scholarly journals The overgeneration of be + verb constructions in the writing of L1-Malay ESL learners in Malaysia

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Abdul Aziz Roslina ◽  
Zuraidah Mohd Don
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Developmental Aspect ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Verb Constructions ◽  
Transitive Verbs ◽  
The University ◽  
Esl Learners ◽  
Strong Verbs

This study investigates a syntactic problem in the writing of ESL learners whose first language is Bahasa Melayu or Malay. It focuses specifically on is, are, was, and were overgenerated with inflected and uninflected lexical verbs to form two primary constructions, namely be + V and be + Ved (or Ven in the case of strong verbs). This study aims to examine the patterns of be overgeneration constructions produced by the learners and determine if these are the outcome of tense and agreement marking, as postulated by Ionin and Wexler (2001, 2002). The data for the study were obtained from the Malaysian Corpus of Learner English (MACLE), a learner corpus developed by the University of Malaya. The findings reveal that uninflected verbs occur more frequently than inflected verbs in the position after be, which translates into higher occurrences of the be + bare V construction in comparison to the be + Ved construction. Both constructions are also found to occur more frequently with transitive verbs. The findings suggest that (i) the overgeneration of be + bare V is the result of agreement marking, while (ii) be + Ved is the outcome of assigning the tense feature. These findings suggest that the overgeneration of be constructions produced by L1-Malay ESL learners could be the product of a developmental aspect of language acquisition. This traces back to the system underlying the patterns of overgeneration, which is clearly made up of non-random constructions governed by very specific interlanguage grammar.

scholarly journals Phonological Processes in ESL Five-Year-Olds

1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Piper
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Sound System ◽  
Phonological Processes ◽  
Structure Changes ◽  
Speech Data ◽  
Esl Learners

This paper reports the results of a study investigating the acquisition of the sound system by fifteen ESL five-year-olds. Segmental consonant errors drawn from speech data collected over ten months were categorized according to eight phonological processes in three categories, assimilation. substitution, and syllable structure changes. Eighty-six percent of the errors corresponded to those identified by Ingram (1979) and others as universal in first language acquisition. The author advises caution in the interpretation of this result, however, since there were certain differences in the particular errors made by the ESL learners within each category as well as processes considered universal among first language learners which were not found among the ESL learners.

scholarly journals Contrastive Analysis of the English and Pashto Adjectives

2016 ◽  
Vol I (I) ◽  
pp. 74-84
Author(s):  
Akbar Ali ◽  
Bilal Khan ◽  
Nazakat Awan
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
First Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Acquisition Process ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Esl Learners ◽  
And Linguistics

The paper mainly focuses on the contrastive analysis of the use of English and Pashto adjectives. Contrastive Analysis hypothesis developed in the 20th century from the two renowned theories of language acquisition and linguistics i.e. behaviorism and structuralism. This hypothesis states that the major barriers in the second learning and acquisition process arise from the interference of the first language. Contrastive analysis between languages facilitate the linguists and language teachers in predicting the difficulties a learner may confront through a structural, scientific analysis of pairs of languages (Brown, 2007). The adjectives of English and Pashto have been compared in the paper using contrastive analysis approach. The study finds that there are certain similarities and differences in the use of adjectives in English and Pashto which can cause issues in learning English adjective use by L1 Pashto speakers as ESL learners.

INTERVIEW WITH PETINA GAPPAH

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Faith Mkwesha
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
First Language ◽  
Short Story Collection ◽  
The Third ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
Book Award ◽  
The University ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
University Of Zimbabwe

This interview was conducted on 16 May 2009 at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek, Cape Town, South Africa. Petina Gappah is the third generation of Zimbabwean writers writing from the diaspora. She was born in 1971 in Zambia, and grew up in Zimbabwe during the transitional moment from colonial Rhodesia to independence. She has law degrees from the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Graz. She writes in English and also draws on Shona, her first language. She has published a short story collection An Elegy for Easterly (2009), first novel The Book of Memory (2015), and another collection of short stories, Rotten Row (2016).  Gappah’s collection of short stories An Elegy for Easterly (2009) was awarded The Guardian First Book Award in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the richest prize for the short story form. Gappah was working on her novel The Book of Memory at the time of this interview.

Infant-Directed Speech Effects in Adult Artificial Grammar Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Sára Lukics ◽  
Ágnes Lukács
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Artificial Grammar ◽  
Combined Effect ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Grammar Learning ◽  
Learning Rates

First language acquisition is facilitated by several characteristics of infant-directed speech, but we know little about their relative contribution to learning different aspects of language. We investigated infant-directed speech effects on the acquisition of a linear artificial grammar in two experiments. We examined the effect of incremental presentation of strings (starting small) and prosody (comparing monotonous, arbitrary and phrase prosody). Presenting shorter strings before longer ones led to higher learning rates compared to random presentation. Prosody marking phrases had a similar effect, yet, prosody without marking syntactic units did not facilitate learning. These studies were the first to test the starting small effect with a linear artificial grammar, and also the first to investigate the combined effect of starting small and prosody. Our results suggest that starting small and prosody facilitate the extraction of regularities from artificial linguistic stimuli, indicating they may play an important role in natural language acquisition.

Acquiring “Knowledge”—An Alternative Model

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
First Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Method Of Cases ◽  
Striking Fact

The chapter argues that empirical studies of first-language acquisition lend support to the Wittgensteinian-Merleau-Pontian conception of language as against the prevailing conception that underwrites the method of cases in either its armchair or experimental version. It offers a non-representationalist model, inspired by the work of Michael Tomasello, for the acquisition of “knowledge,” with the aim of showing that we could fully account for the acquisition of this and other philosophically troublesome words without positing independently existing “items” to which these words refer. The chapter also aims at bringing out and underscoring the striking fact that, whereas many in contemporary analytic philosophy regard and present themselves as open and attentive to empirical science, they have often relied on a conception of language that has been supported by no empirical evidence.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document