Interpretation of English Ambiguous Verb-Locative Prepositional Phrase Constructions by Mandarin and Spanish Speakers: Evidence for the Representational Deficit Hypothesis
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Yang Hu
Abstract
This paper presents an empirical study of the acquisition of English ambiguous verb-locative prepositional phrase constructions (VLPPs) by adult Mandarin and Spanish speakers. This study assumes that the semantic properties of the target VLPPs that relate to change-of-Iocation in sentences such as The boat floated under the bridge arise from an uninterpretable syntactic feature selected by English but unselected by Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Results obtained from an animated cartoon selection task indicate that neither the Mandarin nor the Spanish speakers at any level of English proficiency possess native-like interpretative knowledge. Tense/ Aspect effects on the interpretation of the target constructions by Spanish speakers were also found. These results are interpreted as consistent with the Representational Deficit Hypothesis view (Hawkins, 2003, 2005) of adult second language acquisition.
©2014 Walter de Gruyter, Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Tensions in Teachers’ Conceptions of Research: Insights from College English Teaching in China
- Learning to Do Action Research Through Reflection: A Longitudinal Study of Rural EFL Teachers
- Chinese EFL Learners’ Actual Word Processing and Lexical Learning in Performing a Collaborative Output Task
- Interpretation of English Ambiguous Verb-Locative Prepositional Phrase Constructions by Mandarin and Spanish Speakers: Evidence for the Representational Deficit Hypothesis
- Assessing the Roles of Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge in Chinese EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension
- Plagiarism in Their Own Words: What Chinese and American Students Say about Academic Dishonesty
- Instructors’ Debate over Error Feedback on Chinese International Students’ Academic Writings in a U.S. University
- Chinese Abstracts
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Tensions in Teachers’ Conceptions of Research: Insights from College English Teaching in China
- Learning to Do Action Research Through Reflection: A Longitudinal Study of Rural EFL Teachers
- Chinese EFL Learners’ Actual Word Processing and Lexical Learning in Performing a Collaborative Output Task
- Interpretation of English Ambiguous Verb-Locative Prepositional Phrase Constructions by Mandarin and Spanish Speakers: Evidence for the Representational Deficit Hypothesis
- Assessing the Roles of Breadth and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge in Chinese EFL Learners’ Listening Comprehension
- Plagiarism in Their Own Words: What Chinese and American Students Say about Academic Dishonesty
- Instructors’ Debate over Error Feedback on Chinese International Students’ Academic Writings in a U.S. University
- Chinese Abstracts
