In:Cross-linguistic Influence in Bilingualism: In honor of Aafke Hulk
Edited by Elma Blom, Leonie Cornips and Jeannette Schaeffer
[Studies in Bilingualism 52] 2017
► pp. 279–302
L2 Acquisition of English article choice by Dutch native speakers
Cross-linguistic influence?
Published online: 19 December 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.52.13sch
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.52.13sch
Abstract
Some languages base their article choice on specificity (Samoan), others on definiteness (English: a vs. the). As for L2 article acquisition, Ionin, Zubizaretta, and Maldonado (2008) argue that definiteness-based article choice in the L1 (Spanish) enhances article-acquisition in a definiteness-based L2 (English). However, Deprez, Sleeman, and Guella (2008) show that Dutch learners of L2-French (both definiteness-based) perform poorly on French article choice, suggesting reliance on specificity, and refuting positive L1 influence.
The current study is a pilot investigation into L2-English article choice in 104 native Dutch speakers. The results show definite and indefinite article overuse in the primary, but not in the elementary-intermediate-proficiency groups. We propose that lexical-semantic proficiency is a necessary condition for cross-linguistic influence to be visible.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Article choice
- 2.2Previous L2 acquisition studies on Article Choice
- 2.3Hypothesis and predictions
- 3.Methods
- 3.1Participants
- 3.2Experiment
- 3.2.1Questionnaire
- 3.2.2Anglia placement test
- 3.2.3Article elicitation task
- 3.2.4Procedure
- 3.3Coding and statistics
- 4.Results
- 4.1Results questionnaire
- 4.2Results Anglia Proficiency task
- 4.3Results Article Elicitation task
- 4.3.1Results Article Elicitation task control group
- 4.3.2Results Article Elicitation task primary proficiency group
- 4.3.3Results Article Elicitation task preliminary-proficiency group
- 4.3.4Results Article Elicitation task elementary-intermediate group
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusion
References
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