THE ACQUISITION AND INTERPRETATION OF ENGLISH LOCATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS BY NATIVE SPEAKERS OF KOREAN

2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Bley-Vroman ◽  
Hye-Ri Joo
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Test Instrument ◽  
Locative Alternation ◽  
Ground Object ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Equivalent Test ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Korean Learners ◽  
Korean Learners Of English

The English locative alternation relates sentences of the type John loaded hay onto the wagon to those of the type John loaded the wagon with hay. Some locative verbs occur in both of these patterns, others in only one or the other. It is known that there are differences among languages with respect to which verbs are possible. The present research focuses on the constructional meaning of the locative alternation and on the constraints governing verbs that can participate in the alternation. One characteristic of the “ground-object” locative is that the object tends to be viewed as completely affected. This is known as the holism effect. Additionally, English has certain narrow constraints on the verbs that can occur in the two constructions. This study investigates whether native speakers of Korean learning English develop knowledge of the holism effect in the English locative and knowledge of the narrow constraints. English native speakers and Korean learners of English participated in a forced-choice picture-description task. Native speakers of Korean also judged an equivalent test instrument in Korean. The primary results are these: When given a ground-object structure, both learners and English native speakers preferentially chose a ground-holism picture. We interpret this as a reflection of the holism effect: Learners, like native speakers, have knowledge of this aspect of the constructional meaning of the locative. English native speakers also show their knowledge of the narrow conflation classes by rejecting ground-object structures containing verbs that are not permitted in this structure, even if the picture would be appropriate. Korean learners show no effect for narrow verb class. We interpret this as showing that the learners have not achieved native-speaker knowledge of the narrow classes. Korean uses a different basis for verb classification.

Second language learnability and the acquisition of the argument structure of English locative verbs by Korean speakers

2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hye-Ri Joo
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Locative Alternation ◽  
Korean Speakers ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Korean Learners ◽  
Korean Learners Of English

The present research focuses on Korean English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ knowledge of the locative alternation (e.g., John loaded hay onto the wagon/John loaded the wagon with hay) and its relationship to theories of language-particular and language-universal properties. Korean, the native language of the participants, has a locative alternation resembling that of English. However, although Korean and English are similar in terms of broad-range constraints, they are dissimilar in terms of narrow-range constraints for locative alternations. This study investigates whether the acquisition of such constraints in English locatives by Korean speakers, and whether the first language (L1) influences the second language (L2) acquisition of locative alternations. Two instruments are used in the experiment: a forced-choice picture-description task and a forced-choice sentence selection task. The study investigates an experimental group of Korean learners of English and a control group of native speakers of English. The results are discussed with reference to universality of linking, to the transfer of argument structure and to Pinker’s learnability theory. The primary results are: • The Korean learners of English had acquired the constructional meaning of the locative construction (which is related to Pinker’s (1989) concept of broad-range rules and broad conflation classes), a property claimed to be universal. • They had not achieved native-speaker knowledge of language-particular properties - which narrow conflation class verbs belong to - so that they did not reject ungrammatical sentences; and • Significant L1 transfer effects were not found.

Acquisition of the constraints on wanna contraction by advanced second language learners: Universal grammar and imperfect knowledge

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soo-Ok Kweon ◽  
Robert Bley-Vroman
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Child Language Acquisition ◽  
Imperfect Knowledge ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Korean Learners ◽  
Korean Learners Of English

Contraction of want to to wanna is subject to constraints that have been related to the operation of Universal Grammar. Contraction appears to be blocked when the trace of an extracted wh-word intervenes. Evidence for knowledge of these constraints by young English-speaking children has been taken to show the operation of Universal Grammar in early child language acquisition. The present study investigates knowledge of these constraints in adults, both English native speakers and advanced Korean learners of English. The results of three experiments — using elicited production, oral repair, and grammaticality judgments — confirmed native speaker knowledge of the constraints. A second process of phonological elision may also operate to produce wanna. Learners also showed some differentiation of contexts, but much less clearly than native speakers. We speculate that non-natives may be using rules of complement selection, rather than the constraints of Universal Grammar (UG) to control contraction.

Arabic plurals and root and pattern morphology in Palestinian and Egyptian heritage speakers

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elabbas Benmamoun ◽  
Abdulkafi Albirini ◽  
Silvina Montrul ◽  
Eman Saadah
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Good Grasp ◽  
Arabic Morphology ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Arabic Dialects ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Palestinian Arabic ◽  
Linguistic Approaches

This study investigates heritage speakers’ knowledge of plural formation in their colloquial varieties of Arabic, which use both concatenative and non-concatentative modes of derivation. In the concatenative derivation, a plural suffix attaches to the singular stem (muhandis ‘engineer-sg.’ → muhandis-iin ‘engineer-pl’); in the non-concatenative, the relation between the singular (gamal ‘camel’) and the plural (gimaal ‘camels’) typically involves vocalic and prosodic alternations with the main shared similarity between the two forms being the consonantal root (e.g., g-m-l). In linguistic approaches, non-concatenative patterns have been captured in different ways, though the earliest and most recognizable approach involves the mapping of a consonantal root onto a plural template. We investigated heritage speakers’ knowledge of the root and pattern system in two independent experiments. In Experiment 1, oral narratives were elicited from 20 heritage speakers and 20 native speakers of Egyptian and Palestinian Arabic. In Experiment 2, another group of 24 heritage speakers and 24 native speakers of the same dialects completed an oral picture-description task. The results of the two experiments show that heritage speakers’ knowledge of the root and pattern system of Arabic is not target-like. Yet, they have a good grasp of the root and template as basic units of word formation in their heritage Arabic dialects. We discuss implications for debates about the acquisition of the root and pattern system of Arabic morphology.

Repeat After me

2010 ◽  
Vol 84-85 ◽  
pp. 93-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliene Gritter
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Dynamic Systems Theory ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Secondary School Pupils

It has often been argued that the teaching of L2 articulatory settings (AS) will improve learners' L2 pronunciation. However, although many impressionistic accounts have been written on the subject, only few empirical studies have been conducted to test these assumptions. This article reports on a study set out to test the effectiveness of teaching AS differences to Dutch secondary school pupils in order to improve their pronunciation of English. Four AS lessons were given to a group of secondary school pupils, while a control group received standard pronunciation lessons concentrating on segmental differences. The pupils were recorded while doing a picture description task both before and after instruction. Native speaker judges then assessed their English pronunciation proficiency. Although no significant differences were found between pre and post instruction pronunciation proficiency in both groups as a whole, there were a number of pupils in both groups that did improve their pronunciation. These results might be explained by Dynamic Systems Theory.

PREDICTIVE PROCESSING OF IMPLICIT CAUSALITY IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Hyunwoo Kim ◽  
Theres Grüter
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Real Time Processing ◽  
Time Processing ◽  
Early Use ◽  
Implicit Causality ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Korean Learners ◽  
Korean Learners Of English ◽  
Dependent Clause

Abstract Implicit causality (IC) is a well-known phenomenon whereby certain verbs appear to create biases to remention either their subject or object in a causal dependent clause. This study investigated to what extent Korean learners of English made use of IC information for predictive processing at a discourse level, and whether L2 proficiency played a modulating role in this process. Results from a visual-world eye-tracking experiment showed early use of IC information in both L1 and L2 listeners, yet the effect was weaker and emerged later in the L2 group. None of three independent and intercorrelated proficiency measures modulated L2 listeners’ processing behavior. The findings suggest that L2 listeners are able to engage in prediction during real-time processing at a discourse level, although they did so to a more limited extent than native speakers in this study. We discuss these findings in light of similar evidence from other recent work.

Le Traitement Prototypique

1996 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 187-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marzena Watorek
Keyword(s):  
Production Process ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Differential Processing ◽  
Main Structure ◽  
Picture Description ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Linguistic Means ◽  
Temporal Adverbs

This paper presents results from a study of the language production of native speakers and advanced learners. Four groups often speakers (native French, native Italian, Italian learners of French, French learners of Italian) performed a picture description task, and a comparison was made between the information contained in the productions of natives vs. learners, and the linguistic means used to convey this information. It was found that the processing of identical chunks of information ranged along a continuum from the analytic to the synthetic, from learners to natives, respectively. Two examples of this differential processing are discussed in detail: firstly, the division of the discourse into main structure and side structure, and secondly, the locating of entities in the picture. The former distinction emerges much more clearly in learner than in native production, and for the latter function, learners resort more frequently than native speakers to temporal adverbs such as puis/più and particles such as aussi/anche, in addition to purely spatial means. Overall, it is shown that learners have a more neutral way of processing the task (Von Strutterheim's "prototypische Bearbeitung"), and it is argued in conclusion that it is precisely this charactristic of learner production which allows insights into both the structure of (descriptive) discourse and the language production process.

Focus prosody by Korean learners of English

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Liu ◽  
Yong-cheol Lee
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Identification Rate ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Digit String ◽  
Korean Learners ◽  
Korean Learners Of English

Abstract This study examined whether Korean learners of English attained native-like performance in English focus prosody by conducting production and perception experiments using digit strings. Language learners were classified into advanced-, intermediate-, and low-level groups according to their proficiency and compared with native speakers. Native speakers’ focus prosody was clearly prominent in the focus positions, and their post-focus positions were considerably compressed. Their focused digits were easy to detect, resulting in a 97% identification rate. Although advanced-level speakers produced acoustic cues quite similar to those of native speakers, their post-focus production did not resemble that of native speakers. Their identification rate was 81%, 16% lower than that of native speakers. Neither intermediate- nor low-level speakers’ focus-cueing changes were distinguished whatsoever in the focus and post-focus positions. Their identification rates were just over 10%, similar to the level of chance in a 10-digit string, implying that their focus productions were not sufficiently salient to be recognized in the experiment. The results suggest that second language acquisition is hindered by a negative transfer between English and Korean. The acquisition of second language focus prosody proceeds slowly; second language learners approach native-like proficiency once they become advanced.

The acquisition of phonetic details: Evidence from the production of English reduced vowels by Korean learners

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeong-Im Han ◽  
Jong-Bai Hwang ◽  
Tae-Hwan Choi
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Statistical Properties ◽  
Mean Values ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Korean Learners ◽  
Korean Learners Of English

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acquisition of non-contrastive phonetic details of a second language. Reduced vowels in English are realized as a schwa or barred- i depending on their phonological contexts, but Korean has no reduced vowels. Two groups of Korean learners of English who differed according to the experience of residence in English-speaking countries and a group of English native speakers were asked to produce English reduced vowels in word-initial, word-internal and word-final positions. The mean duration ratios, and the mean values and distribution patterns of F1/F2 of the reduced vowels were compared between the three groups, which revealed that Korean learners without residence experience tended to produce each variant of English reduced vowels as the corresponding full vowels, whereas those with experience displayed similar patterns to the natives. The present results suggest that it is possible for second language (L2) learners to learn the statistical properties in L2.

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