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Article published In: Pedagogical Linguistics
Vol. 1:1 (2020) ► pp.66–93

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Aspectual contrasts in the English present tense revisited

Exploring the role of input and L1 influence

 | University of Southampton
 | University of Southampton | The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Published online: 17 February 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.19010.dud
Abstract
This study investigates the acquisition of aspectual contrasts in the English present tense by French and Chinese learners of English at upper-intermediate to advanced proficiency levels. An oral production task and an interpretation task show that the expression of the aspectual present tense does not always have to constitute an insurmountable barrier to learners of English, at least for the upper-intermediate and advanced proficiency levels tested in this study. This successful acquisition is in spite of the differences in L1/L2 feature expressions and the unexpected variability in the input. Our research highlights that teachers must be aware of the one-sided variability of the native speaker usage (i.e. that the present simple form can express multiple meanings, while the present progressive is associated with one meaning only) if they want to improve performance and comprehension at lower proficiency levels.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Encoding of aspect
    • 2.1Prototypical meanings
    • 2.2Reportive present
  • 3.Feature Reassembly Hypothesis
  • 4.Present aspectual meanings in French and Chinese
  • 5.Previous studies
  • 6.Research questions and predictions
  • 7.The study
    • 7.1Interpretation task
      • 7.1.1Participants
      • 7.1.2Task design and procedure
      • 7.1.3Statistical analyses
      • 7.1.4Results: Interpretation task
        • 7.1.4.1Descriptive statistics
        • 7.1.4.2Inferential statistics: Mixed-effects model
          • 7.1.4.2.1Comparison of the Present Simple and the Present Progressive
        • 7.1.4.3Interim summary
    • 7.2Production task
      • 7.2.1Participants
      • 7.2.2Task design and procedure
      • 7.2.3Data analysis
      • 7.2.4Results: Production task
        • 7.2.4.1Descriptive statistics
        • 7.2.4.2Inferential statistics: Mixed-effects model
        • 7.2.4.3Interim summary
  • 8.Discussion
  • 9.Pedagogical implications
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Declaration of Conflicting Interest
  • Notes
  • References
References (34)
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