“This” or “one” but not “the” or “a” : article replacement by Chinese students

1. “This” or “one” but not “the” or “a” : article replacement by Chinese students By: January Forsthoefel

2. Topic Area • Second language acquisition • lexical transfer

3. Background/Justification • It is well known that the Chinese language does not have functional equivalents of the English definite and indefinite articles. • in order to fulfill the article position, many Chinese students choose to use “this” instead of “the”, “one” in stead of “a” before NP • one part of lexical transfer in L2 acquisition process.

4. References • Jarvis, S. (2002). Topic continuity in L2 English article use. Studies of Second Language Acquisition, 24, 387-418. • Shi, D. (2000). Topic ad topic-comment constructions in mandarin Chinese. Language, 76(2), 383-408. • Parrish, B. (1987). A new look at methodologies in the study of article acquisition for learners of ESL. Language Learning, 37(3), 361-383. • Robertson, D. (2000). Variability in the used of the English article system by Chinese learners of English. Second Language Research, 16(2), 135-172. • Young, R. (1995). Form-function relations in articles in English interlanguage. In R. Barley & D. Preston (Eds.), Second language acquisition and linguistic variation (pp. 135-175). Benjamins: Amsterdam.

5. Research Questions • How often do Chinese students use demonstratives instead of definite article? • How often do Chinese use numerals instead of indefinite article? • When do they make demonstratives?

6. METHODOLOGY • Participants: 40 Chinese EFL learners. 3 years of English learning 40 Chinese EFL learners. 5 years of English learning

7. Methodology • Procedure: • give students 40 mins to write the story “the snow white and the seven dwarfs” in English, starts with “once upon a time,…..”. • Collect the writing samples and diagnose the articles errors. • Compare the article omission with using demonstratives and numerals instead of articles. • Categorize the use of demonstratives and numerals.

8. Analysis • Quantatitive Analysis • Table data comparison.

9. Expected Findings • Besides omitting articles, students prefer demonstratives and numerals rather than articles when articles are needed in their L2 production. • With higher L2 proficiency, students tend to use more numerals in stead of demonstratives in article error production.

10. Anticipated Problems/Limitation of Study • The topic given to participants is not suitable enough to test their proficiency of article mastery in L2 English • Limited written samples, which are not sufficient to account for quantitative data base. • Articles are too controversial in English language.