a leslla corpus ineke van de craats [email protected] [email protected] radboud...
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A LESLLA corpus
Ineke van de Craats [email protected]
Radboud University, Nijmegen
Research funded by NWO (355-70-017)
LESLLA 2010 - Cologne
Why LESLLA?• LESLLA learners differ from highly educated learners.
• LESLLA learners may process spoken language differently (Petersson et al. 2000; Reis & Castro-Caldas, 1997)
• Language pedagogy to LESLLA learners should take into account that:- abstract words and function words are not viewed as words (e.g. Kurvers, 2002; )- words with little meaning are difficult to recall (e.g. Tarone et al. 2007)
- LESLLA-learners have little metalinguistic and strategic skills (e.g. Kurvers 2002)
- they may understand feedback /recasts differently (Tarone et al. 2007)
- reading and writing skills are lacking or restricted.
LESLLA learners by accident
LESLLA corpora ‘avant la lettre’
Longitudinal: - Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt (Klein & Dittmar 1979)
- ZISA project (Clahsen et al. 1983)– ESF project (Klein & Perdue, 1992; Perdue
1993)
Cross-sectional:- Lexlern project (Clahsen et al. 1991)
Is acquisition possible solely on the basis of aural input?
LESLLA learners at purpose
• Minneapolis Somali literacy study (Tarone, Bigelow & Hansen 2007; 2009)
What is the impact of literacy on oral L2 use and development?
3 studies, on: corrective feedback,
elicited imitation oral narratives (learners focussing on meaning)
• LESLLA-corpus (van de Craats 2009;2010)
longitudinal: 3 semesters (15-18 months)
How does the low-literate learner proceed in the classroom?
LESLLA corpus
Purpose of the project:
Is the L1 morphosyntax an essential factor of stagnation in L2 acquisitionof these learners?
LESLLA corpus
Research questions:
• Is there still impact from a low literacy level or from another phonetic script?
• Low-paced development for morphosyntax?
• Is that caused by transfer from L1?
LESLLA corpus - design
• Longitudinal study of 3 semesters/cycles (1.5 years)
• Same tasks administered in each cycle.
• Two language groups: L2: Dutch
L1: Turkish, Moroccan Arabic
• CEF level at start: below A1 with a very basic vocabulary.
• Elicitationmaterial: Reading task
Receptive tasks
Productive tasks
Metalinguistic tasks
Turkish participants (at start)
Age Schooling Stay in NL stagnating
TU - Neth. years
Zilfi 30 5 1;5 11 no
Hülya 19 5 0;7 0.5 no
Emine 28 5 0;8 13 no - yes
Hilal 19 5 1;8 2 yes - no
Ayfer 37 5 0;8 18 yes
Nazife 31 5 0;6 1 yes
Hatice 45 5 0;6 26 yes
Özlem 31 6 2;0 5 yes
Mean 30 5 1;0 9.5
Moroccan participants (at start)
Age Schooling Staying NL Stagnating
MA - Neth.
Mina 23 0 2;0 4 no
Zohra 41 5 0;7 8 no
Soad 34 4 0;8 12 no
Najat 25 4 1;6 4 yes - no
Hayat 22 5 2;0 2 yes
Nezha 38 0 1;3 3 yes
Fatima 27 7 1;8 5 yes
Mean 30 3.6 1;3 5.4
Reading skills Moroccan participants
Age Schooling Arabic literacy course
Roman script
Mina 23 0 yes yes
Zohra 41 5 yes no
Soad 34 4 yes no
Najat 25 4 yes yes
Hayat 22 5 yes yes
Nezha 38 0 yes yes
Fatima 27 5+2 yes no
Mean 30 3.6
Literacy level
3 tasks: text; self paced reading; drag and drop task
Reading time for an L2 text (in sec.)
Cycle I II III Mean
Zilfi 131 108 111 117
Hülya 86 110 100 99Emine 116 133 137
129
Hilal 143 103 132 126Ayfer 122 194 140 152Nazife 117 98 99 105Hatice 145 183 137 155Özlem 182 107 90 126
Mean 130 129 118 126
Cycle I II III Mean
Mina 148 144 129 140Zohra 141 - 138 139 Soad 127 152 119 133
Najat 172 174 165 170Hayat 217 244 174 212Nezha 307 264 225 265Fatima 120 123 161 135
Mean 176 183 158 172
Turkish Moroccan
Self-paced reading task
• Instruction:
Read the sentence aloud and recall the last word.
• Push the button.
• Read the next sentence (12 and 16 syllables) etc.
• 3 pairs of 2 sentences
3 pairs of 3 sentences
3 pairs of 4 sentences
• Say the last word of each sentence in the right order.
Self-paced reading task (16 syllables)
Reading time Turkish Moroccan learners
2 sent.-pair 1 21 sec 30 sec
2 sent.-pair 2 20 sec 36 sec
2 sent.-pair 3 22 sec 41 sec
Mean per sentence 10 sec 18 sec
3 sent. mean 10 sec. 16 sec
4 sent. mean 10 sec. 16 sec
(for 10 Turkish and 10 Moroccan learners in Cycle 1)
Transfer and reading
L1
L2
Order within the noun phrase
Drag-and-drop task
• Purpose: What is the influence of the L1?
• Semi-controlled task
• Adapted version of the drag-and-drop task:
• The learner has more blocks to drag and drop than required for the task.
• This opens the way to investigate:
- pro-drop and/or topic drop
- choose between an L1 and an L2 structure.
Drag-and-drop task
Possessive relationship in the noun phrase
Turkish order: possessor – possessee Hassan’s car (Hasan-in araba-
si)Moroccan Arabic: possessee – possessor
the car (of) HassanDutch: 1. Hassans auto
Hassan z’n/zijn auto zijn auto
2. de auto van Hassande auto van hem
Adapted drag-and-drop task
Hassan
Dat isDat is …………………………………………………………………………………………….……….Hassan auto z’n van
Target: Hassan z’n auto
Not correct: auto van Hassan (correct: de auto van Hassan)
Number of moves and reaction time were registrated.
Results for 10 possessive noun phrases
TU MA difference
Cyc.1 Moves 45,15 40,29 5
RT sec. 286.83 387.18100.35 sec
Cyc.2 Moves 49.25 40.99 8
RT sec. 246.7 294.4 47.7 sec
Cyc.3 Moves 58.21 40.17 18
RT sec. 293.58 310.58 17 sec
Number of moves increases for Turks, stable for Moroccans.
Number of seconds decreases for Moroccans, not for Turks.
Turks start manipulating the word order, Moroccans not (they read faster than before).
Easiest and most difficult possessive NPs
Moroccan Turkish
Easiest NP 2.95 moves 3.16 movesjouw kado mevr. Larbi d’r manyour present mrs. Larbi’s (her)
husband
Most difficult NP 5.5 moves 6.58 movesFreeks ouders de opa van BasFreek’s parents the grandpa of Bas
Transfer of the L1 becomes clear in the P’sor-P’see order.
Bas’ grandpa (de opa van Bas)
• Most frequent variant of Turkish learners: Bas-van de opa (Turkish genitive) Bas-van z’n de opa
(stimulus: Dat is …. /Bas/ de opa/z’n /van)
• De opa van Bas: 12,5 % correct for the Turks (mean:6,5) also in 14 / 20 / 22 moves, or in 3 or 5 moves.
• All Moroccans do it 100% correctly, but they need too many moves (mean: 4) and too much time (mean: 30 sec.)
• Abstract function words play a crucial role.• Syntactic development is slow.
Transfer and reading
L1
L2
Order within the sentence
V finite
The finite verb
1. In the drag and drop taskTurkish: SOVfinite
Moroccan Arabic: SVfinite ODutch: SVfinite O
Make a sentence:
……………………………………………………………………………..
| get | Freek | a fine | gets |
krijgen Freek een bon krijgt
The finite verb
1. In the drag and drop task
Turkish Cycle I II IIIFreek een bon krijgt/en. 50% 37% 37%Moves (mean) 3,8 4,4 3,8RT (mean) in sec. 17 19,9 18,5
MoroccanFreek een bon krijgt/en. 0% 14% 0%Moves (mean) 3,1 3,6 3,8RT (mean) in sec. 35 27,9 20,7
Narratives
Development of morphosyntaxis
in a relatively free task: film retelling and picture telling
story.
Bare verbs
• Do these literacy learners produce abstract, grammatical (semantically redundant) morphemes, such as
- inflectional endings (3sg)and
- grammatical free morphemes (copulas, modals, auxiliaries)?
that are difficult to process, or mainly bare verbs?
Turkish learners
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Ayfer - TU
long
is/ga
short
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Hülya - TU
long
is/ga
short
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Zilfi - TU
long
is/ga
short
Turkish and Moroccan learners compared
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Ayfer - TU
long
is/ga
short
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Hülya - TU
long
is/ga
short
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Zilfi - TU
long
is/ga
short
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Zohra - MA
long
is/ga
short
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Mina - MA
long
is/ga
short
0
20
40
60
80
100
cycl. 1 cycl. 2 cycl. 3
Fatima - MA
long
is/ga
short
Conclusions
• The Turkish group produced more bare (long) forms than the Moroccan learners, although they were literate learners.
• The picture is opposite for the Moroccan group, although they were the moderate/advanced literacy learners with more short forms.
Cause??• Not literacy, but interplay between L1 and
L2 is at issue.• The short forms are mainly default forms
Default forms
• Beginning learners use default verb forms.
• Moroccan learners of Dutch prefer other default verb forms than Turkish learners. The L1-L2 interplay is the motivation for this preference.
– Turkish learners take long forms (infinitives), Moroccans short defaults (‘finite’).
– Turks have to acquire movement of the verb.– Moroccans have to learn what an infinitive is.
A ‘finite’ default form
• kan niet [VP gaat fiets] Najat can not go.3sg bike
• een vriendin is zij [VP zegt “kom”] Soad a girlfriend is she say.3sg come
• ik ga buiten [VP speelt] Fatima I go-1sg outside play.3sg
For Moroccan learners the default form is short and ‘finite’.
The finite verb in picture telling task
Zilfi (Turkish)
Vader niet komen
Cycl. 1 Vader is niet komen
father is not come.INF
Cycl. 2 Vader is niet kom
come.1SG/STEM
Cycl. 3 (pro) kom niet die vader(v.d.Craats 2005, 2009)
dummy auxiliary
The finite verb in picture telling task
Moroccans:
• Sneeuwman ga kijken tableaussnowman go look paintings
• Dan ga loop naar de raamThen go walk to the window
Number of ga-patterns 7 Turks : 107 Moroccans: 313
another dummy auxiliary
Dummy auxiliaries
Dummy auxiliaries may:
• Emerge when (bound) verb morphology has not fully been acquired yet;
• Realise one of more grammatical features normally part of a lexical verb.
• Disappear after a specific developmental stage.
• Typically (??) emerge in the speech of vulnerable learners such as LESLLA learners, SLI children.
Conclusions• Decoding fluency may influence results of written tasks with low-
educated learners, but will have disappeared at A2-level (CEF).
• Low-paced development of these LESLLA-learners shows the small steps such as insertion of dummy auxiliaries to overcome composite morphosyntactic changes (L1 influence is persistent).
• Difficulty of grammatical morphemes has more to do with salience in an L1-L2 interplay. Lack of meaning is one aspect of salience (unstressed is another).
• Literate learners are also intended to skip grammatical morphemes in sentence imitation.
• The morpheme learning steps: lexical item – free functional item – bound functional item are also observed in literate learners (e.g. VanPatten 1995).
• More comparative research between literates and non/low-literates is necessary., e.g. about insertion of dummy auxilairies.