Error Analysis of Complex Wh-Questions in L2 English by Mandarin Speakers of Chinese

This article investigates if Mandarin speakers would systematically produce more economical productions, albeit ungrammatical, in English for (general) academic purposes (EGAP). More specifically, the goal is to collect the data of wh-scope marking to evidence the theoretical dependence on UG in the course of language acquisition. The findings would prove a phenomenon in E(G)AP that the learners are bound to produce grammatically simpler but meaningfully still admissible structures, not necessarily for grammatical structures called wh-scope marking. This structure is ungrammatical in English, but it is readably consumed in many other natural languages; hence, an admissible option in E(G)AP. On the other hand, long-distance wh-movement is an ordinary direct wh-question in which a wh-phrase moves from the base position in the embedded clause to the sentence-initial position. This structure is surely grammatical in English and few other languages, but a single wh-element plays a dual role in the matrix clause and embedded clauses. Experimentally-controlled oral-translation data have been collected from 99 adult Mandarin speakers (female=93, male=6, mean age=20.6) in Liaodong University in Dandong, China. They were classified into HIGH and LOW groups based on their Gao Kao (National College Entrance Examination) scores (from 60 points to 130 points), in which the higher scores implicate the higher English proficiency. As a result, although HIGH produced more of long-distance wh-movement, wh-scope marking was prevalent both HIGH and LOW. A crucial implication for E(G)AP is that learners may opt for simpler and easier structures albeit ungrammatical as long as the meanings are admissible enough. Grammaticality is not the goal in their production of E(G)AP, but they are guided by their mental mind to produce admissible outputs.