臺灣中學生英文名詞可數性質學習成效之研究

Countability of Nouns in English: A Study of Its Performance among High School Students in Taiwan

汪宜璇(Yi-xuan Wang)

指導教授 ： 李櫻博士

國立臺灣師範大學/文學院/英語學系/碩士(2004年)

摘要

本研究的目的是要探討臺灣中學生英文名詞可數性質的學習成效。主要議題是傳統文法書中名詞可數性質的說明對於學習者的影響。四十位國三學生和四十位高三學生參加本實驗。他們依指示完成判斷可數性質的測驗。
整體而言，由於傳統文法中強調制式名詞分類教學的影響，受試者依此分類在普通名詞、普通可數名詞、特指用法的專有名詞的表現較佳，然而受試者亦因此種名詞分類，而在一些有明顯可數性質線索，但違反該分類的試題中，正確率偏低。其他因素像是集合名詞的特殊型式、該用語常用與否、在真實世界中的外觀、母語的影響、以及名詞前的量詞等，都是可能影響可數性判斷結果的因素。
比較高中生和國中生，高中程度者對於可數性質的判斷優於國中程度者。可能是因為他們閱讀的內容較廣，而有更多機會做可數性質判斷的練習。然而進一步探究則發現，高中生傾向於過度把普通名詞當作可數名詞使用，而過度把專有名詞和物質名詞當不可數名詞使用。高中生在這些名詞次類的表現不佳很可能是受到傳統文法書中制式名詞分類法的影響。
此外，國中和高中生在不同名詞類別中可數和不可數名詞的使用亦顯示高中生受到制式分類法的影響較國中生深。國中生傾向於把普通名詞當作可數，專有名詞當不可數，但在意料之外的是他們過度把物質名詞當可數名詞使用, 但亦較能接受物質名詞當可數名詞的正確用法。相較之下，高中生傾向於過度把普通名詞當作可數，而專有、物質和抽象名詞則都當不可數用，而常常導致用法的錯誤。這種現象可能是因為高中生學習文法規則較久，所以受到的影響較深；國中學生，相反地，受到傳統可數類別劃分規定的影響就沒有那麼深，因而制式用法還並未建立得那麼僵化。

關鍵字

可數性質 ； 名詞 ； 學習成效 ； 中學生 ； 語境

並列摘要

The purpose of the study is to investigate the performance of countability of nouns in English among high school students in Taiwan. The major issue is the influence of instruction for countability in traditional grammar books on learners. Forty third-year junior high school students and forty third-year senior high school students participated in the experiment. They were directed to complete a countability judgment test.
Overall, the influence of emphasizing the rigid noun classification in traditional grammar is manifested in the better results of common nouns, count common nouns, proper nouns for unique reference, and low accuracy of some individual items with clear cues of individuation. Other factors like special patterns of collective nouns, frequency of occurrence, perceivable forms in the real world, L1 transfer, and pre-nominal quantifiers, are also possible factors that influence the results of learner’s countability judgment.
Between different levels, the accuracy results show a tendency for the third-year senior students to perform better than the third-year junior students in countability judgment. The senior-level group’s better performance may be due to their exposure to more reading materials, which provided them with more opportunities of countability judgment practice. Further investigation shows that the senior group tended to overuse individuated common nouns, unindividuated proper nouns, and unindividuated material nouns. Poor performance in these sub-type noun classes is possibly due to their longer exposure to the strict classification instruction they have received in traditional grammar books.
Accuracy results of individuated and unindividuated noun classes of the junior and senior groups separately further clarify that the senior level is influenced by the rigid noun classification more deeply than the junior level. The junior subjects show a tendency to overuse common nouns as count, proper nouns as non-count, but an unexpected tendency to overuse material nouns as count. Meanwhile, they are more ready to correctly use material nouns as count. Contrastively, the senior subjects show a tendency to overuse common nouns as count, and proper, material, and abstract nouns as non-count. It is possible that the senior group have been exposed to the grammatical rules longer, so they were influenced by the rigid instructional material more deeply. The junior learners, on the contrary, were not influenced by the traditional rules of countability as much, and thus the rigid classification instruction has not been established as firmly yet.

並列關鍵字

countability ； nouns ； performance ； high school students ； context

參考文獻

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