The Acquisition of Tense by L1 Arabic Learners of English Language - Research Proposal Example

Dissertation Proposal The Acquisition of Tense by L1 Arabic Learners of English Language This dissertation proposal seeks to study the acquisition oftense of the English language by those whose first language is Arabic.IntroductionThe acquisition of tense morphemes by learners of the English language “is a vulnerable domain for English language learners across acquisition contexts…” (Paradis, 2008). This is especially true of the formation of verbal inflections i.e. the regular past progressive (-ed) forms of English verbs.

The past tense of English exhibits quasi-regularity (McClelland). The difficulty is compounded by the fact that either a one syllabic [td] or one of two non-syllabic [t or d] allomorphs is possible. So, accurate reproduction of these tense morphemes typically takes time to master. One explanation for the difficulty is the Aspect Hypothesis. There is also a Perceptual Salience Hypothesis (Man, 1990). Others have proposed that syntactic knowledge is not impaired, rather that the cause is extra-syntactic (Prevost & White, 2000).

Also for Arabic speakers, there is the problem when final consonant clusters occur which are avoided in their L1. Such phonetic differences pose difficulties (Strange, 1995). Confusion of past tenses was one of the main types of errors in tenses reported in a study of Arab learners of English at the University of Sudan (Kambal, 1980).According to the Aspect Hypothesis, “learners associate forms that mark time with the lexical aspect inherent in the meaning of the verb” (Robinson, 2008:317).

Bardovi-Harlig (1998) and Anderson & Shirai (2007) are proponents of the Aspect Hypothesis. Syntactic theory is advocated by the likes of Donna Lardiere (2007) and is a development of Chomsky’s principles. She suggests that the central question is “how a learner manages to associate the particular featural specifications of the target language – that is, a syntactic representation – with their overt realization in the input” (Archibald, 2000:103). According to the syntactic theory it is either a deficiency in the knowledge of syntax or incorrect mapping of syntactic representations that cause complications in acquiring tense.

HypothesisThe difficulty in the formation of verbal inflections in L1 Arabic Learners of English Language is due to the influence of L2 acquisition of verbal inflectional morphemes. The applicability of this Aspects Hypothesis will be tested and the alternative hypothesis offered by syntactic theory will be considered within the context of SLA (Second Language Acquisition).MethodologyChildren in schools are readily available subjects for study and suitable because they are at am active learning age.

30 students will be sought at 3 different proficiency levels whose first language is Arabic but who are learning English at school (10 at each level). They will be tested for correctness of verbal inflections using elicitation probes to obtain scores to give a measure of accuracy for the tense morphemes and performing analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results will then be analysed using a lexical-morphological approach and a syntactic morphological approach. The former will check for effects due to inherent lexical aspects i.e. the Aspect Hypothesis, and the latter will check for errors due to deviant L2 syntactic knowledge i.e. the problem of mapping of syntactic representations onto morpho(phono)logy (Lardiere, 1998).

If the Aspect Hypothesis is true then the lexical aspect of the verb will show significant influences on the appearance of grammatical morphology as in findings by Anderson & Shirai (2007) and others. ReferencesAl-Aswad, Mohamed Kaleefa. Contrastive Analysis of Arabic and English Verbs in Tense, Aspect, and Structure. 1984.Archibald, John. Second language acquisition and linguistic theory. Wiley-Blackwell. 2000.Bardovi-Harlig, K. Narrative structure and lexical aspect: Conspiring factors in second language acquisition of tense morphology.

Studies in Second Language Acquisition. Vol. 20, pp. 471-508. 1998.Kambal, M. An Analysis of Kartoum University Students’ Composition Errors with Implications for Remedial English in the Context of Arabicization. PhD Dissertation. University of Texas at Austin, USA.Lardiere, Donna. Case and tense in the ‘fossilised’ steady state. Second Language Research. 14:1-26. 1998. Quoted in L2 Perception and Production of the English Regular Past: The Role of L1 and L2 Phonology. www.linguistics.stonybrook.

edu/old_events/konf/sunycunyu04/pugach_et_al.pdf [10 May, 2009].Man. The Function fo Perception in the Acquisition of Non-native Inflectional Morphology: The Case of the Past in English. Upublished Doctoral Dissertation. The City University of New York. Quoted in Klien, Elaine. Past Tense Affixation in L2 English: The Effects of Lexical Aspect and Perceptual Salience. 2004. 128.197.86.186/posters/klein.pdf [11 May, 2009].McClelland, James L. Rules or Connections in Past-Tense Inflections: What does the Evidence Rule Out?

Trends in Cognitive Sciences. N.d.Paradis, Johanne et al. The Acquisition of Tense in English: Distinguishing child second language from first language and specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguist. Vol.29, No.4, pp. 689-722. 2008.Prevost & White. 2000. Quoted in Gavruseva, Elena. The Complicity of Telicity in the Root Infinitive Effect in Child L2 English. Proceedings of the 6th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference (GASLA 2002. Juana M. Liceras et al., 106-114.

Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 2003.Robinson, Peter. Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition. Routledge. 2008.Shirai, Yasuhiro. The Aspect Hypothesis, the comparative fallacy and the validity of obligatory context analysis: a reply to Lardiere, 2003. Second Language Research, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 51-64. 2007.Strange, Winifred. Cross-language study of speech perception: A historical review. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research, pp. 3-45. Baltimore, MD: York Press. 1995.