中国英语学习者口语中定语从句的发展性特征探讨

ation. In function, defining attributive clause  modifies  and  restricts  antecedent.  If  it  removes,  the  meaning  of  the  entire sentence will be changed. Defining  attributive clause is  closely connected with  the antecedent. While,  non-defining  attributive  clause  is  not  so  closely  connected  with antecedent  as  it.  Non-defining  attributive  clause  does  not  restrict  the  meaning  of antecedent,  but  only  serves  as  a  supplementary  explanation.  In  addition,  defining attributive clause and non-defining attributive clause differ in form. In writing, there is usually a comma separating non-defining attributive clause from the other constituents of the main sentence. In speech, there is usually a clear phonetic break for separation. However,  there  is  no  comma  separating  defining  attributive  clause  from  the  other constituents of the main sentence and in speech, there is no obvious pause between them (Zhang 2002;  Zhang & Su 2006). Relatives  except “that”  can introduce both defining  attributive  clause  and  non-defining  attributive  clause.  

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Chapter Three   Theoretical Foundation ............................ 19

3.1 Language Transfer .................................. 19

3.1.1 Definition of Language Transfer ............................... 19

3.1.2 Types of Language Transfer ................................... 20

Chapter Four   Research Methodology ..................... 25

4.1 Research Questions .................................... 25

4.2 Research Methods ....................................... 25

Chapter Five   Results and Discussion ................ 33

5.1 The Use of the Status Quo of Attributive Clauses ........................... 33

5.1.1 The Use of the Status Quo in Terms of the Numbers and Types ................ 33

5.1.2 The Use of the Status Quo in Terms of Accuracy .......................... 35

Chapter Five   Results and Discussion

5.1 The Use of the Status Quo of Attributive Clauses

By analyzing the corpus, it is found that there are similarities in the numbers, types and errors of attributive clauses produced by learners in these three grades, that is, grade one at senior middle school, grade one at university and grade four at university.

5.1.1 The Use of the Status Quo in Terms of the Numbers and Types 

The number of attributive clauses and the types of attributive clauses in the three grades are quite similar.  

(1) From the perspective of the number of attributive clauses

Judging from the number of attributive clauses, there are 30 attributive clauses in the sample corpus of the fourth-year English majors (folder 1), 50 attributive clauses in the corpus of the first-year English majors (folder 2), and 22 attributive clauses in the sample  corpus  of  the  first-year  students  at  senior  middle  school  (folder  3).  By calculation, the number of attributive clauses in the sample corpus of the first-year students  at  senior  middle  school  is  2.88%  of  the  total  number  of  sentences  in  the samples of the grade. The number of attributive clauses in the spoken corpus of the first-year English majors makes up 3.18% of the total number of sentences in the corpus of that grade. The number of attributive clauses in the corpus of the fourth-year English majors accounts for 2.59% of the total number of sentences in the samples of that grade.

Table 5.1 The number of attributive clauses 

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Chapter Six  &n