ACQUISITION OF GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES AND RELEVANT VERBAL STRATEGIES IN A SECOND LANGUAGE. Ikuo Koike. Tokyo: Taishukan, 1983. Pp. xxxv + 497. $66.00.

1988 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-84
Author(s):  
Don R. McCreary
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Verbal Strategies ◽  
Grammatical Structures

scholarly journals TEACHING GRAMMAR IN SECONDARY SCHOOL: ALTERNATIVE TO DEFINITION APPROACH

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
Mohammed Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Grammar Teaching ◽  
Teaching Grammar ◽  
Grammatical Structures

This paper examines the teaching of grammar in relation to Nigerian classroom. The paper examines the controversy of whether or not to teach grammar to students learning a second language pointing out the arguments advanced by those in favour and against it. Two approaches to the teaching of grammar - explicit and implicit - were equally discussed highlighting arguments for and against each. The paper finally gives support to an integrative approach to grammar teaching and recommends the same for use in teaching grammatical structures in Nigerian schools.

The emergence of tense and agreement in child L2 French

1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanne Paradis ◽  
Mathieu Le Corre ◽  
Fred Genesee
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Acquisition Sequence ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Lexical Transfer ◽  
Grammatical Structures

The present study examined the acquisition of tense and agreement by L2 learners of French. We looked at whether the features and and the categories AGRP and TP emerged simultaneously or in sequence in the learners' grammars.We conducted interviews with English-speaking children acquiring French as a second language and with grade-matched native-speaker controls once a year for three years. The data were analysed for the productive use of morphosyntax encoding tense and agreement. Results revealed that items encoding agreement emerged before items encoding tense, suggesting that the abstract grammatical structures associated with these morphosyntax items emerge in sequence. The findings are interpreted with respect to three prevailing views on the acquisition of functional phrase structure in L2 acquisition: the Lexical Transfer/Minimal Trees hypothesis (Vainikka and Young-Scholten, 1994; 1996a; 1996b), the Weak Transfer/Valueless Features hypothesis (Eubank, 1993/94; 1994; 1996) and the Full Transfer/Full Access hypothesis (Schwartz and Sprouse, 1994;1996). Possible reasons for the existence of this acquisition sequence in French are also discussed.

DESIGNING SCALE TO EVALUATE THE VIETNAMESE GRAMMAR COMPENTENCE FOR ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (Special) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Tran Ngoc Anh Ho
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Minority Students ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Actual Situation ◽  
Behavioral Indicators ◽  
Ethnic Minority Students ◽  
Pragmatic Aspects ◽  
Grammatical Structures

This article presents the concept of Vietnamese grammar competence and the process of designing the Vietnamese grammar compentence scale for ethnic minority students. Determining a grammar competence benchmark will help teachers to better communicate their knowledge to students and develop appropriate teaching strategies to develop learner competencies. Based on the actual situation of teaching Vietnamese as a second language, the standard for evaluating Vietnamese grammar competence is specifically described into 6 levels. Grammar competence is made up of 3 components: the ability to identify, analyze and use grammatical structures; capacity to identify and analyze semantic and pragmatic aspects of grammatical structures; ability to apply grammatical structures in specific communication contexts. Each component is subdivided into behavioral indicators and sets of performance criteria that meet those behavioral indicators. The scale after design is used as a basis for developing tools to assess the grammar competence of the ethnic minority students in Vietnamese language teaching.

AN EXPLORATION OF THE RANGE AND FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE OF FORMS IN POTENTIALLY VARIABLE STRUCTURES IN SECOND-LANGUAGE SPANISH

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly L. Geeslin ◽  
Aarnes Gudmestad
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Grammatical Structures

This article adds to the growing body of research focused on second-language (L2) variation and constitutes the first large-scale study of the production of potentially variable grammatical structures in Spanish by English-speaking learners. The overarching goal of the project is to assess the range of forms used and the degree to which native and L2 speakers of Spanish differ in several independently defined syntactic or discourse-based contexts. The contexts examined in the current study have been the object of sociolinguistic research in monolingual environments and include the following: copula contrast, mood distinction, past-time reference, future-time reference, and subject expression. Interview data from 16 English-speaking learners and 16 native speakers of Spanish from a variety of countries, all of whom are part of a single speech community in the United States, are examined. The analysis focuses on the range of forms used in each of the contexts investigated and the frequency with which these forms appear. A possible relation of individual characteristics, such as country of origin, years of language study, and time spent abroad, to this frequency of use is also considered.

scholarly journals La competencia comunicativa en escolares de Educación Primaria

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Isabel Gómez Veiga ◽  
Pilar Vieiro
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
School Children ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
First Language ◽  
Educación Primaria ◽  
Grammatical Structures

RESUMENEl trabajo que presentamos en este artículo pretende contribuir al conocimiento de la competencia comunicativa desarrollada en la lengua oral por los escolares de ocho años. Analizamos los discursos producidos en la primera y en la segunda lengua, a través de medidas relacionadas con el acceso al léxico, la precisión sintáctica y la complejidad de las construcciones gramaticales construidas por los hablantes. Los resultados apuntan a que las diferencias en la competencia comunicativa en ambos códigos  se  relacionan,  fundamentalmente,  con  los  procesos  básicos  de  codificación  léxica  y morfo-sintáctica.ABSTRACTThe work reported in this paper purports to investigate communicative competence in oral language developed by school children (average age 8:2). Discourses produced in both first language and second language were analysed through measures related to lexical access, syntactic accuracy and complexity of grammatical structures constructed by speakers. Results indicate that differences in communicative competence between codes are associated with basic processes of lexical and morphosyntactic encoding.

Dynamic localization in second language English and German

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 400-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARY GRANTHAM O’BRIEN ◽  
CAROLINE FÉRY
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
The Other ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Dynamic Localization ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Pitch Accents

Marking new and given constituents requires speakers to use morphosyntactic and phonological cues within a discourse context. The current study uses a dynamic localization paradigm whereby German and English native speakers, with the other language as a second language (L2), describe constellations of pictures. In each picture a new or reintroduced animal is localized relative to other animals, thereby allowing for control of newness vs. givenness of animals. Participants completed the task in their native language (L1) and L2. English native speakers use predominantly canonical word order and often mark the new object with a falling pitch accent. German native speakers use a given-before-new word order, even when this is non-canonical, and they use a rising pitch accent in non-final position. The results indicate that speakers easily transfer unmarked grammatical structures – both word order and pitch accents – from their L1 to their L2.

scholarly journals Real-time grammar processing by native and non-native speakers: Constructions unique to the second language

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIJELA TRENKIC ◽  
JELENA MIRKOVIC ◽  
GERRY T. M. ALTMANN
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Multiple Meaning ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
English Articles ◽  
Referential Domains ◽  
Grammatical Structures

We investigated second language (L2) comprehension of grammatical structures that are unique to the L2, and which are known to cause persistent difficulties in production. A visual-world eye-tracking experiment focused on online comprehension of English articles by speakers of the article-lacking Mandarin, and a control group of English native speakers. The results show that non-native speakers from article-lacking backgrounds can incrementally utilise the information signalled by L2 articles in real time to constrain referential domains and resolve reference more efficiently. The findings support the hypothesis that L2 processing does not always over-rely on pragmatic affordances, and that some morphosyntactic structures unique to the target language can be processed in a targetlike manner in comprehension – despite persistent difficulties with their production. A novel proposal, based on multiple meaning-to-form, but consistent form-to-meaning mappings, is developed to account for such comprehension–production asymmetries.

scholarly journals Syntactic complexity development in college students’ essay writing based on AWE

2020 ◽  
pp. 190-194
Author(s):  
Wenjin Li ◽  
Zhihong Lu ◽  
Qianwen Liu
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Production Unit ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Essay Writing ◽  
Chinese College Students ◽  
Writing Evaluation ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Syntactic complexity is considered to be an important device for assessing the quality of writing in a second language (L2), as it indicates the diversity and complexity of production units or grammatical structures. This paper studies the development of Chinese college students’ syntactic complexity in essay writing by using an Automatic Writing Evaluation (AWE) tool, the Pigai system (www.pigai.org, which has been most widely used in China in the last ten years). The data analysis showed that the students’ syntactic competences in their final drafts outperformed that in their first drafts in three aspects: length of production unit, amount of subordination, and amount of coordination.

A native-like adult L2 Korean learner’s agentive acquisition of Korean relative clauses

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 1017-1034
Author(s):  
Dae-Min Kang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Grammatical Competence ◽  
Interpretive Study ◽  
Comprehension Task ◽  
Learner Agency ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Dynamic Trajectory

Aims and objectives: Despite considerable interest in second language (L2) relative clauses (RCs)—one of the most difficult grammatical structures to learn—and in learner agency, few research efforts have been made to investigate how the latter informs the acquisition of the former. The current study looks at a native-like adult L2 Korean learner’s comprehension/production of Korean RCs and the trajectory of his acquisition of the RCs. Methodology: The research instruments consisted of RC comprehension/production tasks and autobiographic interviews. Data and analysis: The L2 learner’s responses in the comprehension task and those in the production task (audio-recorded) were reviewed for their accuracy. The processes of analyzing the interview data involved labeling themes/concepts forming from the data and interlinking categories to create larger, more general categories. Findings: The results indicated that the L2 learner’s performance on the tasks was native-like, and that he had actively exercised his learner agency which had dynamically interacted with context to achieve such native-likeness. Originality: This study distinguishes itself from the few previous studies on exceptional adult L2 learners by focusing on grammatical competence in relation to agency. Significance: The current interpretive study—which used autobiographical interviews to examine the dynamic trajectory of L2 RC acquisition—indicates the importance of an L2 learner’s agency.

EVIDENCE FOR THE DECREASING IMPACT OF COGNITIVE ABILITY ON SECOND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AS PROFICIENCY INCREASES

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen J. Serafini ◽  
Cristina Sanz
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Second Language Development ◽  
Morphosyntactic Development ◽  
Grammatical Structures

This study investigated whether the role of working memory capacity varies over the course of second language (L2) morphosyntactic development. Eighty-seven beginning, intermediate, and advanced university L2 Spanish learners completed two nonverbal tasks measuring executive function (EF) and phonological working memory (PWM) in their native language (English) and two tasks measuring knowledge of ten grammatical structures in Spanish at three points during and after a semester of instruction. Robust relationships between both working memory components, especially PWM, and L2 performance, emerged only for lower level learners, particularly at the start of instruction and 3.5 months later. Findings demonstrate that the facilitative effects of cognitive ability appear to lessen with increasing L2 proficiency and empirically support a developmental perspective of L2 learning.

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