1、 中國(guó)非英語(yǔ)專業(yè)大學(xué)生考試作文中英語(yǔ)冠詞錯(cuò)誤研究研究生：閻艷琳年級(jí)：2007級(jí) 學(xué)科專業(yè)：課程與教學(xué)論研究方向：英語(yǔ)教學(xué)論指導(dǎo)老師：陸巧玲中 文 摘 要由 a, an, the 及零冠詞構(gòu)成的英語(yǔ)冠詞系統(tǒng)是英語(yǔ)中的高頻詞，也是非母語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)者最難掌握和最后習(xí)得的英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)法之一（Master,1990）。在過(guò)去的幾十年中，國(guó)外學(xué)者對(duì)此建樹(shù)頗豐，國(guó)內(nèi)在該領(lǐng)域的研究也屢見(jiàn)不鮮。但國(guó)內(nèi)研究大多不是實(shí)證研究，且其研究范圍多停留在對(duì)冠詞功能的描述上。鑒于此，論文運(yùn)用錯(cuò)誤分析理論，對(duì)中國(guó)非英語(yǔ)專業(yè)大學(xué)生考試作文中的冠詞錯(cuò)誤進(jìn)行了一項(xiàng)對(duì)比研究，旨在揭示中國(guó)非英語(yǔ)專業(yè)大學(xué)生考試作文中冠詞錯(cuò)誤的分布和特征，分析造成錯(cuò)誤

2、的原因，探討其教學(xué)啟示。通過(guò)對(duì)中國(guó)學(xué)習(xí)者英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)料庫(kù)中ST3、ST4兩個(gè)子庫(kù)以及某所醫(yī)科大學(xué)50份作文試卷中冠詞錯(cuò)誤進(jìn)行分類、標(biāo)注、檢索，論文發(fā)現(xiàn)：（1）中國(guó)非英語(yǔ)專業(yè)大學(xué)生考試作文中英語(yǔ)冠詞錯(cuò)誤可分為冠詞缺省，冠詞冗余，冠詞混用及詞序錯(cuò)誤4類。在此基礎(chǔ)上冠詞缺省，冠詞冗余，冠詞混用這三種錯(cuò)誤還可以進(jìn)一步細(xì)分。（2）整體而言, 中國(guó)非英語(yǔ)專業(yè)大學(xué)生考試作文傾向于省略冠詞，其錯(cuò)誤率占冠詞錯(cuò)誤的50%。（3）在四類錯(cuò)誤中, 冠詞缺省的錯(cuò)誤率最高，接下來(lái)分別是冠詞冗余，冠詞混用及詞序錯(cuò)誤。（4）引起冠詞錯(cuò)誤的主要原因可以歸結(jié)為由語(yǔ)言本身引起的內(nèi)部錯(cuò)誤及超出語(yǔ)言本身的外部錯(cuò)誤。（5）引起冠詞錯(cuò)誤的原因并

3、不是相互排斥的，而是相互作用的。一種冠詞錯(cuò)誤可以是由兩種或兩種以上的原因造成的?；谏鲜鲅芯?，論文對(duì)英語(yǔ)冠詞教學(xué)提出以下建議：首先，教師要結(jié)合名詞的用法系統(tǒng)地教授英語(yǔ)冠詞知識(shí)。其次，英語(yǔ)教學(xué)要注意培養(yǎng)學(xué)生使用英語(yǔ)冠詞的意識(shí)。再次，教師應(yīng)利用語(yǔ)料庫(kù)和檢索軟件加大相關(guān)信息輸入。最后，教師要運(yùn)用錯(cuò)誤分析的結(jié)果輔助英語(yǔ)冠詞教學(xué)。關(guān)鍵詞：錯(cuò)誤分析；冠詞錯(cuò)誤；語(yǔ)料庫(kù)；寫(xiě)作考試 A Study of English Article Errors Made by ChineseNon-English-Major College Studentsin Examination WritingsPostgradua

4、te: Yan YanlinGrade: 2007Major Field of Study: Curriculum & InstructionOrientation: English Teaching MethodologySupervisor: Professor. Lu QiaolinAbstract in EnglishEnglish articles, consisting of a, an, the as well as the zero article, belong to a category ofhigh frequency words. However, they also

5、have been considered as one of the most difficult partand the latest part to be fully acquired by non-native speakers (Master, 1990). In the past decades,researches on the article system achieved a lot both in foreign countries and China. But in Chinamost of the researches in this field were not emp

6、irical and they were confined to the descriptionof the usage of English articles. Based on the theory of Error Analysis, this thesis makes acomparative study to explore the distribution and feature of English article errors made byChinese non-English major college students in examination writings, w

7、ith the hope to find thepotential causes behind those errors, so as to throw some light on English article teaching.It is Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC) and the writings of 50 students in a medicaluniversity that are the data sources in the study. After the article errors in the sub-corpus ST

8、3,ST4 of CLEC, and in the writing samples are categorized, annotated and analyzed, the followingfindings are found:(1) The error of articles can be classified into four major categories: omission, additionconfusion and disorder, among which omission addition and confusion of article errors can befur

9、ther divided.(2) Chinese learners tend to leave out English articles in general. The omission of Englisharticle reaches about 50% among these four categories.(3) Of the four categories of article errors, the omission of articles is the most frequent,followed by article addition, article confusion an

10、d article disorder.(4) The major causes of article errors are attributed to the causes within the scope oflanguage itself, and factors beyond language, namely, internal sources and external factors.(5) Causes which result in article errors interact with others. That is to say, a certain kind ofartic

11、le error is caused by two or more causes interactively.Based on the analysis of the above findings, some pedagogical implications for Englisharticle teaching are offered: First, knowledge of articles should be taught systematically in combination with the knowledge of nouns. Next, students awareness

12、 of the usage of articlesshould be raised. Third, learners input should be enhanced with the help of corpora andconcordance tools. Last but not least; error analysis should be employed to facilitate articleteaching.Key words: Error Analysis; article system; corpus; examination writing ContentsAbstra

13、ct in ChineseAbstract in English . iiChapter 1 Introduction11.1 Background of the Study11.2 The Significance of the Study.11.3 The Layout of the Thesis.2Chapter 2 Literature Review32.1 Understanding English Articles.32.1.1 Definition of English Articles.32.1.2 Origins and Forms of Articles.42.1.3 Ba

14、sic Usage of Articles.52.1.4 Previous Studies on English Article System.72.2 Understanding Errors.102.2.1 Definition of Errors.102.2.2 Errors and Mistakes.112.2.3 Brief Introduction to Error Analysis.112.2.4 Procedures of Error Analysis122.3 General Introduction to Corpus Linguistics and Characteris

15、tics of Corpus-basedApproach142.4 Summary.15Chapter 3 Methodology163.1 A Brief Introduction to Chinese Learner English Corpus163.2 Retrieval Software.183.3 Research Questions.183.4 Procedures for the Study.193.4.1 Procedures for the Corpus-based Analysis.193.4.2 Procedures of Data Analysis for the W

16、riting Samples of College Students.21Chapter 4 Result and Discussion224.1 General Findings.224.1.1 A General Description of Article Errors Obtained from CLEC Retrieval22 4.1.2 Results Obtained from the Writing Samples of College Students224.2 Article Errors in Different Environments234.2.1 Article O

17、mission.234.2.2 Article Addition254.2.3 Article Confusion.264.2.4 Article Disorder.274.3 Explanation of Possible Causes for Article Errors.274.3.1 Internal Sources284.3.2 External Factors.324.4 Pedagogical Implications.334.4.1 Knowledge of Articles Should be Taught in Combination with the Knowledge

18、ofNouns.334.4.2 Students Awareness of the Usage of Articles Should be Raised.334.4.3 Learner Input Should be Enhanced with the help of Corpora and ConcordanceTools.344.4.4 Error Analysis Should be Employed to Facilitate Article Teaching354.5 Summary.35Chapter 5 Conclusion365.1 Summary of Findings.36

19、5.2 Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Researches.36Bibliography.38Appendices42Abbreviations.44Publications During the Postgraduate Program.45Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Introduction1.1 Background of the Study This thesis is a study of English article errors made by Chinese non-Engli

20、sh major collegestudents in writing examinations whose theoretical framework is the theory of error analysis andcorpus analysis.Errors are inevitable in the process of foreign language learning，and they can be perceivedand analyzed to manifest learners interlanguage, which is one kind of language pr

21、oduced bylearners during the learning process. According to Dulay, Burt & Krashen (1982), analyzingerrors provides two major purposes:（1）It provides data from which inferences about the natureof language learning process can be made. (2) It indicates to teachers and curriculum developerswhich part o

22、f the target language students have most difficulty producing correctly and whicherror types detract most from a learners ability to communicate effectively. From the 1960s tothe 1970s, error analysis was in its bloom. Afterward, error analysis went through a lag periodbecause of such limitations as

23、 it was time-consuming and difficult to find proper participants. Itis until computer science and corpora were widely used that error analysis was injected freshenergy. With the help of corpora, we can get a large number of authentic language data, retrievespecific error types, count errors and chec

24、k errors in the context. Accordingly, the corpus is aneffective tool that offers a new perspective for researchers and teachers to analyze errors.To cater for the requirements of corpus-based interlanguage studies, Chinese Learner EnglishCorpus (CLEC) was compiled in 1997. The development of CLEC ma

25、kes it possible forresearchers to investigate features of errors made by the Chinese learners, the study is based onwhich and the data obtained from the sample writings of the college students in a medicaluniversity.1.2 The Significance of the Study English articles, consisting of a, an, the as well

26、 as the zero article, belong to a category ofhigh frequency words. As Sinclair (1999) points out that the definite article “the” together witha and an, makes up an average of 8.5% in English literature. As function words, articles havelittle or no meaning of their own, thus the omission and the redu

27、ndancy of English articles do notlead to a serious problem like notional words in expressing meaning, which results in the factthat Chinese students pay less attention to the presence and the absence of English articles.Meanwhile, most grammar books in China for English learners only have few and si

28、mple pagesof statements or rules about English articles. And teachers only spend few lessons teachingEnglish articles at the very beginning of English courses. To some extent, some teachers and1 students usually ignore the usage of articles, and even the advanced Chinese English learners stillhave p

29、roblems in the usage of articles and tend to make article mistakes, when they are requiredto write English compositions. As Master (1990) points out that articles are the most difficult partof English grammar to master for non-native speakers and they are also the latest part to be fullyacquired. So

30、 the usage of articles is not quite simple as they seem. Due to the fact that there is noarticle system in Chinese, the study of English articles would be more difficult for the ChineseEnglish learners.For the above reasons, it is significant to carry out the analysis of English article errors inChi

31、na.1.3 The Layout of the Thesis The thesis consists of five parts in all.Chapter One is an introduction to the study, briefly putting forward the background,significance as well as the skeleton of the research.Chapter Two is a literature review, addressing some theories related to English article sy

32、stem,error analysis, corpus linguistics and previous researches on English article system by both theChinese and overseas scholars.Chapter Three is concerned with methodology. Research questions, data collectionprocedures, retrieval software tool for CLECAntConc will be addressed one by one.Chapter

33、Four presents the research results from the corpus and the data obtained from thewritings of 50 college students, followed by further analysis and discussion.Chapter Five is a conclusive part of the present thesis. Limitations and suggestions for furtherresearches will be provided.2 Chapter 2 Litera

34、ture ReviewThis chapter covers a general literature review related to theories of English article system,errors and error analysis, corpus and the previous studies on an article system.2.1 Understanding English Articles 2.1.1 Definition of English ArticlesIn the previous studies, English articles we

35、re considered as a separate part of speech orclassified into the category of adjectives. Some researchers such as Jespersen (1943)distinguished articles as a kind of pronouns. But contemporary researchers tend to categorizearticles as determiners.Though the study on English article system has a long

36、 history, the definition andclassification of articles are hard to be achieved. To have a general picture of articles, we reviewvarious definitions of articles.According to Oxford English Dictionary (second edition, 1989), “article” is the definitearticle the, the indefinite article a, an, correspon

37、ding adjective in other languages. LongmanDictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics (2002) defined thatThe article is a word which is used with a noun, and which shows whether the nounrefers to something definite or something indefinite. And English has two articles: thedefinite article

38、the and the indefinite article a or an, and in which the definite article isto show that the noun refers to a particular example of something, the indefinite articleis to show that the noun refers to something general or to something which has not beenidentified by the speaker, and there is another

39、kind of article, when nouns are usedwithout an article in English, this kind of article in English is called zero article.Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language (2000) made a summary of Englisharticles usages and features as follows:The definite article marks a phrase as uniquely identifia

40、ble and can be used withany common noun: singular (the house), plural (the houses), uncountable (the bread). Italso forms an essential part of some proper names: The Hague, the Vatican. A/an isused with singular countable nouns: give me a bag Exceptionally and for emphasis,a/an is used before an unc

41、ountable noun3 If we consult Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, we can find the following definition:“The, which is typically used with noun phrases whose referent has either just beenmentioned (or implied) or is assumed to be familiar to uniquely identifiable in someway” (2000:16). “Although a a

42、nd an are indefinite in meaning, reference may begeneral (any person or thing of that class or kind) or more particular (an actual exampleof the class or kind). Some grammarians distinguish these meaning by labeling the firstmeaning as Generic and the second meaning as Specific” (2000:200).From the

43、above definitions and descriptions, we can draw something in common. As Chinesescholar Zhou Zhijian(1983) points out that the article is a kind of determiners, it is viewed as asignal to indicate the referential meaning of a noun. In the present research, we accept thedefinition made by Zhou Zhijian

44、.2.1.2 Origins and Forms of ArticlesWithout doubt, there are at least two kinds of articles, the indefinite article a/ an and thedefinite article the, in Standard English.Traditionally, the is viewed as the definite article, which can be traced back to an olddemonstrative s that was transformed into

45、 that later. Till now, some similarities between theand that can be found. As to the indefinite article a/an, some researches display that theindefinite article originates from the numeral one. That is the reason why a/an has the meaningof one till now.As for the difference between the definite and

46、the indefinite article, some scholars believethat the definite article has a feature of definiteness, while indefinite article indefiniteness. Thetraditional view of definiteness can be summarized as follows: a definite noun phrase refers to areferent which can be clearly recognized by the listener.

47、 That is, definiteness manifests givenness,knowingness and familiarity, while indefiniteness is well regarded as a referent which can not beidentified by the auditor. In other words, indefiniteness means new information to the listener.To sum up, whether a referent is identified by the listener is t

48、he distinction between thedefiniteness and indefiniteness.Besides the definite article and the indefinite article, there is another form of articles: thezero-article, which is still in dispute. Usually, the definite article the and the indefinite article a/an do not exist in the following situations

49、: before proper nouns, material nouns, abstract nounsand plural countable nouns. Some researchers believe that the nonappearance of articles in theabove four situations are cases of the zero article, while other scholars, with Quirk as the4 representative, argue that there is no article before prope

50、r noun, but before material nouns,abstract nouns and plural countable nouns there is a kind of article called the zero article.Considering the unmarked complexity and uncertainty of the zero article, in the study, weonly focus on the definite article and indefinite article.2.1.3 Basic Usage of Artic

51、les2.1.3.1 Quirks Categorization of Article UsageQuirk (1972:149) identifies three forms of articles into two basic reference types: genericreference and specific reference, which establish a frame of articles study (See figure 2.1).Specific reference: indefinite formGeneric reference:Indefinite, ze

52、ro, or definite articleSpecific reference: definite formFigure 2.1 Quirks categorization of article usageIn Quirks view, three forms of articles, i.e. the indefinite article, the zero article and thedefinite article, can achieve generic reference, while specific reference can be realized by takingth

53、e form of the indefinite article and the definite article. Generic reference is used to indicategeneralizations about a class as a whole. According to Richards et al (1985), generic reference isa type of reference which is used to refer to a class of objects or things, rather than a specificmember o

54、f a class, while specific reference refers to a particular specimen of a class in the mindof a speak or a writer, which can be divided into two subcategories: definite reference andindefinite reference. As Chinese scholar Zhou Zhijian (1983) points out that the differencebetween generic reference an

55、d specific reference depends on the scope of referential meaning.When the scope of the specific reference reaches the scope of the denotation meaning, we cancall it as generic reference.2.1.3.2 Semantic Theory of Bickerton and HuebnerQuirks explanation is simple, but it is too abstract to be underst

56、ood and it fails to offer aclear-up criterion to judge generic reference and specific reference. Whats more, Englisharticles contain very little lexical content. They always appear with nouns and never existindependently. Therefore, functions of articles are usually governed by characteristics of no

57、uns.Bickerton （1981）claims that forms of English articles are related to the semantic function ofnoun phrases in discourse, which are governed by two features: whether a noun is a specificreferent (S) and whether a noun is presupposed to the listener (P). According to such analysis,the following sem

58、antic wheel for different forms of English articles (See figure 2.2) is putforward by Bickerton, which illustrates that different referential meanings of noun phrasesdemand specific articles.5 2.+p +sdefinite3.-p+sIndefinite1.+p-sgeneric4.-p-sotherFigure 2.2 Bickertons semantic wheel for the article

59、 systemThis theory has been well accepted by other researchers. Huebner (1983）modifies thistheory by replacing specific referent (S) and presupposed to the hearer( P) with specificreference(SR) and assumed known to the hearer (HK ) (see figure 2.3). In addition, Huebneradds specific environments for

60、 semantic categories. Huebner proposes that type 1-SR & +HK,is known as generics, where the indefinite article, the definite article or the zero article is used.Type 2 +SR & +HK is the definite article. It includes of four subcategories: (a) uniquereferent, (b) physically present referent（particular thing）,