An Analysis of the Linguistic Features in English Animation Peppa Pig from the Perspective of Input Hypothesis_英语论文

摘要

20世纪末,美国语言学家、教育家斯蒂芬·克拉申首次提出输入假说 。克拉申的输入假说理论对儿童启蒙英语教育具有重要的理论指导意义。我国现在的英语学习呈现出“低龄化”趋势，幼儿英语启蒙受到越来越多的英语教育工作者及父母的关注。作为新型语言教育资源，英语动画片备受儿童喜爱。其中，《小猪佩奇》更是受到全民关注。本文将运用克拉申的输入假说，对风靡全球的英语动画片《小猪佩奇》的语言特点进行研究分析，旨在检验其语言输入对儿童来说是否为可理解性输入，是否有助于儿童的二语习得，以期为儿童英语动画片的选择提供参考，并让老师家长更了解儿童二语习得的语言环境。分析发现，对于儿童来说，《小猪佩奇》的内容既有趣又与日常生活息息相关，语言的难度适中，儿童可以在观赏的过程中提高语言能力，这部动画片的词汇等会反复出现，适合儿童进行英语学习。因此，《小猪佩奇》的语言特点十分有利于儿童的语言学习。

关键词：输入假说  英语动画片  儿童二语习得

Abstract

At the end of the 20th century, American linguist and educator Stephen Krashen first proposed the Input Hypothesis. Krashen's Input Hypothesis theory has important theoretical guiding significance for preschool children's English education. The current English learning in our country shows a trend of “lower age”, and the English enlightenment of young children is receiving more and more attention from English educators and parents. As a new language education resource, English cartoons are very popular among children. Among them, Peppa Pig is one of the most famous ones. Therefore, this article will employ Krashen’s Input Hypothesis to conduct research and analysis on the linguistic features of the popular English animated film Peppa Pig, aiming to test whether its language input is comprehensible for children, and whether it helps children's second language acquisition, in order to provide a reference for the choice of children's English cartoons, and let teachers and parents know more about the language environment of children's second language acquisition. The analysis finds that the content of Peppa Pig is both interesting and relevant to children’s daily life. The language is moderately difficult, and children can learn English subtly in the process of watching this animation. And the vocabulary or grammar of this cartoon is repeated from time to time, which is suitable for children to learn English. Therefore, the language characteristics of Peppa Pig are very beneficial to children's language learning. 

Keywords: Input Hypothesis  English animation  child L2 acquisition

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  Significance of the Research 1

1.2  Research Purpose 2

1.3  Research Question and Methodology 2

1.4  Thesis Outline 2

Chapter Two  Literature Review 3

2.1  Introduction 3

2.2  Previous Studies on Input Hypothesis 3

2.3  Previous Studies on Animation for Children 5

2.4  Comments 6

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 7

3.1  Introduction 7

3.2  Development of Input Hypothesis 7

3.3  Four Features of Input Hypothesis 8

Chapter Four  Analysis of the Linguistic Features in English Animation Peppa Pig from the Perspective of Input Hypothesis 10

4.1  Introduction 10

4.2  Brief Introduction to Peppa Pig 10

4.3  Analysis from the View of Input Hypothesis 11

4.3.1 Comprehensibility 11

4.3.2 Interesting and Relevant 12

4.3.3 Not Grammatically Sequenced 13

4.3.4 Sufficient Input 19

Chapter Five  Conclusion 21

5.1  Findings 21

5.2  Implications 22

5.3  Limitations 23

Bibliography

Acknowledgements