The Order of Emergence of the Morphological Markers of Temporal Expression in the Croatian EFL Learners’ Longitudinal Speech Production Data

• Authors: Semren Mirjana
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This study addresses the acquisition of the morphological markers of temporal expression in the interlanguage of Croatian primary school learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). The acquisition of morphological markers was documented regarding the order of emergence of nine grammatical morphemes. The emergence of these morphemes was examined following the obligatory occasion analysis (R. Brown 1973) which identified the obligatory contexts for each morpheme and the number of their correct suppliance. The order of emergence was obtained by the group score method (H.C. Dulay/ M.K. Burt 1974) according to which the morphemes were ranked in decreasing order of accuracy. Additionally, the study documented the order of emergence of four verb tenses. The data collection period comprised three generations of Grade 8 learners thus yielding a total of 56 transcribed recordings. The learners’ language samples were gathered via task-based activities. Although the findings displayed discrepancies in the ranking orders obtained for different generations of Grade 8 learners, the Spearman rank order correlations suggest that there seems to be a homogeneous order of emergence across three generations of the eighth graders. The results revealed not only that Present Continuous emerged after Simple Present but also showed that Present Perfect emerged after Simple Past.

Keywords

EN

morphological markers; order of emergence; grammatical morphemes; verb tenses; obligatory occasion analysis

• Publisher: Instytut Komunikacji Specjalistycznej i Interkulturowej
• Journal: Applied Linguistics Papers
• Year: 2018
• Issue: 25/2
• Pages: 89-106

Dates

published

2018

Contributors

author

Semren Mirjana

• University of Split

References

• Bailey, N. (1987), The importance of meaning over form in second language system building: An unresolved issue. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. New York.
• Bailey, N./ C. Madden/ S. Krashen (1974), Is there a ‟natural sequence” in adult second language learning? In: Language learning 24 (2), 235–243.
• Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1997), Another Piece of the Puzzle, The Emergence of the Present Perfect. In: Language Learning 47(3), 375–422.
• Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1999), From Morpheme Studies to Temporal Semantics, TenseAspect Research in SLA. In: Studies in Second Language Acquisition 21 (3), 341–382.
• Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000), Tense and Aspect in Second Language Acquisition, Form, Meaning and Use. Oxford.
• Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2004), The Emergence of Grammaticalized Future Expression in Longitudinal Production Data. In: B. Van Patten/ J. Williams/ S. Rott/ M. Overstreet (eds.), Form-Meaning Connections in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, NJ, 123–147.
• Barrot, J./ K. de Leon (2014), Accuracy Order of the Grammatical Morphemes in the Oral production of Preschool Pupils. In: Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics 3 (2), 63–76.
• Behjat, F. / F. Sadighi (2011), The Acquisition of English Grammatical Morphemes, A Case study of Iranian EFL Learners. MJAL 3 (2), 105–123.
• Brown, R. (1973), A First Language. Harvard.
• Council of Europe (2001), Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge.
• Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports (2011), Creational national curriculum. Date of access: 15.05.2017. http,//public.mzos.hr/Default.aspx?sec=2501.
• Dietrich, R./ W. Klein/ C. Noyau (1995), The acquisition of temporality in a second language. Amsterdam.
• De Villiers, J./ P. de Villiers (1973), A cross-sectional study of the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in child speech. In: Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 2, 267–278.
• Dulay, H.C. / M.K. Burt (1973), Should we teach children syntax? In: Language Learning 23 (2), 245–258.
• Dulay, H.C./ M.K. Burt (1974), Natural sequence in child second language acquisition. In: Language Learning 24, 37–53.
• Edwards, J.A. (2001), The transcription of discourse. In: D. Schiffin/ D. Tannen/H.E. Hamilton (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis. Malden, MA, 321–348.
• Ellis, R./ G. Barkhuizen (2005), Analysing Learner Language. Oxford.
• Hakuta, K. (1974), A Preliminary report on the development of grammatical morphemes in a Japanese girl learning English as a second language. In:Working Papers in Bilingualism 3, 18–43.
• Harmer, J. (2007), The Practice of English Language Teaching. London.
• Ibáñez, Ú.F. (2013), A morpheme order study based on an EFL learner corpus, A focus on the Dual mechanism. MA Dissertation. University of Granada.
• Klein, W./ D. Rainer/ C. Noyau (1988), The acquisition of temporality. In:M. Bhardwaj/ R. Dietrich/ C. Noyau (eds.) Temporality (Vol. 5 of the Final Report to the ESF). Strasbourg, 73–118.
• Klein, W. (1995), The acquisition of English. In: R. Dietrich/ W. Klein/ C. Noyau (eds.) The acquisition of temporality in a second language. Amsterdam, 31–70.
• Krashen, S.D. (1977), Some issues related to the monitor model. In: H. Brown/ C.Yorio/ R. Crymes (eds.), On TESOL ’77. Washington DC, 144–158.
• Larsen-Freeman, D. (1975), The Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes by Adult Learners of English as a Second Language. Doctoral Thesis. University of Michigan.
• Parrott, M. (1993), Tasks for Language Teachers. A Resource Book for Training and Development. Cambridge. Ur, P. (1992), Five-Minute Activities. Cambridge.
• Widiatmoko, P. (2008), Grammatical Morpheme Acquisition. An Analysis of an EFL Learner’s Language Samples. In: Jurnal Sastra Inggris 8 (1), 22–37.

Identifiers

ISSN

2544-9354