scholarly journals The use of collocations across proficiency levels: a literature review

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 34129
Author(s):  
Larissa Goulart
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Formulaic Language ◽  
Correct Word ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
L2 Learners

This literature review focuses on the use of formulaic language by English as a second language students (L2). Research on the field of phraseology has shown that mastery of formulas is central for fluency and linguistic competence (Ellis, 1996). Studies on the use of formulaic language by native speakers (Ellis et al., 2008) have shown that native speakers process these structures as a single word. Considering the use of formulaic language by L2 students, research has shown that this can be problematic to learners as they do not know the correct word association (Men, 2018). This paper presents a literature review on the studies of formulaic language, more specifically of collocations, used by L2 learners. The first part of this paper deals with the different definitions of collocations, while the second part focuses on studies on collocation use by L2 learners.

scholarly journals Subjacency Violations in Second Language Acquisition: Some Evidence from Chinese Mandarin Speakers of L2 English

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Xia Dai
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Chinese Speakers ◽  
Follow Up Study ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Mandarin Speakers

The literature review shows that many previous studies have used Subjacency to test the availability of UniversalGrammar (UG) in second language acquisition. Schachter (1989) claimed that L2 learners do not have access to UGprinciples, while Hawkins and Chan (1997) suggested that L2 learners had partial availability of UG, for they foundthere was a strong difference between the elementary L2 learners and the advanced L2 learners in judging theungrammaticality of Subjacency violations; that is, the elementary L2 learners owned the highest accuracy. Underthe hypothesis of partially availability of UG in second language acquisition, L2 learners are only able to acquire theproperties instantiated in their L1s. Although they may accept violations of universal constraints, it is only at facevalue; rather the L2 learners develop different syntactic representations from the native speakers. This study has beenundertaken as a follow-up study of Hawkins and Chan (1997), and tested on L1 Mandarin speakers of L2 English injudging the grammaticality of their Subjacency violations. The results of the Grammaticality Judgement Test showthat the accuracy of Chinese speakers in judgement increased with English proficiency and that they rejectedresumptives inside islands as a repair. Contrary to the previous findings, this study provides evidence that UG isavailable in adult second language acquisition.

Acquiring phenomena at the syntax/semantics interface in L2 Spanish

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 67-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes ◽  
Theodoros Marinis
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Verb Semantics ◽  
Syntactic Features ◽  
Interface Phenomena ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
The Subject

Recent second language (L2) acquisition research has proposed that purely syntactic features are easier to acquire and less vulnerable than ones involving the interfaces (Sorace, 2004; Serratrice et al. 2004). The present paper addresses this issue by investigating the acquisition of the Spanish personal preposition a in English L2 learners of Spanish. The distribution of a in direct object NPs relates to the specificity/definiteness of the NP, the animacy/agentivity of the subject, and verb semantics (Torrego 1998; Zagona 2002). 33 English L2 learners of Spanish of different proficiency levels, and 14 Spanish controls participated in an acceptability judgement task. The results showed significant differences between native speakers and L2 learners of all proficiency levels, who performed at chance, and support the claim that L2 learners have difficulties acquiring structures involving the syntax/semantics interface. However, the advanced learners showed sensitivity to the least complex condition providing evidence that interface phenomena may be acquirable.

Structure of the second language mental lexicon: how does it compare to native speakers' lexical organization?

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alla Zareva
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word Association ◽  
First Language ◽  
General Assumption ◽  
Lexical Organization ◽  
Lexical Knowledge ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
L2 Learners

One of the questions frequently asked in second language (L2) lexical research is how L2 learners' patterns of lexical organization compare to those of native speakers (NSs). A growing body of research addresses this question by using word association (WA) tests. However, little research has been done on the role of language proficiency in the associative patterning of L2 learners' lexical knowledge, especially the way it affects the quantitative and the qualitative patterns of meaning connections. Similarly, no research attention has been devoted to the strength of the relationship between these patterns, although the general assumption seems to be that they are interrelated. To address these issues, first some traditional distinctions that first language (L1) WA researchers make between the qualitative and quantitative features of WA domains are discussed. Next, the application of WA tests in L2 studies and some of the most significant findings concerning L2 learners' vocabulary structure are briefly reviewed. Finally, a study involving native speakers ( n = 29), L2 advanced ( n = 29) and L2 intermediate learners of English ( n = 29) is presented. Results suggest that differences in the organization of lexical knowledge between L2 speakers and NSs are quantitative rather than qualitative.

Reassembly of plural and human features in the L2 acquisition of Chinese by adult Korean speakers

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-555
Author(s):  
Jiajia Su
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
Feature Reassembly ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Korean Speakers

This article reports on a study investigating the second language (L2) acquisition of the plural and human features in Mandarin Chinese by adult Korean speakers. Both plural and human features are represented in Korean and Chinese, but assembled in different ways. Forty-eight L2 learners at beginner, intermediate, and advanced Chinese proficiency levels and twenty-three native speakers of Chinese were tested using a grammaticality judgment task. The results show that L2 learners can successfully reassemble the two features, though L2 specific contexts and restrictions on feature realization are difficult. The advanced group has achieved native-like performance. The findings provide empirical evidence for the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere, 2009).

Second language processing of English past tense morphology: The role of working memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Filiz Rızaoğlu ◽  
Ayşe Gürel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
L2 Learners

AbstractThis study examines, via a masked priming task, the processing of English regular and irregular past tense morphology in proficient second language (L2) learners and native speakers in relation to working memory capacity (WMC), as measured by the Automated Reading Span (ARSPAN) and Operation Span (AOSPAN) tasks. The findings revealed quantitative group differences in the form of slower reaction times (RTs) in the L2-English group. While no correlation was found between the morphological processing patterns and WMC in either group, there was a negative relationship between English and Turkish ARSPAN scores and the speed of word recognition in the L2 group. Overall, comparable decompositional processing patterns found in both groups suggest that, like native speakers, high-proficiency L2 learners are sensitive to the morphological structure of the target language.

scholarly journals Lexical correlates of comprehensibility versus accentedness in second language speech

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 597-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
KAZUYA SAITO ◽  
STUART WEBB ◽  
PAVEL TROFIMOVICH ◽  
TALIA ISAACS
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Surface Level ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Lexical Content ◽  
Lexical Factors

The current project investigated the extent to which several lexical aspects of second language (L2) speech – appropriateness, fluency, variation, sophistication, abstractness, sense relations – interact to influence native speakers’ judgements of comprehensibility (ease of understanding) and accentedness (linguistic nativelikeness). Extemporaneous speech elicited from 40 French speakers of English with varied L2 proficiency levels was first evaluated by 10 native-speaking raters for comprehensibility and accentedness. Subsequently, the dataset was transcribed and analyzed for 12 lexical factors. Various lexical properties of L2 speech were found to be associated with L2 comprehensibility, and especially lexical accuracy (lemma appropriateness) and complexity (polysemy), indicating that these lexical variables are associated with successful L2 communication. In contrast, native speakers’ accent judgements seemed to be linked to surface-level details of lexical content (abstractness) and form (variation, morphological accuracy) rather than to its conceptual and contextual details (e.g., lemma appropriateness, polysemy).

A Variationist Analysis of Second Language Spanish Trill Production

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Danielle Daidone ◽  
Sara Zahler
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Phonetic Context

Abstract The current study examines the production of the Spanish trill by advanced second language (L2) learners using a variationist approach. Findings indicate that learners produced less multiple occlusion trills than native speakers and their variation was not constrained by the same factors as native speakers. Phonetic context conditioned the use of the multiple occlusion variant for native speakers, whereas frequency and speaker sex conditioned this variation for learners, and in the opposite direction of effect as expected from previous native speaker research. Nevertheless, the majority of tokens produced by learners were other variants also produced by native speakers, and when the variation between native and non-native variants was examined, learners’ variation was conditioned not only by frequency, but also phonetic context. Some of the phonetic contexts in which learners produced non-native variants were comparable to those in which native speakers were least likely to produce the multiple occlusion trill, indicating that articulatory constraints governed variation in trill production similarly for both groups. Thus, although L2 learners do not exhibit native-like trill variation, they appear to be developing toward a more native-like norm. These insights provide support for adopting a multifaceted variationist approach to the study of L2 phonological variable structures.

scholarly journals Second Language Acquisition of the English Dative Alternation by Native Speakers of Arabic

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-88
Author(s):  
Anwar S. Aljadani
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Double Object ◽  
Dative Alternation ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Semantic Properties

Abstract This paper reports on an experimental study that investigates the influence of the disparity between English and Arabic on second language acquisition, namely the phenomenon of the acquisition of the English dative alternation by Arab learners. The disallowance of certain Arabic verbs to occur in the double object dative structure causes difficulty for Arab learners to acquire English as far as the acquisition of the dative alternation is concerned. The experiment is devised to examine whether Arab learners are sensitive to syntactic and semantic properties associated with the English dative alternation. The experiment involved picture tasks with two structures: the prepositional dative structure and the double object dative structure. Overall, the results of the experiment show that the L2 learners failed to acquire the double object dative structure which does not exist in their L1. Based on these results, it is argued that L1 has an important effect on the acquisition of L2.

scholarly journals The Emergence of Second Language Categorisation of the English Article Construction

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 54
Author(s):  
Helen Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Functional Categories ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Form Function ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Increased Sensitivity ◽  
English Articles

This study examines the emergent cognitive categorisation of the English article construction among second language (L2) learners. One hundred and fourteen Mandarin-L1 learners of English, divided into two L2 proficiency levels (low-to-intermediate and advanced), were measured by a computer-based cloze test for the accuracy and response time of appropriate use of English articles in sentential contexts. Results showed that when learners acquired the polysemous English article construction they demonstrated stronger competence in differentiating individual form-function mappings in the article construction. L2 learners’ patterns of article construction usage were shaped by semantic functions. Learners performed better on the definiteness category than on the non-definiteness categories, suggesting that learners were sensitive to the prototypicality of nominal grounding. Advanced learners demonstrated an increased sensitivity to semantic idiosyncrasy, but they lacked contextualised constructional knowledge. Competition among the functional categories and restructuring of functional categories are important ways of regularization that learners go through to acquire semantically complex systems such as articles.

Wie Zijn 'Onze' Leerders?

1999 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 87-97
Author(s):  
Anne-Mieke Janssen-van Dieten
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
The One

There is an increasing awareness that the number of non-native speakers in the category of 'adult, highly educated, advanced L2-learners' is rapidly increasing. This paper presents an analysis of what it means to teach them a second language - whether it is Dutch or any other second language. It is argued that, on the one hand, conceptions about language learning and teaching are insufficiendy known, and that, on the other hand, there are many widespread misconceptions that prevent language teachers from catering adequately for people's actual communicative needs, and from providing tailor-made solutions to these problems.

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