Verbal aspect in the acquisition of Latvian as a foreign language

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 43-54
Author(s):  
Daiki Horiguchi ◽  

The article addresses verbal aspect in the acquisition of Latvian as a foreign language. Latvian textbooks both in Latvian and in other languages, as well as Japanese learners’ writings are analysed to explore this topic. The main issue is the use of verbs expressing the aspectual opposition perfective / imperfective, as well as the opposition inchoative / stative, and other Aktionsart prefixed verbs. Verbal aspect in Latvian is an implicit category. It is one of the few categories described in Latvian grammars but less frequently addressed in the textbooks of Latvian as a foreign language. The analysis shows that in the initial stage learners may use mostly imperfective non-prefixed verbs when denoting habitual situations in the present tense. The necessity of perfective prefixed verbs arises in the preterit, when learners describe a concrete, single situation that has taken place in the past. Without knowing the notion of aspectual opposition and corresponding perfective prefixed verbs, learners often use imperfective verbs. A similar situation is observed for the inchoative prefixed verbs, which learners replace with the imperfective stative verbs that they have already acquired. The use of other Aktionsart prefixed verbs seems difficult for learners and requires a higher, “native-like” level of proficiency.

JURNAL BASIS ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Frangky Silitonga ◽  
Frangky Silitonga

ABSTRACTLanguage is a mean of communication used in daily activities. There are aspects needed to be concerned in the use of language, especially foreign language. One of the most common foreig language used is English. In Indonesia, although, English is sound familiar by most of people, the ability of using English is still not maximal. In the use of English language, one of the most important aspects is grammar, for example grammar orientation—tenses, Simple past tense and simple present tense, these are two particular parts in grammar. Simple past tense indicates the past condition that has passed. Simple present tense is used to describe the habit or event happening now. The tendency of tenses use is usual in daily communication, for instance, everyone will interact through some ways, one of them verbal communication or speaking. There is a relationship between grammar and speaking proficiency. Simple past and simple present tense influence the speaking proficiency, thus by mastering those grammar aspects will make easier to understand communication each other. Therefore discourse has supporting power to make the second learners language easily to improve speaking skill. It thing become a basic need for some people who face the people using that foreign language, especially in the school or business process. In Batam, as an industrial region which next to the Singapore and Malaysia, a well speaking proficiency surely needed. Here, the writer conducts the research toward impact of grammatical orientation with discourse in speaking proficiency on students’ primary school in Batam.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena O'Reilly ◽  
Eva Jakupčević

Although the second language (L2) acquisition of morphology by late L2 learners has been a popular research area over the past decades, comparatively little is known about the acquisition and development of morphology in children who learn English as a foreign language (EFL). Therefore, the current study presents the findings from a longitudinal oral production study with 9/10-year-old L1 Croatian EFL students who were followed up at the age of 11/12. Our results are largely in line with the limited research so far in this area: young EFL learners have few issues using the be copula and, eventually, the irregular past simple forms, but had considerable problems with accurately supplying the 3rd person singular -s at both data collection points. We also observed a be + base form structure, especially at the earlier stage, which appears to be an emergent past simple construction.


2006 ◽  
Vol 151 ◽  
pp. 99-113
Author(s):  
Akihiro Ito

This study examines the generalization of instruction in foreign language learning. A group of Japanese learners of English served as participants and received special instruction in the structure of genitive relative clauses. The participants were given a pre-test on combining two sentences into one containing a genitive relative clause wherein the relativized noun phrase following the genitive marker "whose" is either the subject, direct object, or object of preposition. Based on the TOEFL and the pre-test results, four equal groups were formed; three of these served as experimental groups, and one as the control group. Each experimental group was given instruction on the formation of only one type of genitive relative clause. The participants were then given two post-tests. The results indicated that the generalization of learning begins from structures that are typologically more marked genitive relative clauses to those structures that are typologically less marked, and not vice versa.


2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542095080
Author(s):  
Nikolay Koposov

This article belongs to the special cluster “Here to Stay: The Politics of History in Eastern Europe”, guest-edited by Félix Krawatzek & George Soroka. The rise of historical memory, which began in the 1970s and 1980s, has made the past an increasingly important soft-power resource. At its initial stage, the rise of memory contributed to the decay of self-congratulatory national narratives and to the formation of a “cosmopolitan” memory centered on the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity and informed by the notion of state repentance for the wrongdoings of the past. Laws criminalizing the denial of these crimes, which were adopted in “old” continental democracies in the 1980s and 1990s, were a characteristic expression of this democratic culture of memory. However, with the rise of national populism and the formation of the authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and Poland in the 2000s and 2010s, the politics of memory has taken a significantly different turn. National populists are remarkably persistent in whitewashing their countries’ history and using it to promote nationalist mobilization. This process has manifested itself in the formation of new types of memory laws, which shift the blame for historical injustices to other countries (the 1998 Polish, the 2000 Czech, the 2010 Lithuanian, the June 2010 Hungarian, and the 2014 Latvian statutes) and, in some cases, openly protect the memory of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity (the 2005 Turkish, the 2014 Russian, the 2015 Ukrainian, the 2006 and the 2018 Polish enactments). The article examines Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian legislation regarding the past that demonstrates the current linkage between populism and memory.


Author(s):  
Van Huynh Ha Le ◽  
Huy Ngoc Nguyen

Foreign language anxiety (FLA) has a debilitating influence on the oral performance of EFL speakers. Over the past decade, most research in MALL has emphasized the use of mobile applications on improving language skills, but little research has explored the impact of using video recording tool to decrease foreign language speaking anxiety (FLSA). Hence, this study examines the effect of using video recording tool on students' EFL speaking anxiety. Twenty-eight pre-intermediate freshmen at Van Lang University, Vietnam, participated in a seven-week project. In this research, mixed method was used in combination with three data collection instruments: questionnaire, observation notes, semi-structured interview. The results indicated that video recording tool significantly lowers EFL speaking anxiety. Therefore, this study makes a major contribution to research on FLA by exploring freshmen's anxiety causes and its impacts on learners' oral performance and offering a technique to help them overcome that phobia: mobile phone video recording.


2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Sieloff Magnan

The National Standards for Foreign Language Education offer goals for student learning. During the past decade, they have been used increasingly as objectives for foreign language teaching. In the Standards document, the five Standards are presented in a hierarchical order: 1. Communication, 2. Cultures, 3. Connections, 4. Comparisons, and 5. Communities. Looking to Dell Hymes's portrayal of communicative competence and building on notions from sociocultural theory and the concept communities of practice, this paper questions this hierarchical ordering especially in terms of the primacy of Communication over Cultures and Communities. It is suggested that, of the five Cs, Communities should be considered the most fundamental.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (194) ◽  
pp. 167-172
Author(s):  
Tetyana Tokaryeva ◽  

The article considers the main features of a foreign language lesson in view of the goals and content of the lesson, its complex nature, structure and main types. Considerable attention is paid to the complex nature of work in the classroom, as all elements of language material – phonetic, lexical and grammatical – are interdependent in the implementation of foreign language speech activities. The specifics of goal setting are considered taking into account the features of the lesson, its structure and typology. The purpose of the lesson is a definite reflection of the ultimate goal, a specific part of it. Proper understanding of the purpose of the lesson should be based on a combination of two features of the lesson – language learning and complexity. Each foreign language lesson has a practical, educational and upbringing purpose. The structure of the lesson involves closely interrelated and independent activities of teachers and students, in which the learning process is embodied. The article focuses on the initial stage of a foreign language lesson, which prepares students to implement skills and abilities in various types of speech activities, such as speaking, listening, reading and writing. The beginning of the lesson is one of the constant stages of a foreign language lesson. The initial stage consists of various exercises, mostly oral. It can also be implemented in the form of dialogue between students, in the form of students asking a series of questions on a particular topic addressed to the class. The teacher may also suggest starting the lesson with a story based on familiar and understandable learning material. In addition, individual or frontal control can be performed at the beginning of the lesson. Since a foreign language lesson is a lesson in the development of skills, the stages of communication and consolidation of new knowledge are combined with the performance of various exercises. Lessons of different types, combined for a specific purpose, can form a system of thematic series, within which the objectives of the lessons vary in quantitative and qualitative terms. There are three such systems, namely, the system of lessons aimed at: 1) the development of oral skills and abilities; 2) reading and understanding the text; 3) for the development of both groups of skills. An overview of the typology of foreign language lessons developed and proposed by leading experts in the field of methods of teaching foreign languages is presented in order to emphasize the features of a foreign language lesson.


2013 ◽  
pp. 91-114
Author(s):  
Andreja Zele

Slovene resources confirm that verbal aspect and aspectualness depend on the morphological, lexical, syntactic, and other characteristics of a particular language. Since verbal aspect is directly connected to the meaning of a particular verb, as well as its structural and semantic-syntactic abilities, it is considered to be an essential characteristic in terms of the language system of every language. The specific features of aspectualness, especially if we take into account its connectedness to a given language system, are confirmed by various contrastive studies, which also place considerable emphasis on a number of general aspectual characteristics that can be applied to all languages. Within every language system, for example, the grammatical (morphological), lexical, and syntactic aspectualness are distinguished from one another, whereas in the case of a particular text, the relationship between aspect, time, and mood cannot be overlooked. What remains central in both current and future discussions is establishing the relationship between aspectualness and temporality within a particular language or languages. Cases of ?aspectual competitiveness?, related to the temporal structure of a given sentence, have been noted in Slovene as well, especially in examples like Sem ze vecerjal - Sem ze povecerjal (?I already had dinner - I already finished my dinner?), Vedno smo k obstojecemu doprinesli tudi nekaj novega - Vedno smo k obstojecemu doprinasali tudi nekaj novega (?We always contributed something new to the existing condition - We always used to contribute something new to the existing condition?), etc. That the behavior of the imperfect may vary in the past and future is shown by examples like Temperatura se je dvigovala ?visala, padala in spet visala? (The temperature kept rising ?rising, falling, and rising again?), Temperatura se bo dvigovala ?vedno samo navzgor, brez nihanja? (The temperature will keep on rising ?it will rise without falling?). It is also important how a particular dictionary presents verbal valency as a developmental category. The most common is the change from monovalent verbs to bivalent or governed verbs. When considering the valency of non-deverbal nouns and adjectives, it must be noted that especially in the case of nondeverbal adjectives, valency is the consequence of the dynamic meaning of semantically similar verbs, which can replace non-deverbal adjectives in a particular sentence.


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