Ignorance of rule restrictions

涂于德

Ignorance of rule restrictions

       Ignorance of rule restrictions involves the application of rules to contexts where they do not apply. For example,
(1) A: After graduation I will try my best to serve for the people.
B: After graduation I will try my best to serve the people.
(2) A: In my spare time I like listening music.
B: In my spare time I like listening to music.
       Here the subjects make such errors because of the misuse of the transitive verb and the intransitive verb. In Chinese, we say“为人民服务”，but in English the verb \"serve\" is a transitive verb and the object should be used directly after the verb \"serve\". However, in English the verb \"listen\" is an intransitive verb and a proposition \"to\" is necessary between the verb and the object. In interview, when the researcher asks the subjects to translate the Chinese phrase“为人民服务”，some of them translate it into \"to serve for the people\", but many subjects translate the phrase “听音乐”into \"to listen to music\" because they say they often use the phrase \"to listen to\" and have been used to it.