This study aims to investigate how second language (L2) learners’ first language (L1) affects the acquisition of locative phrases in Chinese by examining the performance of L2 Chinese learners with different L1s (L1 English and L1 Korean learners). Locative phrases in Chinese introduced by preposition zài ‘at’ can occur in two positions in a sentence: between a subject and a verb (preverbal position); after a verb (postverbal position). A preverbal locative phrase indicates the general location where an event happens. However, a postverbal locative phrase occurs with restrictions (Li and Thompson, 1981; Liu, 2009) and carries a distinctive semantic function indicating the location where an action ends up (Fan, 1986). These characteristics of locative phrases in Chinese cause difficulties for L2 learners. In the field of Chinese as Second Language or Foreign Language, the preposition zài ‘at’ is the most frequent preposition, but it also incurs the most errors among learners’ usage (Ding and Shen, 2001; Zhao, 2000). It has been assumed L1 Influence is the main contributing factor (Cui, 2005; Ding and Shen, 2001), but to date relatively little empirical research has been done. The present study compares the performance between two L1 groups. The participants were studying Chinese as a foreign language in the US and in South Korea respectively. Three experiments were conducted: a grammaticality judgment, a picture-meaning match, and an open-ended short essay. The grammaticality judgment experiment was designed to investigate how learners’ L1 affects their judgment of grammaticality; the picture-meaning match experiment explored learners’ knowledge on meaning differences between preverbal and postverbal locative phrases; the open-ended short essay experiment examined L1 influence on the use of locative phrases in learners’ writings. Performance of the participants was compared in three ways, following the methodology suggested by Jarvis (2000): within each L1 group (intra L1 group), between L1 English and L1 Korean (inter L1 group), and between each learner group and the NS group (inter L1 group congruity). Results show that L1 influence is significant only when there is a mismatch between L1 and L2. The results confirm that preverbal locative phrases are acquired earlier than postverbal locative phrases, regardless of learners’ L1. Possible factors that may affect the acquisition sequence of Chinese locative phrases were also discussed. This study also finds evidence of avoidance (Laufer and Eliasson, 1993) in the usage of postverbal locative phrases among L1 Korean learners.

No description available.

Abstract The partitive (one of the fifteen Finnish cases and a typical case characterizing Finnic languages) developed from the Uralic separative locative into a grammatical case. In modern Finnish, it is one of the object, existential subject and predicative cases, representing that side of the case alternations that expresses unboundedness and negative polarity. Probably because the three case alternations differ in certain respects and clear-cut grammar rules cannot always be formulated, the use of the partitive remains a constant struggle for learners of Finnish. This study investigates the use of partitive objects, subjects and predicatives in Estonian, German and Dutch learners of Finnish as a foreign language. By comparing groups of learners from L1 backgrounds closely related and non-related to the target language (TL), it is aimed to explore the role of presence versus lack of relevant prior linguistic knowledge. The use of the partitive is namely largely similar in the closely related Estonian language. However, the purpose of the study is not only to gain valuable insights into the phenomena of L1 influence and intralingual influence but also to identify (common and L1 background-specific) stumbling blocks in the use of the partitive case, and to draw pedagogical implications based upon the findings. Research materials were selected from the Estonian, German and Dutch subcorpora of the International Corpus of Learner Finnish (ICLFI), aligned to the CEFR proficiency levels, and analyzed based on combined error-frequency analyses, involving partitive over- and underuse errors and partitive-requiring contexts (PRCs). As will be shown, the study reveals conspicuous differences between the learner corpora. In general, the Estonian learner corpus not only shows significantly fewer partitive errors than the other corpora, but also some specific error patterns attributable to subtle L1-L2 differences and, unlike the remaining corpora, a lack of overgeneralization of L2 grammar rules. The findings do not only indicate that -and how- prior linguistic knowledge matters, but also suggest that stumbling blocks could potentially be turned into stepping stones by emphasizing L1-L2 differences in the case of Estonian learners of Finnish, and by highlighting similarities and differences from within the TL in cases of learners from non-related L1 backgrounds. / Tiivistelmä Itämerensuomalaisille kielille tyypillinen partitiivi on aikaa myöten kehittynyt separatiivi-nimisestä uralilaisen kantakielen paikallissijasta syntaktisia funktioita ilmaisevaksi sijamuodoksi. Nykysuomessa partitiivi on yksi objektin, eksistentiaali-subjektin ja predikaativin sijoista, jolla ilmaistaan rajaamattomuutta ja kielteisyyttä. Partitiivin käyttö aiheuttaa suomen kielen oppijoille usein ongelmia, luultavasti koska objektin, subjektin ja predikatiivin sijanvalinnassa on vaihtelua ja ratkaisevien kieliopillisten sääntöjen muodostus on toisinaan erittäin vaikeaa. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastelen virolaisten, saksalaisten ja hollantilaisten suomea vieraana kielenä opiskelevien partitiiviobjektin, -subjektin ja -predikatiivin käyttöä lähde- ja kohdekielen samanlaisuuden ja erilaisuuden näkökulmasta. Lähde- ja kohdekielen roolin selvittämisen lisäksi tutkimuksen tavoitteina on identifioida partitiivin (yleiset ja lähdekielikohtaiset) ongelmakohdat ja yhdistää tutkimustulokset vieraan kielen oppimiseen ja -opetukseen. Tutkimusaineistoina on virolaisten, saksalaisten ja hollantilaisten opiskelijoiden kirjoittamia tekstejä, jotka on poimittu Kansainvälisestä oppijansuomen korpuksesta (ICLFI) ja arvioitu Eurooppalaisen viitekehyksen (CEFR) kielitaitotasojen mukaan. Virhe- ja frekvenssianalyyseissä aineistoista analysoidaan muun muassa partitiivin yli- ja alikäyttövirheet ja partitiivin vaatimat kontekstit. Tutkimuksesta käy ilmi, että virolaisten oppijoiden ja ei-sukukieliä puhuvien oppijoiden tuotoksissa on silmiinpistäviä eroja. Virolaisten aineistosta löytyy yleisesti tilastollisesti vähemmän partitiivivirheitä kuin kahdesta muusta osakorpuksesta ja lisäksi myös virhekategorioita ja -rakenteita, jotka johtunevat lähdekielen vaikutuksesta. Tämän lisäksi saksalaisten ja hollantilaisten tuotoksissa on selvästi enemmän kohdekielen sääntöjen yliyleistämistä kuin virolaisten osakorpuksessa. Tutkimustulokset siis osoittavat, että lähdekieli vaikuttaa kohdekielen oppimiseen, ja sen, miten se vaikuttaa. Lisäksi tutkimustulosten avulla on mahdollista kehittää sellaisia opetuksen apuvälineitä, joilla voidaan selventää virolaisille suomenoppijoille L1:n ja L2:n partitiivin käytön eroja ja yhtäläisyyksiä ja tehostaa oppimista; ei-sukukielisten oppijoiden opetuksessa ovat puolestaan kohdekielen ja sijanvaihteluiden sisäiset tunnusmerkit tärkeitä.

The overarching goal of the dissertation is to illustrate the relevance of learner corpus research to the field of second language acquisition (SLA). The possibility that learner corpora can be useful in mainstream SLA research has a significant implication given that they have not been systematically explored in relation to SLA theories. The thesis contributes to building a methodological framework to utilize learner corpora beneficially to SLA and argues that learner corpus research contributes to other disciplines. This is achieved by a series of case studies that quantitatively analyze individual variation and the role of native language (L1) in second language (L2) development of English grammatical morphemes and explain the findings with existing SLA theories. The dissertation investigates the L2 development of morphemes based on two largescale learner corpora. It first reviews the literature and points out that the L2 acquisition order of English grammatical morphemes that has been believed universal in SLA research may, in fact, vary across the learners with different L1 backgrounds and that individual differences in morpheme studies have been relatively neglected in previous literature. The present research, thus, provides empirical evidence testing the universality of the order and the extent of individual differences. In the first study, the thesis investigates L1 influence on the L2 acquisition order of six English grammatical morphemes across seven L1 groups and five proficiency levels. Data drawn from approximately 12,000 essays from the Cambridge Learner Corpus establish clear L1 influence on this issue. The study also reveals that learners without the equivalent morpheme in L1 tend to achieve an accuracy level of below 90% with respect to the morpheme even at the highest proficiency level, and that morphemes requiring learners to learn to pay attention to the relevant distinctions in their acquisition show a stronger effect of L1 than those which only require new form-meaning mappings. The findings are interpreted under the framework of thinking-for-speaking proposed by Dan Slobin. Following the first study, the dissertation exploits EF-Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCamDat) and analyzes the developmental patterns of morphemes, L1 influence on the patterns, and the extent to which individual variation is observed in the development. Based on approximately 140,000 essays written by 46,700 learners of 10 L1 groups across a wide range of proficiency levels, the study found that (i) certain developmental patterns of accuracy are observed irrespective of target morphemes, (ii) inverted U-shaped development is rare irrespective of morphemes, (iii) proficiency influences the within-learner developmental patterns of morphemes, (iv) the developmental patterns at least slightly vary depending on morphemes, and (v) significant individual variation is observed in absolute accuracy, the accuracy difference between morphemes, and the rate of development. The findings are interpreted with dynamic systems theory (DST), a theory of development that has recently been applied to SLA research. The thesis further examines whether any systematic relationship is observed between the developmental patterns of morphemes. Although DST expects that their development is interlinked, the study did not find any strong relationships between the developmental patterns. However, it revealed a weak supportive relationship in the developmental pattern between articles and plural -s. That is, within individual learners, when the accuracy of articles increases, the accuracy of plural -s tends to increase as well, and vice versa.

Semantic typology and categorization are important fields of research in linguistics. The aim of our work is to inspect these fields in regard to bilingualism. In this thesis we examine semantic categorization of body parts among four different groups of people: monolingual English speakers, monolingual Russian speakers, bilingual Russian speakers answering in English and bilingual Russian speakers answering in Russian. The hierarchies, ambiguities in naming patterns and homology were in the center of this study. The groups were also compared to each other in order to observe the effects of the first language learned (L1) and the second language learned (L2) on bilinguals. The results showed that Russian L1 bilinguals answering the Russian questionnaire displayed the same results as the Russian monolinguals, indicating a lack of influence from the L2. The Russian L1 bilinguals answering the English questionnaire used a semantic categorization most similar to their L1 and also demonstrated a broadening of the semantic categories related to neither the L1 nor the L2.

Because most–if not all–intensive English programs (IEP) assign students to specific levels based on a placement test that does not involve any form of explicit vocabulary testing, some degree of variation in lexical knowledge of students within an individual class should not be surprising. However, very little research has ever quantified this variation. The current study fills the gap in this important area of TESOL research by investigating vocabulary variation among intermediate-level students at one IEP. Participants (N=79) were split into two main proficiency groups, high intermediate (N=28) and low intermediate (N=51). The 2K, 3K, and 5K levels from the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) were used as a vocabulary measure. In this study, VLT scores were analyzed by proficiency level and by students' original individual classes (N=7). The results revealed considerable vocabulary variation. In some instances, vocabulary size varied by 900 word families per student. First language influence was also investigated by comparing the largest two language groups in the sample, Arabic (N= 28) and Spanish (N=12). Spanish-speaking students significantly outperformed the Arabic speaking students in all vocabulary measures (except for the 2K level). The study, therefore, raises questions about the approaches used in teaching a class that has both Spanish and Arabic speakers. Implications and suggestions for further studies are discussed.