家们从不同角度对标记进行了定义和诠释。种种定义共有一个基本观点,即,一些语言特征,相较于其他语言特征,更为普遍。这些普遍的语言特征被视为无标记特征,其他语言特征则被视为有标记特征。本文运用语言学的标记理论,研究中国大学生英语主题句的习得,包括主题化结构(topicalization),左移位结构(left dislocation),提升结构(raising),分裂句结构(cleft),it外置结构(it extraposition),存现句(existential there)和被动句结构(passive)。研究者们从语言类型学的视角对此问题进行过探讨,指出英汉两种语言的类型学差异会导致汉语主题句句法特征的单向性迁移。具体地说,汉语属于主题突出语言,主题是句子构成的基本单位；而英语属于主语突出语言,主语是句子构成的关键成分。母语为汉语的学生在习得英语主题结构时,就会迁移汉语主题句的句法特征。这种迁移在习得中起主导作用并且影响持久。然而,一次只关注一种英语主题结构并且只强调汉语主题特征的迁移的做法,实际上忽略了英语主题结构之间的差异所造成的习得影响,进而将英语主题句的句法结构对习得的影响最小化。与语言类型学的角度不同,本研究运用一种全新的标记理论探讨英语主题句的句法结构在习得中的作用。首先,基于汉英两种语言的类型学差异,本文认为标记是一个适用于个体语言的概念。其次,本文将标记理论应用于英语主题句的句法分析,而不用于英语主题句的语用分析。再次,对于汉语主题句与英语主题句的标记性,本文采用不同的判别标准。对于汉语主题句,采用频率标准；对于英语主题句,本文认为标记性可根据它们对应的词汇投射结构的转换次数来计算。频率标准最早由格林伯格(Greenberg)提出,而对于英语主题句标记性的判别采用了乔姆斯基(Chomsky)标记理论。在这样的理论基础上,本文得到一个关于英语主题句的标记等级和一个汉语主题句标记性的简单对分(有标和无标主题句)。本文的实验研究包括一项翻译任务和一项写作任务。翻译任务由19句中文句子组成,要求实验参与者将它们翻译成相应的英语主题句式。写作任务要求被试对一连环图画发挥想象,进行描述。这一连环图画含有三幅以时间为序的图片,以及三位卡通人物。参加实验的96位被试来自于中国某所重点大学,他们正在修读大学英语二段、三段或四段的课程。实验结果表明,标记在英语主题句的习得中起着尤为重要的作用。一方面,英语主题结构的标记等级和它们对于被试的难度等级存在一一对应关系；另一方面,英语主题结构的标记性决定习得者中介语的特征,具体地说：英语主题句的标记性越强,被试就越倾向用普遍句法模式来替换主题句。反之,英语主题句的标记性越弱,被试就越倾向使用主题句。曲线图显示了习得者中介语受英语主题句标记性的影响而呈现出的不同特征。曲线图的横轴表示标记性,由左往右,标记性增强；纵轴表示被试使用英语主题句的情况,由下往上,数量增加。研究还发现,习得过程中,汉语主题-述语特征的迁移较易受标记性弱的英语主题句激发,而标记性强的英语主题句的习得很少会触发迁移。这表明,习得难度主要由英语句法结构的标记等级决定,汉语主题突显特征的迁移在习得中只起着次要作用。标记的重要性揭示二语句法习得是一双向的过程,其中英语结构的句法特征,相较于汉语结构,起着更为重要的作用。另外,研究发现,如果两个英语主题结构有相同的标记性,但一个在汉语中有相似的结构,另一个在汉语中没有对应的结构,那么,前者会因为负迁移给习得者造成习得困难。标记理论在本研究中的运用表明语言学理论能对习得者的语言学知识做出统一描述,并能揭示许多其他理论无法准确解释的二语习得过程。鉴于标记在英语主题句习得中的重用作用,我们要重视对有标记英语结构的教学,同时还要竭力培养习得者分析和使用有标记英语结构的能力。更多还原

【Abstract】 The notion of markedness, originating with the Prague school phonology, has been defined in quite a number of different ways. Yet, underlying all of the definitions is the notion that some linguistic features are more "basic" in relation to others, which are "special". The more basic linguistic features are considered unmarked and the special linguistic features marked.This dissertation takes the linguistic theory of markedness as its theoretical pillar and investigates the acquisition of English topic-related syntactic structures on the part of Chinese college students, namely, topicalization, left dislocation, raising, cleft, it extraposition, existential there and passivized constructions.Previous researchers address the issue from a typological perspective (Schachter & Rutherford,1979; Rutherford,1983; Yip,1995; Han,2000). They point out that there is a syntacticization process of interlanguage progressing from topic-comment to subject-predicate for Chinese learners and that in this process the transfer of Chinese topic-comment features is dominant and persistent. In considering just one type of English topic constructions at a time and highlighting the transfer of typological topic-comment patterns from Chinese to English, the typological perspective pays no attention to the different influences on acquisition brought about by the syntactic differences between those structures and accordingly minimizes the effect that the syntactic dimension of the various English topic-related constructions can have on acquisition.Bearing the inherent limitations of the typological perspective in mind, we aim to unveil the influence of the syntactic mechanisms of English topic sentences on acquisition by adopting a unique perspective of markedness. First, we hold that markedness is a language-particular notion—what is marked in one language may be unmarked in another. Second, without considering the pragmatic aspect of topic sentences, we apply the markedness analysis to the syntactic aspect of topic constructions only. Third, we make use of different criteria to determine the markedness status of Chinese topic constructions and English topic constructions. For the Chinese topic constructions, frequency is used as the main criterion; for the English topic constructions, we take their markedness to be measured roughly by the number of movements necessary for their derivation from lexical projections. While frequency is obviously a criterion suggested by Greensberg (1966), the criterion employed to evaluate markedness of English topic-related structures is apparently taken from Chomsky (1973,1989). On this premise, we derive a markedness hierarchy of the various English topic-related constructions and a markedness dichotomy of corresponding topic constructions in Chinese.The experimental study consists of two elicitation tasks, namely, a Translation Task and an Essay-writing Task. The Translation Task involves 19 Chinese sentences to be translated into various English topic constructions. The Essay-writing Task invites the participants to describe three pictures which are in a chronological sequence and contain three different animal characters. The participants in the current study are 96 Chinese learners of English. They are non-English majors in a Chinese university with different language backgrounds, ranging in proficiency from LevelⅡto Level V of a 4-level integrated course program offered by the university.The results reveal that markedness plays an important role in the acquisition of English topic-related constructions. On the one hand, the difficulty degree of these topic constructions for Chinese learners generally corresponds to their degree of markedness. On the other, learners’ interlanguage would exhibit characteristics traceable to the markedness of these topic constructions, namely, the more marked the topic constructs are, the more probably the learners would use the universal syntactic pattern and the less probably the learners would use the marked topic constructions and vice versa. This is better illustrated by a curve diagram with the horizontal axis marking a continuum of English topic constructs in terms of markedness and the vertical axis the production of the topic constructs by Chinese learners. It is also revealed that topic-comment transfer from Chinese to learners’ interlanguage is likely to be triggered by somewhat marked and more marked yet not most marked topic constructions. This indicates that markedness hierarchy within English the target language mainly influences degree of difficulty in acquisition and determines interlanguage patterns, and that Chinese topic-comment transfer plays just a secondary part. Put differently, in learners’syntactic development of a second language the target language system predominates in the interaction with the native language system.The present research has both theoretical and pedagogical implications for second language acquisition. Theoretically, the application of markedness theory into the present study attests that particular approaches to linguistic theory could provide a uniform account of learners’linguistic knowledge and inform us greatly about how second languages are learned. Pedagogically, given the importance of markedness in acquisition of English topic structures, great importance should be attached to marked English structures in teaching practice and learners’ability to analyze and use marked English structures should be enhanced.更多还原