A LESLLA corpus

1. A LESLLA corpus Ineke van de Craats i.v.d.craats@let.ru.nl Radboud University, Nijmegen Research funded by NWO (355-70-017) LESLLA 2010 - Cologne

2. Why LESLLA? LESLLA learners differ from highly educated learners. LESLLA learners may process spoken language differently (Petersson et al. 2000; Reis & Castro-Caldas, 1997) Language pedagogy to LESLLA learners should take into account that: - abstract words and function words are not viewed as words (e.g. Kurvers, 2002; ) - words with little meaning are difficult to recall (e.g. Tarone et al. 2007) - LESLLA-learners have little metalinguistic and strategic skills (e.g. Kurvers 2002) - they may understand feedback /recasts differently (Tarone et al. 2007) - reading and writing skills are lacking or restricted.

3. LESLLA learners by accident LESLLA corpora ‘avant la lettre’ Longitudinal: - Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt(Klein & Dittmar 1979) • ZISA project (Clahsen et al. 1983) • ESF project (Klein & Perdue, 1992; Perdue 1993) Cross-sectional: • Lexlern project (Clahsen et al. 1991) Is acquisition possible solely on the basis of aural input?

4. LESLLA learners at purpose • Minneapolis Somali literacy study (Tarone, Bigelow & Hansen 2007; 2009) What is the impact of literacy on oral L2 use and development? 3 studies, on: corrective feedback, elicited imitation oral narratives (learners focussing on meaning) • LESLLA-corpus (van de Craats 2009;2010) longitudinal: 3 semesters (15-18 months) How does the low-literate learner proceed in the classroom?

5. LESLLA corpus Purpose of the project: Is the L1 morphosyntax an essential factor of stagnation in L2 acquisition of these learners?

6. LESLLA corpus Research questions: • Is there still impact from a low literacy level or from another phonetic script? • Low-paced development for morphosyntax? • Is that caused by transfer from L1?

7. LESLLA corpus - design • Longitudinal study of 3 semesters/cycles (1.5 years) • Same tasks administered in each cycle. • Two language groups: L2: Dutch • L1: Turkish, Moroccan Arabic • CEF level at start: below A1 with a very basic vocabulary. • Elicitation material: Reading task • Receptive tasks • Productive tasks • Metalinguistic tasks

8. Turkishparticipants (at start) Age Schooling Stay in NL stagnating TU - Neth. years Zilfi 30 5 1;5 11 no Hülya 19 5 0;7 0.5 no Emine 28 5 0;8 13 no - yes Hilal 19 5 1;8 2 yes - no Ayfer 37 5 0;8 18 yes Nazife 31 5 0;6 1 yes Hatice 45 5 0;6 26 yes Özlem 31 6 2;0 5 yes Mean 30 5 1;0 9.5

9. Moroccan participants (at start) Age Schooling Staying NL Stagnating MA - Neth. Mina 23 0 2;0 4 no Zohra 41 5 0;7 8 no Soad 34 4 0;8 12 no Najat 25 4 1;6 4 yes - no Hayat 22 5 2;0 2 yes Nezha 38 0 1;3 3 yes Fatima 27 7 1;8 5 yes Mean 30 3.6 1;3 5.4

10. Reading skills Moroccan participants Age Schooling Arabic literacy course Roman script Mina 23 0 yes yes Zohra 41 5 yes no Soad 34 4 yes no Najat 25 4 yes yes Hayat 22 5 yes yes Nezha 38 0 yes yes Fatima 27 5+2 yes no Mean 30 3.6

11. Literacy level 3 tasks: text; self paced reading; drag and drop task

12. Cycle I II III Mean Zilfi 131 108 111 117 Hülya 86 110 100 99 Emine 116 133 137 129 Hilal 143 103 132 126 Ayfer 122 194 140 152 Nazife 117 98 99 105 Hatice 145 183 137 155 Özlem 182 107 90 126 Mean 130 129 118 126 Cycle I II III Mean Mina 148 144 129 140 Zohra 141 - 138 139 Soad 127 152 119 133 Najat 172 174 165 170 Hayat 217 244 174 212 Nezha 307 264 225 265 Fatima 120 123 161 135 Mean 176 183 158 172 Reading time for an L2 text (in sec.) Turkish Moroccan

13. Self-paced reading task • Instruction: • Read the sentence aloud and recall the last word. • Push the button. • Read the next sentence (12 and 16 syllables) etc. • 3 pairs of 2 sentences • 3 pairs of 3 sentences • 3 pairs of 4 sentences • Say the last word of each sentence in the right order.

14. Self-paced reading task (16 syllables) Reading time Turkish Moroccan learners 2 sent.-pair 1 21 sec 30 sec 2 sent.-pair 2 20 sec 36 sec 2 sent.-pair 3 22 sec 41 sec Mean per sentence 10sec 18sec 3 sent. mean 10 sec. 16sec 4 sent. mean 10sec. 16 sec (for 10 Turkish and 10 Moroccan learners in Cycle 1)

15. Transfer and reading L2 L1 Order within the noun phrase

16. Drag-and-drop task • Purpose: What is the influence of the L1? • Semi-controlled task • Adapted version of the drag-and-drop task: • The learner has more blocks to drag and drop than required for the task. • This opens the way to investigate: • - pro-drop and/or topic drop • - choose between an L1 and an L2 structure.

17. Drag-and-drop task Possessive relationship in the noun phrase Turkish order: possessor – possessee Hassan’s car (Hasan-in araba-si) Moroccan Arabic: possessee – possessor the car (of) Hassan Dutch: 1. Hassans auto Hassan z’n/zijn auto zijn auto 2. de auto van Hassan de auto van hem

18. Hassan auto z’n van Hassan Adapted drag-and-drop task Dat is …………………………………………………. Target: Hassan z’n auto Not correct: auto van Hassan (correct: de auto van Hassan) Number of moves and reaction time were registrated.

19. Results for 10 possessive noun phrases TU MA difference Cyc.1 Moves 45,15 40,29 5 RT sec. 286.83 387.18 100.35 sec Cyc.2 Moves 49.25 40.99 8 RT sec. 246.7 294.4 47.7 sec Cyc.3 Moves 58.21 40.17 18 RT sec. 293.58 310.58 17 sec Number of moves increases for Turks, stable for Moroccans. Number of seconds decreases for Moroccans, not for Turks. Turks start manipulating the word order, Moroccans not (they read faster than before).

20. Easiest and most difficult possessive NPs Moroccan Turkish Easiest NP 2.95 moves 3.16 moves jouw kado mevr. Larbi d’r man your present mrs. Larbi’s (her) husband Most difficult NP 5.5 moves 6.58 moves Freeks ouders de opa van Bas Freek’s parents the grandpa of Bas Transfer of the L1 becomes clear in the P’sor-P’see order.

21. Most frequent variant of Turkish learners: Bas-van de opa (Turkish genitive) Bas-van z’n de opa (stimulus: Dat is …. /Bas/ de opa/z’n /van) De opa van Bas: 12,5 % correct for the Turks (mean:6,5) also in 14 / 20 / 22 moves, or in 3 or 5 moves. All Moroccans do it 100% correctly, but they need too many moves (mean: 4) and too much time (mean: 30 sec.) Abstract function words play a crucial role. Syntactic development is slow. Bas’ grandpa (de opa van Bas)

22. Transfer and reading V finite L2 L1 Order within the sentence

23. 1. In the drag and drop task Turkish: SOVfinite Moroccan Arabic: SVfinite O Dutch: SVfinite O Make a sentence: …………………………………………………………………………….. | get | Freek | a fine | gets | krijgen Freek een bon krijgt The finite verb

24. 1. In the drag and drop task TurkishCycle I II III Freek een bon krijgt/en. 50% 37% 37% Moves (mean) 3,8 4,4 3,8 RT (mean) in sec. 17 19,9 18,5 Moroccan Freek een bon krijgt/en. 0% 14% 0% Moves (mean) 3,1 3,6 3,8 RT (mean) in sec. 35 27,9 20,7 The finite verb

25. Narratives Development of morphosyntaxis in a relatively free task: film retelling and picture telling story.

26. Bare verbs • Do these literacy learners produce abstract, grammatical (semantically redundant) morphemes, such as - inflectional endings (3sg) and - grammatical free morphemes (copulas, modals, auxiliaries)? that are difficult to process, or mainly bare verbs?

27. Turkish learners

28. Turkish and Moroccan learners compared

29. Conclusions • The Turkish group produced more bare (long) forms than the Moroccan learners, although they were literate learners. • The picture is opposite for the Moroccan group, although they were the moderate/advanced literacy learners with more short forms. Cause?? • Not literacy, but interplay between L1 and L2 is at issue. • The short forms are mainly default forms

30. Default forms • Beginning learners use default verb forms. • Moroccan learners of Dutch prefer other default verb forms than Turkish learners. The L1-L2 interplay is the motivation for this preference. • Turkish learners take long forms (infinitives), Moroccans short defaults (‘finite’). • Turks have to acquire movement of the verb. • Moroccans have to learn what an infinitive is.

31. A ‘finite’ default form • kan niet [VPgaatfiets] Najat can not go.3sg bike • een vriendin is zij [VPzegt“kom”] Soad a girlfriend is she say.3sg come • ik ga buiten [VPspeelt] Fatima I go-1sg outside play.3sg For Moroccan learners the default form is short and ‘finite’.

32. The finite verb in picture telling task dummy auxiliary Zilfi (Turkish) Vader niet komen Cycl. 1 Vaderisnietkomen father is not come.INF Cycl. 2 Vaderisnietkom come.1SG/STEM Cycl. 3 (pro)komniet die vader (v.d.Craats 2005, 2009)

33. The finite verb in picture telling task Moroccans: • Sneeuwmangakijken tableaus snowman go look paintings • Dangaloop naar de raam Then go walk to the window another dummy auxiliary Number of ga-patterns 7 Turks : 10 7 Moroccans: 313

34. Dummy auxiliaries Dummy auxiliaries may: • Emerge when (bound) verb morphology has not fully been acquired yet; • Realise one of more grammatical features normally part of a lexical verb. • Disappear after a specific developmental stage. • Typically (??) emerge in the speech of vulnerable learners such as LESLLA learners, SLI children.

35. Conclusions • Decoding fluency may influence results of written tasks with low-educated learners, but will have disappeared at A2-level (CEF). • Low-paced development of these LESLLA-learners shows the small steps such as insertion of dummy auxiliaries to overcome composite morphosyntactic changes (L1 influence is persistent). • Difficulty of grammatical morphemes has more to do with salience in an L1-L2 interplay. Lack of meaning is one aspect of salience (unstressed is another). • Literate learners are also intended to skip grammatical morphemes in sentence imitation. • The morpheme learning steps: lexical item – free functional item – bound functional item are also observed in literate learners (e.g. VanPatten 1995). • More comparative research between literates and non/low-literates is necessary., e.g. about insertion of dummy auxilairies.

36. See you next LESLLA