The acquisition of the Chinese adverb DOU among second language learners

This study investigates how similarities and differences in the usage of the adverb DOU and its English counterpart “all” affect English-speaking Chinese learners’ comprehension of the word DOU. Chinese learners’ comprehension of two patterns containing DOU (LIAN…DOU and WULUN…DOU) is also investigated. A grammaticality judgment test, a gap-filling test and a form-recognition test are used to answer the research questions. The results reveal that comprehension of the adverb DOU among Chinese learners of various proficiency levels is similar to that of native Chinese speakers when the uses of DOU and its English counterpart “all” are the same; comprehension of the adverb DOU among Chinese learners of various proficiency levels lags behind that of native Chinese speakers when the uses of DOU and its English counterpart “all” are very different. When the uses of DOU and “all” are different but share a similarity, fourth-year Chinese students’ comprehension of DOU is similar to that of native speakers, while second- and third-year Chinese students’ comprehension of DOU in this situation fails to rise that of native speakers. As for Chinese learners’ comprehension of the two patterns, second-year Chinese students’ comprehension of the two patterns is similar across the gap-filling test and the form-recognition test; third- and fourth-year Chinese students’ comprehension of the pattern WULUN…DOU is better than their comprehension of the pattern LIAN…DOU in the gap-filling test, while their comprehension of the two patterns is similar in the form-recognition test.