What does and doesn’t affect L2 overt pronoun production

Author(s):  
Marisa Nagano

Abstract This study examined corpus data from learners of Japanese whose L1s are English, Korean, and Mandarin (as well as native-speaker Japanese controls), in order to investigate the effect of two separate (but sometimes conflated) potential influences on overt pronoun production in the L2: (i) whether or not the L1 is a topic-drop language (like Japanese), and (ii) the properties of overt pronouns in the L1 compared to those of Japanese. In order to investigate (i), the rate of overt pronoun use in topic/argument position for all three learner groups was tabulated and compared to that of native speakers. In order to investigate (ii), total rate of overt pronoun use in all positions was tabulated, as well as the type of case-/discourse-marking particles that accompanied overt pronouns in each learner group, compared to native speakers. Results show no influence of L1 topic-drop status, but some influence of L1 overt pronoun properties, in the form of (a) interactions between the morphosyntax of pronouns and broader DP/NP structure in the L1 and L2, and (b) shared discourse properties of the overt pronoun in the L1 and L2.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova ◽  
S Spina

© 2015 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan. Research into frequency intuition has focused primarily on native (L1) and, to a lesser degree, nonnative (L2) speaker intuitions about single word frequency. What remains a largely unexplored area is L1 and L2 intuitions about collocation (i.e., phrasal) frequency. To bridge this gap, the present study aimed to answer the following question: How do L2 learners and native speakers compare against each other and corpora in their subjective judgments of collocation frequency? Native speakers and learners of Italian were asked to judge 80 noun-adjective pairings as one of the following: high frequency, medium frequency, low frequency, very low frequency. Both L1 and L2 intuitions of high frequency collocations correlated strongly with corpus frequency. Neither of the two groups of participants exhibited accurate intuitions of medium and low frequency collocations. With regard to very low frequency pairings, L1 but not L2 intuitions were found to correlate with corpora for the majority of the items. Further, mixed-effects modeling revealed that L2 learners were comparable to native speakers in their judgments of the four frequency bands, although some differences did emerge. Taken together, the study provides new insights into the nature of L1 and L2 intuitions about phrasal frequency.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Siyanova ◽  
S Spina

© 2015 Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan. Research into frequency intuition has focused primarily on native (L1) and, to a lesser degree, nonnative (L2) speaker intuitions about single word frequency. What remains a largely unexplored area is L1 and L2 intuitions about collocation (i.e., phrasal) frequency. To bridge this gap, the present study aimed to answer the following question: How do L2 learners and native speakers compare against each other and corpora in their subjective judgments of collocation frequency? Native speakers and learners of Italian were asked to judge 80 noun-adjective pairings as one of the following: high frequency, medium frequency, low frequency, very low frequency. Both L1 and L2 intuitions of high frequency collocations correlated strongly with corpus frequency. Neither of the two groups of participants exhibited accurate intuitions of medium and low frequency collocations. With regard to very low frequency pairings, L1 but not L2 intuitions were found to correlate with corpora for the majority of the items. Further, mixed-effects modeling revealed that L2 learners were comparable to native speakers in their judgments of the four frequency bands, although some differences did emerge. Taken together, the study provides new insights into the nature of L1 and L2 intuitions about phrasal frequency.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Gungor ◽  
Hacer Hande Uysal

<p>In the recent years, globalization prepared a ground for English to be the lingua franca of the academia. Thus, most highly prestigious international journals have defined their medium of publications as English. However, even advanced language learners have difficulties in writing their research articles due to the lack of appropriate lexical knowledge and discourse conventions of academia. Considering the fact that the underuse, overuse and misuse of formulaic sequences or lexical bundles are often characterized with non-native writers of English, lexical bundle studies have recently been on the top of the agenda of corpus studies. Although the related literature has represented specific genres or disciplines, no study has scrutinized lexical bundles in the research articles that are written in the educational sciences. Therefore, the current study compared the structural and functional characteristics of the lexical-bundle use in L1 and L2 research articles in English. The results revealed the deviation of the usages of lexical bundles by the non-native speakers of English from the native speaker norms. Furthermore, the results indicated the overuse of clausal or verb-phrase based lexical bundles in the research articles of Turkish scholars while their native counterparts used noun and prepositional phrase-based lexical bundles more than clausal bundles.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-321
Author(s):  
Yi Zheng ◽  
Paula Luegi ◽  
Ana Madeira ◽  
Gabriela Matos

In a questionnaire study we investigate how native speakers of European Portuguese (EP) and Chinese, as well as Chinese learners of EP as second language (L2), interpret null and overt pronouns in forward and backward anaphora. Results show that EP native speakers exhibit different interpretative biases for null and overt pronominal subjects in both forward and backward anaphora. Chinese native speakers show similar interpretation in backward anaphora in their L1 but a subject preference with both null and overt pronouns in forward anaphora conditions. Chinese learners of L2 EP present an overall preference to interpret both pronouns as referring to the subject referent, although there is a developmental effect towards the target interpretation in overt pronoun backward anaphora conditions. Results confirm previous studies in L2 EP (Madeira et al., 2012; Lobo et al., 2017), but add the possibility that this pattern may be explained by L1 influence.------------------------------------------------------------------------------COMO OS APRENDIZES CHINESES DO PORTUGUÊS EUROPEU L2 INTERPRETAM OS PRONOMES NULOS E CLAROS NA ANÁFORA PARA FRENTE E PARA TRÁSNum estudo de questionário investigamos como os falantes nativos do Português Europeu (PE) e do chinês, bem como os aprendentes chineses que adquirem PE como língua segunda (L2), interpretam pronomes nulos e plenos em condições de anáfora e de catáfora. Os resultados mostram que os falantes nativos de PE exibem diferentes interpretações para sujeitos pronominais nulos e plenos tanto em anáfora como em catáfora. Os falantes nativos de Chinês mostram uma interpretação semelhante em catáfora na sua L1, mas preferem como antecedente o sujeito para pronome nulo e pleno nas condições de anáfora. Os aprendentes chineses de PE L2 preferem interpretar ambos os pronomes como referindo-se a um antecedente sujeito. No entanto, na condição de catáfora com pronome pleno, existe um efeito de desenvolvimento para a interpretação-alvo. Os resultados confirmam os estudos anteriores em PE L2 (Madeira et al. 2012; Lobo et al. 2017) e adicionam a possibilidade de explicar a interpretação na L2 por influência da L1.---Original em inglês.


Author(s):  
Alyssa Martoccio

Abstract This article compares gender assignment on known nouns by intermediate (n=15) and advanced (n=15) second language (L2) learners of Spanish (L1 English) and native Spanish speakers (n=15). Participants completed a written vocabulary task, which asked the meaning and gender of 63 nouns. Gender assignment scores revealed that only intermediate and native speaker groups scored significantly differently on known nouns, as shown by the vocabulary task. Results indicated that intermediate learners assigned the incorrect gender to known nouns significantly more than native speakers. Both L2 learner groups made errors on high frequency known nouns, whereas the few native speaker errors were on low frequency known nouns. Along with think-aloud data which showed the effectiveness of strategies that directly link the noun with its article, these results indicate that nouns need to be taught as units rather than bare nouns, using distributional co-occurrence relations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Bermel ◽  
Luděk Knittl ◽  
Jean Russell

AbstractIf we can operationalize corpus frequency in multiple ways, using absolute values and proportional values, which of them is more closely connected with the behaviour of language users? In this contribution, we examineoverabundantcells in morphological paradigms, and look at the contribution that frequency of occurrence can make to understanding the choices speakers make due to this richness. We look at ways of operationalizing the termfrequencyin data from corpora and native speakers: the proportional frequency of forms (i. e. percentage of time that a variant is found in corpus data considered as a proportion of all variants) and several interpretations of absolute frequency (i. e. the raw frequency of variants in data from the same corpus). Working with data from unmotivated morphological variation in Czech case forms, we show that different instantiations of frequency help interpret the way variation is perceived and maintained by native speakers. Proportional frequency seems most salient for speakers in forming their judgements, while certain types of absolute frequency seem to have a dominant role in production tasks.


Author(s):  
Xiaoshi Li

Abstract This study examines stylistic variation patterns in L1 and L2 Chinese, focusing on two linguistic structures: morphosyntactic particle DE and subject pronoun. The data were from thirteen native speakers, four Chinese instructors, twenty-three L2 Chinese learners, and four Chinese textbooks. Results from variation analysis with frequency description show four general patterns. First, instructors used overt forms of stylistic variants in class significantly more frequently than native speakers did in conversations. Second, learners tended to overuse the overt forms compared with their native speaker peers. Third, learner patterns of stylistic variation aligned closely with those of their teachers. Finally, unlike teacher input, textbook input demonstrated mixed results compared with learner patterns. For DE use, learners’ patterns aligned significantly with those in textbooks, but did not for subject pronoun use. The implications for stylistic variation in conversational and written Chinese are discussed and suggestions are offered for Chinese and foreign language instruction.


1991 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Gass ◽  
Usha Lakshmanan

In this paper we reopen the controversy surrounding subject pronoun usage in the English of non-native speakers. Much recent research has attempted to account for non-native pronoun usage through Universal Grammar-based explanations. In this paper, we argue that in considering the issue of subject pronouns, one must take into account the input to the learner. Specifically, we examine transcripts of the English of two native speakers of Spanish (one adult and one child) and show that the pattern of learner-language subject pronoun use closely parallels native speaker use. We closely examine the input provided to these learners and show how learners can be led to believe that their incorrect learner-language forms are correct. Our data suggest that considering princi ples of Universal Grammar devoid of context is insufficient and often mis leading in accounting for how L2 grammars develop.


Corpora ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Th. Gries ◽  
Sandra C. Deshors

The main goal of this study is to develop more appropriate ways to study variation between corpus data that instantiate a linguistic standard or target on the one hand, and corpus data that are compared to that standard, or that represent speakers that may aspire to approximate the target (such as second- or foreign-language learners). Using the example of SLA/FLA research, we first, briefly, discuss a highly influential model, Granger's (1996) Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA), and the extent to which much current research fails to exploit this model to its full potential. Then, we outline a few methodological suggestions that, if followed, can elevate corpus-based analysis in SLA/FLA to a new level of precision and predictive accuracy. Specifically, we propose that, and exemplify how, the inclusion of statistical interactions in regressions on corpus data can highlight important differences between native speakers (NS) and learners/non-native speakers (NNS) with different native linguistic (L1) backgrounds. Secondly, we develop a two-step regression procedure that answers one of the most important questions in SLA/FLA research – ‘What would a native speaker do?’ – and, thus, allows us to study systematic deviations between NS and NNS at an unprecedented degree of granularity. Both methods are explained and exemplified in detail on the basis of over 5,000 uses of may and can produced by NSs of English and French and Chinese learners of English.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 121-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tess Fitzpatrick

Word associations have traditionally been used in linguistic research as a means of accessing information about the organisation of the mental lexicon. A number of important studies have revealed differences in word association behaviour in the L1 and the L2, but have failed to find consistent behaviour patterns. The study reported here suggests that this failure might be due to two factors: the choice of stimulus words and the categorisation of responses, which impose artificial constraints on both association behaviour and the exploration of response types. In order to move the investigation of L2 word associations forward, this study compares native speaker responses to a specific set of stimuli with those of advanced non-native speakers. The types of association response made by each group of subjects are investigated by means of a retrospective interview, and patterns in response types are mapped. This results in a new method of categorising word association responses, and provides more precise insight into the differences between L1 and L2 association patterns.


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