Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T06:45:08.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

OBSERVING THE EMERGENCE OF CONSTRUCTIONAL KNOWLEDGE

VERB PATTERNS IN GERMAN AND SPANISH LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AT DIFFERENT PROFICIENCY LEVELS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2019

Ute Römer  and
Cynthia M. Berger
Ute Römer*
Affiliation:
Georgia State University
Cynthia M. Berger
Affiliation:
Georgia State University and Duolingo
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ute Römer, Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL, Georgia State University, 25 Park Place NE, Suite 1500, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA. E-mail: uroemer@gsu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Based on writing produced by second language learners at different proficiency levels (CEFR A1 to C1), we adopted a usage-based approach (Ellis, Römer, & O’Donnell, 2016; Tyler & Ortega, 2018) to investigate how German and Spanish learner knowledge of 19 English verb-argument constructions (VACs; e.g., “V with n,” illustrated by he always agrees with her) develops. We extracted VACs from subsets of the Education First-Cambridge Open Language Database, altogether comprising more than 68,000 texts and 6 million words. For each VAC, L1 learner group, and proficiency level, we determined type and token frequencies, as well as the most dominant verb-VAC associations. To study effects of proficiency and L1 on VAC production, we carried out correlation analyses to compare verb-VAC associations of learners at different levels and different L1 backgrounds. We also correlated each learner dataset with comparable data from a large reference corpus of native English usage. Results indicate that with increasing proficiency, learners expand their VAC repertoire and productivity, and verb-VAC associations move closer to native usage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 41 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1089 - 1110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The authors would like to thank Georgia State University's Scholarly Support Grant Program for sponsoring the project “Language use, acquisition, and processing: Cognitive and corpus investigations of Construction Grammar”; Nick Ellis for his encouragement and support during the initial stages of the project; Matt O'Donnell and Stephen Skalicky for their help with data preparation for and data processing in R; and Luke Plonsky as well as two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this article.

References

REFERENCES

Alexopoulou, T., Geertzen, J., Korhonen, A., & Meurers, D. (2015). Exploring big educational learner corpora for SLA research: Perspectives on relative clauses. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 1, 96–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambridge, B., & Lieven, E. (2015). A constructivist account of child language acquisition. In MacWhinney, B. & O’Grady, W. (Eds.), The handbook of language emergence (pp. 478–510). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Anthony, L. (2014a). AntConc (Version 3.4.2) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Retrieved from http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software.Google Scholar
Anthony, L. (2014b). TagAnt (Version 1.1.0) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Retrieved from http://www.laurenceanthony.net/software.Google Scholar
Barlow, M., & Kemmer, S. (Eds.). (2000). Usage-based models of language. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Behrens, H. (2009). Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition. Linguistics, 47, 383–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bestgen, Y., & Granger, S. (2014). Quantifying the development of phraseological competence in L2 English writing: An automated approach. Journal of Second Language Writing, 26, 28–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, J. K., & Goldberg, A. (2011). Learning what not to say: The role of statistical preemption and categorization in a-adjective production. Language, 87, 55–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnard, L. (2007). Reference Guide for the British National Corpus (XML edition). Retrieved from http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/docs/URG/.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2010). Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Council of Europe. (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crossley, S., & Salsbury, T. L. (2011). The development of lexical bundle accuracy and production in English second language speakers. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 49, 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, M. (2008). The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). 560 million words, 1990–present. Retrieved from https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.Google Scholar
Ellis, N. C. (2002). Frequency effects in language processing: A review with implications for theories of implicit and explicit language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 24, 143–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N. C. (2003). Constructions, chunking, and connectionism: The emergence of second language structure. In Doughty, C. J. & Long, M. H. (Eds.), The handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 63–103). Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N. C., & Ferreira-Junior, F. (2009a). Construction learning as a function of frequency, frequency distribution, and function. The Modern Language Journal, 93, 370–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N. C., & Ferreira-Junior, F. (2009b). Constructions and their acquisition: Islands and the distinctiveness of their occupancy. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 7, 188–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N. C., & Ogden, D. (2017). Thinking about multiword constructions: Usage-based approaches to acquisition and processing. Topics in Cognitive Science, 9, 604–620.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ellis, N. C., O’Donnell, M. B., & Römer, U. (2013). Usage-based language: Investigating the latent structures that underpin acquisition. Language Learning, 63, 25–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, N. C., Römer, U., & O’Donnell, M. B. (2016). Usage-based approaches to language acquisition and processing: Cognitive and corpus investigations of construction grammar. Language Learning Monograph Series. Malden, MA: Wiley.Google Scholar
Eskildsen, S. W. (2009). Constructing another language: Usage-based linguistics in second language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 30, 335–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eskildsen, S. W. (2012). L2 negation constructions at work. Language Learning, 62, 335–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eskildsen, S. W. (2014). What’s new? A usage-based classroom study of linguistic routines and creativity in L2 learning. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 52, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eskildsen, S. W. (2017). The emergence of creativity in L2 English: A usage-based case study. In Bell, N. (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on language play (pp. 281–316). Berlin, Germany: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Eskildsen, S. W., & Cadierno, T. (2007). Are recurring multi-word expressions really syntactic freezes? Second language acquisition from the perspective of usage-based linguistics. In Nenonen, M. & Niemi, S. (Eds.), Collocations and idioms 1: Papers from the first Nordic Conference on Syntactic Freezes (Vol. 41) (pp. 86–99). Joensuu, Finland: Joensuu University Press.Google Scholar
Eskildsen, S. W., Cadierno, T., & Li, P. (2015). On the development of motion constructions in four learners of L2 English. In Cadierno, T. & Eskildsen, S. W. (Eds.), Usage-based perspectives on second language learning (pp. 207–232). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Francis, G., Hunston, S., & Manning, E. (1996). Grammar patterns 1: Verbs. London: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Garner, J. R. (2016). A phrase-frame approach to investigating phraseology in learner writing across proficiency levels. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, 2, 31–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geertzen, J., Alexopoulou, T., & Korhonen, A. (2013). Automatic linguistic annotation of large scale L2 databases: The EF-Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT). Proceedings of the 31st Second Language Research Forum (SLRF). Pittsburgh, PA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (1999). The emergence of the semantics of argument structure constructions. In MacWhinney, B. (Ed.), The emergence of language (pp. 197–212). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (2003). Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. Trends in Cognitive Science, 7, 219–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (2014). Patterns of experience in patterns of language. In Tomasello, M. (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure (Vol. 1, pp. 187–202). New York, NY: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. E., Casenhiser, D. M., & Sethuraman, N. (2004). Learning argument structure generalizations. Cognitive Linguistics, 15, 289–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gries, S. T., & Wulff, S. (2005). Do foreign language learners also have constructions? Evidence from priming, sorting, and corpora. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 3, 182–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, J. A., & Buttery, P. (2010). Criterial features in learner corpora: Theory and illustrations. English Profile Journal, 1, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunston, S., & Francis, G. (2000). Pattern grammar: A corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramsch, C. (2000). Second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and the teaching of foreign languages. The Modern Language Journal, 84, 311–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A. (2008). Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition. New York, NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, P., Eskildsen, S. W., & Cadierno, T. (2014). Tracing an L2 learner’s motion constructions over time: A usage-based classroom investigation. The Modern Language Journal, 98, 612–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieven, E., Pine, J. M., & Baldwin, G. (1997). Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language, 24, 187–219.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lowie, W., & Verspoor, M. (2015). Variability and variation in second language acquisition orders: A dynamic reevaluation. Language Learning, 65, 63–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meunier, F. (2015). Developmental patterns in learner corpora. In Granger, S., Gilquin, G., & Meunier, F. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of learner corpus research (pp. 379–400). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murakami, A. (2013). L1 Influence and individual variation in the L2 accuracy development of grammatical morphemes: Insights from learner corpora (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Nattinger, J. R., & DeCarrico, J. S. (1992). Lexical phrases and language teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ninio, A. (1999). Pathbreaking verbs in syntactic development and the question of prototypical transitivity. Journal of Child Language, 26, 619–653.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ninio, A. (2006). Language and the learning curve: A new theory of syntactic development. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisioi, S. (2015). Feature analysis for native language identification. In Gelbukh, A. (Ed.), Computational linguistics and intelligent text processing: CICLing 2015. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.Google Scholar
Ortega, L. (2012). Interlanguage complexity: A construct in search of theoretical renewal. In Szmrecsanyi, B. & Kortmann, B. (Eds.), Linguistic complexity in interlanguage varieties, L2 varieties, and contact languages (pp. 127–155). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Ortega, L. & Byrnes, H. (2008). The longitudinal study of advanced L2 capacities: An introduction. In Ortega, L. & Byrnes, H. (Eds.), The longitudinal study of advanced L2 capacities (pp. 3–20). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ortega, L., & Iberri-Shea, G. (2005). Longitudinal research in second language acquisition: Recent trends and future directions. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25, 26–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pawley, A., & Syder, F. H. (1983). Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike selection and nativelike fluency. In Richards, J. C. & Schmidt, R. W. (Eds.), Language and communication (pp. 191–227). London, UK: Longman.Google Scholar
Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Wonnacott, E. (2010). Variability, negative evidence, and the acquisition of verb argument constructions. Journal of Child Language, 37, 607–642.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Development Core Team. (2012). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Roehr-Brackin, K. (2014). Explicit knowledge and processes from a usage-based perspective: The developmental trajectory of an instructed L2 learner. Language Learning, 64, 771–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Römer, U., & Garner, J. R. (in press). The development of verb constructions in spoken learner English: Tracing effects of usage and proficiency. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research.Google Scholar
Römer, U., O’Donnell, M. B., & Ellis, N. C. (2014). Second language learner knowledge of verb-argument constructions: Effects of language transfer and typology. The Modern Language Journal, 98, 952–975.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Römer, U., Skalicky, S., & Ellis, N. C. (2018). Verb-argument constructions in advanced L2 English learner production: Insights from corpora and verbal fluency tasks. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2016-0055.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Römer, U., Roberson, A., O’Donnell, M. B., & Ellis, N. C. (2014). Linking learner corpus and experimental data in studying second language learners’ knowledge of verb-argument constructions. ICAME Journal, 38, 59–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, N., & Carter, R. (2004). Formulaic sequences in action: An introduction. In Schmitt, N. (Ed.), Formulaic sequences: Acquisition, processing and use (pp. 1–22). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical form. In Shopen, T. (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tode, T., & Sakai, H. (2016). Exemplar-based instructed second language development and classroom experience. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 167, 210–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1992). First verbs: A case study of early grammatical development of cognition and action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Trousdale, G., & Hoffmann, T. (Eds.), (2013). Oxford handbook of construction grammar. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, A. E., & Ortega, L. (2018). Usage-inspired L2 instruction. An emergent, researched pedagogy. In Tyler, A. E., Ortega, L., Uno, M., & Park, H. I. (Eds.). Usage-inspired L2 instruction. Researched pedagogy (pp. 3–26). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar