This study investigates the effect of multilevelled semanticogrammatical
consciousness raising procedures on fossilised verb
structures. It is hypothesised that these procedures will
reactivate grammaticisation processes leading to the
destabilisation of fossilised structures.
The study attempts to establish whether fossilised structures can
be destabilised, how processes of grammaticisation may be
activated, whether adult advanced learners are still able to
improve grammatical accuracy levels, what cognitive processes
operate in interlanguage change, and how ESL teaching in the
primary school classroom may be improved.
The subjects are first-year ESL teacher trainees who have been
learning English in formal classrooms for eight to ten years.
They are subjected to pretests, a ten-week consciousness raising
intervention programme, and posttests. The consciousness raising
activities are set in a primary school teaching context, thus
establishing relevance. The varied strategies used are presented
progressively on different levels of consciousness.
The theoretical contributions of the study are the insights
gained in respect of the psychodynamics of fossilisation and
learning theory as it relates to semantico-grammatical
consciousness raising within a Cognitive Theory paradigm.
According to the findings the total number of verb errors are
significantly reduced and self-monitoring and other-monitoring
skills significantly improved after the intervention. The
semantic value of verb structures evidently acts as a regulator
of form: semantically significant structures are destabilised but
semantically vacuous structures do not respond to semanticogrammatical
consciousness raising strategies. By implication,
semantic significance of structures promotes learnabili ty whereas
semantic vacuity is conducive to fossilisation.
A relatively invariant ability gap between self-monitoring and
other-monitoring is also identified. Subjects are significantly
better at monitoring structures produced by others than their
own. Self-monitoring, which is a necessary prerequisite for
interlanguage change, is improved by consciousness raising but
is apparently affected negatively by conventional analytical
rule-based teaching.
This study concludes that multilevelled semantico-grammatical
consciousness raising procedures may precipitate defossilisation
and that fossilised structures are not necessarily immutable. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Lunguistics)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:umkn-dsp01.int.unisa.ac.za:10500/18063 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Barnard, Yvonne |
| Contributors | Cluver, August D. de V. (August Dawid de Villiers), Hubbard, E. H. (Ernest Hilton), 1947- |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (xv, 369 leaves) |
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