Study of classroom second language development

A study of classroom second language developmentThe nature of the relationship between the teaching and learning of second languages in the classroom has rarely been the subject of empirical investigation. The teaching profession tends to regard this relationship as a relatively direct one. Teaching which is based on a language syllabus explicitly or implicitly assumes that, given sufficiently frequent presentation and practice, learning will take place in a linear, cumulative fashion, although actual teaching practices may intuitively respond to learning being different. Since teachers are concerned with establishing which methods bring about the desired learner outcomes, interest in the learner is generally restricted to observations of what it is he has learnt and what he still has to learn, rather than how he learns.Second language acquisition research, on the other hand, has tended to focus on the learner, without necessarily relating his behaviour to the learning context. It has also involved mainly informal or only partially formal learners. Relatively few studies have considered learners who were exposed to the second language only in the classroom. At the same time the results of studies with informal or mixed learners have often been assumed to apply also to classroom-only learners. In particular, it has been suggested that second language developm ent follows its own principles and therefore cannot be influenced by instruction.The purpose of the present study is to investigate the acquisition of a second language by classroom-only learners in relation to the teaching learners were exposed to. Subjects of the study are 42 child and 6 adult learners of G erm an, all native speakers of English. The study examines the development of negation and interrogation.We will find that the relationship between learning and teaching is not always a direct one and will interpret this as the result of learners’ organic, creative interlanguage construction. At the same time we will consider the operation of linear, imitative learning processes, which result in the use of formulaic language, as a more direct outcome of the teaching. We will conclude that the acquisition of a second language in the classroom involves both organic, creative and linear, imitative processes

North East Indian Linguistics 8 (NEIL 8)

This is the eighth volume of North East Indian Linguistics, a series of volumes for publishing current research on the languages of North East India, the first volume of which was published in 2008. The papers in this volume were presented at the 9th conference of the North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS), held at Tezpur University in February 2016. The papers for this anniversary volume continue the NEILS tradition of research by both local and international scholars on a wide range of languages and topics. This eighth volume includes papers on small community languages and large regional languages from across North East India, and present detailed phonological, semantic and morphosyntactic studies of structures that are characteristic of particular languages or language groups alongside sociolinguistic studies that explore language attitudes in contexts of language shift

Let us have articles betwixt us: Papers in Historical and Comparative Linguistics in Honour of Johanna L. Wood

Papers in Historical and Comparative Linguistics in Honour of Johanna L. Woo

The Pragmatics of It-Cleft and Wh-Cleft Sentences in Literary Texts with Reference to English-Arabic Translation

Transferring the pragmatic meaning of cleft sentences from one language into another is one of the most problematic issues in any translation task whether oral or written. It requires adequate knowledge of the linguistic and structural features as well as of the cultural peculiarities of such constructs in both languages. Filature to apply such knowledge will result in an ambiguous and inaccurate translation, and hence, communication breakdown. The aim of this study is to highlight the role of pragmatics in translation, focusing on IT-cleft and WH-cleft sentences involved in an Arabic translation of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities by Mounir Albᶜlbakki. The study tries to determine whether the translation of the clefts in this translated literary text is pragmatically transferred into the target text. The analysis in this thesis is carried out to investigate the following hypotheses: (1) ignoring the pragmatic meaning of IT-cleft sentences and WH-cleft sentences leads to inadequate rendering and consequently communication failure; (2) understanding of the pragmatic meaning of a literary text requires a comprehensive knowledge of its setting; and (3) in translation, transferring the basic/general meaning of the source text is easier than transferring its pragmatic meaning. For this purpose, this study provides a comprehensive linguistic and pragmatic analysis of the English novel and its Arabic translation. The researcher examines the translation of (32) from the total of (68) extracts in the light of their original settings and situations to pinpoint the pragmatic meaning of the clefts. The results show that: (1) while 59 % of the pragmatic meaning of the analysed cleft sentences has always not been preserved nonetheless achieved 41 % success-rate has been achieved in this regard; (2) instances of non pragmatic achievment that occurred in the translation of the extracts were due to the translator’s unfamiliarity with or unawareness of the importance of translating such structures; and (3); Albᶜlbakki’s translation of the novel concentrate on lexical accuracy rather than conveying the communicative value and pragmatic meaning of the source text

Transfer and optionality

Diese Dissertation untersucht die Syntax in fortgeschrittener englischer Lernersprache. Der Einfluss der Verbzweitstellung (V2) des Deutschen auf die Zielsprache Englisch bei Lernern deren Erstsprache Deutsch ist, wird unter Berücksichtigung konkurrierender Theorien der Parameterfixierung und der Optionalität im Zweitspracherwerb analysiert. Die der Analyse zugrundeliegenden theoretischen Ansätze Full Transfer/Full Access, No Parameter Resetting, die Interface Hypothese und Multiple Parameter Setting werden auf Basis von kontrastiven Lernerkorpusuntersuchungen und Grammatikalitätsurteilsaufgaben getestet. Während die Ergebnisse der Korpusuntersuchung eine Resttendenz bei L1-Deutsch (und Niederländisch) Sprechern zum Transfer von V2 ins Englische zeigen, ist dies doch auf die Umstellung von Auxiliarverben und der Kopula beschränkt. Die Position des thematischen Verbs in Fragen und bei Verneinungen ist durchgehend wie in der Zielsprache. Grammatikalitätsurteile zeigen eine durchgehende Präferenz der Lernenden für englische Wortstellungsmuster gegenüber V2-Mustern, abgesehen von einem Fall: die Inversion der Argumente um Verben die in ihren lexikalisch-semantischen Eignenschaftern Kopularverben ähneln. Diese wird von den LernerInnen signifikant häufiger als von Muttersprachlern als zulässig beurteilt. Die Ergebnisse untermauern den Ansatz des No Parameter Resetting im Zweitsprachenerwerb. Die LernerInnen zeigen keine konsistente Neusetzung der Auswirkungen des Vwebzwietparameters auf die Oberflächenstruktur. Während der Mangel von Bewegung des thematischen Verbs in der Lernersprache durchgehend wie in der Zielsprache ist, zeigt die Inversion um die “equativen” Verben den Einfluß der Oberflächenstruktur des Deutschen ohne Einbeziehung eines zugrunde liegenden V2 Parameters. Dies wird in einem konstruktivistischen Ansatz ausgewertet, wonach Zweitsprachenerwerb auf der Basis von Oberflächengeneralisationen anstatt von impliziter Parametersetzung stattfindet. In Übereinstimmung mit der Interface Hypothese bereiten die Konstruktionen den Lernenden die meisten Schwierigkeiten, welche sich an der Schnittstelle von Syntax und Diskurspragmatik befinden.Against the background of the ongoing debate about access to UG and the possibility of parameter resetting in second language acquisition, the research presented here studies the transfer of verb second from L1 German into L2 English by instructed learners at advanced stages of acquisition The theoretical positions of Full Transfer/Full Access and No Access are contrasted. In addition, given the nature of word order variability in English, where inversion and surface V2 orders are constrained by lexical and discourse factors, the Interface Hypothesis is tested. The empirical study falls into two main parts: (1) A contrastive interlanguage anaylsis of the L1 German, Dutch, Bulgarian, Finnish and French sucorpora of the International Corpus of Learner English and a tailor-made L1 German learner corpus; (2) A grammaticality judgement task administered to advanced L1 (Austrian) German students of English and native English controls. For the corpus study, V2 word order diagnostics and target English word order variation patterns are identified and anaylsed between the subcorpora to arrive at a characterisation of the influence of L1 German on the acquisition of English word order. The grammaticality judgement task tests the acceptability of a range of non-target verb second word order patterns compared to target English syntax. While the results of the corpus study indicate a residual tendency on the part of the L1 German (and Dutch) speakers to transfer V2 into English, this is restricted to the movement of auxiliary verbs and inversion of copula be. Thematic verb placement in questions and relative to negation is consistently target-like. The grammaticality judgements show a consistently target-like preference for English word order patterns over V2 patterns apart from in one case. Inversion of the arguments around verbs with copula-like lexical semantics is judged significantly more acceptable the learners. The results are analysed as lending support to a No Parameter Resetting approach to L2A. The learners, as a group, do not show consistent resetting of the surface consequences of the V2 parameter. So while the lack of movement of thematic verbs to the left of the clause is consistently target-like, inversion around equative verbs shows the influence of surface German patterns without implicting an underlying V2 parameter. This is analysed in a constructionist approach, where L2A proceeds on the basis of surface generalisations rather than implicit parameter resetting. In line with the Interface Hypothesis, the constructions which pose most difficulty are those which involve the interfaces of syntax with discourse pragmatics

Handbook of Lexical Functional Grammar

Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a nontransformational theory of linguistic structure, first developed in the 1970s by Joan Bresnan and Ronald M. Kaplan, which assumes that language is best described and modeled by parallel structures representing different facets of linguistic organization and information, related by means of functional correspondences. This volume has five parts. Part I, Overview and Introduction, provides an introduction to core syntactic concepts and representations. Part II, Grammatical Phenomena, reviews LFG work on a range of grammatical phenomena or constructions. Part III, Grammatical modules and interfaces, provides an overview of LFG work on semantics, argument structure, prosody, information structure, and morphology. Part IV, Linguistic disciplines, reviews LFG work in the disciplines of historical linguistics, learnability, psycholinguistics, and second language learning. Part V, Formal and computational issues and applications, provides an overview of computational and formal properties of the theory, implementations, and computational work on parsing, translation, grammar induction, and treebanks. Part VI, Language families and regions, reviews LFG work on languages spoken in particular geographical areas or in particular language families. The final section, Comparing LFG with other linguistic theories, discusses LFG work in relation to other theoretical approaches

Masdar Constructions in Southern Saudi Arabic: a Concise Reference

This thesis provides for the first time a detailed description and analysis of masdar constructions within the framework of LFG (Lexical Functional Grammar) in an unstudied vernacular dialect of Arabic, Saudi Southern Arabic (SA) as spoken in Bisha. The current thesis discusses the masdar nominalisations in usual normal constructions, and in complex constructions. Building on previous syntactic accounts of mixed category constructions and masdar constructions in LFG, I argue that the first of those masdar constructions (MC A) includes nominal elements and verbal elements at the same time. Additionally, there is a mismatch between the external syntax (nominal) and the internal syntax (mixed) of the masdar nominalisation in this construction. Therefore, following Lowe (2016), I argue that MC A is a truly mixed construction. On the other hand, I argue that the second masdar construction (MC B) is fully nominal in SA as it shows purely nominal characteristics. The masdar nominalisation in this construction shows a uniform external and internal syntax. Therefore, I treat the masdar in this construction as a non-mixed category, and argue that the masdar in MC B does not entail a mixed heading sharing analysis. In this study, similar to B ̈orjars et al. (2015), I propose a uniform analysis for both bare object masdar construction (MC A) and PP-object masdar construction (MC B). Such an analysis avoids us the long list of problems of the head-sharing approach, and allows us to analyse the controversial masdar constructions smoothly within the normal usual rules of LFG. SA facts appear to be similar to MSA data, especially MC A. However, MC B was found to be different from its counterpart in MSA. This thesis is a contribution to the long-standing debate in the literature on mixed category constructions, and how to analyse them in LFG, as well as to the syntax of neglected vernacular Arabic dialects

Recall and recognition among conference interpreters

Among the tasks usually carried out by conference interpreters, the question was which task demands most attention or is the deepest in terms of the depth of processing hypothesis proposed by Craik and Lockhart (1972). Simultaneous interpretation is a complex form of human information processing, involving the perception, storage, retrieval, transformation and transmission of verbal information. Shadowing involves the imediate vocalization of auditorily presented stimuli in the same language, whereas simultaneous interpretation involves translation of the incoming message. Mic consecutive interpreter listens to a message in L1, makes concurrent notes in L2, and then delivers an oral translation of the original speech by way of his notes. In Experiment I, conference interpreters (both trainee and professional) shadowed, interpreted simultaneously and consecutively, as well as listeneýd to French passages before (a) recalling in English and (b) answering three recognition tests in source language measuring lexical, semantic and syntactic retention. Listening and consecutive interpretation, which yielded significantly higher recall scores than did shadowing, were considered deeper forms of processing than shadowing. Also, simultaneous listening and speaking impaired recall of the material. A second experiment eliminated the translation variable. Subjects listened to, shadowed and interpreted consecutively, English passages, followed by retention ffeasures in the same language. Only consecutive interpretation (labeled as 'consecutive reiteration') yielded scores that were significantly higher than shadowing. Listening and recalling in the same language demands less processing or effort than listening in one language and recalling in another. In a third experiment designed to examine the role played by notes, subjects (a) listened to, (b) interpreted a text consecutively and (c) took notes but had their notes unexpectedly removed and were asked to recall the original without rehearsal. Consecutive interpretation with notes kept during delivery yielded significantly higher retention scores than either other condition. Listening is as good a form of attending to a message as note-taking when notes are an external form of encoding. Notes coupled with review represent a useful strategy for subsequent recall but note-taking alone is of questionable value

Descriptive analysis of verbs in Malto.

This thesis is a Descriptive Analysis of Verbs in Malto, a poorly documented North Dravidian language with about 60,000 speakers living on the Rajmahal Hills in Eastern India. Malto is an agglutinating language with SOV word order. The finite verb word in Malto maximally carries information about valence adjusting operations, tense-aspect- mood, negation and gender-number-person agreement with the subject. The non-finite verbs take suffixes marking adverbialisation, complementation, relativisation, conjunct participialisation and relative tense. Syntactically, there is only one finite verb in a sentence and all the other verbs preceding it are non-finite. Malto has a range of multi-verb constructions that includes explicator compound verbs, conjunct participle constructions, reduplicated adverbials, verbal complementisation, clause chaining and quotative verbal constructions. This work includes a detailed analysis of the formal structure of verbs, valence adjusting operations, tense-aspect-mood, negation and multi-verb constructions in Malto along with a concluding chapter on the language contact and convergence situation. The synchronic data collected during fieldwork is discussed in the framework of Role and Reference Grammar and complemented by inputs from typological studies and a historical linguistic perspective in relation to Dravidian languages