Title

Author(s)

Cantonese-speaking students' handling of WH-questions in

English

Wat, Lok-Sze, Josephine.; .

Citation

Issued Date

URL

Rights

2006

http://hdl.handle.net/10722/51791

The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights)

and the right to use in future works.

CANTONESE-SPEAKING

STUDENTS

HANDLING OF WH-QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH

by

Wat Lok Sze, Josephine

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the Degree of Masters of Arts
at The University of Hong Kong

June 2006

Abstract of dissertation entitled

Cantonese-speaking Students Handling of WH-questions in English
Submitted by
Wat Lok Sze, Josephine
for the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics
at The University of Hong Kong
In June 2006

Both L1 and L2 empirical researches reveal that difficulty in handling

wh-movement in English interrogatives is a common phenomenon for both L1 and L2
English learners. Previous studies suggested that the properties of the wh-words,
imperfect application of inversion rule, syntactic complexity, first language
intervention and learners use of learning strategies all contributed to the
phenomenon.
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the phenomenon of
performing inversion in English interrogatives by Hong Kong primary schools
learners of English as a second language. Three research questions are studied in the
present study: (1) what type(s) of wh-question(s) causes difficulty in wh-movement
to Hong Kong learners of English as a second language, (2) What is/are the reason(s)
for the difficulties and (3) What are the pedagogical implications to teaching and
learning. Twenty upper-primary students from a government-aided primary school
participated in the study.
For research question 1, subjects were asked to do a
question-and-answer (Q & A) test in English interrogatives to investigate what types
of wh-questions causes difficulty in wh-movement. For research question 2, a
grammatical judgment task was conducted to examine the degree of first language
intervention.
For research question 3, an intensive instruction of learning
strategies was given to the subjects for a week. The effectiveness of the instruction
was evaluated by asking the subject to do the Q & A test again in research question 1.
Results of the test reveal that subjects have better performance in handling
wh-movement in argument wh-questions than in adjunct wh-questions. Learners
performance is sensitive to syntactic complexity. First language intervention is not
the prime and sole cause of the difficulty in handling inversion.
Students
performance of inversion can benefit from the proper use of learning strategies.
With reference to the results of the study, it is concluded that the difficulty of
wh-movement is a multi-factor phenomenon.
Properties of the wh-words, syntactic
complexity, first language intervention and language learning strategies all play a role.
The research findings in the present study confirm previous L1 and L2 research on
inversion.

Declaration

I declare that this dissertation represents my own work, except where due
acknowledgment is made, and that it has not been previously included in a thesis,
dissertation or report submitted to this University or to any other institution for a
degree, diploma or other qualifications.

Signed .

CANTONESE-SPEAKING

STUDENTS

HANDLING OF WH-QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH

by

WAT LOK SZE, JOSEPHINE

M.A. DISSERTATION

THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

2006

Contents
Declaration . i
Table of Contents ii
List of Tables / Appendices . iii
Chapter 1
Introduction 1
Chapter 2
Researches in L1 English-speaking children handling wh-movement . 2-7
Chapter 3
Researches in wh-movement in English as a second language 8-11
Chapter 4
The role of first language 12-18
4.1 Empirical researches and the predictability of errors
Chapter 5
The role of learning strategies .19-31
5.1 McLaughlins information processing model (1990)
5.2 Andersons Active Control of Though (ACT*) model (1985)
5.3 OMalley and Chamots (1990) application of ACT* model to
learning strategies
Chapter 6
Research questions and Methodology 32-37
Chapter 7
Results and Discussion 38-48
7.1
Types of wh-questions cause difficulties in wh-movement
7.2
The relationship between students performance and syntactic
complexity
7.3 The relationship between first language intervention and the
performance of wh-movement
7.4
The relationship between the teaching of language learning
strategies and wh-movement
7.5
Discussion
Chapter 8
Conclusion ..49
Appendices 50-52
Bibliography / References ..53-56
ii

Illustrations
Tables
Table 1
Classification of learning strategies ..29-30

Table 2
Performance of subjects in handling wh-movement in simple argument wh-questions and
simple adjunct wh-questions ...39

Table 3
Performance of subjects in handling wh-movement in argument wh-questions, adjunct
wh-questions

and

wh-questions

with

complex

syntactic

structures..40

Table 4
Performance of subjects in grammatical judgment task .42

Table 5
Performance of subjects in handling wh-movement in argument wh-questions, adjunct
wh-questions after the instruction of learning strategies ..43

Table 6
Comparison of subjects performance in handling wh-movement in argument
wh-questions and adjunct wh-questions before and after the instruction of learning
strategies ..44

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Handling wh-movement (or the wh-inversion or subject-auxiliary inversion) in
English interrogatives has long been one of the weak points in childrens
performance.

For children using English as their first language, it is believed that

children make errors in forming questions due to the fact that they are not yet
acquired the rule of inversion when forming and answering questions. (Erreich, 1984)
Some researchers even believe that the production of these errors is due to the
imperfect copying of adult rule of children and they applied that imperfect rule to the
formation of questions. (Hurford, 1975).

However, for the studies focusing on the

other area of grammatical development, it is believed that the inability of forming

correct inverted wh-questions is not because of childrens imperfect application of
the inversion rule. Rather, it can be explained in terms of the childrens knowledge
of particular lexically-specific wh-word + auxiliary combinations, and the patterns of
inversion and uninversion can be predicted form the relative frequencies of these
combinations in the mothers speech. (Roland & Pine, 2000).

How about the case in Cantonese students using English as their second
language?

Do they have difficulties in handling wh-movement in English

interrogatives?

What are the causes for that? The aim of the present paper is to

investigate what causes the difficulties of handling wh-movement to Hong Kong

primary students who learn English as their second language, why they have such
kinds of difficulties and to suggest some ways to help students learning and
teachers teaching based on the findings from the present investigation.

CHAPTER 2
RESEARCHES IN L1 ENGLISH-SPEAKING CHILDREN
HANDLING WH-MOVEMENT
Childrens handling of wh-movement in interrogatives has long been the
focus of a number of grammatical development studies in English as a first language.
For many rule-based theories of language acquisition, it is believed that children
handle syntactic categories of subject, verb and auxiliary by manipulating some
kinds of rules to produce rule-governed grammatical utterances. (Roland & Pine,
2000) For handling the wh-movement, they assume that children are applying the
following grammatical movement rules to transform a declarative sentence into
interrogatives.

First of all, the object of the sentence, for instance, the playground

in The children are playing in the playground, is replaced by the wh-word (The
children are playing in where?). Then, the object wh-word will be put in the
beginning of the sentence, moving to the specifier position of the complementizer
phrase, CP (where the children are playing). After that, the subject (the children) and
the auxiliary (is) are inverted and the auxiliary moves into the head position of the
complementizer phrase, CP (where are the children playing?) The process of this
transformation is known as the subject-auxiliary inversion rule.

Once children are

able to produce a large number of correctly inverted wh-questions, it is assumed that

they are applying the above grammatical rules to produce grammatically corrected
wh-questions.

For the occurrence of wh-inversion errors explained in terms of

therule-governed theory, Bellugi and her associates first reported it in the late
1960s (Bellugi, 1965; Klima & Bellugi, 1966; Bellugi, 1971). They presented a
number of uninverted questions in which the auxiliary and the subject were not

inverted as in the correct adult form. The rule-governed advocates believe that it
can be explained in terms of the imperfect application or copying of the rule.
Hurford (1975) suggested that there was a common rule for forming yes/no questions
and wh-questions in childrens question formation.

He presented some pattern of

childrens inversion errors and pointed out that childs errors of inversion were the
result of childrens imperfect copying of the adult rule and they applied that
imperfect rule to both classes of questions.

He suggested that children copied the

word order of adult question-forming rules without deletion and hence producing
ungrammatical questions like Whats that is? Whats this is? and Whose is that
is?

Erreich (1984) observed 18 childrens elicitation to yes-no questions and

wh-questions and examined their pattern of errors.

The collected data revealed that

the pattern of errors did not suggest that children are unable to perform inversion or
because they do not know that inversion applies to wh-questions, but because they
have not yet acquired a particular refinement of the rule - the condition which
inversion is obligatory in wh-questions. (Erreich, 1984)

Crain & Nakayama (1987) further examined Hurfords paper (1975) and
proposed that Hurfords notion of imperfect copying of inversion rule was a kind of
competence errors that children encountered when they made questions. These
kinds of errors were sensitive to the questions structure in which that kind of
performance errors that occur only in sentences which have syntactic and semantic
properties of some complexity. (Crain & Nakayama, 1987).

In order to draw a firmer conclusion about childrens sentence processing

3

difficulties in forming questions, Crain & Nakayama (1984) conducted a test in

which each participant was given a set of test sentences in which all the test
sentences were systemically varied in sentence constituents with respect to the
syntactic complexity of the subject NP, sentence length and the syntactic category of
the main clause predicate.

The results showed that childrens inversion errors

appeared in the following circumstances: (1) when the subject NP contained a

relative clause, (2) when the relative clause had an object gap and (3) when the
relative clause was long.

Villiers & Roeper (1995) also have similar findings in their study.

They

conducted a cross-sectional study of 23 children to see whether the relative clauses

are barriers for young children to wh-movement.

They presented short stories

followed by questions with the wh-word which had two possible sites of
interpretation and found that young children are unable to extract wh-questions
from the ungrammatical site inside a relative clause.

(Villier & Roeper, 1995) It is

suggested that one of the directions accounted for the occurrence of childrens
inversion errors depends on their ability of applying correct inversion rule and the
complexity of the sentence structure.

However, studies conducted in other areas of grammatical development

have questioned the above rule-governed assumption. They pointed out that the
presence of such errors implies that the movement rule is not sufficient to explain
why children sometimes apply the inversion rule and sometimes fail to do so if it was
based on the assumption that the production of inverted questions should be related
to the application of the movement rule.

A number of grammatical researches

reveal that children are not able to generalize the knowledge of using one lexical
4

item in a particular construction quickly to other members of the same grammatical

category or to other constructions. It means that the production of the correctly
inverted wh-questions of children is not because of their ability to apply the above
complicated rule-governed process. Childrens grammatical knowledge on producing
inverted wh-questions is much more limited in scope. (See e.g. Braine, 1976; Kuczaj
& Brannick, 1979; Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1983; Ninio, 1988; Tomasello, 1992; Lieven,
Pine & Baldwin, 1997; Pine, Lieven & Rowland, 1998).

Similar results have been

reported for some early wh-constructions. For example, Klima & Bellugis study
(1966) suggested that the early wh-formations of Adam, Eve and Sarah (from Brown
corpus, 1973) were stemming from only two low-scope formulae: what + Noun
Phrase (+doing) and where + Noun Phrase (+doing).

In addition, Fletcher (1985)

pointed out that the wh-questions with auxiliaries produced by Sophie, one of the
subject of the study, could be explained almost exclusively with reference to three
wh-word + auxiliary combinations: how+do, what+are and where+s.

In order to justify the above assumption, Roland & Pine (2003) analyzed the
longitudinal data from Adam from the Brown corpus (Brown1973) and argued that
childrens formation of questions cannot be explained by the general movement rule
by DeVilliers (1991) and Valian, Lasser & Mandelbaum (1992).

Rather, it can be

explained in terms of childs knowledge of particular lexically-specific wh-word +

auxiliary combinations and the pattern of inversion and uninversion can be predicted
from the relative frequencies of these combinations in the mothers speech. (Roland
& Pine, 2000)

In other words, childrens questioning pattern is affected by the

exposure of wh + auxiliary combinations pattern and the way their mother talk to
them.

The result of the study showed that there was no evidence in one childs
data to support the claim that the child was using the subject-auxiliary inversion rule
to produce inverted questions.

Instead, the pattern of apparent inversion and

uninversion is best explained in terms of lexically specific knowledge based on

high-frequency patterns in the input. Children could produce correctly inverted
questions without applying the wh-movement rule.

Valian & Casey (2003) also have similar findings as Roland & Pine (2000).
They conducted an intervention experiment to see how input affects the acquisition
of wh-questions for young children. They suggested that multiple exposures give
the child multiple opportunities to attend and parse the input, allowing the child to
collect data about the forms function. (Valian & Casey, 2003).

They hypothesized

that children would particularly benefit from hearing the same input twice than once
because the first hearing enables them to perform variety of computations about
phonology, morphology, semantic and syntax.

For the second hearing, children

would save on some computations and concentrate on the still-to be-mastered

aspects of syntax.

The research findings showed that multiple hearing could

enable children to learn wh-questions effectively and it is suggested that the more
exposure the wh-questions pattern, the more effective the acquisition of the
wh-questions.

To sum up, there are two possible accounts for the use of wh-movement in
native English children.

Rule-based researchers believed that there are rules

governing the performance of the childrens wh-inversion. The occurrence of the

inversion errors is due to the imperfect application of the inversion rule.

The

complexity of sentence structure also poses an obstacle to childrens inversion

6

performance.

On the other hand, some researchers believe that childrens

wh-inversion is not due to the complicated application of grammatical rule.

The

performance of the wh-inversion is simply based on a few simple wh-words +

auxiliary combination.

It is also believed that the more exposure of that

combination to the children, the more effective children can acquire wh-movement.

CHAPTER 3
RESEARCHES IN WH-MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH AS A
SECOND LANGUAGE
How about the case in L2 English learners handling of wh-movement?
Research findings reveal that the reasons for the occurrence of inversion errors by
L2 English learners are similar to those of the L1 English learners.

A number of

researches suggest that L2 English learners also acquire wh-movement by applying

rules in their mental grammar and their performance of wh-movement is also
sensitive to syntactic complexity.

Besides, it is found that first language

intervention is one of the factors affecting learners performance in wh-movement.

White, Travis & MacLachlan (1992) investigated the acquisition of

wh-questions by a group of Malagasy learners of English.

The aim of the study is

to investigate whether the Malagasys L2 English learner applied movement rules in

their mental grammar to acquire English wh-questions.

The findings of the study

suggested that the Malagasys L2 English learners were applying movement rules in
their mental grammar to learn the wh-movement since they were not able to
distinguish between the correct and incorrect wh-movement in English with
reference to their first language knowledge of wh-movement. From the findings,
it is suggested that rule-governing theories is still valid in second language
acquisition.

Hattori (2004) investigated the performance of Japanese-speaking English

learners in the interpretations of English multiple wh-questions in complex sentences
and found that the subjects were applying their own rules in the mental grammar to
identify the appropriate interpretation to those complex wh-questions.

Lee (2004) discussed the acquisition of wh-questions and the performance of

wh-movements of English-speaking children and Korean learners of English. It is
suggested that one of the frequent errors in the acquisition of English wh-questions is
the failure to perform subject-auxiliary inversion. Stromswold (1990) and De Villiers
(1991) proposed that there is an argument / adjunct asymmetry in the acquisition of
wh-questions since inversion is acquired earlier in argument wh-questions (e.g. who
and what) than in adjunct wh-questions (e.g. how and why).

However, Roland &

Pine (2000) rejected the structure-based generative approach and the argument /
adjunct asymmetry.

Instead, they proposed that the lexical-based input frequency

approach best accounted for the childrens performance in wh-inversion, as discussed

in the previous chapter. Lee tested, compared and evaluated the two approaches
and investigated the possible argument / adjunct asymmetry.

He conducted both

input study and experimental study. For the input study, he analyzed the corpora of
six caregivers speech from the CHILDES database for L1 and 23 Korean English
textbooks, 18 television situation comedy stripes and 4 movie scripts for L2. It was
found that both L1 and L2 learners receive similar input in terms of the relative order
of frequency of inverted wh-questions, i.e. what > who > how > why.

For the

experimental studies, he observed the performance of 17 English-speaking children

in a picture-aided elicitation task and the performance of 41 Korean learners of
English in a grammaticality judgment task. It was also found that both L1 and L2
learners did better at inversion with argument wh-questions than with adjunct
wh-questions. Besides, the findings from the comparison of the input and acquisition
studies revealed that there is an argument / adjunct asymmetry in the acquisition of
inversion in wh-questions in both L1 and L2 learners.

This asymmetry is the result

of the structure-based generative approach rather than lexical-based input frequency

approach. The findings of the study revealed that L2 learners of English, like those
9

L1 English learners, perform inversion by applying movement rules and the

performance of inversion is sensitive to syntactic complexity.

Hyeson (2003) also found that children performed wh-movement in

argument wh-questions first, and it gradually spread to adjunct wh-questions. The
application of wh-movement was found to appear last in why-questions.

The

complexity of morphological characteristics of why is responsible for the late

wh-movement in L2 acquisition.

The above findings reveal that syntactic complexity is one of the factors
affecting the performance of childrens wh-movement.

It also matches the findings

of L1 wh-words acquisition order that children acquire argument wh-questions like

what, where and who first because they are wh-pronominals that ask for major
sentence constituents what they replace and are relatively simple syntactically
while adjunct wh-questions like why, how and when, which acquire later, are
wh-sententials whichask for information that pertains to the semantic relations
among all the constituents in a sentence and they are relatively syntactically
complex.

(Bloom, Merkin and Wotten, 1982)

For Chinese learners, research findings reveal that the inability of

performing wh-inversion was reported.

It is suggested that such failure of

performing wh-movement was the result of first language intervention. Chen (1998)
investigated a group of Chinese speakers to see whether they are able to reset the
wh-movement parameter in their acquisition of English relative clauses.

grammaticality judgment test was conducted. Results show that Chinese speakers
are not able to reset the wh-movement parameters and thus they are not clear about
10

the structure of English relative clauses. The reason why they fail to do so is the
interference from the native language.

Yip & Matthews (2000) investigated the wh-movement performance of

their bilingual first-born child, Timmy, and found that there is a syntactic transfer in
wh-movement from Cantonese to English.

They conducted both qualitative and

quantitative comparisons and found that the degree of transfer depends on language
dominance.

Similar findings about first language intervention are also found in

other research about Chinese speakers using wh-movement. (Yuan 1997, Xiao & Lu
2005, Kong 2005)

To sum up, the researches in handling wh-movement in English as a second

language reveal that the reasons for the handling of wh-inversion is more or less the
same as those found in first language studies. Second language learners of English
do apply movement rules in their mental grammar to perform wh-movement.

The

complexity of the sentence structure also affects the performance of L2 English

learner in wh-movement.

Research findings reveal that syntactically complex

adjunct wh-questions hinder L2 learners interpretation of the wh-questions and

delay the inversion. Instead, L2 learners did better in dealing with the relatively
syntactically simple argument wh-questions. In addition, empirical researches show
that first language intervention also plays a role in affecting second language
acquisition. A detailed review of the role of first language will be presented in the
next chapter.

11

CHAPTER 4
THE ROLE OF FIRST LANGUAGE
It is a popular belief that errors of wh-movement that children
encountered are the result of the influence of their first language.

Some even think

that the role of first language in second language acquisition is a negative one, that is,
the L1 interferes with the learning of the L2, and features of L1 are transferred into
the L2. Coder (1978) referred to this view of SLA as a restructuring process (Ellis,
1985, p.19).

However, the research literature denies the importance of L1

interferences in SLA.

Felix (1980) pointed out that our data on L2 acquisition of

syntactic structures in a natural environment suggest that interference does not

constitute a major strategy in this area it seems necessary to me to abandon the
notion of interference as a natural and inevitable phenomenon in L2 acquisition.
(Ellis, 1985, p.19 cited in Felix, 1980b: 107)

So, what is interference?

It can be traced back to its origins in

behaviorist learning theory, its development in terms of contrastive analysis and

recent theoretical and empirical studies about the role of first language in SLA.

In the view of behaviorist learning theory, learning is a kind of habit that a

particular stimulus became regularly linked with a particular response. (Ellis, 1985).
In other words, stimulus can elicit response. If the stimulus occurred sufficiently
and frequently, the response became practiced and therefore automatic. Skinner
even pointed out that it was the behavior that followed a response which reinforced
it and thus helped to strengthen the association. (Ellis, 1985) It is believed that
language learning is operated in similar ways.
12

Language learning will be most

successful, no matter for the first and second language, when the task was broken
down into a number of stimulus-response links, which could be systemically
practiced and mastered one at a time.

In the view of the behaviorists, interference was the result of proactive

inhibition in which previous learning prevents or inhibits the learning of new habits.
In terms of second language learning, it means that an error is likely to occur in the
second language where the first and second language share a meaning but express it
in different ways.

It is because the learner will transfer the realization device from

his first language into the second. Learning a second language involves developing
new habits whenever the stimulus-response links of the L2 differ from those of the
L1.

In order to develop these new habits, the learner has to overcome proactive

inhibition.

Behaviorist learning theory predicts that transfer will take place from the
first to the second language. Transfer will be negative when there is proactive
inhibition. In this case errors will result. Transfer will be positive when the first
and second language habits are the same.

In this case no errors will occur.

Thus

differences between the first and second language create learning difficulty which
results in errors, while the similarities between the first and second language
facilitate rapid and easy learning.

In order to help students overcome the negative transfer, Contrastive

analysis was introduced to help teachers understand better what the real problems of
students are and provide appropriate pedagogical implications for them.
Contrastive analysis had both a psychological aspect and a linguistic aspect.
13

In

psychological aspect of Contrastive analysis, all L2 errors can be predicted by

identifying the differences between the target language and the learners first
language. On the other hand, in linguistic aspect, it is believed that the differences
among languages can be scientifically described when a formal comparison among
languages can be carried out.
receives great criticisms.

However, the Contrastive analysis hypothesis

Firstly, the ability of predicting errors by Contrastive

analysis was doubted by researchers since both approaches only revealed part of the
differences among languages and the predictions failed to account for the occurrence
of errors. Secondly, the methodology used in Contrastive analysis did not had
anything relevant to language teaching.

The data collected may not provide

pedagogical implications for language teachers. Thirdly, Empirical findings show

that L1 interference is not the prime and sole cause of making errors. ( Ellis, 1985)

4.1 Empirical researches and the predictability of errors

For learners errors, Brooks (1960) pointed out that there is four causes.
Firstly, the learner does not know the structural pattern and so makes a random
response. Secondly, the correct model has been insufficiently practiced.

Thirdly,

the first language leads to the misunderstanding of the second language.

Fourthly,

the student may follow a general rule that is not applicable in a particular instance.
Therefore, the cause of interference can only account for most errors, but not
applicable to all.

Dulay and Burt (1973) conducted a research to examine this issue empirically.
They calculated the frequencies of four error types about the morphological features
like past tense inflections in the speech data of Spanish-speaking children learning
English as a second language. They identified four types of error according to their
14

psycholinguistic origins:
z

Interference-like errors: errors that reflect structure of first language and cannot
be found in first language acquisition data.

First language developmental errors: errors that do not reflect structure of first
language but can be found in first language acquisition data.

Ambiguous errors: errors that cannot be categorized as either interference-like

or developmental.

Unique errors: errors that do not reflect first language structure and also are not
found in first language acquisition data.

After eliminating ambiguous errors, Dulay and Burt found that 85 percent of the
errors made were developmental errors, 12 percent were unique errors and 3 percent
were interference errors. Based on this studies and other similar studies, Dulay and
Burt argued that children do not organize a L2 on the basis of transfer or
comparison with their L1, but rely on their ability to construct the L2 as an
independent system, in much the same way as in L1 acquisition, (Ellis, 1985) They
suggested that interference may be a major factor that accounts for phonological
errors.

The result shows that interference may not be the major reason for the
errors.

Besides, there were considerable variations in the findings in similar

researches, with results ranging from 23% (Mukattash 1977) to 51% (Tran-Chi-Chau,
1975).

Although the result of the above findings may be affected by a number of

variables such as age of learner, degree of contrast between the first and second
language, type of data collected, etc, it is showed that the majority of the errors made
by second language learners do not come from their first language.

15

Even for recent empirical research, it is revealed that first language

intervention is not the sole and prime factor affecting the performance in
wh-movement.

Juffs (2005) investigated a group of learners of English as a second

language who speak Chinese, Japanese or Spanish as a first language. They were all
English L2 learners with general proficiency in English.

The aim of the study was

to investigate to what extent L1 influences the processing of wh-movement in

English as a second language by asking each of the participants to finish a
grammatical judgment task.

In the study, Juffs found that the first language of the

participant clearly affected the accuracy of judging the grammatical wh-extractions

in the grammatical judgment task.

The lack of wh-movement in the participants

first language is a disadvantage for judging all the structures in the task while the
availability of wh-movement in participants first language shows a clear advantage
for judging wh-movement in English in the task.

It showed that to some extent, the

judgment of the correctness of the wh-movement is affected by the participants first

language knowledge.

Due to the fact that first language intervention is not the sole and prime
cause for the occurrence of errors, the role of the first language was re-evaluated.
The nature of interference was re-examined since it is believed that the occurrence of
error was a multi-factor phenomenon and that interference, as one of the factors,
interacted in complex ways with other factors.

Gass (1980) believed that the role of the first language is a highly complex
one. Interference is a relevant factor if its operation is related to that of other
non-interference factor. He proposed, Universal factors (i.e. factors relating to the
universal way in which natural languages are organized,) (Ellis, 1985) determine the
16

general outline of learning.

Language-specific considerations (of either the native

or the target language) can come into play only where universal factors
underdetermine the result. (Gass 1980)

Corder (1978) proposed that L1 interference could be viewed as a kind of

learner strategy.

He suggested that the learners first language might facilitate the

developmental process of learning a L2, by helping him to progress more rapidly

along the universal route when the L1 is similar to the L2.

Interference errors

are the result of borrowing from the first language rather than a negative transfer.
In other words, learners L1 can be served as a kind of language resources to make
up their insufficiency in L2.

Krashen (1982) also had similar proposal that learners

can use the L1 to initiates utterances when they do not have sufficient acquired
knowledge of the target language for this purpose. Both Corders and Krashens
proposals viewed the L1 as a resource which learners can use for making up their
insufficiency in the use of their L2. (Ellis, 1985)

To summarize, although the popular belief is that second language

acquisition is strongly influenced by the first language of the learners, there is a
considerable disagreement among researchers about the extent and the nature of the
role of the first language.

The role of the first language is first seen in the transfer

theory and it is closely related to behaviorism.

Errors are the result of proactive

inhibition in the process of transfer. In order to help learners deal with the negative
transfer, Contrastive analysis was introduced to help teachers understand better what
the real problems of students are and to provide appropriate pedagogical implications
for them. However, the analysis received great criticism that it is not sufficient to
account for the occurrence of errors.
17

Empirical research also reveals that

interference from the first language is not the sole and prime factor to learners errors.
A need to the reappraisal of the role of the first language was called for.

It is

believed that errors are a multi-factor phenomenon that involves the interaction of
several factors and interference is only one of the related factors in the interaction.
It is also believed that first language interference can also be seen as a kind of
learning strategies that L2 learners use it as the resource of knowledge to make up
the insufficiency in using L2.

18

CHAPTER 5
THE ROLE OF LEARNING STRATEGIES
From the perspective of cognitive researchers, second language learning
is a working example of different kinds of learning and they believe that we can have
a better understanding on the language acquisition process if we understand how the
human brain process and how we learn new information.

In other words, they put

emphasis on the learning component of the language acquisition process, examine

how learners access the linguistic knowledge and the strategies employed by learners
in their language acquisition process.

So, what is learning strategies or more

specifically, language learning strategy?

According to OMalley et al. (1985),

learning strategies have been broadly defined as any set of operations or steps used
by a learner that will facilitate the acquisition, storage, retrieval, or use of
information. (p.23) Weinstein and Mayer (1986) believe that learning strategies
have learning facilitation as a goal and are intentional on the part of the learner.
The goal of the strategy use is to affect the learners motivational or affective state,
or the way in which the learner selects, acquires, organizes or integrates new
knowledge. (Weinstein and Mayer 1986, p.315)

According to Oxford (1990),

Strategy, from the ancient Greek term strategia, refers to generalship or the art of
war.

In a more specific sense, strategy relates to the appropriate management of

troops, ships or aircraft in a planned campaign.

When it is applied to non-military

situation, the concept of strategy means a plan, step or an action taken for achieving
specific objective.

Oxford (1990) stated that strategies are particularly important

for language learning because they are tools for active, self-directed involvement,
which is essential for developing communicative competence. (p.1) From previous
empirical researches, it is believed that employing appropriate learning strategies do
19

enhance the learning outcomes.

Rass (2000) examined the effectiveness of three

types of learning strategy in language learning, namely, the cognitive strategy, the
metacognitive strategy and the social mediation.

The research findings reveal that

the use of appropriate learning strategies enhances the learning process.

(2000) also had similar findings.
learners academic achievement.

Clark

He examined how learning strategies affect

The research findings confirmed the assumption

of a relationship between the use of language learning strategies and the learners
academic achievement.

It is also suggested that the use of cognitive strategies was

associated with high achievement.

In the present study, we assume that the learning

strategies the learners employed also play a role in determining learners

performance in wh-movement.

We will refer to two cognitive theories in second

language learning: McLaughlins information processing model (1990) and

Andersons Active Control of Thought (ACT*) model (1985), with particular
attention to OMalley and Chamots (1990) application of the model in the field of
learner strategies as the basis for further discussion.

5.1 McLaughlins information processing model (1990)

The fundamental notion of McLaughlins information processing model is that
humans complex behaviour builds on simple processes. These simple processes
are modular and can therefore be studied independently of one another. There are
six characteristics in the information-processing model:
z

Humans are viewed as autonomous and active;

The mind is a general-purpose, symbol-processing system;

Complex behaviour is composed of simpler processes; these processes are

modular;

Component processes can be isolated and studied independently of other

20

processes;
z

Processes take time; therefore, predictions about reaction time can be made

The mind is a limited-capacity processor

(Adapted from McLaughlin and Heredia, 1996, P.214)

When it is applied to the second language learning, the information-processing
model can be summarized as follows:
Within this framework, second language learning is viewed as the acquisition of a
complex cognitive skill.

To learn a second language is to learn a skill, because

various aspects of the task must be practiced and integrated into fluent performance.
This requires the automatization of component sub-skills. Learning is a cognitive
process because it is thought to involve internal representations that regulate and
guide performance As performance improves, there is constant restructuring as
learners simplify, unify and gain increased control over their internal representations.
(Karmiloff-Smith, 1986) These two notions automatization and restructuring are
central to cognitive theory.

(McLaughlin, 1987, pp133-4)

In other words, second language learning is a kind of skill learning.

Learning is a cognitive process that transforms knowledge from controlled
processing (i.e. by intentional control) towards automatic processing (i.e. automatic
application when appropriate occasions arises).
known as automatization.

This transformation process is

To activate automatization, learners first activate the

controlled processing in which such processing requires a lot of intentional control

on the part of the subject, and is constrained by the limitations of the short-term
memory.

To achieve automatization, repeated activation of the knowledge (i.e.

practice and drilling) is important.

Through repeated activation, knowledge stored

in the short-term memory will be shifted from control to automatic and stored in their
21

long-term memory, in which they can use or apply the knowledge whenever they
need or occasion arises without any intentional control of the learners. Once the
knowledge becomes automatized, such automatized skills are difficult to delete
and modify.

So, what is the implication to the second language learning?

In this view,

drilling and repeated practice play an important role in the learners learning since it
is the way to help learners to go through the process of automatization, that is,
practice makes perfect.

Moreover, second language learners should get themselves

exposed to good examples of the language, so that they can develop a good model of
the language.

When the shift occurs, controlled processes are freed to deal with

higher levels of processing, i.e. the integration of more complex skills and thus
explaining the step-by-step nature of learning.

Once a learner has automatized the

simpler language, he or she is free to deal with the learning of more complex
language, as the short-term memory has capacity for new learning.

With the continuing controlled-to-automatic processing, a constant

restructuring of the learners language will be resulted.

Restructuring destabilized

some structures in interlanguage and hence leads to temporary reappearance of

second language errors. It is also the result of exemplar-based representations
becoming rule-based. (McLaughlin and Heredia, 1996) As discussed earlier in the
chapter, second language learners first learn the language by memorizing the
unanalyzed chunks of language in their short-term memory (controlled knowledge),
which will later be analyzed and give rise to productive rules (automatic knowledge).
Lets take how a learner handles wh-movement as an example.

A learner might first

memorize a question like where do you live? as an unanalyzed chunk, without having
22

a productive rule for the wh-inversion.

When this learner starts generating the rules

for the inversion, i.e. automatization, the process of transforming the memorized
example where do you live? to the rule of applying inversion in all interrogative
cases,

he or she might produce an alternative, uninverted form like where you live?

In other words, the occurrence of the errors is a product of immature transformation

of the language from controlled to automatized.

This example is especially powerful in explaining the phenomenon of

fossilization, which is well documented in second language acquisition studies.
Fossilization refers to the fact that second language learners sometimes demonstrate
there are non-native like structure in their second language even though they are
exposed to the language for many years.

Fossilization would arise in this model as

a result of controlled process becoming automatic prematurely, before it is

native-like. As suggested earlier in the chapter, automatic processes are difficult to
delete or modify as they are outside the intentional control of the subject.

Hence,

fossilization is likely to remain in the learners interlanguage, giving rise to a stable

but erroneous construction. (Mitchell & Myles, 2004, pp.99-102)

To sum up, McLaughlins information-processing model suggests that

second language learning is a process of skill acquisition.

Second language learners

are undergoing a cognitive process when they learn a second language in which they
are transforming their knowledge of the language from controlled (exemplar-liked) to
automatic (rule-based). Second language learners will first memorize the exemplar
in their short-term memory and automatized the examplar into generally applicable
rules when appropriate occasion of application arises.

Drilling or repeated practice

is the way to help second language learners to perform automatization. The process
23

of automatization also shows the incremental nature of learning in which the

short-term memory which stores the controlled knowledge will be free in the process
of automatization and giving room for the learners to process higher level or more
complex language knowledge.

It is suggested that the production of errors is a

result of premature automatization in which the learners has not yet transformed
the memorized exemplar to general rules.

5.2 Andersons Active Control of Though (ACT*) model (1985)

Another processing model from cognitive psychology, which has also
been applied to second language learning, is Andersons ACT model. Compared to
McLaughlins information-processing model, it is a more wide-ranging model.
Although the terminology used in the two approaches is different, practice leading to
automatization is also the major concern in the ACT model.

Anderson believes that

learning is the process of transforming declarative knowledge (i.e. knowledge that

something is the case) to become procedural knowledge (i.e. knowledge how to do
something).

One of the major differences is that Anderson proposes three kinds of

memory in the model, namely, a working memory, a declarative long-term memory

and procedural long-term memory.

Working memory is a kind of short-term

memory similar to McLaughlins short-term memory.

However, it is tightly

capacity-limited.

What

is

declarative

knowledge

and

procedural

knowledge?

Declarative knowledge is something that you know or aware you have to do it while
procedural knowledge is the knowledge that you know how to do it quickly and
successfully.

According to Anderson, the shift from declarative knowledge to

procedural knowledge takes place in three stages (Anderson, 1985, p.232, cited in
24

Towell and Hawkins 1994, P.203):

1. The cognitive stage: a description of the procedure is learnt
2. The associative stage: a method for performing the skill is worked out.
3. The autonomous stage: the skill becomes more and more rapid and automatic.
How does it work in second language learning?

Lets take the learning

of third person singular s marker as an example. (Mitchell & Myles, 1994, p.

103-104) Within the classroom, the second language learner might initially know
in the sense that he / she has consciously learnt the rule, that s/he + Verb requires the
addition of an s marker to the stem of the verb.

However, the same learner might

not necessarily be able to consistently produce the s in a conversation in real time.

This is because this particular learner has declarative knowledge of that rule, but it
has not yet been proceduralized. With more practice, this knowledge will hopefully
become fully proceduralized, and the third person s will be supplied when the
context requires it.

This dichotomy between, on one hand, knowledge a rule, and

on the other, being able to apply it when need, is always found in the learning of
second language learner.

In the example outlined above, in the cognitive stage, the learner awares
that he / she has to add an s to the verb after a third person subject.

In the

associative stage, the learner would work out how to do it, that is, how to add an s
when the context requires it. In other words, the learner learns to associate an
action, or a set of actions, with the corresponding declarative knowledge. In the
autonomous stage, the learners action (adding an s to the verb) becomes
increasingly automatic, to the point that corresponding declarative knowledge has
even been lost.

In other words, the learner might not be able to explain or even be

aware of what they are doing when he / she is in the autonomous stage.
25

Like the way with McLaughlins information-processing model,

Andersons ACT* model also provides an explanation of the incremental nature of
learning.

When tasks become proceduralized, they are accessed automatically,

without having to resort to the limited-capacity working memory.

Therefore, new

declarative knowledge can be attended to the freed working memory and thereafter
proceed through the associative and eventually autonomous stage.

Once the second language knowledge has become autonomous,

proceduralized knowledge demonstrates similar advantages and disadvantages as
McLaughlins information-processing model.

It can be available quickly and

efficiently, and does not make many demands on the working memory. However, it
will be difficult to modify and not so flexible that it will be applicable only to the
situation that gives rise to it.

The autonomous process will also need time and the

same routine will have to be activated successfully a large number of times, in order
to become proceduralized.

Each time the procedure is applied successfully, it is

strengthened and thereafter called upon more easily.

To illustrate the shift from

declarative to procedural knowledge in the context of second language learning,

Anderson predicted that when we learn a foreign language in a classroom situation,
we are aware of the rules of the language, especially just after a lesson that spells
them out.
declarative.

One might argue that our knowledge of the language at that time is
We speak the learned language by using general rule following

procedures applied to the rules we have learned, rather than speaking directly, as we
do in our native language. Not surprisingly, applying this knowledge is a much
slower and painful process than applying the procedurally encoded knowledge of our
own language.

Eventually, we can come to know a foreign language as well as we

knows our native language.

At that point, we often forget the rules of the foreign

26

language. It is as if the class-taught declarative knowledge has been transformed

into a procedural form. (Anderson, 1980, p.224)

Here, we can see that the learners speech becomes more fluent as more
knowledge becomes proceduralized, and is therefore assessed more quickly and
efficiently.

To sum up, Andersons ACT* model is a further elaboration of

McLaughlins information-processing model. The central notion of the model is
that repeated practice is the way for second language learners to transform language
from declarative knowledge to procedural knowledge. To achieve the transformation,
the learner has to go through three stages, the cognitive stages in which the learner
knows he has to do something with the language; the associative stage in which the
learner works out how to apply the language when the context arises and finally the
autonomous stage that the knowledge of the language is proceuduralized and he can
apply that knowledge whenever or wherever he needs without much intentional
control.

When more and more knowledge of second language learning become

preoceudralized, the learning of the second language will be more successful.

5.3 OMalley and Chamots (1990) application of ACT* model to

learning strategies
OMalley and Chamot (1990) applied the ACT*model to the field of
language learning strategies.

According to OMalley and Chamot (1990), the

general benefits of applying cognitive theory to the field of second language are as
follows:
z

Learning is an active and dynamic process in which individuals make use of a

variety of information and strategic modes of processing.
27

Language is a complex cognitive skill that has properties in common with other
complex skills in terms of how information is stored and learnt.

Learning strategies applied to theoretically derived cognitive processes will

have the potential of influencing the learning outcomes in a positive manner.
(Mitchell & Myles, 2004, p.107)

According to OMalley and Chamot (1990), learning strategies are

procedures undertaken by learners, in order to make their own language learning as
effective as possible.

They may include focusing on selected aspects of new

information, analyzing and monitoring information during acquisition, organizing or

elaborating on new information during the encoding process, evaluating the learning
when it is completed or assuring oneself that the learning will be successful as a way
to allay anxiety. (Mitchell & Myles, 2004, p.105 cited in OMalley and Chamot,
1990, p.43)

It should be noted that learning strategies must not be confused with

communication strategies in which the focus on communication strategies is on
overcoming a specific communicative problem whereas learning strategies are used
to facilitate learning and to make learning more effective.

OMalley and Chamot (1990) believe that learning strategies are

complex procedures that individuals apply to tasks. Consequently, they may be
represented as procedural knowledge, which may be acquired through cognitive,
associative and autonomous stages of learning.

As with other procedural skills at

the different stages of learning, the strategies may be conscious in early stages of
learning and later be performed without the persons awareness. Thus, strategies have
28

to be learnt in exactly the same way as other complex cognitive skills.

A good

language learner will be a learner who has proceduralized the learning strategies.
(Mitchell & Myles, 2004, p.105 cited in OMalley and Chamot, 1990, p.52)

According to OMalley and Chamot (1990), learning strategies can be

classified into three categories depending on the level or type of processing involved.
They are Metacognitive strategies, Cognitive strategies and Social / affective
strategies.

Metacognitive strategies are higher order executive skills that may

include planning for, monitoring or evaluating the success of a learning activity.

(OMalley and Chamot 1990, p. 44 cited in Brown et al. 1983).

Metacognitive

strategies are applicable to a variety of learning tasks. (Nisbet and Shucksmith 1986).
Cognitive strategies apply directly to incoming information, manipulating it in ways
that enhance learning.

However, according to Weinstein and Mayer (1986),

cognitive strategies may be limited in application to the specific type of task in the
learning activity.

Social / affective strategies represent a broad grouping that

involves either interaction with another person or ideational control over affect.
Generally, they are applicable to a considerably wide variety of task.

Details of the

classification and descriptions of each strategy are presented in the following table:
Table 1 Classification of learning strategies
General
strategy Representative
classification
strategies
Metacognitive strategies Selective attention

Planning

Monitoring

29

Definitions
Focusing on special aspects of
learning tasks, as in planning to
listen for key words or phrases
Planning for the organization
of either written or spoken
discourse
Reviewing attention to a task,
comprehension of information
that should be remembered, or
production
while
it
is
occurring.

Evaluation

Congitive strategies

Rehearsal
Organization

Inferencing

Summarizing

Deducing
Imagery

Transfer

Elaboration

Social
or
strategies

affective Co-operation

Questioning for
clarification
Self-talk

(Source: OMalley and Chamot, 1990, p.43)

30

Checking comprehension after

completion of a receptive
language activity, or evaluating
language production after it has
taken place.
Repeating the names of items
or objects to be remembered
Grouping
and
classifying
words,
terminology,
or
concepts according to their
semantic or syntactic attributes
Using information in text to
guess meanings or new
linguistic
items,
predict
outcomes or complete missing
parts.
Intermittently
synthesizing
what one has heard to ensure
the information has been
retained.
Apply
rules
to
the
understanding of language.
Using visual images (either
generated
or
actual)
to
understand and remember new
verbal information.
Using
known
linguistic
information to facilitate a new
learning task.
Linking ideas contained in new
information, or integrating new
ideas with known information.
Working with peers to solve a
problem, pool information,
check notes or get feedback on
a learning activity.
Eliciting from a teacher or peer
additional
explanation,
rephrasing or examples.
Using mental redirection of
thinking to assure oneself that a
learning activity will be
successful or to reduce anxiety
about a task.

How does it related to second language learning and teaching?

Since

second language learning is like a kind of skill learning, second language learners
would benefit from being taught with learning strategies.

If learning strategies are a

skill, then they can be taught; there is an advantage that they will become
proceduralized more quickly, therefore freeing working memory space for other
aspects of learning.

However, the instruction of the learning strategies will involve

a considerable time investment and effort to see the effectiveness of teaching.

Therefore, a relatively long-term investigation may be needed to see the effect of
teaching.

To sum up, OMalley and Chamot applied the notion of learning

strategies to Andersons ACT* model.

They summarized the learning strategies

into three general strategy classifications and suggested that learning strategies, like a
kind of skill, can be taught to students and they may benefit from the teaching of the
learning strategies.

31

CHAPTER 6
RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY
The aim of the present paper is to find out the reason or reasons leading
to the difficulties of handling wh-movement to Hong Kong primary students who
learn English as their second language, why they have such kinds of difficulties and
to suggest some ways to help students learning and teachers teaching based on
findings from the present investigation.

With reference to previous researches and

examination of students work, three research questions are generated.

Research question 1
What types of wh-questions cause difficulties in inversion to HK
primary students?

According to both L1 and L2 empirical researches of

wh-movement, it is suggested that children have better performance in handling

wh-movement in argument wh-questions (what and where) than adjunct
wh-questions (how and why).

It is also suggested that syntactic complexity, i.e.

wh-questions with complex syntactic structure also affects childrens performance in

wh-inversion.

Will it be the same case for Hong Kong students?

Research question 2
To what extent does first language intervention affect childrens
performance in wh-movement?

Is the occurrence of wh-movement errors due to

the intervention of Cantonese?

From the literature review it is cleared that first

language intervention is not the prime and sole cause for it.

However, previous

researches or studies in this field are focused on Cantonese speaker. Will it be the
same case for Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking students?
32

Research question 3
Apart from the first language intervention, do learning strategies students
employed play an important role for handling the wh-movement?

We assume that

the learning strategies they employed also play an important part in their
performance in wh-movement, based on empirical findings from previous researches.
McLaughlins information-processing model (1990) and Andersons ACT model*
(1985) suggested that language learning is a kind of skill that can be taught to the
language learner.

According to OMalley and Chaumot, learning strategies are

procedures undertaken by learners in order to make their learning as effective as

possible. Therefore, if one can proceduralized the learning strategies, he or she
will be a good language learner.

By analogy, does it mean that teaching suitable

learning strategies to students is good for students to handle wh-movement and help
prevent making errors?

And if so, can it be a kind of pedagogical implication for

teachers to handle students wh-questions?

Targets
Twenty primary six students participated in the study. All subjects came from the
same class in a government-aided primary school in Tseung Kwan O.
was the first language of all subjects.

Cantonese

They had been learning English as a second

language for nine years, which started from their kindergarten schoolings.
words, all subjects had a general proficiency of English.

In other

None of them were

physical, mental or perceptual handicapped or having any learning problems.

They

were randomly selected and were in mixed ability so that the test results will not be
affected by the presence of high achievers or suffered from the presence of slow
learners.
33

Methodology and Procedure

Three paper-and-pen tests were conducted to collect the data from the subjects.

All

the tests were conducted in a 45-minute session in order to ensure that each subject
has enough time to do the test.
test paper individually.

Each subject was required to finish all items on the

For the convenience of management, all subjects

participated in the study were divided into two groups, each consisting of ten
subjects. Each group did the test in a separate room so that none of them was
disturbed by the other group.

Test materials
Details and the settings of the three research tests for the collection of data
are presented as follows:
For answering research question 1:
A written test comprising 20 Questions and answers (Q&A) items on
answering different types of wh-questions was designed to all subjects.

The

subjects were asked to provide written answers in long form so that their
performance of wh-movement could be seen from the data.

For instance, the

expected answer for the question What does Mary eat? (some ice-cream) should be
Mary eats some ice-cream rather than in the short form like Some ice-cream.
Examples were provided in the test for subjects reference in order to avoid subject's
wild guessing of the answers. The methodology of the distribution of the test items
was from simple to complex, starting from argument wh-questions to adjunct
wh-questions.

The first ten test items were simple argument and adjunct

wh-questions with simple verb phrases like What do you buy? (Argument
wh-questions with verb, Test item 1) and Why do you turn off the radio? (Adjunct
wh-questions with verb phrases, Test item 7). The following ten items were more
34

syntactically complex argument and adjunct wh-questions like How long does it take
to go to Ocean Park? (Test item 15) or with relative clauses Who is the girl who
dressed in yellow? (Test item 18).

All the test items were in the form of present

tense so that subjects performance would not be hindered by their insufficient

knowledge of dealing with tenses. The purpose of the test is to find out which types
of argument or adjunct wh-questions cause difficulties to the subjects and whether
syntactic complexity is sensitive to students performance in wh-movement, by
counting the frequencies of errors and calculating the percentage of errors.

For answering research question 2:

A grammatical judgment task including different types of wh-questions was
given to all subjects.

It consisted of 15 test items and was presented in a

multiple-choice format.

The test items included simple argument and adjunct

questions, syntactically complex wh-questions and wh-questions with passive. All

subjects were asked to find out the most suitable responses to the test items.
example was given in the test for students reference.
each test item for the subject to choose from.

An

There were three options in

The design of the options was based

on the following principles: (1) one of the options should be the correct response or
correct answer to the question; (2) a Cantonese-like option to test whether the
subjects choice would be affected by their native language, which is the main aim of
the test and (3) an inversion-like response to the question in order to serve as a
distracter to subjects on their judgment of the answers. The aim of this design is
two-folded.

First, it is to prevent the subjects from getting answers directly if there

are only two choices: the correct responses and the Cantonese like options. The
second purpose is to find out to what extent a subjects first language, Cantonese,
affects his choices in giving the correctly inverted answers to the test items.
35

The

frequencies that the subject chooses the Cantonese option will reveal the extent to
which his first language, Cantonese, affects his judgment in the task.

For answering research question 3:

According to OMalley and Chamot (1990), there is a list of learning
strategies and all the learning strategies could be classified into three categories,
namely, metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social or affective
strategies.

With reference to the needs of handling the wh-movement, it is

suggested that the skill of organization and deducing in cognitive strategies is the
most suitable strategies for students to handle wh-questions. According to OMalley
and Chamot (1990), the skill of organization means grouping and classifying words,
terminology, or concepts according to their semantic or syntactic attributes while
Deducting means the application of rules to understand language.

As suggested

above, since language-learning strategy is considered a kind of skill that can be

taught, language learners can benefit from it and become a good language learner.
In order to test whether the language strategy is helpful to improve students
performance of wh-movement, the two learning strategies, Organization and
Deducing, were taught to the subjects for a week intensively since according to
McLaughlins information-processing model and Andersons ACT* model, intensive
practices help students consolidate their knowledge by transforming declarative
knowledge to procedural knowledge. The focus of the teaching aimed at teaching
students (1) how to identify different parts of speech in the questions. (The skill of
organization, classifying words according to their syntactic attributes) and (2) the
rule of applying the wh-movement by showing the transformation process from a
declarative sentence to wh-questions. (i.e. The skill of deducing, applying rules to the
understanding of language.)

A week later, all subjects were asked to do the task of

36

answering different types of wh-questions for answering research questions once

again and see if there was any improvement on the subjects performance.

If

progresses or improvement can be seen in the result of the test, it can be concluded
that students manipulating appropriate learning strategies is helpful to the handling
of wh-movement and can help avoid making mistakes in doing wh-questions with
wh-movement.

37

CHAPTER 7
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The result of each research question is presented as follows:

7.1

Types of wh-questions causing difficulties in wh-movement

The first analysis is to investigate what types of wh-questions cause

difficulties in wh-movement to Hong Kong primary students.

We evaulate the

result by comparing the subjects performance in Test item 1 (simple argument

What+do, What do you buy?), Test item 3 (simple argument Where +do, where do
you keep the money?), Test item 5 (simple argument Who+do, Who do you like?)
and Test item 7 (simple adjunct Why+do, Why do you turn off the radio?), Test
item 8 (simple adjunct When+do, When do you go to school?), Test item 10
(simple adjunct How+do, How do they go to Canada?) of the first research test
(the Q & A question task).

The result is shown on Table 2 below.

For the argument wh-questions, it is revealed that the who-question causes

most difficulties in wh-movement to students because 5% of them got the wrong
answer in test item 5.

What-question and Where-question cause no difficulty

in wh-movement since all of the subjects were able to get the correct answers in Test
item 1 & 3.

For the adjunct wh-questions, the subjects had some difficulties in

handling wh-movement in why-questions in which 15% of them got the wrong

answer in Test item 7.

When-question and How-question cause equal

difficulties in wh-movement to the subjects as subjects got the same percentage of

errors (5%) in both type of questions.

To summarize, for subjects performance in

wh-movement in argument wh-question, the sequence of difficulty for the subject is

who > what and where while the sequence of difficulty is why > when and how for
38

the subjects in adjunct wh-questions.

From the above comparison, it can also be

found that subjects performed inversion better in argument wh-questions than

adjunct wh-questions because the percentage of errors in argument wh-questions was
much lower than that of adjunct wh-questions.
Table 2

Subjects performance in handling wh-movement in simple argument wh-questions and

simple adjunct wh-questions.

Test item

Wh-Question type and

Numbers of

Numbers of wrong

Percentage of

wh+auxiliary combination

correct answers

answers

errors
(%)

Simple argument What+do

20

Simple argument Where+do

20

Simple argument Who+do

19

Simple adjunct Why+do

17

15

Simple adjunct When+do

19

10

Simple adjunct How+do

19

7.2 The relationship between students performance in wh-movement

and syntactic complexity
The second analysis is to investigate whether syntactic complexity of the
wh-questions poses an effect on students performance in handling wh-movement.
The data for the analysis also come from research test 1 (The Q & A task).

The

result is shown on Table 3.

It is revealed that the syntactic complexity of the wh-questions did affect the
subjects performance in handling wh-movement.

Wh-question with relative

clauses caused most difficulties to the subjects when they were handling
wh-movement.

(Test item 17 &18, Percentage of errors 100% & 75% respectively).

Adjunct wh-questions with complex syntactic structure also affected students

performance in wh-movement.

The Percentage of errors was relatively high in Test

39

item 12 (complex adjunct question how many + are there), Test item 14 (complex
adjunct question how long + does) and Test item 16 (complex adjunct question
how long + is).

The conclusion is that the more the complexity of the questions,

the higher the percentage of errors from the subjects.

Table 3

Test item

Subjects performance in handling inversion in argument wh-questions, adjunct

wh-questions and wh-questions with complex syntactic structures.
Wh-Question type and

Numbers of

Numbers of

Percentage of errors

wh+auxiliary combination

correct answers

wrong answers

(%)

Simple argument What + do

20

Simple argument What + does

16

20

Simple argument Where + do

20

Simple argument Where+does

17

15

Simple argument Who + do

19

Simple argument Who + does

20

Simple adjunct Why + do

17

15

Simple adjunct When + do

19

Simple adjunct When + does

15

25

10

Simple adjunct How + do

19

11

Complex adjunct

18

10

10

10

50

15

25

14

30

11

45

13

35

20

100

15

75

How many + do
12

Complex adjunct
How many + are there

13

Complex adjunct
How much + do

14

Complex adjunct
How long + do

15

Complex adjunct
How long + does

16

Complex adjunct
How long + is it

17

Argument what with relative

clause

18

Argument Who with relative

clause

19

Complex argument What + do

18

10

20

Complex adjunct Which + do

17

15

40

7.3 The relationship between first language intervention and the

performance wh-movement

The purpose of the analysis is to find out to what extent a subjects first
language, Cantonese, affects his judgment on choosing the correct wh-movement to
different types of wh-questions.

The data is collected from the result of the

grammatical judgment task, which is designed to collect data for research question 2.
The result of the test is shown on Table 4 below.
It is revealed that students judgment in correct wh-movement to the
questions did affect by their first language. The percentage of the subjects choices
on Cantonese-like answers ranged from 5% to 40%.

The test showed that subjects

tended to choose Cantonese-like answers when they came across syntactically

complex wh-questions and adjunct questions, as shown in Test item 4 (simple
adjunct why-questions, Why does he want to drink?), Test item 8 (argument
what-question with passive, What drink is included in Dinner set A?), Test item 9
(argument what-questions with complex syntactic structure, What was the weather
like today in Hong Kong?) and Test item 12 (adjunct how much-questions with
complex syntactic structure, How much did you pay for your dress?). In other words,
the first language intervention of the subject is associated with the syntactic
complexity of the test item.

It confirms the findings of previous empirical research

that first language intervention is not the sole cause for students error making.
Syntactic complexity also plays a role in affecting subjects performance.

41

Table 4
Test

Performance of the subjects in grammatical judgment task

Wh-question type

item

Numbers of

Numbers of

correct answer

Numbers of

Percentage of

inversion-like Cantonese-like Cantonese-like

answer

answer

answer (%)

Simple argument what?

19

Simple

19

argument

Where?

Simple argument Who?

18

Simple adjunct Why?

14

25

Simple adjunct When?

16

Simple adjunct How?

19

Complex

argument

17

Argument What with

30

argument

11

40

argument

18

Complex argument What

17

12

35

14

25

15

15

15

What?

passive

Complex
What?

10

Complex
Where?

11

time?

12

Complex adjunct How

much?

13

Complex adjunct How

long?

14

Complex adjunct How

many?

15

Complex adjunct How

many with passive

7.4 The relationship between the teaching of language learning strategies

and wh-movement
The aim of the analysis is to find out whether the teaching of language
learning strategy is helpful to subjects in handling wh-movement and thus avoids
making mistakes in doing wh-questions.

The data was collected by asking the

subjects to do the question-and-answer task of research question once again after

a week of instruction in learning strategies. The analysis of the result will be
used to compare the general performance of the subjects in the Q & A task.
42

Details of the test and a comparison between subjects performance of the task
before and after the instruction are shown on Table 5 and 6 respectively.

The result shows that there is a clear improvement on subjects

performance in the Q & A task.

Generally speaking, the subject got more

correct answers in this test and made lesser errors, except in Test item 5, when
compared to the test result in Table 1.

The result indicates that teaching of the

language learning strategy is helpful to students in handling wh-movements since

there is an increase in the number of correct answers to the questions by the
subjects.

It can also be concluded that teaching of the learning strategies is

conducive to avoiding students from making errors when handling wh-questions,

as suggested by the data.
Table 5

Performance of subjects in handling inversion in argument wh-questions and adjunct

wh-questions after the instruction of learning strategies.
Test item
Wh-Question type
Numbers of correct Numbers of wrong Percentage of errors
answers
answers
(%)
1
Simple argument What + do
20
0
0
2
Simple argument What + does
18
2
10
3
Simple argument Where + do
20
0
0
Simple argument Where+does
19
1
5
4
5
Simple argument Who + do
17
3
15
6
Simple argument Who + does
20
0
0
7
Simple adjunct Why + do
19
1
5
8
Simple adjunct When + do
19
1
5
Simple adjunct When + does
18
2
10
9
10
Simple adjunct How + do
19
1
5
11
Complex adjunct
18
2
10
How many + do

12

Complex adjunct

13

35

18

10

15

25

14

30

17

15

12
14
20
19

8
6
0
1

40
30
0
5

How many + are there

13

Complex adjunct
How much + do

14

Complex adjunct
How long + do

15

Complex adjunct
How long + does

16

Complex adjunct
How long + is

17
18
19
20

Argument what with relative clause

Argument Who with relative clause
Complex argument What + do
Complex adjunct Which + do

43

Table 6
Test
item

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

Comparisons of subjects performance in handling inversion in argument wh-questions

and adjunct wh-questions before and after the instruction of learning strategies.

Wh-Question type

Simple argument
What + do
Simple argument
What + does
Simple argument
Where + do
Simple argument
Where + does
Simple argument
Who + do
Simple argument
Who + does
Simple adjunct
Why + do
Simple adjunct
When + do
Simple adjunct
When + does
Simple adjunct
How + do
Complex adjunct
How many + do
Complex adjunct
How many + are there
Complex adjunct
How much + do
Complex adjunct
How long + do
Complex adjunct
How long + does
Complex adjunct
How long + is
Argument what with
relative clause
Argument Who with
relative clause
Complex
argument
What + do
Complex adjunct
Which + do

Numbers of Numbers of Numbers of Numbers of Percentage

correct
correct
wrong
wrong
of errors (%)
answers
answers
answers
answers
(Before
(After
(After
(Before
(Before
instruction) instruction) instruction) instruction) instruction)

Percentage
of errors (%)
(After
instruction)

20

20

16

18

20

10

20

20

17

19

15

19

17

15

20

20

17

19

15

19

19

15

18

25

10

19

19

18

18

10

10

10

13

10

50

35

15

18

25

10

14

15

30

25

11

14

45

30

13

17

35

15

12

20

100

40

14

15

75

30

18

20

10

17

19

15

44

7.5 Discussion
As already mentioned, the purpose of the present study is to investigate
what causes the difficulties of handling wh-movement to Hong Kong primary
students who learn English as their second language, why they have such kinds of
difficulties and to suggest ways to help students learning and teachers teaching
based on findings from the present investigation.

Three studies have been

conducted. The research findings show that Hong Kong primary students do have
difficulties in handling wh-movement, like the native English learners, when they
come across with wh-questions.

Students do better in wh-movement when they

are dealing with the argument wh-questions of who, what and where than the adjunct
wh-questions of why, when and how.

This findings tally with the findings in similar

L1 and L2 wh-movement researches.

The difficulties of wh-movement by students can be explained through a

number of factors.

From the test results, it is suggested that syntactic complexity,

Cantonese intervention and students lacking of appropriate language learning

strategies each contributes a part to the phenomenon.

These factors interact with

each other, causing the deficit in performing wh-movement by students.

None of

them is the prime and sole cause for the errors. The learners difficulty in handling
wh-movement is a multi-factor phenomenon.

For syntactic complexity, the data from both question-and answer task
and grammatical judgment task clearly shows that the students performance in
wh-movement is sensitive to the structure of the questions.

Apart from the

properties of the wh-words (no matter it is argument or adjunct), the structure of the
question itself also affects childrens performance.
45

Students tend to do better in

inversion in relatively syntactically simple question like Test item 1 in the Q & A
task (What do you buy?) than syntactically complex question like Test item 17 (What
do the policeman who wears a uniform do?) & 18 (Who is the girl dressed in yellow?)
in the Q & A task which consists of a relative clauses in the questions. According
to the L1 empirical research, a relative clause is a barrier to students wh-movement.
(Villiers & Roeper 1995)

It is also the same case for Hong Kong students from the

findings of the present study.

Syntactic complexity also associates with the subjects first language

intervention.

From the data of the grammatical judgment task, it shows that

learners tend to choose the Cantonese-like option when the structure of the test item
is relatively complex, as in Test item 8 (Argument wh-questions with passive, What
drink is included in Dinner Set A?), Test item 9 (Complex argument structure, What
was the weather like in Hong Kong? and Test item 12 (Complex adjunct wh-question,
How much do you pay for your dress?).

It can be explained by Corders notion that

L1 interference is a kind of learners strategy that students tend to borrow the

language resources of their L1 to make up their insufficiency of handling the
complex structure of the questions in L2. (Corder 1978)

Since students are not able

to understand the complex structure, they will handle the question by referring to
their L1 and hence that referral affects students to choose the Cantonese-like option.

The research findings from the test also show that the instruction of
language learning strategies is useful to students in handling the wh-movement since
there is a significant progress in the subjects performance after the instruction of the
strategies. It demonstrates OMalley and Chamots notion that learning strategy can
be treated as a kind of skill that can be taught to students. It can also be inferred
46

that students weak performance in handling wh-questions beforehand is due to their

lack of appropriate learning strategies.

Once they are taught the learning strategies

and proceduralized them in their long-term memory, improvement can be seen in

their performance, as the research findings suggested.

So, how do the research findings relate to teachers teaching and

students learning?

Based on McLaughlins information processing model (1990)

and Andersons ACT model (1985), the study reveals that the subjects had not yet
proceduralized their knowledge of inversion when they came across the
wh-questions.

From the data of the grammatical judgment task, it can be seen that

quite a number of subjects choose the inversion-like answers when they were dealing
with the wh-questions. It shows that although they had the declarative knowledge
of inversion in their mind, they failed to apply it consistently to all situations. In
other words, they were in the associative stage. They knew the way to perform
inversion, but they had not been able to transform it to the autonomous stage,
whenever the need of inversion arises.

The errors appeared in this stage were gradually eliminated through the
process of transformation.

Hence, teachers can help learners to learn the language

incrementally by providing good model and repeated opportunities of practice

throughout the transformation process so that desired modeling and cues can be
provided for students at critical points where the rules they need to apply have been
forgotten, and regular practice enables students to gradually perform the skill
automatically and become a good language learner. (OMalley and Chamot 1990)

There are some limitations in the present study that should be noted.
47

Firstly, it is a pilot and small-scale research and the simplified research procedures
were used in the study. Because of its small size sampling, it cannot represent the
full picture of the student performance in handling wh-questions and wh-movement.
In order to get a better understanding of students performance in dealing with the
wh-questions and wh-movement, a more comprehensive and thorough research
should be conducted later.
should be further examined.

Secondly, the effect of the learning strategys instruction

As a pilot study, a week of intensive instruction should

be sufficient but is not enough to assess the overall effectiveness of the learning
strategies. As OMalley and Chamot (1990) suggested that the teaching of strategies
involves a considerable investment of time and effort in order to be effective, a
long-term study investigating the effect of strategy teaching is recommended.
Thirdly, although the design of the grammatical judgment task has taken into account
on how to get an as-accurate-as-possible picture of students performance of first
language intervention by setting three options for each test item, it still can not truly
reflect the subjects L1 interference since the choices of the Cantonese-like options
may be due to the wild-guessing of the students.

Therefore, the role of first

language intervention is worth to have further examination.

48

CHAPTER 8
CONCLUSION
The present study has examined the handling of wh-movement by Hong
Kong primary students who learn English as their second language. From daily
classroom observation, it is discovered that Hong Kong primary students have
difficulties in handling wh-questions involving the wh-movement.

The aim of the

study was to investigate what types of wh-questions that cause difficulties to them,
why they have such kind of difficulties and suggests ways to help teachers teaching
and students learning. A detailed literature review about the wh-movement in both
first language and second language acquisition is presented.
language and the learning strategies is also examined.

The role of first

For the sake of the

discussion, two cognitive theories, namely, McLaughlins information-processing

model (1990) and Andersons ACT* model (1985) were used as a basis of discussion.
Research findings show that students do better in argument wh-questions than
adjunct wh-questions.

Syntactic complexity of the question, first language

intervention and the lack of learning strategy all play a role in affecting students
performance in wh-movement.

Since it is a pilot study to examine the phenomenon,

it is suggested that a more comprehensive, thorough and long-term study should be

conducted in the future in order to have a better understanding of students
performance.

49

APPENDIX I
Research Test 1: What type of wh-questions causes difficulties
Answer the following questions in complete sentences.
e.g. What does Mary eat? (Some ice cream)
Mary eats some ice cream.
1. What do you buy? (Some apples)
___________________________________________________________
2. What does he buy? (Some apples)
___________________________________________________________
3. Where do you keep the money? (In the bank)
___________________________________________________________
4.
Where does he keep the money? (In the bank)
___________________________________________________________
5.
Who do you like? (John)
___________________________________________________________
6.
Who does John like? (Mary)
___________________________________________________________
7.
Why do you turn off the radio? (Because I dont like the music).
___________________________________________________________
8.
When do you go to school? (At eight oclock.)
___________________________________________________________
9.
When does Lily watch the film? (On Monday)
__________________________________________________________
10. How do they go to Canada? (By the plane)
__________________________________________________________
11. How many apples do you have? (Ten)
__________________________________________________________
12. How many children are there in the classroom? (Eleven)
__________________________________________________________
13. How much do you pay for the toy train? (Five dollars)
__________________________________________________________
14. How long do you spend in the garden? (Half an hour)
__________________________________________________________
15. How long does it take to go to Ocean Park? (One hour)
__________________________________________________________
16. How long is it from here to Stanley? (About two miles)
__________________________________________________________
17. What do the policeman who wears a uniform do? (Catch the thief)
__________________________________________________________
18. Who is the girl who dressed in yellow? (Johns sister)
___________________________________________________________
19. What do they have for lunch? (Some bread)
___________________________________________________________
20. Which one do you like better, chicken or fish? (Fish)
___________________________________________________________

50

APPENDIX II
Research Test 2: A grammatical judgment task
Choose the correct answers for each question.
e.g
Where do you live?
5 I live in Tseung Kwan O.
Tseung Kwan O I live.
I live Tsueng Kwan O.
1. What is your name?
Jenny Wong is my name.
My name is Jenny Wong.
My name Jenny Wong is.
2.

Where is the cat now?

The cat now is in the sofa.
In the sofa is the cat now
The cat is in the sofa now

3.

Who do you like most?

I like Jenny most.
I most like Jenny.
Jenny I like most.

4. Why does he want to drink?

Because he is thirsty so he wants to drink.
He wants to drink because he is thirsty.
He is thirsty because he wants to drink.
5. When does the farmer go to work?
In the morning the farmer goes to work.
The farmer goes to work in the morning.
The farmer in the morning goes to work.
6. How do you go to school?
I go to school by bus.
I by bus go to school.
By bus I go to school.
7. What do you want for your birthday?
A teddy bear I want for my birthday.
I want a teddy bear for my birthday.
I want for my birthday a teddy bear

51

8. What drink is included in Dinner set A?

In Dinner Set A the drink included is coffee.
Coffee is included in Dinner Set A.
It is included Coffee in Dinner set A.
9. What was the weather like in Hong Kong?
The weather like in Hong Kong was sunny.
Sunny was the weather like in Hong Kong.
The weather was sunny in Hong Kong.
10. Where do you put the milk?
In the fridge I put the milk.
I put the milk in the fridge.
I in the fridge put the milk.
11. What time does your brother get up?
At seven oclock my brother gets up.
My brother at seven oclock gets up.
My brother gets up at seven oclock.
12. How much did you pay for your dress?
Fifty dollars I pay for my dress.
I pay my dress for fifty dollars.
I pay fifty dollars for my dress.
13. How long do you stay at Grandmas house?
An hour I stay at Grandmas house.
I stay an hour at Grandmas house.
I stay at Grandmas house for an hour.
14. How many months are there in a year?
.
There are twelve months in a year.
Twelve months are there in a year,
There are in a year twelve months.
15. How many folding bicycles will Mary buy in the sale period?
Mary will buy 14 folding bicycles in the sale period.
14 folding bicycles Mary will buy in the sale period.
Mary will buy in the sale period 14 folding bicycles.

52

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