A Contrastive Analysis of the Acquisition of Chinese Aspect Markers LE, ZHE and GUO by French Learners
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Wang, Yi-Ting
Abstract
There have been many empirical studies on the L2 acquisition of Chinese aspect markers. However, little research has been undertaken on learners of L1 French. This study aims to reveal the acquisition patterns and potential learning difficulties of post-verbal aspect markers -le, -zhe and -guo by learners of L1 French. A contrastive analysis between the aspect systems of Mandarin Chinese and French was conducted under the framework of the Two-Component Theory (Smith, 1997). There are three types of viewpoint aspects in both Mandarin Chinese and French: perfective, imperfective, and neutral. The differences between the two aspect systems lie in the relation between tense and aspect and in the collocation constraints of the viewpoint aspect and the situation aspect. A cross-sectional investigation on the use of aspect markers by French college students was conducted with the goal of verifying the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1995). 200 final exam compositions written by French college students from Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales were used in this study, and the performance of aspect markers was analyzed from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Results are generally consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis. The perfective -le is used predominantly with Achievement and Accomplishment, and less with Activity and States. Meanwhile, the error analysis shows that L1 transfer plays a crucial role in the early stage of acquisition. French learners consider -le as a past-tense marker, mapping French past tenses passé composé and imparfait onto -le, resulting in overuse. Also, due to the absence of the experiential aspect in French, L1 French learners tend to confuse -le and -guo. As for -zhe, the obligation to mark tense/aspect in French accounts for the overuse of -zhe. Based on the results of the present study, suggestions for future research and a pedagogical material of aspect markers for beginners of L1 French are provided.
Subjects
aspect markers
contrastive analysis
second language acquisition
Mandarin Chinese
French
Type
thesis
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