Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 1995

A t t he L i m i t s o f G r ammar Learning English as a Second Language i n Schools 'Mary thought that Susan disliked herself.' Can 'herself refer to Mary, Susan, or both? 'What did Tom wash the pan after Mary fried?' O n a scale of one to seven, one being h i g h l y g r a mm a t i c al a n d s e v en h i g h l y u n g r amma t i c a l, h o w w o u l d y o u rate t h is sentence? These are but sample questions taken f r om t wo questionnaires given to 270 students of a local seconda ry s chool a nd some first year university students as part of a study entitled T h e Deve l opment of Grammatical Competence i n t he F o r mal ESL L e a r n i ng En v i r o nme n t '. Undertaken by Dr. Virginia Y i p and Dr. Gladys Tang of the University's English Department, w h o received HK$362,000 f r om the Research Grants Coun c il i n 1992 for the pu r pose, the s t udy investigates the extent to wh i ch different aspects of English grammar that differ substantially f r om Cantonese can be acquired by second language learners, given limited input i n the classroom. T he t w o areas u n d er s c r u t i ny are ( 1 ) t he interpretation of reflexive p r o n o u ns and (2) constraints o n wh-question formation. Dr. Y ip explains their choice: 'Our research is theory driven. Both these topics have been intensively s t ud i ed i n linguistic t h e o ry a nd second language acquisition w i t h learners of English f r om various language backgrounds as subjects. We think it might be a g o od idea to p u r s ue t h em i n t he H o n g K o n g c o n t e x t. Ultimately we are trying to investigate the role Research 18