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 ...
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Dokumenttyp: | Artikel |
Erscheinungsdatum: | 2013 |
Reihe/Periodikum: | Linguistics in the Netherlands 2013 ; Linguistics in the Netherlands ; volume 30, page 173-187 ; ISSN 0929-7332 1569-9919 |
Verlag/Hrsg.: |
John Benjamins Publishing Company
|
Schlagwörter: | Linguistics and Language / Language and Linguistics |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27047316 |
Datenquelle: | BASE; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | BASE |
Link(s) : | http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/avt.30.13van |
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 to a native reference corpus. Results indicate that Dutch EFL learners overuse clause-initial adverbials of place as well as addition adverbials that refer back to an antecedent in the directly preceding discourse. Although there is a clear development in the direction of native writing, transfer of information structural features of Dutch can still be observed even after three years of extended academic exposure.