華語母語者使用英文動詞之研究：以中級及中高級寫作為例 - 政大學術集成

全文

(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系博士論文. 指導教授：尤雪瑛教授 Advisor: Prof. Hsueh-ying Yu. 政治大. 華語母語者使用英文動詞之研究：. 立. 以中級及中高級寫作為例. ‧ 國. 學. A Study on the Use of English Verbs. ‧. by Chinese Intermediate EFL Learners. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 研究生：藍天佑撰 Name: Tien-yu Lan. 中華民國 109 年 7 月 July, 2020. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(2) A STUDY ON THE USE OF ENGLISH VERBS BY CHINESE INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS. 政治大. A Dissertation Submitted to. Department of English,. 學. National Chengchi University. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 立. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. by Tien-yu Lan July, 2020. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(3) . ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Studying for a Ph.D. is a tough process. Throughout the process, I would like to offer my deepest gratitude to my mentor, Professor Hsueh-ying Yu. She guided and encouraged me regardless of time and effort. She accompanied me through each stage of the Ph.D. process, so that I can do research independently in the future. She is. 政治大 thank all of my committee members, Huei-ling Lai, Siaw-fong Chung, Hao-jan Chen, 立. definitely the most important driving force in my academic career. I would also like to. ‧ 國. 學. Zhao-ming Gao, and Chieh-yue Yeh. They contributed their precious time and gave me substantial suggestions for the refinement of this dissertation. I would also like to. ‧. thank all the professors who taught me during the process.. y. Nat. io. sit. At the same time, I would like to show appreciation to my family. My two. n. al. er. sisters always provided me with their emotional and financial support. My. Ch. i Un. v. grandmother did not know what I was studying, but she always thought I was the best.. engchi. My family gave me strength to face difficulties in the whole Ph.D. process. I also want to give thanks to all the classmates and friends I met along the way. Finally, there are special thanks to Kay who accompanied me through the whole process, making my life colorful. Thank you all.. iii DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(4) TABLE OF CONTENTS. Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... iii Chinese Abstract .............................................................................................. ix English Abstract ............................................................................................... xi Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................ 1. 政治大. Background ................................................................................... 1. 立. Statement of the Purpose ............................................................... 6. ‧ 國. 學. Research Questions ....................................................................... 7. ‧. The Significance of the Study ....................................................... 7. sit. y. Nat. Definition of Terms ....................................................................... 8. n. al. er. io. 2. Literature Review ............................................................................... 11. i Un. v. Verb Types in Chinese and English ............................................... 11. Ch. engchi. English Verbs ........................................................................ 11 Chinese Verbs ....................................................................... 16 Differences Between the Constructions of English and Chinese Verbs ................................................................. 21 Learners Errors and Language Transfer ......................................... 28 Vocabulary Instruction .................................................................. 34 Knowledge of Vocabulary ..................................................... 34 Methods of Teaching and Learning Vocabulary .................... 37. iv DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(5) Lexical Approach .................................................................. 40 Researching and Teaching English Vocabulary in Taiwan ............ 42 3. Methodology ...................................................................................... 44 Data Bank ..................................................................................... 44 Target Words Selection ................................................................. 48 Sentence Collection ...................................................................... 51 Data Analysis ................................................................................ 54 Coding Process ............................................................................. 58. 政治大. 4. Results and Discussion ....................................................................... 59. 立. Analysis of the Five Verb Constructions ....................................... 59. ‧ 國. 學. Errors in Verb Use ................................................................ 60. ‧. V-O Construction .................................................................. 61. sit. y. Nat. V-O-OC Construction ........................................................... 68. n. al. er. io. V-O1-O2 Construction ........................................................... 73. i Un. v. V Construction ...................................................................... 77. Ch. engchi. V-SC Construction ................................................................ 81 Major Findings of the Analysis of Verb Errors .............................. 86 The Overuse of V-O Construction ......................................... 87 The Unnecessary Insertion of Prepositions in Verb Constructions ............................................................ 90 The Use of Verb Phrases (VPs) as Complements ................... 92 Possible Causes Leading to the Errors ........................................... 93. v DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(6) 5. Conclusion .......................................................................................... 99 Answers to Research Questions ..................................................... 100 Research Question 1: What are the Numbers of Correct and Incorrect Cases of English Verb Use by the GEPT Test-takers? ...................................................... 100 Research Question 2: What are the Common Errors of English Verbs Committed by Chinese EFL Learners? And What are the Sources of the Errors? ............................... 101. 政治大. Research Question 3: Are There Differences Between. 立. the Performances of GEPT Intermediate Level and. ‧ 國. 學. High-intermediate Level Writers? .......................................... 102. ‧. Summary of Major Findings ......................................................... 103. sit. y. Nat. Pedagogical Implications .............................................................. 105. n. al. er. io. Limitations of the Study ................................................................ 109. i Un. v. Suggestions for Future Research ................................................... 110. Ch. engchi. References ....................................................................................................... 111 Appendixes A. Target Verbs of V-O Construction ...................................................... 126 B. Target Verbs of V-O-OC Construction ............................................... 127 C. Target Verbs of V-O1-O2 Construction ............................................... 128 D. Target Verbs of V Construction .......................................................... 129 E. Target Verbs of V-SC Construction .................................................... 130. vi DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(7) LIST OF TABLES. Table 2.1 Thematic Roles ................................................................................. 14 Table 3.1 Distribution of Overall Correct Verb Use .......................................... 54 Table 3.2 Distribution of Overall Incorrect Verb Use ....................................... 55 Table 3.3 Distribution of Incorrect Use of Transitive Verbs .............................. 56 Table 4.1 Distribution of Overall Correct Verb Use .......................................... 60 Table 4.2 Distribution of Overall Incorrect Verb Use ....................................... 61. 政治大. Table 4.3 Distribution of Incorrect Use of V-O Construction ............................ 62. 立. Table 4.4 Distribution of Incorrect Use of V-O-OC Construction ..................... 69. ‧ 國. 學. Table 4.5 Distribution of Incorrect Use of V-O1-O2 Construction ..................... 74. ‧. Table 4.6 Distribution of Incorrect Use of V Construction ................................ 78. sit. y. Nat. Table 4.7 Distribution of Incorrect Use of V-SC Construction .......................... 83. n. al. er. io. Table 5.1 The Error Types of English Verb Use ............................................... 97. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. vii DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(8) LIST OF FIGURES. Figure 3.1 The Keyword Search of LTTC-ELC ................................................ 47 Figure 3.2 The Query of the Verb Affect .......................................................... 47 Figure 3.3 The Sampling of Target Sentences ................................................... 53 Figure 3.4 The Flow Chart of Analysis Procedure ............................................ 57. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. viii DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(9) . 國立政治大學英國語文學系博士班博士論文提要論文名稱：華語母語者使用英文動詞之研究：以中級及中高級寫作為例. 指導教授：尤雪瑛教授. 研究生：藍天佑. 論文提要內容：. 政治大 Schmitt (2000)指出語言學習和溝通的核心是詞彙。動詞在當中起著至關重立. ‧ 國. 學. 要的作用，因為動詞是描述句子的核心要素(Sakamoto & Walenski, 1998)。本研究以中文為母語的英語學習者(Chinese EFL learners)經常碰到的一種錯誤為重. ‧. 點—英語動詞在句子結構中的誤用。舉例來說，在例句“*Jimmy has disposed the. y. Nat. io. sit. garbage”中，不及物動詞“disposed”被錯誤地用作及物動詞，省略了介詞“of”。另. n. al. er. 一錯誤範例展現在 S-V-O-OC 結構，例如，學習者傾向於使用“*Jack punched my. Ch. i Un. v. face”，而不是“Jack punched me on my face”。在此範例中，動詞錯誤地搭配了 S-V-O 結構。. engchi. 基於觀察到的錯誤，本研究旨在調查(1)不同語言程度的中文為母語的英語學習者對英語動詞的使用，以及(2)英語動詞使用中的常見錯誤和來源。語料來源是基於英語學習者語料庫(LTTC-ELC)。搜索的關鍵字包括五類的動詞：及物動詞、不完全及物動詞、授與動詞、不及物動詞、以及不完全不及物動詞，總共挑出 50 個動詞。語料分析中，同時使用了量化和質化方法。. ix DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(10) 本研究之量化分析顯示，學習者在使用英語動詞的整體正確率高。質化分析顯示了學習者的三種主要錯誤類型，包括(1)過度使用 V-O 結構，(2)在授與動詞和帶補語的結構中錯誤地插入介詞，以及(3)錯誤地使用動詞作為補語。本研究同時討論了錯誤的可能來源，並根據這些發現提供教學上的建議。. 關鍵詞: 中文為母語的英語學習者, 全民英檢, 英語學習者語料庫(LTTC-ELC), 動詞及物性, 動詞教學. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. x DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(11) Abstract. Wilkins (1972) states in his famous saying that “without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” Schmitt (2000) also indicates that the center of language learning and communication is vocabulary. Among the categories of words in a language, verbs play a crucial role in the understanding of sentences, given their status as clausal heads, that is, the core element that describes the action of a sentence (Sakamoto & Walenski, 1998).. 政治大. Among all the parts of speech, however, the acquisition of verbs is the most. 立. difficult in almost every language (Huddleston, 1984). In particular, the acquisition of. ‧ 國. 學. verbs of a second language is a challenge for EFL learners. The present study focuses. ‧. on one commonly seen error of Chinese EFL learners—the misuse of English verbs in. sit. y. Nat. English sentence structures. A sentence written by a Chinese student best illustrates. n. al. er. io. the case, “*Jimmy has disposed the garbage.” In the sentence, the preposition of the. i Un. v. intransitive verb “of” is omitted. The intransitive verb “disposed” is mistakenly used. Ch. engchi. as a transitive verb. Another type of errors lies in the S-V-O-OC sentence structure. For example, Chinese EFL learners tend to use “*Jack punched my face,” instead of “Jack punched me on my face.” In the example, the verb punch requires the S-V-O-OC structure, while the S-V-O structure is mistakenly used. Based on the observed errors, the present study aims to investigate (1) the use of English verbs by Chinese EFL learners at different language proficiency levels, and (2) the common errors in the use of English verbs. The data bank is based on the English Learners Corpus (LTTC-ELC) from the LTTC, since this study targets at. xi DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(12) Chinese EFL learners and their actual use of verbs. LTTC-ELC contains language data from High-intermediate (HI) and Intermediate level (INT) test-takers in GEPT. The keywords for searching include a total of 50 target verbs across the five verb types: transitive, complex transitive, ditransitive, intransitive, and complex intransitive verbs. In the data analysis, both qualitative and quantitative methods are utilized. The qualitative method discovers the number of correct and incorrect cases of English verb use by the Chinese EFL learners. The qualitative analysis identifies the error types and the sources of errors.. 政治大. The quantitative findings show that the Chinese EFL learners generally. 立. demonstrate quite good performance in the use of English verbs. The qualitative. ‧ 國. 學. findings indicate three major types of errors in English sentences by the Chinese EFL. ‧. learners. The error types include (1) the overuse of the V-O construction, (2) the. sit. y. Nat. unnecessary insertion of prepositions in verb constructions with dative verbs and with. n. al. er. io. complements, and (3) the wrong use of VPs as complements. The possible sources of. i Un. v. the errors are discussed in the present study. Based on the findings, pedagogical. Ch. engchi. implications are given to provide possible solutions for English verb learning and teaching.. Keywords: Chinese EFL learners, GEPT, English Learners Corpus (LTTC-ELC), Verb transitivity, Errors, Language transfer, Verb teaching. xii DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(13) CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. Background Wilkins (1972) expresses in his famous saying that “without grammar, very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” The same idea can be seen in Lewis’ (1993) “lexis is the core or heart of language.” All these show the importance of vocabulary in the mastering of a language. Schmitt (2000) also. 政治大. indicates that the center of language learning and communication is vocabulary.. 立. Vocabulary knowledge is necessary to achieve communicative competence either in. ‧ 國. 學. the spoken or written form, and the lack of vocabulary knowledge may impede. ‧. successful communication.. sit. y. Nat. Among the categories of words in a language, verbs play a crucial role in the. n. al. er. io. understanding of sentences, given their status as the core that presents the major. i Un. v. constituent of a proposition (Kamide & Mitchell, 1999; Sakamoto & Walenski, 1998).. Ch. engchi. A proposition consists of two main parts, including a subject and a predicate. A subject is a noun (N) or noun phrase (NP) that performs the action or represents the existence of being, while a predicate modifies the subject. Verbs form the main part of the predicate in a sentence. Other components of a sentence, such as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, are the arguments which serve to complete predicates. All these features make verbs the most crucial component in forming a sentence. Without verbs, we cannot even form a simple English sentence (Eppler & Ozón, 2013).. 1 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(14) In terms of language learning, however, the learning of verbs is the most difficult among all the components of a sentence (Huddleston, 1984). Common errors in English verbs committed by Chinese EFL learners may be illustrated by the examples below. Firstly, Chan (2004) points out that the categorization of English verbs causes errors for language learners. A high percentage of the learners make errors in distinguishing transitive and intransitive verbs. The example can be seen in Example (1-1). (1-1). *I like. to. listen. music.. 政治大. In the example, the learner treats the verb listen as a transitive verb, and it is directly. 立. followed by the noun music. The second type of error in verb use is the subject-verb. ‧ 國. 學. disagreement. Mohamed et al. (2004) examined grammatical errors by Chinese EFL. ‧. learners. The result shows that the subject-verb disagreement is one of the commonly observed syntactic errors. For example, language learners would make errors in the. sit. y. Nat. *One. al. n. (1-2). io. in Example (1-2).. of my. er. agreement between a singular subject and the verb, and incorrectly form a sentence as. ni C h like to cook friends U engchi. v. Thai-food.. When following a singular third-person subject, the verb like should end with the suffix -s. However, it is wrongly used in the root verb form. Thirdly, the errors in the choice of tense-aspect forms are also commonly made by language learners. Darus (2009) examines common errors in written English essays and finds that the use of English tense forms is one of the common errors made by Chinese EFL learners. The error can be seen in Example (1-3). (1-3). *The maple. leaves. have. fell. in. early winter.. 2 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(15) In the sentence, the past tense verb fell is incorrectly used in the present perfect tense, which actually takes the past participle fallen. Finally, a commonly-observed verb error includes the conjugation of irregular verbs. Naser (2017) states that irregular verbs in English do not follow the system of adding the suffix -d or -ed to the end of the verb. When learners use irregular past tense verbs in a sentence, they are likely to overgeneralize the regular rules, by adding -d or -ed on those irregular ones. For example, in Example (1-4), the irregular verb bring is used as a regular verb. (1-4). *My. father. bringed. me. a book.. 政治大. Among the above-mentioned verb errors, the present study focuses on the first. 立. type of errors (i.e., transitive and intransitive verbs) by Chinese EFL learners. The. ‧ 國. 學. primary reason is that the misuse of transitive verbs for intransitives, or vice versa, is. ‧. frequently observed in Chinese EFL learners’ sentence writing. Chan (2004) also points out that the confusion in verb transitivity accounts for the highest percentage. sit. y. Nat. io. al. er. among negative syntactic transfers in translation works. However, this study. n. examines the errors from another perspective. The verb and the argument structure. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. that it takes in a sentence is the primary target. Examples (1-5), (1-6) and (1-7) best illustrate the cases that learners make errors in assigning arguments to a verb. In Example (1-5), the verb dispose wrongly takes the noun phrase the garbage as its direct object. (1-5). *Jimmy has. disposed. the. garbage.. This is a commonly-observed transitivity error in which an intransitive verb is wrongly used as the transitive without the necessary preposition of. Similarly, in Example (1-6), the verb punch is wrongly used with a direct object as its argument. (1-6). *Jack. punched. my. face. 3 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(16) When expressing the strike of fist, the preposition on is required to introduce the object complement, as in “Jack punched me on my face.” However, Chinese EFL learners may treat punch as a transitive verb and the object complement my face takes over the role of object with the preposition omitted. The last example lies in the use of verbs with another verb phrase as its complement, as in Example (1-7). (1-7). *I forgot. take. medicine.. The verb forget requires an infinitive “to take” or a gerund “taking” as its complement to complete the meaning of the sentence. In the example, however, the verb forget. 政治大. takes another verb take in its base form as the complement. The co-occurrence of more. 立. than one verb in a sentence is common in Chinese, but it is not allowed in English. ‧ 國. 學. grammar.. ‧. For Chinese EFL learners, the differences between the first language (L1) and the second language (L2) is often a source of errors in language learning (Chan, 2004).. sit. y. Nat. io. al. er. Chinese EFL learners’ L1 may cause transitivity errors for verb use in English. One of. n. the problems is that Chinese EFL learners tend to apply the pattern of a Chinese verb. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. and its arguments to its English verb equivalent in a sentence. Errors occur when language users assign the Chinese verb pattern to the English equivalent which actually requires a different pattern in English. Take the erroneous sentence “*Jack punched my face” in Example (1-6) as an example. The sentence seems to be directly translated from Chinese, which is shown in Example (1-8). (1-8). 傑克 (. 打. 我的. 臉. jiékè. dǎ. wǒde. lián. Jack. punch. my. face. “Jack punched me on my face.”. 4 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(17) The Chinese verb dǎ (打) ‘to punch’ requires a subject and a direct object, which is realized in the VO (verb-object) verb pattern. This VO pattern, however, is transferred to the English verb “punch,” which actually takes a subject, an object and an object complement and is realized in the VOOc (verb-object-object complement) pattern. Another example comes from “*I forgot take medicine” in Example (1-7), and its Chinese-English translation can be seen in Example (1-9). (1-9). 我(. 忘記. 吃藥. 了. wǒ. wàngjì. chīyào. le. I. forget. take. past-tense. 政marker治大 “I forgot to take立 medicine.” medicine. ‧ 國. 學. As mentioned, an English verb requires an infinitive “to V” or a gerund “V-ing” as its complement. However, in Chinese, a verb can take another verb phrase as its. ‧. complement. In example (1-9), the verb chīyào (吃藥) ‘to take medicine’ acts as the. y. Nat. io. sit. complement for the main verb wàngjì (忘記) ‘to forget.’ Although Chinese wàngjì. n. al. er. (忘記) and English forget both indicate the failure to remember, they require different. Ch. i Un. v. syntactic patterns. It seems that the learner wrongly applies the Chinese verb pattern to the equivalent English verb.. engchi. Transitivity errors are frequently observed in Chinese EFL learners’ writing. Most of the research states that the source of errors results from L1 interference. However, the process of how the errors occur and the problems that the learners may encounter in using English verbs are worth investigating. With a better understanding of the errors, teaching pedagogy can be provided.. 5 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(18) Statement of the Purpose The aim of the present study is to investigate the use of verbs in English sentences. Different types of verbs are analyzed in the study. The verb types are defined according to the arguments a verb takes (Kim & Sells, 2007). The verb types of English and Chinese will be further discussed in Chapter 2. Motivated by the transitivity errors discussed earlier, the present study hopes to explore how Chinese EFL learners deal with different types of verbs when they write English sentences, and the difficulties the learners encounter. Furthermore, the present study also investigates. 政治大. differences between the performances of learners at different language proficiency. 立. levels. With the results, it is hoped that pedagogical implications that focus. ‧ 國. 學. specifically on the use of verbs can be drawn from the present study.. ‧. To fulfill the purpose, the present study uses the English Learners Corpus. sit. y. Nat. (LTTC-ELC) from the Language Training & Testing Center (LTTC). The LTTC-ELC. n. al. er. io. collects language data of texts written by test-takers of General English Proficiency. i Un. v. Test (GEPT). GEPT is a nation-wide language proficiency test that assesses test-takers’. Ch. engchi. overall language ability. The background of the test-takers is basically Chinese EFL learners. With the use of LTTC-ELC, the researcher collects learners’ sentences in their essays for further analysis. LTTC-ELC contains language data from High-intermediate (HI) and Intermediate (INT) level test-takers in GEPT. The content of data source includes a variety of topics covering the writing section since 2007. The size of LTTC-ELC includes a total amount of 12,779 writing samples. Detailed description of LTTC-ELC will be shown in Chapter 3.. 6 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(19) Research Questions To respond to the purpose of the study regarding the use of verbs in English compositions, the following three research questions are formed: 1.. What are the numbers of correct and incorrect cases of English verb use by the GEPT test-takers?. 2.. What are the common errors of English verbs committed by the Chinese EFL learners? And what are the sources of the errors?. 3.. Are there differences between the performances of GEPT Intermediate level. 政治大. and High-intermediate level writers?. The Significance of the Study. 學. ‧ 國. 立. ‧. This study investigates Chinese EFL learners’ use of English verbs with their. sit. y. Nat. argument structures, and the difficulties they face in their composition. First of all, the. n. al. er. io. study of verbs is often subordinate to vocabulary instructions. Among the studies, verb. i Un. v. transitivity is a significant but less touched one. Oftentimes, learners struggle with the. Ch. engchi. selection of appropriate verbs with their arguments in a sentence. The study of verb transitivity by analyzing the verb and its core arguments can provide a more comprehensive view for verb constructions. It is apparent that the transitive and intransitive dichotomy in current grammar is not sufficient to depict the whole picture. Secondly, the analysis in this study can reveal the errors of verb use in the learners’ writing. It can also show particular verb types that are the most difficult for the Chinese EFL learners. Errors are a significant indicator for how language is learned and what strategies the learners are using in the learning process (Corder,. 7 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(20) 1967). The observed errors can help instructors and researchers identify sources of the errors. It is noted that the study of learner errors is not only to prevent the learners from making errors, but to help them communicate more effectively. The purpose can be achieved through the studies of the errors and their sources. The result is able to bridge the gap in present verb learning and teaching. The traditional instruction based on the distinction between transitive and intransitive features of verbs is not enough. It oversimplifies the nature of verbs and does not take the characteristics of the Chinese EFL learners’ L1 into account. A more suitable. 政治大. instruction specifically for verbs is needed, and it can be attained with the. 立. understanding of the nature of the learners’ use of verbs.. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. Definition of Terms. y. sit. n. al. er. io. Argument. Nat. The definitions of the key terms in the present study are explained as follows:. i Un. v. An argument is an expression that is required by a verb in a sentence (Tesnière,. Ch. engchi. 1969). It helps complete the meaning of a predicate. Typical arguments of an English verb are nouns or noun phrases that take the role of the subject or object. They can also take the form of adjective phrases, or preposition phrases. In other languages, such as Chinese, the argument of a verb can also be verb phrases. Argument Structure An argument structure typically describes the number of arguments a verb takes, and indicates the syntactic and semantic relations between the arguments and the verb (Alsina, 2006). For example, the English verb “kick” requires two. 8 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(21) arguments, a subject and an object, to construct a sentence. For example, in the sentence “Jack kicked the ball,” the subject Jack is in the sentence-initial position, and the object the ball follows the verb. The position of the arguments can be changed and demonstrated in the surface structure of a sentence. For instance, in the sentences “John ate an apple” and “The apple is eaten by John,” the structures are different. However, in these two sentences, the semantic roles of the arguments remain the same. John is the “agent” that does the action, while an apple is the “patient” that receives the action of eating. Verb Transitivity. 立. 政治大. Transitivity is a grammatical feature of verbs that relates to whether a verb. ‧ 國. 學. requires direct objects and the number of objects it takes (Halliday, 2004). If a. ‧. verb takes a direct object, the verb is considered transitive. On the contrary, if a. y. sit. n. al. er. io. Verb Construction. Nat. verb does not require a direct object, it is viewed as intransitive.. i Un. v. The verb construction indicates the composition of a verb and its core arguments. Ch. engchi. in a predicate. Different types of verbs are associated with different verb constructions. For example, a transitive verb requires a direct object (O) in the predicate. The verb and its object form the V-O construction. An intransitive verb does not require objects and thus forms the V construction. Chinese EFL Learners Chinese EFL learners refer to the EFL learners whose first language (L1) is Mandarin Chinese. The term EFL stands for English as a Foreign Language,. 9 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(22) and refers to the environment in which English is not commonly used for communication outside of classrooms (Brown, 2001).. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 10 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(23) CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW. This section reviews the literature on studies of English and Chinese verbs as a part of vocabulary learning and teaching. The whole section can be divided into four parts. The first part introduces the Chinese and English verb types and their argument structures. The second part discusses the source of errors for language learners, particularly in the use of verbs. The third part reviews studies on vocabulary. 政治大. knowledge in learning a language, and the knowledge that people should possess in. 立. order to say they truly know a word. It also introduces how vocabulary should be. ‧ 國. 學. taught, including the principles, guidelines, and classroom practices. Specifically, the. ‧. use of lexical chunks for vocabulary learning and instruction is reviewed. In the last. sit. y. Nat. part, studies on vocabulary instruction in Taiwan is discussed. In particular,. n. al. er. io. vocabulary research and teaching approaches in Taiwan are reviewed in this part.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Verb Types in English and Chinese This part reviews the verb types in English and Chinese, including the semantic and syntactic features of verbs in the two languages. The similarities and differences between the use of English and Chinese verbs are also included.. English Verbs Generally speaking, English is categorized as an SVO (subject–verb–object) language, which means the subject (S) comes first in a sentence, followed by the verb. 11 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(24) (V) and then the object (O). An example of SVO order is in Example (2-1). (2-1). John. ate. an. apple. subject. verb. article. object. In the sentence, John acts as the subject of the sentence, which is the noun that the following elements of the sentence are predicated of. The verb eat describes the action of the subject. The noun phrase an apple is the object that is governed by the action of the verb. Among all the elements in an English sentence, verbs perform the most crucial role in forming a sentence (Housen, 2002). According to Merriam-Webster. 政治大 Dictionary, a verb is defined as a part of speech that conveys physical actions, states 立. ‧ 國. 學. of being, or occurrence in a proposition. These semantic characteristics are demonstrated in the classification of verbs in English. Vendler (1967) presents the. ‧. semantic categorization of English verbs into four categories: activity, state,. y. Nat. io. sit. accomplishment, and achievement. Vendler’s classification is based on the aspectual. n. al. er. properties of the verbs, which is characterized by the duration of time, the end point,. Ch. i Un. v. or any changes. The classification is supported by Verkuyl (1989), Olsen (1994),. engchi. Smith (1997), and Kearns (2000). The activity verbs denote actions or events. According to Biber (2003), an activity verb (or action verb) simply expresses physical actions of the subject. The activity verbs are basically related with our bodies, such as kick, eat, and write, which are opposed to state verbs. A typical example of an activity verb is “John kicked the ball.” In the example, the activity of kicking is passed from the subject John to the object the ball. On the other hand, a state verb (or stative verb) is related to the state of being, that is, our minds. A state verb regards our emotion (e.g., think, feel, and love), senses (e.g., see, hear, and taste), possession (e.g., have,. 12 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(25) own, and possess), and states (e.g., am, seem, and exist). A typical example can be seen in “I feel happy,” in which the verb feel is followed by the emotion to describe the state of the subject. An accomplishment verb also describes activities but it leads to a terminal point, such as build, paint, and write. For example, the sentence “The man built a house” includes an accomplishment verb build. The verb build indicates constructing something by putting materials together over a period of time. Thus, it requires an interval of time and results in an accomplishment of the construction. Finally, an achievement verb describes activities that occur instantaneously, such as. 政治大. find, solve, and faint (Cowan, 2008). For instance, the achievement verb find in the. 立. sentence “He found a job” indicates the instant change of state from “jobless”. ‧ 國. 學. to ”employed.”. ‧. The characteristics of verbs also determine the semantic properties of the core. sit. y. Nat. arguments in a sentence (Fromkin et al., 2003). In specific, a verb assigns thematic. n. al. er. io. roles to its subject and other core arguments in a sentence. These components are. i Un. v. semantically related to the verb. For example, the activity verb kick requires a subject. Ch. engchi. which does the action of kicking and an object which takes the action. The thematic role of the subject of the verb kick is the “agent,” while the object is the “theme.” Typical thematic roles include agent, theme, patient, instrument, experiencer, location, goal, source, possessor (Brinton, 2000). Their semantic properties are in Table 2.1.. 13 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(26) Table 2.1 Thematic Roles Thematic Role. Description. Example. agent. the “doer” of the action. Jean cried.. theme. the person or thing that receives. Jean kicked the ball.. an action patient. the thing that is affected by an action. Jean broke the window.. and changes its state instrument. the means that is used to carry out. Jean opened the door with a key.. an action experiencer. the one who experiences or perceives. Jean feels lonely.. 政治大 the place in which an action occurs Jean put the key in the drawer. 立 the place which an action is directed to Jean sent her grandmother something. goal. 學. possessor. ‧ 國. location. the one who owns a thing. a card.. Jean owns a big dog.. ‧. Note. This table is adapted from Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams (2003).. sit. y. Nat. Furthermore, the semantic characteristics of verbs also decide the number of. io. n. al. er. arguments associated with the verbs (Fromkin et al., 2003; Arslan, 2018). According. v. to Hopper and Thompson (1980), English verbs can be classified into five major. Ch. engchi. i Un. categories, including transitive, complex transitive, ditransitive, intransitive, and complex intransitive verbs. These verbs are categorized according to the core argument they require (Quirk, et al., 1972 & 1985; Huddleston & Pullum, 2002 & 2005). The core arguments controlled by a verbal predicate are related to verb valency, which determines the transitivity features of verbs (Dixon & Aikhenvald, 2000).1. _____________________ 1. Valency refers to the number of core arguments that is required by a verb (Dixon & Aikhenvald, 2000).. Valency is related to verb types. For example, a transitive verb requires two core arguments, including a subject and a direct object, while an intransitive verb requires only the subject as its argument.. 14 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(27) A transitive verb is a verb type that requires one direct object (O). For example, in the sentence “John kicked the ball,” the activity verb kick takes the noun phrase the ball as its O. Semantically speaking, the action of kicking is transferred from the agent John to the theme the ball. A complex transitive verb is a verb type that requires a direct object (O) and an object complement (OC). For example, the dynamic stative verb consider in the sentence “Jean considered herself very lucky” is a complex transitive verb, followed by the O herself and an adjective lucky as the OC. The function of the OC lucky is to complete the role of the O herself. In the example, the. 政治大. object herself is the experiencer that undergoes the perception of lucky expressed by. 立. the agent Jean. A ditransitive verb takes two objects—a direct object (O1) and an. ‧ 國. 學. indirect object (O2), such as “John gave Mary a flower.” In the sentence, the noun. ‧. phrase a flower acts as the O1 that receives the action of the activity verb give, while. sit. y. Nat. the O2 Mary acts as a recipient of the O1 a flower. The theme a flower is given to the. n. al. er. io. goal Mary by the agent John. An intransitive verb is a verb type that does not need a. i Un. v. direct object, such as the activity verb sleep in “John slept.” The verb sleep simply. Ch. engchi. shows the action of resting of the agent John. The complex intransitive verb is a verb type that links the subject complement (SC) to the subject in a sentence. Take the sentence “Jean is upset” as an example. The copular verb is links the emotion of upset to the subject Jean. The subject Jean acts as the experiencer of the negative emotion. The combination of English verbs and their arguments forms the verb construction in a sentence. The five types of verbs are manifested in the five basic verb constructions in English (Stebbins, 2008). The combination of a transitive verb and its direct object forms the V-O construction. A complex transitive verb combines. 15 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(28) with a direct object and an object complement to form the V-O-OC construction. A ditransitive verb and its direct and indirect objects form the V-O1-O2 construction. An intransitive verb does not require a direct object and solely forms the V construction. Lastly, a complex intransitive verb links the subject complement and forms the V-SC construction.. Chinese Verbs Chinese, as English, is also classified as an SVO (subject–verb–object). 政治大. language. The subject (S) comes first in a sentence, followed by the verb (V) and then. 立. the object (O) (Li & Thompson, 2008). A typical example can be seen in Example. ‧ 國. 約翰. 喜歡. 瑪麗. yuēhàn. xǐhuān. mǎlì. Nat. Mary. y. like. sit. John. ‧. (2-2). 學. (2-2).. io. er. “John likes Mary.”. al. In the sentence, the noun yuēhàn (約翰) ‘John’ acts as the subject, followed by the. n. iv n C verb xǐhuān (喜歡) ‘to like’ and the h object e nmǎlì h i U‘Mary.’ Besides the syntactic g c(瑪麗) structure, the semantic properties of the arguments are similar to that of English. In the example, the subject yuēhàn (約翰) acts as the “agent” that does the action of liking, while mǎlì (瑪麗) is the “theme” that receives the action. The function of verbs in a sentence has been studied extensively by researchers. Firstly, Teng (1974) classifies Chinese verbs into three major categories according to their semantic meaning, including action, state and process verbs. Action verbs in Chinese denote physical actions of the subject, such as tī (踢) ‘to kick,’ dǎ (打) ‘to hit,’ zhìzuò (製作). 16 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(29) ‘to make.’ State verbs express a state of being that is in our mind, rather than actions. Examples of state verbs in Chinese include shì (是) ‘to be,’ zhīdào (知道) ‘to know,’ and ài (愛) ‘to love.’ Process verbs refer to the change of state of the subject, such as sǐ (死) ‘to die,’ pò (破) ‘to break,’ and chéngwéi (成為) ‘to become.’ Secondly, Tai (1984), based on Vendler’s (1967) categorization scheme, classifies Chinese verbs into three categories, including activity, state, and result. According to Tai, Chinese has basically the same types of verbs as English. The major difference lies in the result verbs. The result verbs state a clear result or a change of state. For example, the. 政治大. verb chīwán (吃完) ‘to finish eating’ shows the result of having a meal, and the verb. 立. xuéhuì (學會) ‘to learn’ indicates the change of state from ignorance to the acquisition. ‧ 國. 學. of knowledge. Thirdly, Chu (1999) classifies Chinese verbs into two major classes:. ‧. activity verbs and state verbs. The classification is based on both the semantic. sit. y. Nat. meaning and the syntactic features of a verb. The semantic meaning is similar to. n. al. er. io. previous literature, in which activity verbs describe actions, while state verbs express. i Un. v. the mental conditions. The syntactic features of a verb are the other key factor for. Ch. engchi. Chu’s classification, which deals with the components required by the verb (Baker, 1989). For example, a state verb, such as zhīdào (知道) ‘to know,’ does not take the imperative form of qǐng (請) ‘to please’ as in “*qǐng zhīdào (*please know).” Another feature is that the degree adverb hěn (很) ‘very’ modifies only state verbs but not activity verbs. For example, hěn (很) modifies the state verb gāoxìng (高興) ‘happy’ as in “hěn gāoxìng (very happy),” but it does not modify the activity verb gàosù (告訴) ‘to tell’ as in “hěn gàosù (*very tell).”. 17 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(30) The categorization of Chinese and English verbs shares a lot of similarities. Both languages possess action verbs denoting physical actions, and state verbs describing the static status of our mind. Furthermore, Teng’s classification of process verbs in Chinese basically corresponds to accomplishment and achievement verbs in English (Meisterernst, 2015). Tai’s result verbs are often used to describe events that are specified with accomplishment and achievement verbs (Li & Shirai, 2000). In terms of syntactic categorization, Chinese and English verbs have the same categories of verb classifications: transitive, complex transitive, ditransitive,. 政治大. intransitive, and complex intransitive verbs. These verb types are similar in Chinese. 立. and English in that they require the same number of core arguments in a sentence.. ‧ 國. 學. The first type is the V-O construction, in which the transitive verb requires one direct. ‧. objects (O). In Example (2-3), the Chinese verb chī (吃) ‘to eat’ takes pínguǒ (蘋果). y. 吃. mǎlì. io. Mary. eat. 一個. 蘋果. yìkē pínguǒ a l le iv past-tense an apple n Ch U markere n g c h i. n. chī. 了. sit. 瑪麗. er. (2-3). Nat. ‘apple’ as its direct object.. “Mary ate an apple.” The Chinese verb has corresponding construction as that of English. As in the corresponding semantic proposition “Mary ate an apple,” the English verb eat requires one O and forms the V-O construction. These two sentences express similar meaning and show similar syntactic behavior. The second type of sentence structures is the V-O-OC construction, in which the complex transitive verb requires both an O and an object complement (OC). In Example (2-4), the verb rènwéi (認為) ‘to consider’ is a complex transitive verb that. 18 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(31) takes the OC cōngmíng (聰明) ‘smart’ as the complement for its O qiáozhì (喬治) ‘George.’ (2-4). 瑪麗. 認為. 喬治. 很. 聰明. mǎlì. rènwéi. qiáozhì. hěn. cōngmíng. Mary. consider. George. very. smart. “Mary considers George very smart.” In English, the sentence “Mary considers George very smart” also includes a complex transitive verb consider that takes an O George and an OC very smart to complete the meaning of the O.. 政治大. The third type is the V-O1-O2 construction, in which the ditransitive verb. 立. requires two objects, a direct object (O1) and an indirect object (O2). In Example (2-5),. ‧ 國. 學. The verb gěi (給) ‘to give’ is a ditransitive verb that takes two objects, in which shū. Mary. 一本. 書. gěi. dàibǐ. yìběn. shū. give. Debbie. a. book. io. “Mary gave Debbie a book.”. n. al. Ch. y. 黛比. Nat. mǎlì. 給. sit. 瑪麗. er. (2-5). ‧. (書) ‘book’ acts as the O1 and dàibǐ (黛比) ‘Debbie’ the O2.. i Un. v. English has the same expression as in “Mary gave Debbie a book,” in which the. engchi. ditransitive verb give takes two objects, that is, a book as the O1 that receives the action and Debbie as the O2 that is presented with the O1. The fourth type is the V construction, in which the intransitive verb does not allow a direct object. In Example (2-6), the Chinese sentence and its corresponding English proposition include an intransitive Chinese verb dǎpèntìle (打噴嚏) ‘to sneeze’ and an English intransitive verb sneeze without an O. They simply show the action of sneezing of the subjects.. 19 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(32) (2-6). 瑪麗. 打噴嚏. 了. mǎlì. dǎpèntìle. le. Mary. sneeze. past-tense marker. “Mary sneezed.” The fifth type is the V-SC construction, which includes a complex intransitive verb that connects a subject complement (SC) to the subject. In Example (2-7), the Chinese verb kànqǐlái (看起來) ‘to look’ connects the SC hěnhǎo (很好) ‘nice” to its subject. The verb kànqǐlái (看起來) does not describe actions transmitted from the subject to the object, rather it connects the SC hěnhǎo (很好) to the subject mǎlì (瑪麗). 瑪麗 Mary. 很好. kànqǐlái. hěnhǎo. look. nice. 學. mǎlì. 看起來. ‧ 國. (2-7). 立. 政治大. ‧. “Mary looks nice.”. sit. y. Nat. English also has the same expression with the same verb construction. In the. n. al. er. io. corresponding proposition “Mary looks nice” of Example (2-7), the complex. i Un. v. intransitive verb look connects the SC nice to the subject Mary.. Ch. engchi. The above examples of the five verb constructions show that some of Chinese verbs have corresponding English verbs with the same verb constructions. They require the same core arguments in a sentence. However, verbs that share similar meaning in Chinese and English may not be associated with the same verb construction. Take the verb die as an example. The verb is categorized as an achievement verb according to Vendler’s classification (Botne, 2003), but its equivalent verb sǐ (死) ‘to die’ is viewed as a process verb in Teng (1974)’s classification. In terms of the verb construction, the English verb die is an intransitive. 20 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(33) verb that takes the V construction as in “His parents died.” The verb does not require additional arguments to complete the meaning of the predicate. However, the Chinese verb sǐ (死) can take an object and form the V-O construction as in Example (2-8). (2-8). 他. 死. 了. 父母. tā. sǐ. le. fùmǔ. he. die. past-tense. parents. marker “His parents died.” In the example, the verb sǐ (死) takes the object fùmǔ (父母) “parents” to complete its meaning. The example shows that the two language users perceive verbs in different. 政治大 ways. This phenomenon can be a major reason for Chinese EFL learners in making 立. ‧ 國. 學. errors in English sentences. In learners’ data, the errors are commonly observed, such as “*arrive school on time,” and “*chat these things.” The verb arrive and chat are. ‧. used transitively in the sentences. Chapter 4 will include detailed examples and. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. discussion on this issue.. Ch. i Un. v. Differences Between the Constructions of English and Chinese Verbs. engchi. The differences between English and Chinese verbs are classified into three aspects in the present study. The first difference is the syntactic classification of sentences or basic unit structure of the two languages. The second difference is the serial verb construction (SVC), which is often found in the Chinese language but not in English. The third difference is at morphology level. Chinese has a particular verb compound structure, in which a verb is combined with other verbs or parts of speech to form a single Chinese verb.. 21 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(34) In terms of syntactic classification, Mandarin Chinese and English share a lot of similarities. They are both classified as a subject–verb–object (SVO) language. However, English is generally considered as a subject-oriented language (Shibatani, 1991). It requires the overt subject in each sentence, and strictly follows the ordering of subjects, verbs, and objects. When a sentence is formed, the topic that is predicated of needs to be in the subject position of the sentence. Following the subject, the verb and other arguments form a predicate that gives further information about the topic. According to Li and Thompson (2008), on the other hand, Chinese can be. 政治大. categorized as the topic-oriented language (or topic-prominent language), given the. 立. emphasis of the topic-comment structure in the Chinese language. The topic indicates. ‧ 國. 學. the part of sentence that is being talked about, while the comment is what is being. ‧. said about the topic. In the topic-comment structure, the topic is usually the subject. sit. y. Nat. and the comment is taken as the predicate in Chinese. According to Chao (1968, p.69),. n. al. er. io. “the grammatical meaning of subject and predicate in a Chinese sentence is topic and. i Un. v. comment, rather than actor and action.” The idea of topic and comment in Chinese is. Ch. engchi. syntactically more important than that of subjects and objects in English (Xie, 1992). When expressing an idea in Chinese, the topic is typically in the sentence-initial position and followed by the comments. As in Example (2-9), sòngxiǎojiě (宋小姐) ‘Miss Sung’ is the topic that is talked about in the Chinese sentence. (2-9). 宋小姐. 我. 認識. songxiǎojiě. wǒ. rènshi. Miss Sung. I. know. “I know Miss Sung.”. 22 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(35) The comment that follows the topic is wǒ (我) ‘I’ and the verb rènshi (認識) ‘to know,’ but their syntactic roles in English are actually the subject and the verb. On the other hand, the topic sòngxiǎojiě (宋小姐) at the sentence-initial position is the syntactic object of the verb. From the example, we can see that the Chinese word order is not strictly determined by syntactic rules as does English. In Example (2-9), the topic sòngxiǎojiě (宋小姐) and the comment wǒrènshi (我認識) are connected semantically. With this feature, Mandarin is generally regarded as a semantically driven language (Han, 2019). Li and Thompson states that the concept of the subject. 政治大. is not clearly defined by Chinese syntactic structures. The word order is dominated. 立. mainly by semantic factors rather than grammatical functions. In this kind of situation,. ‧ 國. 學. the object does not always come after the verb in the syntactic structure. This is. ‧. probably one of the reasons that Chinese EFL learners are less aware of verb. sit. y. Nat. transitivity. Li and Luk (2017) also stress that the transitivity of Chinese verbs is less. n. al. er. io. obvious than that of English verbs, due to the absence of fixed order of arguments for transitive and intransitive verbs in Chinese.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. The second distinctive feature of Chinese verbs is the serial verb construction (SVC). According to Li and Thompson (1981, p.594), SVC refers to a syntactic structure "that contains two or more verb phrases or clauses juxtaposed without any marker indicating what the relationship is between them." Tsao (1989) further emphasizes that the verbs in that are strung together in SVC need to be understood as having a shared subject. The example of SVC can be seen in Example (2-10).. 23 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(36) (2-10) 我們. 開會. 討論. 問題. wǒmen. kāihuì. tǎolùn. wèntí. we. hold a. discuss. issue. meeting “We held a meeting to discuss the issue.” In the sentence, two Chinese verbs kāihuì (開會) ‘to hold a meeting’ and tǎolùn (討論) ‘to discuss’ co-occur in a single sentence, and they share the same subject wǒmen (我們) ‘we.’ SVC is a structural characteristic that is frequently found in the Chinese language (Ma, 2017). SVC, however, are grammatically prohibited in English because English generally does not allow two or more verbs to be used together in a. 政治大 single clause. When expressing the action of having a discussion, as in the translation 立. ‧ 國. 學. of Example (2-10), a to-infinitive verb is required in the English sentence. When forming English sentences, Chinese EFL learners are likely to transfer the SVC to. ‧. English. The erroneous sentence “*I forgot take medicine” in Example (1-7) shows. y. Nat. io. sit. the case, in which two verbs forget and take co-occur in a single sentence.. n. al. er. The third distinguishable feature of Chinese language is that a Chinese verb can. Ch. i Un. v. form a verb compound with other arguments. Li and Thompson (1981) give the. engchi. definition of a compound by “We may consider as compounds all polysyllabic units that have certain properties of single words and that can be analyzed into two or more meaningful elements, or morphemes (p.46).” Syntactically, Fabb (1998) and Zhang (2009) give similar definition that a Chinese compound is a word consisting of two or more Chinese characters. A typical example of verb compound is dúshū (讀書) ‘to study.’ The verb dúshū (讀書) consists of two elements dú (讀) ‘to study’ and shū (書) ‘book,’ which are two concepts in English. However, according to Tai (1989), the. 24 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(37) verb dúshū (讀書) is semantically inseparable. The two elements form one idea of studying in Chinese. There are many types of verbal compounds in Chinese based on the constituent a verb is associated with (Tang, 1988). Firstly, a Chinese verb is able to combine with other verbs to form a verb compound (Li & Thompson, 1981). The verb compounds can be classified into two types: the resultative verb compounds and the parallel verb compounds. The resultative verb compound contains two constituents, in which the second constituent shows the result of the action done by the first one. For example,. 政治大. the verb dǎpò (打破) ‘to break’ in Example (2-11) corresponds to a single verb break. 立. in English, but there are two constituents in the Chinese verb dǎpò (打破), which are. ‧ 國. 學. dǎ (打) ‘to hit’ and pò (破) ‘to break.’ These two verbs are combined to form a. le. huāpíng. break. past-tense. vase. n. al. marker. Ch “Mary broke the vase.”. engchi. y. dǎpò. sit. 花瓶. io. Mary. 了. er. mǎlì. 打破. Nat. (2-11) 瑪麗. ‧. resultative verb compound.. i Un. v. On the other hand, the parallel verb compound consists of two verbs that either have synonymous meaning or similar predicative functions. As in Example (2-12), the verb xuǎnzé (選擇) ‘to choose’ is a compound verb that consists of two constituents xuǎn (選) ‘to choose’ and zé (擇) ‘to select.’ These two verbs form a compound expressing the idea of picking out something from two or more alternatives as the English verb choose.. 25 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(38) (2-12) 瑪麗. 選擇. 了. 孩子. mǎlì. xuǎnzé. le. háizǐ. Mary. choose. past-tense. children. marker “Mary chose children.” In addition to the verb-verb compound, Chinese verbs also form a verbal compound with nouns. The first one is the subject-predicate compound, in which a noun is combined with a verb to form a compound. In this type of compound, the first constituent, the noun, acts the subject of the second verbal constituent. In Example (2-13), the verb compound tóutòng (頭痛) ‘head-aching’ is composed of two. 政治大 elements tóu (頭) ‘head’ and tòng (痛) ‘to ache.’ 立頭痛. Mary. shícháng. tóutòng. often. head-aching. 學. mǎlì. 時常. ‧. ‧ 國. (2-13) 瑪麗. “Mary often has a headache.”. sit. y. Nat. The subject-predicate compounds often act as verbs in Chinese, and some of them. n. al. er. io. bring idiomatic meanings. Most of the subject-predicate compounds in Chinese are. i Un. v. adjectival verbs (Li & Thompson, 1981). They are predicate adjectives that function. Ch. engchi. as verbs and replace the verb in a sentence (Christensen, 2011). The other type of verbal compound that combines a Chinese verb with a noun is the verb-object compound. According to Li and Thompson (1989), a verb-object compound is the formation that consists of a verb and its direct object. Li and Thompson uses gémìng (革命) ‘to revolt’ as the typical example to explain the features of the verb-object compound. In the verb-object compound, at least one of the constituents in the compound is a bound morpheme that appears only as a part of the compound. Bound morphemes are grammatical elements that cannot occur as independent words, such. 26 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(39) as -tion, -ed, and -ing in English, which is on contrary to free morphemes that can stand alone as independent words, such as car, dog, and man (Rowe & Levine, 2009). In Li and Thompson’s example of gémìng (革命) in Example (2-14), the verb gé (革) is a bound morpheme combined with the other morpheme mìng (命). (2-14) 人民. 正在. 革命. rénmín. zhèngzài. gémìng. people. are. revolt. “People are revolting.” On the other hand, the meaning of the compound is not the composition of the. 政治大. constituents. The compound of gé (革) and mìng (命) elicits idiomatic meanings, in. 立. which these two characters together indicate the overthrow of a government or. ‧ 國. 學. authority with force, which corresponds to the verb revolutionize in English. Finally,. ‧. the constituents in the verb-object compound is fundamentally inseparable. In the compound of gémìng (革命), no other morphemes can be added between the. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. characters.. n. The Chinese compound verb structures may be one of the sources for learners’. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. errors in English sentences. For example, a significant feature for the verb-object compound is that their underlying structure consists of a verb and a direct object, but they together function as an intransitive verb (Li & Thompson, 2008). This phenomenon may cause confusion for Chinese EFL learners. Chapter 4 will present detailed discussion on these problems.. 27 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(40) Learner Errors and Language Transfer In the study of errors of Chinese EFL learners, the Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC) provides one of the largest data banks (Yeh, 2013). CLEC collects language data from English written texts by Chinese EFL learners. It categorizes the learners into 5 levels, including ST2 (senior high school students), ST3 (non-English majors in the first or second year), ST4 (non-English majors in the third or fourth year), ST5 (English majors in the first or second year), and ST6 (English majors in the third or fourth year) (Gui & Yang, 2003). All of the collected data are parsed, with. 政治大. learners’ errors tagged within the corpus. CLEC collects more than one million words. 立. from Chinese EFL learners to form its data base.. ‧ 國. 學. Gui and Yang (2003), the builder of CLEC, categorize verb errors into nine. ‧. types based on their frequency. These error types including tenses, subject-verb. sit. y. Nat. agreements, verb transitivity, fixed expressions, voices, finite verbs, infinitives,. n. al. er. io. modals, and tones. Among these errors, the verb transitivity is the major focus in the. i Un. v. present study. The errors in the verb transitivity is mainly related to the confusion. Ch. engchi. between the use of transitive and intransitive verbs, lack of a preposition for the intransitive verb uses, and the use of wrong prepositions. The difference between the use of transitive and intransitive verbs in Chinese and English may result in the errors. One prominent problem is that Chinese transitive and intransitive verbs do not completely correspond to those in English, and vice versa (Gui & Yang, 2003; Wen, 2014). In the analysis of second language learners’ errors, Brown (2007) indicates four types of error sources, including interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, false. 28 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(41) context of learning, and misuse of communication strategies. Lado (1957), in terms of interlingual transfer, mentions that language learners tend to transfer both forms and meanings of their first language (L1) to the target language (TL). It is believed that second language acquisition (SLA) is largely influenced by the L1 of learners (Ellis, 1985). Ellis (1994, p.95) further defines interlingual transfer as “the application of native language rules in attempted performance in a foreign language, which may result in deviations from target language norms and facilitate foreign language acquisition in some cases.” When it comes to verb use, Kellerman (1987, p.42). 政治大. indicates “there are enormous quantities of evidence for the influence of the L1 on. 立. interlanguage (IL) when it comes to lexis.” When EFL language learners use verbs to. ‧ 國. 學. form sentences in English, the interlingual differences between the learners’ L1 and. ‧. the TL can become the vital source of errors. One of the prominent reasons is that. sit. y. Nat. Chinese EFL learners often believe that each Chinese word has an equivalent in. n. al. er. io. English (Shi, 2015). The observed errors “*Jimmy has disposed the garbage” may. i Un. v. have shown the tendency. The intransitive English verb disposed has a corresponding. Ch. engchi. Chinese verb diūqì (丟棄) ‘to dispose’ but it is used transitively in Chinese. Another common error can be seen in “*I closed the light.” The error results from the fact that the English verb close can be translated into guānbì (關閉) ‘to close/turn off’ in Chinese, which is applicable for both the meanings of “close” and ”turn off” in Chinese and is thus wrongly used in the example. The above-mentioned errors may result from negative L1 transfers, in which the learners directly translate Chinese equivalents to English (Huo, 2014). Dulay and Krashen (1982) specifically define the negative syntactic transfer of the learners’ L1. 29 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(42) into that of the TL as the language interference. Brown (2007) states that the essence of language interference is that “a previous item is incorrectly transferred or incorrectly associated with an item to be learned” (p.102). In terms of verb use, many factors may cause L1 interference. One of the factors is the learners’ use of word-for-word translation (Yang, Ma, & Cao, 2013). The word-for-word translation may sometimes form grammatically acceptable but semantically unacceptable sentences. This may cause errors in the word choice, such as using the verb close to replace turn off in the erroneous example “*I closed the light.” Learners also make. 政治大. errors in choosing proper collocations consisting of a target verb. One reason is that. 立. when learners construct a sentence in English, they often come up with an L1 verb. ‧ 國. 學. and find an equivalent English word, without distinguishing the semantic differences. ‧. (Yang, Ma, & Cao, 2013). Farghal and Obiedat (1995) also find that learners often. sit. y. Nat. rely on simplification strategies, such as L1 equivalence, synonyms, avoidance, and. al. n. verb.. er. io. paraphrasing, when they cannot find correct arguments that collocate with the target. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Secondly, the intralingual transfer refers to the negative transfer within the TL. Generally, the transfer comes from the application of syntactic rules within the TL (Richards, 1971; Brown, 2007). Richard (1971) classifies causes of intralingual errors into four categories, which include overgeneralization, ignorance of rule restrictions, incomplete application of rules, and false concept hypothesized. In terms of overgeneralization, for example, learners may create errors by extending the regular past tense verb ending -ed to irregular past tense verb as shown in “*She goed to New York last year,” instead of “She went to New York last year.” The next type is the. 30 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(43) ignorance of rule restriction, which refers to the learners’ failure to utilize the existing TL structures or rule restrictions. For example, in the sentence “*My brother made me to do it,” the causative verb make is supposed to take the base form of a verb, but it wrongly takes an infinitive in the example. The incomplete application of rules occurs when learners use relatively simple rules to replace complex structures in order to achieve communication. The example can be seen in the use of “How to do it?” instead of “How should I do it?” to ask for help. Lastly, the false concept hypothesized indicates the wrong derivation of language rules, leading to the false. 政治大. hypothesis. For example, some language learners falsely assume that “is, am, are” are. 立. the present tense markers, and form an erroneous sentence such as “*The student is. ‧ 國. 學. talk to his teacher.”. ‧. Martin (1984) suggests that vocabulary instruction via mere synonyms and. sit. y. Nat. glosses in the TL may sometimes lead to improper usage of words. Language learners. n. al. er. io. may view the target word and it synonymous words as equivalent. When a target. i Un. v. word is used in a sentence, the learners may wrongly believe that the target word and. Ch. engchi. the synonyms serve as interchangeable alternatives and thus ignore their subtle differences. An example can be seen in the use of verb discuss from Chinese EFL learners. According to Core-corner (2016), Chinese learners often wrongly use the verb discuss as in Example (2-15). (2-15) *We. will. discuss. about. the. issue.. In the sentence, the verb discuss is used intransitively with a preposition about positioned before the object, but it is actually a transitive verb that takes a direct object in English. The error may come from the confusion between the verb discuss. 31 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(44) and its synonymous verb talk (about). These two verbs share the meaning of speaking so as to give information or express ideas. However, the Chinese EFL learners may regard these two verbs interchangeable and ignore the differences that the verb discuss is a transitive verb but talk is used intransitively. According to James (1998), this phenomenon may result from the false analogy, which occurs when the learners “wrongly assumes that item B behaves like A” (p.185). In specific, when learners have difficulties expressing a target word, they often adopt synonyms or near-synonyms as its substitution. Other substitutions may include the use of. 政治大. antonyms and hypernyms. The use of antonyms to express the target verb can be seen. 立. in the use of “not fall” to replace “rise,” while the use of hypernyms is shown in the. ‧ 國. 學. use of “look” to express “view.”. ‧. Thirdly, the errors the learners make may result from the false context like. sit. y. Nat. learning materials or teaching practice (Brown, 2007). In the L2 classroom, learning. n. al. er. io. materials or textbooks are the main source of language input. These materials. i Un. v. influence the teaching contents and classroom activities and tasks (Davison, 1976;. Ch. engchi. Hutchinson & Torres, 1994; Byrd, 2001). James (1998) mentions that teaching materials may contrarily be the source that causes learner errors. For example, Liu (2014) examines the English textbook in Taiwan regarding verb complements in a sentence. She analyzes two popular textbooks as materials and finds that the treatment of verb transitivity is less desired. The verbs with different transitivity features, including transitive and intransitive, are not provided with enough examples for explanation. It may give the learners incomplete information about the target verb and cause errors.. 32 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(45) Finally, the misuse of communication strategies indicates the selection of improper strategies under the communication situation so that the conveyance of meaning is impeded. Communication strategies are used by the learners to overcome communication impediments caused by the lack of language knowledge (Ellis, 2003). For example, when a language learner does not have adequate knowledge of a target word, he/she may choose a substitute word to replace the target word. In Brown’s (2007) example, the language learner somehow uses the noun road in “*I lost my road” instead of way in the sentence. The substitution is inappropriate in the sentence,. 政治大. although road and way share common meanings in some contexts.. 立. One thing to note is that an error can result from more than one single factor. ‧ 國. 學. (James, 1998). Take “*We will discuss about the issue” in Example (2-15) as an. ‧. example. Apart from the intralingual transfer as discussed, the interlingual transfer. sit. y. Nat. may also be the source of error. The unnecessary insertion of the preposition about. a ldiscuss about the issue. iv n C 討論 h 關於 i U 主題 e n g c h這. n. (2-16) *We. er. io. may also result from the L1 transfer of Chinese, as in Example (2-16). will. 我們. 會. wǒmen. huì. tǎolùn. guānyú. zhè zhǔtí. “We will discuss the issue.” In the example, the error can result from the direct translation of Chinese. Each of the arguments in the English sentence can find a corresponding word in Chinese. The Chinese verb tǎolùn (討論) ‘to discuss’ can be used intransitively with the preposition guānyú (關於) ‘about’ inserted before the object. The learner may insert the preposition “about” in the English sentence as what he/she does in Chinese.. 33 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.

(46) Brown’s four types of errors provide a comprehensive explanation of the sources of learners’ errors, but this study mainly covers the first two types of errors. The primary reason is that present study targets at the Chinese EFL learners’ sentence writing. The language data is analyzed in terms of their syntactic structures. The result may show the interlingual interference between two languages, and the intralingual transfer within a language. The data do not present the teaching context and the communication strategies that learners use.. 政治大. Vocabulary Instruction. 立. The first part of this section discusses the knowledge of vocabulary, that is, what. ‧ 國. 學. it means to really know a word. The methods for vocabulary learning and teaching are. ‧. discussed in the second section. The last part reviews the lexical approach and how it. sit. y. Nat. can facilitate vocabulary learning and teaching.. n. al. er. io. Knowledge of Vocabulary. i Un. v. In recent decades, researchers and educators have started to realize the crucial. Ch. engchi. role of vocabulary in acquiring a language (Cameron, 2001). Schmitt (2000) emphasizes that “lexical knowledge is central to communicative competence and to the acquisition of a second language.” Vocabulary carries the meaning to be conveyed between speakers/writers and listeners/readers. With better knowledge of vocabulary, language learners can express their ideas more freely and clearly. Learners with limited knowledge of vocabulary often face difficulties in understanding information provided (Meara, 1980; Nation, 1990).. 34 DOI:10.6814/NCCU202001590.