| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語學系 === 105 === Previous studies (Bonner, 2013; Hsieh, 2009; R. S. Su, 2012; Y. H. Su, 2016) found that EFL learners whose mother language is Mandarin had difficulty in employing the third person singular marking either in written production or in oral production. However, tense-related inflectional suffixes have been stated to be an important factor in speech time location and later lexical representation (Fabricius-Hansen, 2006; Smith, 2007). Hsieh (2009) examined 20 Taiwanese 11- to 14-year-old learners’ oral production of the third person singular and the past tense suffixes and indicated that the proficiency factor is likely to influence the participants’ oral production of these two types of tense-related suffixes. Therefore, the present study focused on examining the oral production of the third person singular marking among Taiwanese 8th graders, with the recruited participants divided into a low proficiency group and a high proficiency group. Additionally, the factors of places of articulation, manners of articulation, and voicing of the ending sounds of stems were examined in this study.
The total number of the participants in this study was 102 eighth graders. The participants were recruited to complete a written morphological awareness (MA) test and an oral speech production test. The target items, 31 items in total, used in the MA test were all real words chosen from the level 1 and the level 2 in Graded Vocabulary compiled by College Entrance Examination Center. However, the target items, 12 items in total, used in the speech production test were all pseudowords.
The results revealed ranking of the Taiwanese eighth graders’ oral production of the third person singular allomorphs was [s] > [ɪz] > [z]. In terms of the low achievers’ and the high achievers’ oral production of the third person singular allomorphs, the high achievers were found to outperform the low achievers at the [ɪz] allomorph. The two groups’ oral production at the [s] and [z] allomorphs showed no significant differences.
Based upon the results of MANOVA, the high achievers were found to significantly outperform the low achievers in the following categories: labial, alveolar, fricative, voiceless, and voiced endings. Finally, the results of a stepwise multiple regression showed that manner of articulation, accounting for 47.2% of the performance variance among the participants, is the major factor affecting Taiwanese eighth graders’ oral production of the third person singular allomorphs.
Based upon the results, Taiwanese junior high school English teachers are recommended to teach eighth graders when the morphophonological rules of the third person singular allomorphs should be applied in their oral production, in particular the [z] allomorph. Future studies are recommended to examine Taiwanese eighth graders’ perception and production of the third person singular allomorphs and the past tense allomorphs.
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