Information structural transfer in advanced Dutch EFL writing ; A cross-linguistic longitudinal study

This article presents a case study on the role of L1 transfer of language-specific features of information structure in very advanced L2 learners. Cross-linguistic differences in the information status of clause-initial position in a V2 language like Dutch compared to an SVO language like English are hypothesized to result in overuse of clause-initial adverbials in the writing of advanced Dutch learners of English. This hypothesis was tested by evaluating advanced Dutch EFL learners’ use of clause-initial adverbials in a syntactically annotated longitudinal corpus of student writing, compared... Mehr ...