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CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I am going to discuss the implications of the present study in sections 5.1. In section 5.2, I will present the limitations of the present study and give some suggestions for further research.
5.1 Pedagogical and Linguistic Implications
Two issues were discussed in the present study: the SLA issues and the linguistic issues.
First, it was found in the study that our high achievers and low achievers had similar interpretations of English QNPs, even though their number of years of English learning was different. They all were influenced by their L1 knowledge when interpreting English sentences with QNPs. That is to say, these English learners indeed had difficulties in interpreting English QNPs. Nevertheless, English exhibits scope ambiguity more freely than Chinese and ambiguous sentences can result in misunderstanding during communication. Accordingly, the development of TEFL theories to help Taiwanese students acquire English QNPs is necessary.
Second, as discussed in many studies, quantificational noun phrases can be divided into two types: universal and existential, and some syntactic constructions containing one universal QNP and one existential QNP sometimes have more than one interpretation. (cf. Keenan 1971, May 1977, Kempson & Cormack 1981, Hornstein 1984, Haegeman 1994, Carpenter 1997). However, it was found in the present study that most sentences with QNPs were ambiguous to our subjects. That is, when the subjects interpreted the test sentences, some preferred the preceding QNP to have a wide scope interpretation and some preferred the following QNP; therefore, we
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can only say that the ambiguity property of some syntactic constructions, such as the simple passive and dative constructions, was more conspicuous than others. These findings did not meet the previous researchers’ predictions, implying that syntactic and semantic theories need to be revised to capture the present empirical findings.
5.2 Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for Further Research In this section, I will present the limitations of the present study and give some suggestions for further research.
First, there was no proficiency test given to divide the subjects into the high proficiency and low proficiency groups, because the high school students who participated in the experiment had no more time to take such a test. Therefore, I could only divide the subjects into two experimental groups, high achievers and low achievers, by their number of years of English learning and their major. Hence, further study may examine different proficiency groups, and see if the results are the same as the present findings.
Second, we have found that the English learners interpreted English QNPs in the same way as they interpreted Chinese QNPs and their interpretations were different from the native controls’. However, will a similar result be obtained when the subjects’ L1 is not Chinese and L2 is not English? Future research on L1 influence on the interpretations of L2 QNPs is recommended.
Third, the present study only investigated the English learners’ interpretations of sentences with a universal QNP, every, and an existential QNP, one. However, there are other quantificational noun phrases, such as each, all, some, and any. Accordingly, the present findings could not provide a whole picture about EFL learners’
interpretations of all QNPs. Future research on how English learners interpret other QNPs is necessary.
