英语论文网

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the present study
The term fossilization was firstly proposed by Selinker (1972) in his book Interlanguage.It refers that the second language learners do not make stable progress toward the targetlanguage and are stuck in the stagnant state in comparison with their beginning learningperiods. Later on, it gives rise to a lot of hot discussions for the causes of this phenomenon andaccordingly some research-related achievements have been reached (Johnson, 1992; Selinker& Lamendella, 1978; Vigil & Oller, 1976; Han 2004, etc). Selinker and Lamendella (1978)concluded that both internal and external factors play a role in this process. In 1992, Selinkermade a new definition of fossilization in his book Rediscovery Interlanguage. He explainedthat some language items, grammatical rules and systematic knowledge which exist in theinterlanguage of the second language learners tend to be fixed no matter of what their ages andamounts of the input given to them.Apart from it, many Chinese scholars like Chen (陈慧媛,1999), Gui (桂诗春, 2010) andDai&Niu (戴伟栋,牛强,1999) focus their attentions on this phenomenon as well. On one hand,they have been committed to introduce the theories from abroad; on the other hand, they makeanalysis of this phenomenon according to the problems existed in Chinese learners who learnEnglish as their second language. Dai&Niu (戴伟栋,牛强,1999) pointed that the interlanguagemade by non-English majors are not fossilized completely, in other words, they are in a state ofstabilization or temporary fossilization. Learners are more likely to reach their second learningclimax on the condition that they are given the optimal input. On this basis, this thesis aims toprobe the nature of these grammatical errors. Are they fossilized? What are their characteristics?Are there some teaching methods which can contribute to the prevention of the phenomenon offossilization to some extent?
………………

1.2 Significance of the present study
In order to help English learners to develop further toward their target language and makea tentative study on the fossilization-related grammatical errors, this research mainly focuseson probing into the characteristics of these grammatical errors existed in Chinese non-Englishmajors’ compositions. Moreover, some pedagogical interventions are offered by the teacher.Through making the comparison of the quantities of grammatical errors before and aftergrammatical explanations from their teacher, it aims to look into whether these errors arefossilized or not and what its forming process is. Last but not least, since it is more importantto prevent fossilization than de-fossilization(陈文存，2000), it is essential to provide someimplications to teachers and offer suggestions to learners. It is hoped that this research canmake some contributions to helping the English learners to prevent the fossilized errors andcan shed light on the researches of fossilization in the further study as well.
………………

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Interlanguage
The starting point for any discussions of the mental processes for the second languageacquisition is about the concept of interlanguage, a term coined by Selinker (1972). It is used torefer both the internal system that a learner has constructed at a single point in time (‘aninterlanguage’) and to the seri本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。