華語二語習得中的情態動詞缺漏--跨語言研究

Different languages encode modality differently. Errors in L2 acquisition hence appear. One of the commonest errors of this kind is modal verb omission. L2 learners of different L1 backgrounds may omit different modal verbs for different reasons. In this study, the modal verbs omitted by L2 Mandarin learners with L1 Japanese and L1 English backgrounds are compared and examined to find out cross-linguistic differences as well as the possible reasons behind. The data used in this study came from the TOCFL learner corpus built by NTNU. The sentences produced by L1 Japanese speakers and annotated with missing modals were retrieved; the same kind of data produced by L1 English speakers was also retrieved. After the uninterpretable ones were excluded, 436 tokens produced by L1 Japanese speakers and 158 tokens by L1 English speakers were left. The first interesting fact found is that modal omissions made by L1 Japanese speakers were about 2.8 times as many as those made by L1 English speakers. This significant difference doesn't seem to result from the word order difference between Japanese and English. The data contributed by L1 Korean speakers learning Mandarin as a second language was also analyzed. The number of the tokens of modal verb omissions produced by L1 Korean speakers is similar to that produced by L1 English speakers while Korean and Japanese are SOV languages and English is an SVO language. On the other hand, this difference is more likely to be caused by the fact that there are no modal verbs in Japanese but there are modal verbs in English Korean. That is, it is important to have a corresponding marker of modality in the learner's L1. Besides, having carefully examined the data, we have several findings. First, about 20% of the omission errors came from the fact that double modals are allowed in Mandarin while they are not allowed in English and there are no modal verbs in Japanese. Second, the modal verb hui was most frequently omitted by both L1 Japanese and L1 English speakers, followed by the omission of yao, and that the most frequently omitted type of modality is epistemic modality. The omission of hui and yao came from the polysemous nature of these two modal verbs while the omission of epistemic modals was most likely caused by the fact that there are no modal verbs nor inflectional markers to mark futurity and prediction in Japanese. This study reveals some effects that cross-linguistic differences of modality may have on teaching Mandarin as a second language to learners of typologically different language backgrounds and have some pedagogical implications for TCFL/TCSL teachers.