Aspectual contrasts in the English present tense revisited: exploring the role of input and L1 influence
Aspectual contrasts in the English present tense revisited: exploring the role of input and L1 influence
This study investigates the acquisition of aspectual contrasts in the English
present tense by French and Chinese learners of English at upperintermediate
to advanced proficiency levels. An oral production task and an
interpretation task show that the expression of aspectual present tense does
not always have to constitute an insurmountable barrier to learners of
English, at least for the upper-intermediate proficiency levels tested in this
study. This successful acquisition is in spite of the differences in L1/L2
feature expressions and the unexpected variability in the input. Our
research highlights that teachers must be aware of the one-sided variability
of the native speaker usage (i.e. that the present simple form can express
multiple meanings, while the present progressive is associated with one
meaning only) if they want to improve performance and comprehension at
lower proficiency levels.
aspect, feature reassembly, L1 influence, French, English, Chinese, input
66–93
Dudley, Amber
f438dff2-1334-470d-9c4a-5f79f3867a14
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
1 February 2020
Dudley, Amber
f438dff2-1334-470d-9c4a-5f79f3867a14
Slabakova, Roumyana
1bda11ce-ce3d-4146-8ae3-4a486b6f5bde
Dudley, Amber and Slabakova, Roumyana
(2020)
Aspectual contrasts in the English present tense revisited: exploring the role of input and L1 influence.
Pedagogical Linguistics, 1 (1), .
(doi:10.1075/pl.19010.dud).
Abstract
This study investigates the acquisition of aspectual contrasts in the English
present tense by French and Chinese learners of English at upperintermediate
to advanced proficiency levels. An oral production task and an
interpretation task show that the expression of aspectual present tense does
not always have to constitute an insurmountable barrier to learners of
English, at least for the upper-intermediate proficiency levels tested in this
study. This successful acquisition is in spite of the differences in L1/L2
feature expressions and the unexpected variability in the input. Our
research highlights that teachers must be aware of the one-sided variability
of the native speaker usage (i.e. that the present simple form can express
multiple meanings, while the present progressive is associated with one
meaning only) if they want to improve performance and comprehension at
lower proficiency levels.
Text
PL_Revised_Final_Manuscript
- Accepted Manuscript
Available under License Other.
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Published date: 1 February 2020
Keywords:
aspect, feature reassembly, L1 influence, French, English, Chinese, input
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 439157
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/439157
ISSN: 2665-9581
PURE UUID: 349f1fec-38b5-4474-bad8-d538b9a97027
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Date deposited: 06 Apr 2020 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:33
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Author:
Amber Dudley
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