中国英语学习者口语中which/who等联系代词变异的制约因素
本探讨基于变异理论框架，英语论文网站，旨在略论中国英语学习者口语中that/zero/which/who联系代词变异的制约因素，英语毕业论文，并生成相应的制约因素模型。同时，本探讨还对英语母语学习者与英语二语学习者的联系代词变异制约因素模型进行比较略论。
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Introduction
It is widely accepted that relative clauses in English are the site of a clear case of syntactic variations since there are different choices among the three relativizers:a WH-word,that or zero(Φ)when a relative clause is being produced(Lezcano,1996; Guy et al.,1995).Accordingly,a multitude of corpus-based studies on the distribution of the relativizers have been carried out.However,research on spoken English has invited less attention,if compared to that on written English in the past decades.
Although modern linguists are trying to identify the fundamental factors that contribute to the relativizer variation,no absolute results have been achieved.Even fewer studies have been undertaken on relativizer variation in English as a foreign language(EFL)interlanguage,in particular in spoken speech.Therefore,this study aims at pinpointing the underlying constraints of that/zero/which/who relativizer variation in EFL learners spoken language and deciding whether there is a systematic model governing the EFL interlanguage of Chinese learners.If so,does the hypothetical model resemble that of the native speakers language?
1.2 Research Objectives
This research is conducted to reveal the relativizer variation in Chinese EFL learners spoken English from a quantitative perspective,with a view to coming to a qualitative conclusion.The research objectives are as follows:
First of all,as is said by Tarone(1988),the most basic such assumption is that the language produced by second-language learners is systematic,namely,the language(interlanguage:IL)produced by the second-language learners is not at random,but with certain organization,we make the investigation of relativizer variation to see if this phenomenon is also systematic and to give evidence to the assumption.Systematic variation has been implanted in the theory of interlanguage (Selinker,1969).Interlanguage refers to the systematic knowledge of language which is independent of both the learners first language(L1)and the second language(L2) system they are trying to learn(Ellis,1999,p.42).During the process of second language acquisition(SLA),the system of learners interlanguage is gradually approximating the target language(TL)but still having features of their source language(SL)(Selinker,1972).Young(1991,p.16)points out that the explicitly stated system in interlanguage is defined as a hypothetical relationship between the linguistic forms and the contexts in which they appear.So the grammar of interlanguage is inevitably variable as in its multiple specific realizations.Therefore, the present research may be a contributor to the studies of two aspects of the interlanguage nature:being systemic and variable.
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