The Effects of Cross-linguistic Influence on the Use of English Dative Constructions in Second Language Written Production

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Hyunjun Lee ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Written Production

The Acquisition of Spanish Gender Marking in the Writing of Heritage and Second Language Learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-267
Author(s):  
Antonio Pérez-Núñez
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Nonlinear Process ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
Written Production ◽  
And Gender

This study aims to expand on previous research on the acquisition of gender marking by examining the longitudinal written production of second language (L2) and heritage language (HL) learners. The written production of 24 participants (L2, n = 12; HL, n = 12) enrolled in the same course was traced over four weeks and all cases of canonical and non-canonical gender marking (i.e., gender assignment and gender agreement) were coded. The group results indicated that the HL learners were significantly more accurate than their L2 counterparts with both canonical and non-canonical ending nouns; however, close inspection of the participants’ individual accuracy patterns revealed a nonlinear process that was subject to great instability in their performance over time. Findings are discussed in light of interlanguage development and implications for research in second language acquisition are presented.

Optionality in non-native grammars: L2 acquisition of German constructions with absent expletives

2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALDONA SOPATA
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Grammaticality Judgment ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
High Level

This paper investigates the knowledge of constructions with absent expletives by advanced and high-proficiency non-native speakers of German whose first language is Polish. German grammar is known to license null subjects due to the strength of AGRP but not to identify them. Therefore only expletive subjects can be absent in German, except for Topic-drop and, crucially, the expletive subjects have to be absent in certain cases due to the Projection Principle. The knowledge of this phenomenon by second language (L2) learners has been investigated by two methods, elicited written production task and grammaticality judgment tests. High-level non-native speakers of German differ significantly from native speakers in both types of tasks. The differences are clearly not the result of transfer. The results reported here reveal permanent optionality in L2 grammars suggesting a deficit in the grammatical representations of L2 learners.

Variability in second language article production: beyond the representational deficit vs. processing constraints debate

2007 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danijela Trenkic
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Empirical Coverage ◽  
Prosodic Transfer ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
English Articles

This article addresses the debate on the causes of variability in production of second language functional morphology. It reports a study on article production by first language (L1) Serbian / second language (L2) English learners and compares their behaviour to that of a Turkish learner of English, reported in Goad and White (2004). In particular, it focuses on the tendency of these learners to omit articles more in adjectivally pre-modified (Art + Adj + N) than in non-modified contexts (Art + N). The asymmetry is found in both spoken and written production. The article argues that the pattern of results is not consistent with models assuming target-like syntax: the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis cannot predict the asymmetry at all, and the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis cannot extend its explanatory power to spoken production of L1 Serbian/L2 English learners, or to written production in general. An alternative account, with broader empirical coverage, is proposed, on which L2 learners whose L1s do not grammaticalize definiteness misanalyse English articles as nominal modifiers, and treat them in production as such. The model goes beyond the representational deficit vs. processing constraints debate, in that it suggests that variability is caused by processing limitations, but precisely because the production of misanalysed elements cannot be (directly) syntactically motivated, and has to rely on general cognition instead.

Short and mid-term effects of an earlier start

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Luz Celaya ◽  
Maria Rosa Torras ◽  
Carmen Pérez-Vidal
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
School Context ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
Language Outcomes ◽  
School Contexts ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Compulsory Subject

Most studies concerning the issue of age have focused on the language outcomes of subjects who started acquiring a second language during childhood, or later on during adolescence or adulthood in naturalistic contexts. However, relatively few studies have been concerned with school contexts where a foreign language is a compulsory subject in the early stages of the curriculum. The aim of the present study is to address the question of the effects of starting age (8 versus 11) on the acquisition of English as a foreign language in a school context, with specific reference to written production. Data are analysed after 200 and 416 hours of instruction, that is, when learners are 10 and 12, and 12 and 14 respectively. Results suggest that an earlier start does not have clear benefits in the acquisition of EFL as reflected in written language.

Exploring collaborative reverse subtitling for the enhancement of written production activities in English as a second language

ReCALL ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noa Talaván ◽  
Ana Ibáñez ◽  
Elena Bárcena
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Collective Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Pros And Cons

AbstractThis article explores the effects of collaborative reverse subtitling as an activity for the promotion of writing skills in English as a second language. An initial analysis is undertaken of the pros and cons of the role of translation in second language learning historically and the role of information and communication technology in this process, with special attention being paid to recent initiatives on the didactic use of audiovisual translation in the form of subtitling, and the evidence of their efficacy obtained so far. Subsequently, a completed research project is described, which was aimed at promoting second language learning among distance learning university students through collaborative reverse subtitling. Specifically, the project aimed to explore both the potential of a guided subtitling activity for the development of written production skills, and also the dynamics of undertaking such an activity collaboratively, in order to gain insights on the social, cognitive, metacognitive and transfer mechanisms that can be activated in collective study. Finally, we reflect on the need to accumulate evidence on multimodal translating scenarios combining individual and collective work for the development of communicative language competences, through further research and classroom use, in order to consolidate and refine these findings.

Lexical richness and collocational competence in second-language writing

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ineke Vedder ◽  
Veronica Benigno
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Writing ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Lexical Richness ◽  
Intermediate Learners ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Set Up

AbstractIn this article we report on an experiment set up to investigate lexical richness and collocational competence in the written production of 39 low-intermediate and intermediate learners of Italian L2. Lexical richness was assessed by means of a lexical profiling method inspired by

A Quantitative and Network Approach to Alignment Effects in L2 Continuation Tasks

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-416
Author(s):  
Heng Chen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Chinese Version ◽  
The Other ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
English Version ◽  
Alignment Effect ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Group Reading ◽  
Materials Used

Abstract The present study employed a quantitative and network approach to detect alignment effects in second language (L2) continuation tasks designed on the xu-argument (Wang, 2016). The materials used in this study were 6 sub-corpora consisting of two selected input stories and two groups of L2 written production based on two continuation tasks. During continuation, the participants were required to continue in English a story with its ending removed, with one group reading and continuing the Chinese version and the other group the English version, and then switching their roles in the two tasks. Results show that the alignment effect differs across the two versions of continuation. Specifically, compared with the Chinese-version continuation, L2 learners produced more use of unigrams and bigrams similar to the input story in terms of lexical items, frequency and ranking correlations in the English-version task; on the other hand, the English-version continuation can facilitate generating linguistic networks that are much closer to the native English networks. Moreover, this research corroborates that written production in L2 continuation tasks can be influenced by input content.

scholarly journals Exploring the Effects of the Continuation Task on Syntactic Complexity in Second Language Writing

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Zhicheng Mao ◽  
Lin Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Second Language Writing ◽  
Writing Pedagogy ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Computational Tool ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Written Production ◽  
Writing Group ◽  
Language Writing

This paper aims to investigate the effects of the alignment entailed in the continuation task on syntactic complexity in L2 written production. A total number of 48 sophomores majoring in English at a university in China were randomly assigned to two groups, one is the continuation group and the other is the topic writing group. The current study employs an advanced computational tool ‘the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyser’ to assess syntactic complexity in writing samples and focused on 7 indexes including three measures of length of production, two coordinate phrase measures, and two complex nominal measures. The result shows that significant differences exist in six of the syntactic complexity measures with the continuation group outperforming the topic writing group. It is demonstrated that the continuation task, which couples production with comprehension and entails the alignment effect, has a facilitating impact on improving the writing syntactic complexity for L2 learners. The implications of these findings for second language acquisition and L2 writing pedagogy are considered.

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