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Behaviours of wh-words in English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions: Evidence of no variability, temporary variability and persistent variability in L2 grammars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2007

BOPING YUAN
BOPING YUAN
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Abstract

This paper presents an empirical study of how different wh -words behave in English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions. Our results indicate that L2 Chinese wh-questions are specified by the Chinese wh -particle ne and that there is neither variability nor L1 transfer in this aspect of L2 grammars as no wh -movement is found in English speakers' L2 Chinese. However, wh -words do not develop in a uniform fashion and different wh -words behave differently both synchronically and developmentally in English speakers' L2 Chinese. There is evidence for both temporary variability and persistent variability in some aspects of English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions. This is believed to result from breakdowns at the lexical morphology–syntax interface and morphosyntax–semantics interface levels in L2 Chinese grammars. We will provide an account for the no variability, temporary variability as well as persistent variability in English speakers' L2 Chinese wh-questions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 2007 , pp. 277 - 298
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2007

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Footnotes

The research reported in this paper is part of a project on mental representations of wh-words in non-native grammars of Chinese, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council in England (grant reference number: RES-000-22-0180). I gratefully acknowledge the financial support for the project from the ESRC. I would also like to thank the following people for their invaluable assistance in my data collection: Shio-yun Kan, Yang Song, Jing Fang, Lianyi Song, Dian Huang, Guohua Chen, Yang Zhao, Limin Jin, Xue Gu and Bin Yu. I am also indebted to students and teaching staff from Oxford, London, Westminster, Leeds, Durham, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Cambridge Universities in the U.K. for their participation in my empirical study. Without their help, this research project would have been impossible. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at GALA 2005 Conference at the University of Siena, Italy, and at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Hunan University. I thank the audiences for their valuable and helpful comments and suggestions. I would also like to express my gratitude to two anonymous BLC reviewers and to Ping Li for their valuable and insightful comments on earlier versions of the paper.