the acquisition of the english article system by turkish l2 learners

Ercan Yılmaz

The problem

Articles are one of the most difficult structural elements for EFL learners (Master 2002)

Acquisition of the article system in English is very demanding for L2 learners. Butler (2002)

The purpose 1. to understand whether different types of

articles are acquired by different proficiency level learners with different proficiency

2. to determine whether there is a hierarchy in the acquisition of definite and indefinite articles

The English article system

-the indefinite article a/an,-the definite article the -and the zero (null Ǿ) article

.

Master (2002)The difficulty comes from three principle

factsabout the article system.

1.The continuous rule application effort put by the learnersthere are more than one alternatives for the same category

2. The article system puts multiple functions on one single morpheme, a considerable burden for the learner, who generally seeks for a one-form-one function correspondence in navigating the language until the advanced stages of acquisition.

3. Function words are normally unstressed and consequently are very difficult for non-native speaker of English to discern, thus affecting the availability of input in the spoken mode.

Opened a new avenue of research on L2 article acquisition . Not only did he look at the presence or absence of articles in obligatory contexts, but he also analyzed various types of NPs and the articles used with each semantic type.

Huebner (1983)

Huebner divided the articles into 4 types + Thomas’s idiomatic & other conventional uses (type 5):

Type :1 [- SR, +HK] a, the , 0

These are generic nouns

Ǿ Lions are big wild catsThe Lion is a big wild catA lion is a big wild cat

Type 2[+SR, +HK]

This refers to the article the

Pass me the saltI found a book. The book was…..The first person to walk on the moon…..The idea of coming to the US was…

Type 3[+SR, -HK]

referential indefinites & first – mention nouns (a , Ǿ)

-I saw a dog in Ahmet’s garden.-Susan kept on sending Ǿ messages to her

boyfriend after they broke up.

Type 4[-SR, -HK]

Non-referential nouns, attributive indefinites & nonspecific indefinites

( a, Ǿ )

-Alice is an actor .-I think , I should find a better job.- Ǿ Foreigners would come up with a better

solution.

Type 5

Idioms & Other conventional usesa the Ǿ

- All of a sudden, he woke up- In the 1950s, there weren’t many cars.- His family is now living Ǿ hand to mouth

According to (Celce-Murcia &Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Chesterman, 1991; Master, 1997)

The zero article is divided into two types: zero and null.

The zero article occurs with nonspecific or generic noncount and plural nouns:

- Water is essential to live .- Cats aren’t as loyal as dogs.

The null article occurs with certain singular count and proper nouns

- İzmir is a very beautiful city.- I think that breakfast is the most important meal.

Article Acquisition by L2 LearnersResearch on the L2 acquisition of articles has

been rather made, focusing on isolated features of the English article system.

Only Master studied the acquisition of articles exclusively

Master (1987, as cited in Master,1997) how the English article system develops in the

interlanguage of speakers of +Art and –Art languages.

The acquisition order of articles differed depending on the L1s of subjects.

The zero article dominated the others . For – Art learners the acquisition of a was

delayed compared with the.

Thomas (1989)Differences-similarities btw.L1 and L2 patterns in

article acquisitionDo L2 learners Associate definite article more

with +SR rather than +HK if soOveruse of the in first mention.30 participants 7 +ART 23-ART Story telling taskNo accurate control of a in –SR –HK and the in

+SR +HKOverproduction of zero article is present in –ARTOvergeneralization of the [+SR –HK] contexts.

Atay 2010120 students40 elementary, 40 intermediate and 40 upper –intermediate

studentsData collection instrument, a forced-choice elicitation task

is used.

40 short and contextualized dialogues. each dialogue is missing an article a/an, the or Ø four different contexts; i.e. definite/specific,

definite/non-specific, indefinite/specific indefinite/non-specific.

Each context has 10 dialogues with four different contexts that are randomized

A sample question in the tool

Mother’s calling up to her daughter who is upstairs

Mother: Ann! Could you please close ____ (Ø / a/ an / the) windows up there? It’s getting cold outside!

Ann: Ok mum!

Atay 2010intermediate level learners exhibited fluctuation

between definiteness and specificity to a great extent in (+definite/-specific) and (-definite/+specific) contexts.

Elementary level learners were more accurate in these contexts exhibiting article omission errors in definite contexts.

upper intermediate level students were quite successful in article assignment in defined contexts. This revealed that there is a positive correlation between article system acquisition and proficiency.

The -ART language Turkish

Definiteness

Specifity

Turkish does not have an article system to mark definiteness or specificity. It encodes these semantic universals by some other alternative ways such as case morphologyword order, stress tense aspect-modality.

“Bir” in Turkish can be interpreted both as the indefinite determiner or numeral “one”.

Eg: Sınıf – ta güzel bir kız var. class –LOC beautiful one girl there is (There is a beautiful girl in the class.)

Eg: Sınıf – ta bir güzel kız var. class-LOC one beautiful girl there

is. (There is one beautiful girl in the class.)

Bir adam gel – di. One man come –PAST ( A man came )

Bir adam gel – di One man come-PAST (One man came)

In Turkish the minimal requirements for a noun phrase to be interpreted as DEFINITE the absence of an indefinite determiner

□ Garson tabak – lar - ı temizle - di. Waiter plate -PL-ACC clean – PAST (The waiter cleaned the plates.)

accusative case marking where the NP is functioning as direct object

□ Müdür araba -y - ı iste - di. president car -ACC ask for –PAST (The president asked for the car.)

Müdür araba iste - di. president car ask for –PAST (The president asked for a car.)

Alternative Ways of Definiteness Marking in Turkish 1. Word OrderPreverbal position

□ Bura –dan hırsız gir - miş. here – ABL burglar get in – PAST (A burglar got in through here. )

Hırsız bura – dan gir - miş. burglar here- ABL enter – PAST (The burglar got in through here.)

2.Sentence StressRaporLAR yaz –ıl- dı. Report-PLURAL write-Passive- PAST (Reports were written.)

Raporlar yaz – ıl - DI. Report-PLURAL write-Passive- PAST (The reports were written.)

3.Tense-Aspect-Modality

Çocuk - lar çabuk yorul- du. child -PL fast get tired –PAST (The children got tired fast.)

Çocuk - lar çabuk yorul- ur. Child –PL fast get tired –AOR (Children get tired fast.)

Specifity Enç (1991) asserts that in Turkish definite NPs are always specific Hasan dekan- ı arı- yor.

Hasan dean-ACC look for- PR.PROG. (Hasan is looking for the dean.)

But there is one exception: Hasan dekan –ı arı- yor, dekan kim ol-ur- sa ol-sun. Hasan dean-ACC look for-PR.PROG who be-AOR-COND

be-OPT

(Hasan is looking for the dean- whoever the Dean may be.)

An indefinite NP can perform two referential functions:

1. First time mention: Dün yol -da bir araba gör -dü -m Yesterday street-LOC one car see –PAST-1SG (Yesterday, I saw a car in the street)

(indefinite/specific)

2. non-specific entity which is unknown and unidentifiable also for the hearer.

Daha geniş bir araba almayı düşün -üyor -uz. More large one car to buy think –PROG- 1PL (We are thinking of buying a larger car.)

(indefinite/nonspecific)

The presence or absence of accusative case in indefinite NPs Ali bir piyano-yu kiralamak ist - i- yor. Ali one piano-ACC to rent want-PROG-3SG (Ali wants to rent a (certain) piano.)

(indefinite /specific)

Ali bir piyano kiralamak ist- i- yor. Ali one piano to rent want-PROG-3SG (Ali wants to rent a (any) piano.)

(indefinite/nonspecific)

StudyEkiert(2004)’s test instrumentElementary Pre-int Upper-int42 sentences 75 itemsAll types of Huebner’s & Thomas’s models

are used.15 of each type

Fred bought a car on Monday. On Wednesday, he crashed the car.

[Type 3] [Type 2]

A/the Cat likes 0 mice. [Type 1] [Type 4]

All of a sudden, he woke up from his coma. [Type 5]

My computer has a new sound card. [Type 3]

Sally Ride was the first American woman in 0 space. [Type 2] [Type 5]

elementary

-T4>T3>T2>T1>T5

. T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Elementery Q.A. 225 225 225 225 225

N=15 C.A 15 47 78 88 14

% 6,7 20,9 34,7 39,1 6,2

Pre int T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Pre- int Q.A. 1320 1320 1320 1320 1320

N=88 C.A 83 267 430 387 44

% 6,3 20,2 32,6 29,3 3,3

-T3>T4>T2>T1>T5

upper T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

Upper-int Q.A. 630 630 630 630 630

N=42 C.A 62 246 321 279 44

% 9,8 39,0 51,0 44,3 7,0

- T3>T4>T2>T1>T5

All levels T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

All levels Q.A. 2175 2175 2175 2175 2175

N=145 C.A 160 560 829 754 102

% 7,4 25,7 38,1 34,7 4,7

-T3>T4>T2>T1>T5

Comparison (Ekiert-Own Study)T1 T2 T3 T4 T5

low-ability 62,2 28,80 46,6 68,8 60int-ability 75,5 71,1 73,3 73,3 57,7

high-ability 60 73,3 80 88,3 57,7

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5low-ability 6,7 20,9 34,7 39,1 6,2int-ability 6,6 20,2 32,6 29,3 3,3

high-ability 9,8 39,0 51,0 44,3 7,0

conclusionStudents lack the usage of articles with

generic nouns and in idiomatic contextElementary= t4 t3 t2 t1 t5Pre-int and Upper- int= t3 t4 t2 t1 t5all levels: a/an >the >T1 > T5Acquisition of the is delayed compared with

a/anNo overproduction of Ǿ and no THE flooding

Thanks for listening =)