Academic literature on the topic 'English language Collocation (Linguistics) Second language acquisition'

Digital games are often considered a pastime activity with little to no real or tangible benefits. This, however, is contrary to studies on the usefulness of digital games in second language (L2) learning. There are several aspects of L2 learning that are affected positively by gaming, as well as other extramural English (EE) activities. One of these aspects is vocabulary, which has been proven to be substantially improved by gaming through incidental learning.  Collocations are often referred to as word pairs that co-occur more frequently than any other two words. The definition of a collocation is a contested subject, making research and theories around collocations widespread and varied depending on what definition a given author subscribes to. In the present study Howarth’s (1996) definition of collocations has been used. The hard-to-define nature of collocations extends into the act of teaching - collocations are rarely taught because they follow no set rule or pattern. This means that L2 learners must acquire their collocation knowledge incidentally, either in the classroom or through EE activities.   The present study aims to investigate the relationship between EE activities, primarily gaming, and the collocation knowledge of 87 Swedish teenagers in upper compulsory school and upper secondary school. This was done through a Productive Collocation Test (PCK) as well as a questionnaire. The results of the study show that students who engage in EE activities are more knowledgeable in terms of collocations than those who do not. Additionally, out of the EE activities included in the questionnaire gaming seems to be the best way to acquire collocation knowledge.   The present study concludes that there is a connection between EE activities, especially gaming, and collocation knowledge. Informants that claimed to spend more time per week playing digital games generally scored higher on the collocation test. This was also true for the students who claimed to spend a considerable amount of time on visual media per week. These informants also had knowledge of collocations that very few of the respondents knew, particularly the students who partake in gaming. The findings of the present study suggest that digital games could be used as a tool for teaching collocations. However, more research is required to carry this idea further.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University<br>PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.<br>The study examined ultimate attainment m postpuberty second language acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis as an explanation for non-nativeness. A grammaticality judgment task acted as an assessment instrument; a subject was considered to be native-like if the individual's subtest score was greater than or equal to the mean ratings of 90% of the control group members. The native-like subtests were totaled into a nativeness score. The study consisted of 6 research questions and followup interviews with the highest scoring and lowest scoring subjects. As a methodological innovation, the selection of Finnish-born spouses of native English speakers (N=104) as subjects controlled background variables (amount and quality ofL2 exposure, amount ofL2 and Ll use, education and language learning); 80% had studied EFL. 55 subjects had age on arrival of 2:16 years and had lived in USA/Canada for 20-60 years. 88% of the control group (N=40) obtained the nativeness score 6 or 5. The grammaticality judgments of 38% of Finnish-born subjects were indistinguishable from the judgments of the control group and contradicted the Critical Period Hypothesis as an only explanation for native-like ultimate attainment. The findings also indicate that Age on Arrival and Age English as a Foreign Language Began are separate age of exposure measures. The best logistic regression model with 11 binary variables predicted nativelikeness with 76.9% accuracy; the significant predictors were Age English as a Foreign Language Began, US Education, and Length of Exposure, but not Age on Arrival. However, the youngest age on arrival group (12-15 years) outperformed all other subject groupings. Their performance did not decline with aging; the nativeness scores of other subjects declined as Age at Testing increased after the peak performance age. ANOV As for Age English as a Foreign Language Began, Length of Exposure, Total Years of Education, and Age at Testing were significant for the 104 and 55 subject groupings. The n-shaped relationship between the nativeness score and Length of Exposure explains their low correlation. Age at Testing impacted on ultimate attainment by confounding with education and other background variables (prior foreign language study, second language proficiency on arrival, multilingualism, etc.).<br>2031-01-01

This study examines whether grammar instruction treatment, input processing, facilitates in learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) a distinction among sets of phrasal verbs containing prepositions. Input processing emphasizes difficult grammatical forms and provides a model for the behavior of the varying roles of phrasal verb prepositions. Such instruction follows three steps: (i) explaining the relation between a grammatical form and its meaning, (ii) informing learners of language processes that adversely influence the form-meaning relation, and (iii) implementing "structured input" activities that target the form in linguistic input, facilitating form-meaning relations. Prepositions in phrasal verbs perform specific roles for exclusive purposes, for instance in verb-particle constructions eat up, clean out, send on where prepositions mark aspectual properties for "completion-of-activity" (telicity) as well as "affectedness" of phrasal verb objects. ESL students were selected for the control and treatment groups. Each group participated in a pretest and posttest. Each test included three tasks: one comprehension (yes/no multiple choice) and two production (sentence completion and written narration). Time (pretest/posttest) and instruction (informal IP/formal explanation) were independent variables. Scores were the dependent variable. Preposition use is difficult for ESL learners, yet no generalizations explain learning difficulty nor has instruction addressed this difficulty. Input Processing furnishes needed instruction and is consonant with current linguistic theory (Minimalism): Word-order phenomena obey "frame alternations" that shift meaning by varying syntactic configuration (movement to alternate sites in phrase structure). Language acquisition centers on mapping functions linking semantics with syntax; thus, pedagogical practice and linguistic theory are united. Structured input activities are likened to natural input that children are exposed to when they acquire language. Acquisition processes link meaningful items in a mental lexicon to grammatical patterns constructed by a mental computer. Second language learners create links between meaning and form because they make decisions about meaning in input structured to highlight the form in which meaning is conveyed. Statistical analyses show treatment effect for input processing instruction on the comprehension task, so subjects' ability is improved through attention to mapping. Production task data were inconclusive yet revealed significance of frequency of prepositions' functions.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Depts. of French & Italian and Linguistics, 2007.<br>Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 17, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-12, Section: A, page: 4529. Advisers: Daniel A. Dinnsen; Albert Valdman.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.<br>Document formatted into pages; contains 307 p. Includes bibliographical references. Abstract available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2006 March 7.

One major topic that often appears in textbooks on second language acquisition (SLA) is that of order of acquisition of morphemes. Much research has been done on the issue in the past, and a particular acquisition order has been accepted by many in the field of SLA for second language learners of English. This order of morphemes is deemed invariant and not affected by the native language of the learner. This thesis examines this claim, using an elicited imitation test to target nine English morphemes. The results show that a learner's native language does indeed have an effect on the order of acquisition of morphemes; however, only a few limited claims can be made regarding this order (for example, Japanese and Korean seem to acquire the auxiliary morpheme earlier than in other languages). Previous research is examined in light of the differences between this and other studies, with a specific focus on methodological issues which could have a significant impact on both results and interpretation of results in studies related to order of acquisition of morphemes.

This thesis presents a new study on the L2 acquisition of pronominal binding in Korean and English in order to examine accessibility to Universal Grammar (UG) (Chomsky 1981, 1986, 2000, 2001) in adult L2 acquisition. Specifically, the study examines the L2 acquisition of grammatical knowledge of the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC) (Montalbetti 1984) by English learners of Korean and the L2 acquisition of anaphoric binding by Korean learners of English. The first study investigates L2 speakers’ knowledge of the OPC, typically regarded as a universal constraint and a poverty-of-the-stimulus phenomenon. Previous L2 acquisition studies have only explored OPC effects when the pronoun is in subject position but not in object position. The current study aims to address this gap by investigating whether English learners of Korean can obtain nativelike knowledge of the OPC in subject and object positions. 41 English learners of Korean (intermediate and advanced) completed a co-reference comprehension task and a story-based translation task. Results from the experiment show that L2 speakers can successfully achieve nativelike knowledge of the OPC regardless of pronoun position and the study confirms the prediction that universal constraints need not be learnt. The second study focuses on L2 speakers’ knowledge of feature-based languagespecific constraints of anaphoric binding, following Hicks (2009), to examine the L2 acquisition of locality and orientation. 70 Korean learners of English (low-intermediate, intermediate, and advanced) completed a picture verification task and the results show that neither locality nor orientation constraints are properly acquired by most learners. This finding reveals that L2 speakers have difficulty in acquiring new feature configurations of the target grammar. This study also provides new evidence to support the view that cross-linguistic differences in this domain are derived from the interaction between language-specific feature specifications and universal reflexivisation mechanisms. In accordance with the results from the two studies, this thesis argues that while UG plays a significant role in explaining L2 speakers’ convergence to the L2 grammar, consistent with Full Access to UG (Schwartz & Sprouse 1994, 1996), divergence in L2 acquisition is caused by a failure to reconfigure new feature specifications. This is a result which supports the relevant role that Feature Assembly plays in second language acquisition (Lardiere 2008, 2009).