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Chapter Six  Conclusion

6.1 Major Findings

Based on the interface hypothesis and the theoretical framework for the acquisition of English LD, this study explored whether the acquisition of LD’s syntactic features and syntax-discourse interface features by Chinese learners could reach the native-like level and what developmental features were presented among different groups through three tasks. In addition, three main factors affecting the acquisition of English LD were found. The major findings are summarized below.

(1) The major findings on the acquisition of syntactic features of LD can be summarized in two points. Firstly, the collective data reveal that all three groups reach the native-like level in their acquisition of LD’s basic syntactic form, but they fail to reach the native-like level in the judgment of the other two incorrect types of LD. This suggests that some of the deeper syntactic rules are still challenging for them. Secondly, by identifying what native-like and non-native-like features each individual exhibits, this study found that the proportions of individuals in each group showing native-like features for the acquisition of these three syntactic features do not show an obvious increasing trend. Neither are there any significant differences in the proportions of non-native-like language features. The non-native-like language features of all groups are mainly divergence and optionality. The individual data demonstrate that the three groups do not show obvious differences in the acquisition of LD’s syntactic features. 

(2) In terms of the comprehension of LD’s syntax-discourse interface features, for LD with discourse-new information (LD1), the collective data show that only the advanced group reaches the native-like level, for LD with inferable information (LD2), all three groups fail to reach the native-like level. Secondly, the individual data indicate that more individuals in the advanced group show native-like features, and the proportion between groups is significantly different under the two contexts. There are also patterns in the proportion of non-native-like language features between groups. For LD1, the proportion of divergence in the total frequency of each group significantly decreases as English proficiency improves, while the proportion of optionality tends to increase meaningly. For LD2, the proportion of optionality is significantly lower in the low-intermediate group than in the advanced group, and the frequency of divergence in the advanced group is much less. The optionality phenomenon is regarded as one non-obvious difference that characterizes near-native grammar (Sorace 2003). Therefore, the developmental trends of both could be summarized as the advanced learners showing the best comprehension, followed by the other two groups of learners. In general, the comprehension of LD’s syntax-discourse interface features is challenging for Chinese learners except for advanced learners’ comprehension of LD1.

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