Interlanguage: Activity 2

Acquisition of null elements

Some interlanguage rules are formed when the native language and target language rule systems differ. For example, a subject or object is sometimes missing in a Chinese sentence where it must be supplied in English (Li & Thompson, 1981). The following example shows that both the subject “我(I)” and the object “冰淇淋 (ice cream)” are omitted in the response, a pattern which is not grammatically acceptable in English.

A: 你想吃冰淇淋吗？(You want eat ice cream MA*)?
B: 想吃(want eat). *MA = a question marker

The missing subject and object, called null elements in Chinese, which are important and unique features of Chinese, may be a potential learning obstacle for English speaking learners, who may try to transfer English patterns into their Chinese. In a study of adult English speakers learning Chinese as a L2, Jin (1994) suggested that English-speaking learners tend to overproduce subjects and objects in Chinese at first (initially transferring this pattern from English) and gradually learn to drop them as their proficiency increases.

In the first table below, we list all the cases in Jiulin’s Interview task when he either overproduces or deletes subjects and objects. We highlight the cases of overproduction. In the second table, we add the deleted subjects or objects, highlighted and in brackets.

Is there a pattern in Jiulin’s interlanguage use of null elements? If yes, what is it? 

Note:
In each of the above cases, it’s acceptable to either drop the first subject or the second. For convenience, we mark the second subject consistently.

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