Thesis (M. A. (Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / Poor performance, by English Language Learners (ELLs), in Science examinations remains a thorny issue in countries where English is not the home language. Research around the world and the Department of Basic Education in South Africa have long recommended the integration of Language Literacy skills in the teaching of Physical Sciences in order to solve this issue. Despite that, learners’ poor performance in Physical Sciences examinations has been found to be positively related to low language literacy skills. The questions are: Do Physical Sciences teachers integrate language literacy skills in teaching the subject?; If yes, to what extent is the integration of language literacy skills practiced in Physical Sciences classroom? In an attempt to answer the above questions, a quantitative survey was carried out in Riba Cross District of Sekhukhune Region of Limpopo Province in South Africa. 211 learners and five teachers from selected nine schools took part in the study and questionnaires were used to collect data. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 was used. The results indicate that Language Literacy skills are integrated into the teaching of Physical Sciences in Riba Cross District, despite concerns raised by the teachers. The areas of concern include letting learners to argue using evidences and writing reports. Furthermore, schools with large classes have challenges in integrating Language Literacy Skills in the teaching of Physical Sciences. Therefore, further studies are recommended which should integrate both qualitative and quantitative approaches in school contexts.

Thesis (M. A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / Whereas research has exponentially increased on the understanding of new varieties of English worldwide, there is a paucity of studies that have assessed the degree to which Black South African English is shared and understood across a wider spectrum of the Bantu language speaking communities in South Africa. Because of this, research has been inconclusive on causes and frequencies of identified linguistic properties of the variety. This study investigated the tense and aspect usages in English among mother tongue speakers of Tshivenda learners to develop a taxonomy of characteristic features, sources of production and frequency of occurrence in an educational context. The study focused more attention on the role of mother tongue substrate system which transfers its features to the target language. After a contrastive analysis of the collected data, learners’ essays and storytelling, the findings of the study indicate that the occurrence of tense and aspect properties among grade 11 learners is first language (L1) induced and rule-governed. Secondly, the results show that the features occur with high frequency, suggesting that they are institutionalised. In particular, the study denotes that expressions of temporal reasoning follow the L1 grammatical structure that favours external formation to the verb phrase; i.e., verbal arguments are preferred to morphological conjugations. Based on these findings, it is concluded that the logic of temporal reasoning, described as Bantu language logic as developed by Makalela (2004, 2007, and 2013), rather than grammatical forms, is transferred in the production of BSAE tense and aspect properties. When seen in this light, it is evident that BSAE cuts across different Bantu languages of South Africa, it has evolved towards being an endonormative variety, relying on its own internal logic (substrate forms) to be a new and distinct variety of English. In the end, recommendations for more robust and large scale studies in high prestige domains such as the media and institutions of higher learning are made for augmentation of these findings.

In spite of the significant growth in the Spanish-English bilingual population, there has not been sufficient research on cross-language effects, or how language transfer may affect important components of literacy, such as spelling. Many studies have focused on the influence of Spanish on the acquisition of English spelling skills; however, few studies have focused on how the acquisition of English influences Spanish spelling. The purpose of this investigation was to study the spelling errors of bilingual adolescents as they learn English. A total of 20 bilingual Spanish-English students in grades 6 through 8 (ages 11 to 14 years) were selected from a larger mixed methods study (Danzak, 2009) not concerned with spelling. These students were enrolled in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes in a public middle school located on the west coast of Florida. The students completed four writing samples in each language (evenly divided between narrative and expository genres). All samples were analyzed using the Phonological Orthographic Morphological Assessment of Spelling-Spanish (POMAS-S), a linguistically-based analysis system that qualitatively describes Spanish spelling errors and is sensitive to effects of cross-language transfer. Misspellings were extracted from the students' writing samples and were examined by looking at the effects of linguistic category, genre, and gender. Results of the three-way ANOVA revealed that the greatest number of errors occurred in the orthographic category, accounting for over 70% of the errors. Errors attributed to the other linguistic categories occurred less than 10% of the time each. There were no effects attributed to genre or gender. The qualitative analysis revealed that the most common linguistic feature error was OAT (orthographic tonic accents) comprising 37% of the total number of errors followed by OLS (letter sound) errors, which comprised 11% of the total number of errors. All other phonological, orthographic, morphological, and phonological-orthographic linguistic feature patterns occurred with a frequency of 5% or less. Knowledge of the English language had a minimal, but obvious, influence on their spelling. These findings would suggest that Spanish-English bilingual adolescents predominantly made spelling errors that did not follow the orthographic rules of Spanish. Educational implications are presented.

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published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

The impact of the first language on the second language has long been a vibrant and controversial issue in terms of second language acquisition. The impact or influence happens when learners learn a new language and transfer features from their native language to the new language. This paper investigates to what extent Bengali learners’ native language influences their use of articles in English as a second language and whether there is a difference depending on the language of instruction (Bengali and English, respectively). To do so 20 essays from two schools, one teaching through Bengali and one through English, a total of 40 learner essays were collected and examined. The results show that Bangladeshi English learners are influenced by the noun forms in Bengali and their ability to use English articles hardly differs according to the type of school they attend. / Förstaspråkets inverkan på andraspråket har länge varit en levande och kontroversiell fråga när det gäller språkinlärning. Påverkan eller inflytandet sker när inlärare lär ett nytt språk och överför karaktärsdrag från sitt förstaspråk till det nya språket. Den här uppsatsen undersöker i vilken mån bengaliska elevers modersmål påverkar deras användning av artiklar i engelska som andraspråk och om det är någon skillnad beroende på undervisningsspråk (bengali resp. engelska). Materialet är 20 elevuppsatser vardera från två skolor, skola A (undervisning på bengali) och skola B (undervisning på engelska), dvs totalt 40 uppsatser samlades in och analyserades. Resultaten visar att bengaliska elevers engelska texter visar drag av substantivformerna som används i bengali, och deras förmåga att använda engelska artiklar skiljer sig inte åt i någon större utsträckning beroende på undervisningsspråk.

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Esta pesquisa investiga o papel da língua materna (L1) e da Gramática Universal (GU) na aquisição do inglês por falantes de português brasileiro através da análise de três fenômenos fonológicos: a relação entre sílaba e acento, que é totalmente diferente nas duas línguas e se dá através da marcação de parâmetros métricos; a retração de acento, que ocorre de maneira muito semelhante no inglês e no português e representa uma regra a ser transferida da L1 para a L2; e a assimilação de vozeamento, que existe em ambas as línguas, mas de maneira diferente e, portanto, trata-se de uma regra a ser modificada. Esta investigação permite compreender a influência da GU e da L1 na aquisição de L2 porque, caso os resultados mostrassem que a relação entre a sílaba e acento fosse adquirida com mais facilidade, isso seria uma evidência de que o estado inicial da aquisição é caracterizado pela GU, que permitiu a marcação do parâmetro do acento do inglês. Caso a retração de acento fosse adquirida com mais facilidade, isso significaria que o estado inicial da aquisição é caracterizado pela gramática da L1 e que haveria uma transferência (positiva) dessa regra para a L2. Por fim, caso a assimilação de vozeamento fosse adquirida com mais facilidade, isso significaria que nem a L1 e nem a GU foram fatores determinantes no processo de aquisição desses informantes. A amostra é composta por 30 falantes brasileiros de inglês divididos em três níveis de proficiência (básico, intermediário e avançado), além de 7 falantes nativos, que constituíram o grupo de controle. Para a coleta foram utilizados 3 experimentos, um para cada fenômeno, totalizando 9.248 dados. Os dados referentes à assimilação de vozeamento foram transcritos a partir da verificação acústica do vozeamento do morfema -s. A classificação dos dados referentes à sílaba e acento e à retração de acento, por sua vez, foi realizada em duas etapas: uma verificação perceptual e uma verificação acústica baseada nos principais correlatos do acento nas duas línguas: pitch e duração. Os resultados indicaram que, dentre os três fenômenos analisados, a regra de retração de acento, que se dá através da transferência da L1, e a relação entre sílaba e acento, que se dá pela marcação do parâmetro da L2, foram adquiridas com mais facilidade do que a regra de assimilação de vozeamento, que não tem apoio nem na L1 e nem na GU. Esses resultados são evidência de que o processo de aquisição fonológica de segunda língua é influenciado tanto pela Gramática Universal, que permite a marcação paramétrica a partir do input da língua alvo, quanto pela língua materna, que se manifesta na L2 através de transferência positiva ou negativa, o que faz com que regras que não contam com apoio nem da GU e nem da L1 sejam os fenômenos mais difíceis de serem adquiridos. / This research investigates the role of the first language (L1) and Universal Grammar (UG) in the acquisition of English by speakers of Brazilian Portuguese through the analysis of three phonological phenomena: the relation between syllable and stress, which is totally different in both languages and is given by parameter settings; stress shift, which is very similar in English and Portuguese and represents a rule to be transferred from the L1 to the target-language; and voicing assimilation, which exists in both languages, but in a different way, and, therefore, is a rule to be modified. This investigation allows us to understand the influence of UG and L1 on the acquisition of a second language because, if the results showed that the relation between syllable and stress was the easiest phenomenon to acquire, this would mean that the initial state of the acquisition is characterized by UG, which enabled the English stress parameter setting. If stress shift were more easily acquired, this would mean that the initial state of the acquisition is characterized by the grammar of the L1 and that there would be a (positive) transfer of that rule to the second language. Finally, if voicing assimilation was the easiest rule to acquire, this would mean that neither the L1 nor UG were determining factors in the acquisition process of these subjects. The sample is composed of 30 Brazilian speakers of English divided into three proficiency levels (basic, intermediate and advanced), in addition to 7 native speakers, who constituted the control group. We used 3 experiments for data collection, one for each phenomenon, totalizing 9,248 data. The data referring to voicing assimilation were transcribed based on the acoustic verification of the morpheme -s. The classification of the data related to syllable and stress and stress shift ocurred in two stages: a perceptual verification and an acoustic verification based on the main correlates of stress in the two languages: pitch and duration. The results indicated that stress shift, which occurs through the transfer of the L1, and the relation between syllable and stress, which is given by parameter settings, were more easily acquired than the voicing assimilation rule, which has no support in the L1 and in UG. These results are evidence that second language phonological acquisition is influenced both by Universal Grammar, which allows parameter (re)settings, and by first language, which means that rules that are not supported neither by GU nor L1 are the most difficult phenomena to be acquired.