ABSTRACT:The avoidance phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon in which the language leaners, when faced with expressions that they never come across or they don’t have a good understanding of them in the process of the second language acquisition, will use the expressions they are familiar with to replace those language difficulties so that they won’t make mistakes. This paper, taking the attributive clause as the case study, analyzes the reasons leading to the avoidance phenomenon by doing the questionnaire and interview. This study shows that the English learners in China do avoid using the attributive clause and there are many reasons for that—the incomplete knowledge of the attributive clause, being afraid of making mistakes and the imperfect teaching method. Meanwhile, the paper also discusses the learning strategies for the avoidance phenomenon.

Keywords: Avoidance phenomenon; The attributive clause; Learning strategy;   Second language acquisition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

摘要

ABSTRACT

1 INTRODUCTION-1

2 LITERATURE REVIEW-2

2.1 The Avoidance Phenomenon-2

2.2 Studies Abroad-3

2.3 Studies at Home-3

3 METHODOLOGY-6

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS -8

4.1 The Results of the Questionnaire-8

4.2 The Results of the Interview-9

5 SUGGESTIONS FOR THE AVOIDANCE PHENOMENON-11

6 CONCLUSION-15

REFERENCES-16

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS-17