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Abstract：This thesis investigates the judgment of English ambiguous sentences by Chinese-learners of English in order to explore the L2 learners’ linguistic competence concerning lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic， and pragmatic knowledge. This thesis aims to find out： 1） the extent to which Chinese-learners of English have acquired the ability to judge English ambiguous sentences pertaining to the lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic， and pragmatic knowledge； and 2） whether the L2 learners’ English proficiency improves their accuracy in their judgment. The results indicate that the Chinese-learners of English have not acquired the ability of judging English ambiguous sentences even at their fourth year of college studies. The findings of the study suggest that the L2 learners’ ability to judge the English ambiguities need develop over the course of language learning and more effort should be imposed on the development of L2 learners’ ability to identify English ambiguities in our language teaching.
Key words： English ambiguous sentence；Chinese-learners of English；L2 Acquisition
Chapter 1 Introduction
This thesis is a study on L2 acquisition of English ambiguous sentences by Chinese learners. This paper adopts a questionnaire method to investigate middle school students and college students of English and non-English majors. The findings are that although the performance of the college students in their third and fourth years is better than the other lower groups， their accuracy rate is below 60%， which is much lower than that of the English native speakers whose average accuracy rate is 96.47%. As for the five types of ambiguous sentences， lexical and structural types of ambiguous sentences are better than the other three types， but the accuracy rate is below 50%， which is much lower than that of the native speakers， whose rate is 97.33%. So the gap between L2 learners and native speakers is quite great. To narrow down the gap and help the L2 learners to develop an ability to judge English ambiguities， it is necessary to emphasize the second language input such as reading and listening in our teaching English as a second language.
Chapter 2 Experiment
This experiment investigates the judgment of English ambiguous sentences by Chinese-learners of English in order to explore the L2 learners’ linguistic competence in second language acquisition.
2.1 Experimental Method
A software named “Sojump” was adopted in the experiment. The Chinese name of “Sojump” is called “Wenjuanxing”， which is a professional platform for the online questionnaire survey， evaluation and voting， providing users with powerful， humanized online questionnaires. The participants can finish the whole questionnaire by phone or computer. Participants volunteer to fill this questionnaire. Therefore， the sampling of the participants is randomized. As the task is accomplished on line， a large number of data can be accumulated. 2.2 Participants
The participants of this experiment are high school students and college students. Their first language is Mandarin Chinese. The data in “Sojump” show that the total L2 participants are 166. Among them， 81 are male participates， and 85 are female.
The participants are divided into five groups. There are 26 high school subjects， 50 freshmen， 29 sophomores， 27 juniors and 34 seniors. Among them， the high school students and college students of 1-3 years are non-English majors， and students of fourth year are English majors.
The control group is made up of eight native speakers. Four of them are from America， and the other four are from England. Their ages range from 21 to 26. The numbers of males and females are equal， as shown in Table 3. The four boys are Eric， Jacob， Wayne， and John. The four girls are Jane， Alice， Rebecca， and Alex.
2.3 Experimental Material
The lexical ambiguous sentences are：
（1） Let me drive you to the bank.
（2） They found hospitals and charitable institutions.
（3） He is drawing a cart.
（4） John is looking for the glasses.
（5） No one came to Simba’s party. He was upset.
（6） Mary asked Jane if she could do anything for her.
（7） She told me that Joe had come，which pleased me.
（8） The students like science teachers because they are realistic.
（9） John gave Bill a picture of himself.
（10） Henry told John himself.
The morphological sentences are：
（11） Flying planes can be dangerous.
（12） Visiting relatives can be boring.
（13） The refugees had discarded clothes.
The structural sentences are：
（14） Shylock is calculating.
（15） The father found his daughter a good teacher.
（16） The manager appointed her a secretary.
（17） She showed her baby photos.
（18） Mary would like to help her students， and Jane does too.
（19） My mother likes me more than my sister.
（20） We know the boy better than you.
（21） Could you see the girl not far from the old man reading a book？
（22） He hit the man with a stick.
（23） He approached the man with a hello.
（24） The lady is friendly enough to help.
（25） The lion is too small to kill.
（26） Chicken are ready to eat.
（27） Jack saw Jill in the bus.
（28） The ship floating quickly sank.
（29） I saw a girl at the bookshop. （30） Julia only goes to church on Sunday morning.
（31） They saw the boy sitting in the room.
（32） She looks care of old men and women.
（33） Shakespeare was a writer and dramatist of great fame.
（34） Someone tells me he’s cheating and i can’t do anything about it.
The semantic ambiguous sentences are：
（35） Mary didn't dance to please her boyfriend.
（36） He didn't have his supper because of his father.
（37） I did not leave because I was afraid.
（38） Every boy loves a girl.
（39） He left the bathroom unwashed.
（40） Tell me if you have time.
And pragmatic sentences are as follows：
（41） It is cold here.
（42） These are his teacher’s books.
（43） What a day！
（44） Not much music entertained us.
（45） Nothing is good enough for him.
（46） The love of God is everlasting.
2.4 Results
By calculating the data in “Sojump”， the result shows that the accuracy rates of senior high school students， freshmen， sophomores， juniors and seniors are 33%， 32.65%， 37.43%， 54.82%， and 58.37% respectively. The result shows that as the growth of the learning phase， the right ratio is becoming higher.
As for the five types of ambiguous sentences， the accuracy rates of L2 leaners’ judgments of lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic and pragmatic ambiguous sentences are 47.13%， 44.89%， 49.45%， 44.97%， and 44.31% respectively. The differences across sentence types are not significant. The results indicate that the L2 learners’ judgments of the lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic and pragmatic ambiguous sentences are similar.
The highest percentage rate of judging ambiguity is 49.45%， which is far lower than that of native speakers. The accuracy rates of the native speakers’ judgments of lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic and pragmatic ambiguous sentences are 100%， 96.15%， 95.32%， 96.15%， and 100% respectively. The lowest rate is 95.32%， which is far higher than the highest rate of L2 learners’ accuracy rates.
The results show the senior class did better than the lower classes， but seniors’ accuracy rate is much lower than that of the native speakers. In some aspects， high school students did better than freshmen. In addition， sophomores did better than the freshenmen， and juniors did better than the sophomores.
The results of the One-Way ANOVA show that with respect to the judgments of the lexical ambiguous sentences， the difference was significant across the five L2 groups （F（1，4）=5.099， p<.01）. The results of the Post Hoc tests show that the difference between the senior group and the high school group was significant （p<.001）. The difference between the senior class and the freshman class was significant （p <.001）. The difference between the senior class and the sophomore class was significant （p<.01）. The difference between the senior class and the junior class was not significant （p >.05）. The results of other groups through ANOVA and Post Hoc are almost the same.
Chapter 3 Conclusion
This thesis investigates the judgment of English ambiguous sentences by Chinese-learners of English in order to explore the L2 learners’ linguistic competence concerning lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic， and pragmatic knowledge. The findings are that Chinese learners’ performance is different from that of the English native speakers. While the native speakers’ performance is almost perfect， the L2 learners’ performance is around the chance level （50%）. Even the average accuracy rate of the English majors in their fourth year of study is below 60%. The results indicate that the Chinese-learners of English have not acquired the ability to judge English ambiguous sentences even after four years of English study. The findings of the study suggest that the L2 learners’ ability to judge the English ambiguous sentences has to develop over the course of language learning. L2 learners’ linguistic competence of English should be strengthened through language input and language teaching.
References：
[1]Austin， J. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. London： Oxford university press.
[2]Cann， R.， 1993. Formal Semantics. Cambridge： Cambridge University Press.
[3]Chomsky， N.A.， 1955. Transformational Analysis. Ph.D. dissertation， University of Pennsylvania.
[4]Chomsky， N. （1986a） Knowledge of Language： Its Nature， Origin and Use. New York： Praeger.
[5]Corder， S. P A Role for the Mother Tongue. In Gass and Selinker Rev. eds： Language Transfer in Language Learning [C] Benjamins Publishing Company， 1992.
[6]Hadumod Bussmann Routledge. 2000. Dictionary of Language and Linguistics [M].北京：外语教学与研究出版社.
[7]Krashen， S. （1985a）， The Hypothesis： Issues and Implications （London： Longman）.
[10]陈晓燕. 2011. 论我国国内英语歧义句的研究现状和不足[J]. 现代交际，2011，07：36.
[11]樊林. 2002. 淺谈英语歧义句的应用[J]. 盐城师范学院学报（人文社会科学. 版），2002，04：82-84.
[12]范丽群.图形-背景理论视角下的英语句法结构歧义认知分析.湖南农业大学学报（社会科学版），2008年7月，第4期：86-87.
[13]何云剑，吴素红.2009.从句法学角度探讨英语歧义句[J].现代商贸工业，2009，03：191-192.
[14]黄国文.1983.试论英语歧义结构的形成与歧义的排除[J]. 外语学刊，1983，02：10-16+66.
[15]刘艳. 普遍语法在第二语言习得中的可用性研究[D].吉林大学，2004.
[16]鲁华山. 克拉申的可理解性输入假说的研究[D].吉林大学，2004.
[17]刘永厚. 2005. 谈英语中歧义句类型[J]. 北京第二外国语学报，2005，06：52-55.
[18]雷乾进. 浅谈外语学习的习得与语感的形成[J]. 青春岁月，2013，14：304.
[19]彭宁红. 试论二语习得过程中语言迁移现象的本质[D].湖南师范大学，2005.
作者简介：郭玮，1994年3月5日出生，女，汉族，甘肃庆阳人，现就读于陕西师范大学外国语学院，2017级外国语言学及应用语言学专业，硕士研究生，主要研究方向：英语教育。
Key words： English ambiguous sentence；Chinese-learners of English；L2 Acquisition
Chapter 1 Introduction
This thesis is a study on L2 acquisition of English ambiguous sentences by Chinese learners. This paper adopts a questionnaire method to investigate middle school students and college students of English and non-English majors. The findings are that although the performance of the college students in their third and fourth years is better than the other lower groups， their accuracy rate is below 60%， which is much lower than that of the English native speakers whose average accuracy rate is 96.47%. As for the five types of ambiguous sentences， lexical and structural types of ambiguous sentences are better than the other three types， but the accuracy rate is below 50%， which is much lower than that of the native speakers， whose rate is 97.33%. So the gap between L2 learners and native speakers is quite great. To narrow down the gap and help the L2 learners to develop an ability to judge English ambiguities， it is necessary to emphasize the second language input such as reading and listening in our teaching English as a second language.
Chapter 2 Experiment
This experiment investigates the judgment of English ambiguous sentences by Chinese-learners of English in order to explore the L2 learners’ linguistic competence in second language acquisition.
2.1 Experimental Method
A software named “Sojump” was adopted in the experiment. The Chinese name of “Sojump” is called “Wenjuanxing”， which is a professional platform for the online questionnaire survey， evaluation and voting， providing users with powerful， humanized online questionnaires. The participants can finish the whole questionnaire by phone or computer. Participants volunteer to fill this questionnaire. Therefore， the sampling of the participants is randomized. As the task is accomplished on line， a large number of data can be accumulated. 2.2 Participants
The participants of this experiment are high school students and college students. Their first language is Mandarin Chinese. The data in “Sojump” show that the total L2 participants are 166. Among them， 81 are male participates， and 85 are female.
The participants are divided into five groups. There are 26 high school subjects， 50 freshmen， 29 sophomores， 27 juniors and 34 seniors. Among them， the high school students and college students of 1-3 years are non-English majors， and students of fourth year are English majors.
The control group is made up of eight native speakers. Four of them are from America， and the other four are from England. Their ages range from 21 to 26. The numbers of males and females are equal， as shown in Table 3. The four boys are Eric， Jacob， Wayne， and John. The four girls are Jane， Alice， Rebecca， and Alex.
2.3 Experimental Material
The lexical ambiguous sentences are：
（1） Let me drive you to the bank.
（2） They found hospitals and charitable institutions.
（3） He is drawing a cart.
（4） John is looking for the glasses.
（5） No one came to Simba’s party. He was upset.
（6） Mary asked Jane if she could do anything for her.
（7） She told me that Joe had come，which pleased me.
（8） The students like science teachers because they are realistic.
（9） John gave Bill a picture of himself.
（10） Henry told John himself.
The morphological sentences are：
（11） Flying planes can be dangerous.
（12） Visiting relatives can be boring.
（13） The refugees had discarded clothes.
The structural sentences are：
（14） Shylock is calculating.
（15） The father found his daughter a good teacher.
（16） The manager appointed her a secretary.
（17） She showed her baby photos.
（18） Mary would like to help her students， and Jane does too.
（19） My mother likes me more than my sister.
（20） We know the boy better than you.
（21） Could you see the girl not far from the old man reading a book？
（22） He hit the man with a stick.
（23） He approached the man with a hello.
（24） The lady is friendly enough to help.
（25） The lion is too small to kill.
（26） Chicken are ready to eat.
（27） Jack saw Jill in the bus.
（28） The ship floating quickly sank.
（29） I saw a girl at the bookshop. （30） Julia only goes to church on Sunday morning.
（31） They saw the boy sitting in the room.
（32） She looks care of old men and women.
（33） Shakespeare was a writer and dramatist of great fame.
（34） Someone tells me he’s cheating and i can’t do anything about it.
The semantic ambiguous sentences are：
（35） Mary didn't dance to please her boyfriend.
（36） He didn't have his supper because of his father.
（37） I did not leave because I was afraid.
（38） Every boy loves a girl.
（39） He left the bathroom unwashed.
（40） Tell me if you have time.
And pragmatic sentences are as follows：
（41） It is cold here.
（42） These are his teacher’s books.
（43） What a day！
（44） Not much music entertained us.
（45） Nothing is good enough for him.
（46） The love of God is everlasting.
2.4 Results
By calculating the data in “Sojump”， the result shows that the accuracy rates of senior high school students， freshmen， sophomores， juniors and seniors are 33%， 32.65%， 37.43%， 54.82%， and 58.37% respectively. The result shows that as the growth of the learning phase， the right ratio is becoming higher.
As for the five types of ambiguous sentences， the accuracy rates of L2 leaners’ judgments of lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic and pragmatic ambiguous sentences are 47.13%， 44.89%， 49.45%， 44.97%， and 44.31% respectively. The differences across sentence types are not significant. The results indicate that the L2 learners’ judgments of the lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic and pragmatic ambiguous sentences are similar.
The highest percentage rate of judging ambiguity is 49.45%， which is far lower than that of native speakers. The accuracy rates of the native speakers’ judgments of lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic and pragmatic ambiguous sentences are 100%， 96.15%， 95.32%， 96.15%， and 100% respectively. The lowest rate is 95.32%， which is far higher than the highest rate of L2 learners’ accuracy rates.
The results show the senior class did better than the lower classes， but seniors’ accuracy rate is much lower than that of the native speakers. In some aspects， high school students did better than freshmen. In addition， sophomores did better than the freshenmen， and juniors did better than the sophomores.
The results of the One-Way ANOVA show that with respect to the judgments of the lexical ambiguous sentences， the difference was significant across the five L2 groups （F（1，4）=5.099， p<.01）. The results of the Post Hoc tests show that the difference between the senior group and the high school group was significant （p<.001）. The difference between the senior class and the freshman class was significant （p <.001）. The difference between the senior class and the sophomore class was significant （p<.01）. The difference between the senior class and the junior class was not significant （p >.05）. The results of other groups through ANOVA and Post Hoc are almost the same.
Chapter 3 Conclusion
This thesis investigates the judgment of English ambiguous sentences by Chinese-learners of English in order to explore the L2 learners’ linguistic competence concerning lexical， morphological， syntactic， semantic， and pragmatic knowledge. The findings are that Chinese learners’ performance is different from that of the English native speakers. While the native speakers’ performance is almost perfect， the L2 learners’ performance is around the chance level （50%）. Even the average accuracy rate of the English majors in their fourth year of study is below 60%. The results indicate that the Chinese-learners of English have not acquired the ability to judge English ambiguous sentences even after four years of English study. The findings of the study suggest that the L2 learners’ ability to judge the English ambiguous sentences has to develop over the course of language learning. L2 learners’ linguistic competence of English should be strengthened through language input and language teaching.
References：
[1]Austin， J. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. London： Oxford university press.
[2]Cann， R.， 1993. Formal Semantics. Cambridge： Cambridge University Press.
[3]Chomsky， N.A.， 1955. Transformational Analysis. Ph.D. dissertation， University of Pennsylvania.
[4]Chomsky， N. （1986a） Knowledge of Language： Its Nature， Origin and Use. New York： Praeger.
[5]Corder， S. P A Role for the Mother Tongue. In Gass and Selinker Rev. eds： Language Transfer in Language Learning [C] Benjamins Publishing Company， 1992.
[6]Hadumod Bussmann Routledge. 2000. Dictionary of Language and Linguistics [M].北京：外语教学与研究出版社.
[7]Krashen， S. （1985a）， The Hypothesis： Issues and Implications （London： Longman）.
[10]陈晓燕. 2011. 论我国国内英语歧义句的研究现状和不足[J]. 现代交际，2011，07：36.
[11]樊林. 2002. 淺谈英语歧义句的应用[J]. 盐城师范学院学报（人文社会科学. 版），2002，04：82-84.
[12]范丽群.图形-背景理论视角下的英语句法结构歧义认知分析.湖南农业大学学报（社会科学版），2008年7月，第4期：86-87.
[13]何云剑，吴素红.2009.从句法学角度探讨英语歧义句[J].现代商贸工业，2009，03：191-192.
[14]黄国文.1983.试论英语歧义结构的形成与歧义的排除[J]. 外语学刊，1983，02：10-16+66.
[15]刘艳. 普遍语法在第二语言习得中的可用性研究[D].吉林大学，2004.
[16]鲁华山. 克拉申的可理解性输入假说的研究[D].吉林大学，2004.
[17]刘永厚. 2005. 谈英语中歧义句类型[J]. 北京第二外国语学报，2005，06：52-55.
[18]雷乾进. 浅谈外语学习的习得与语感的形成[J]. 青春岁月，2013，14：304.
[19]彭宁红. 试论二语习得过程中语言迁移现象的本质[D].湖南师范大学，2005.
作者简介：郭玮，1994年3月5日出生，女，汉族，甘肃庆阳人，现就读于陕西师范大学外国语学院，2017级外国语言学及应用语言学专业，硕士研究生，主要研究方向：英语教育。