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Testing the Interface Hypothesis: L2 Acquisition of English Subjects and Articles by Turkish Learners

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Testing the Interface Hypothesis: L2 Acquisition of English Subjects and Articles by Turkish Learners TESTING THE INTERFACE HYPOTHESIS: L2 ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH SUBJECTS AND ARTICLES BY TURKISH LEARNERS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY ECEM GEYDİR IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING JULY 2020 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences __________________________ Prof. Dr. Yaşar Kondakçı Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. __________________________ Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek Head of Department This is to certify that I have read this thesis and that in my opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts. __________________________ Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek Supervisor Examining Committee Members Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elena Antonova-Ünlü (Hacettepe Uni., IMT) ___________________ Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek (METU, FLE) ___________________ Assist. Prof. Dr. Duygu Özge (METU, FLE) ___________________ PLAGIARISM I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name: Ecem, Geydir Signature: iii ABSTRACT TESTING THE INTERFACE HYPOTHESIS: L2 ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH SUBJECTS AND ARTICLES BY TURKISH LEARNERS Geydir, Ecem M.A., Department of English Language Teaching Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek July 2020, 126 pages This thesis aims to expand the testing grounds of the Interface Hypothesis (IH) by investigating the acquisition of English subjects operating with pure syntax and article uses of (in)definiteness and genericity in English governed with external and internal interfaces respectively by L1-Turkish learners. Fifty-eight sophomore students who have been studying in the Department of Foreign Language Education of a state university in central Turkey were asked to complete a Grammaticality Judgement, a Discourse Completion and a Forced-Choice Elicitation Task subsequently. By doing so, the aim was to understand whether proficient Turkish learners of English interpret and use subjects and articles accurately in English and whether the IH can account for the results. To this end, upon analyzing the data, the relationship between the participants’ performances were discussed in relation to the IH. The findings highlighted that narrow syntactic properties are acquired with the least difficulty. The properties at an interface domain, on the other hand, present more difficulty regardless of the type of the interface. Additionally, the IH was found partially accountable for the participants’ performances. It could explain iv why the participants have done significantly better in subject realization than the articles, whereas it could not account for the lack of statistically significant difference between the (in)definite and generic uses of articles. To build upon the present study, adding tasks measuring language processing might be of great value to gain a better understanding into the reason why more errors are committed when interface structures are involved. Keywords: Pure Syntax, Internal, External, Interface v ÖZ ARAYÜZ HİPOTEZİNİN ARAŞTIRILMASI: ANADİLİ TÜRKÇE OLAN İNGİLİZCE KONUŞUCULARININ ÖZNE VE TANIM EDATI EDİNİMİ Geydir, Ecem Yüksek Lisans, İngiliz Dili Öğretimi Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek Temmuz 2020, 126 sayfa Bu çalışmanın amacı yabancı dili İngilizce olan Türk öğrencilerin İngilizcede salt sözdizimi kurallarına göre kullanılan özne ve sırasıyla dış ve iç arayüz kurallarına göre kullanılan belirli/belirsiz tanım edatı ve kapsamlı tanım edatı edinimini araştırmaktır. Çalışmanın temel amacı ise bulguları Arayüz Hipotezi (AH) çerçevesinde açıklayarak bu hipotezin test alanını genişletmektir. Veriler Türkiye’nin merkezindeki bir devlet üniversitesinin Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Bölümünde ikinci sınıf olan 58 öğrenciden toplanmıştır. İkinci dil konuşucularının bu iki yapıyı edinimini ölçmek amacıyla sırasıyla Dilbilgisel Yargı Testi, Söylem Tamamlama Testi ve Zorunlu-Seçme Çıkartım Testi kullanılmıştır. Özne kullanımına yönelik bulgular Dilbilgisel Yargı Testi ve Söylem Tamamlama Testinden, belirli/belirsiz tanım edatı ve kapsamlı tanım edatı kullanımı ile ilgili bulgular ise aynı Dilbilgisel Yargı Testi ve bunun yanı sıra Zorunlu-Seçme Çıkartım Testinden elde edilmiştir. Veri analizi yapıldıktan sonra ortaya çıkan sonuçların AH ile açıklanıp açıklanamayacağı tartışılmıştır. Çalışmanın sonuçları katılımcıların özne kullanımını çoğunlukla doğru bir şekilde edindiğini göstermesine rağmen, iki farklı vi arayüz alanında kullanılan edat yapılarında katılımcılar aynı performansı gösterememiş ve iki tip edat kullanımında benzer oranda zorluk çektikleri anlaşılmıştır. AH çıkan sonuçların kısmi bir bölümünü açıklayabilmektedir. Salt sözdizimi ile oluşturulan bir yapının arayüz alanında kullanılan yapılara göre daha kolay edinilebilmesi AH’ye atfedilebilmektedir. İç ve dış arayüz kurallarına göre yapısallaştırılan edat tipleri arasında önemli bir performans farklılığı çıkmaması sonucu ise AH ile açıklanamamıştır. Arayüz yapılarında neden daha hatalı kullanımlar olduğunun daha iyi anlaşılabilmesi için ileriki çalışmalarda dil işleme ölçümü yapan deneyler yapılması önerilmektedir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Salt Sözdizimi, İç Arayüz, Dış Arayüz vii DEDICATION To a string of people who have inspired me to look ahead viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Prof. Dr. Çiğdem Sağın Şimşek, for providing invaluable guidance throughout this thesis. Her sincerity and attitude showing how she backed me up have deeply motivated me in this hard and long journey. I have learned a great deal from her regarding my field of interest since my sophomore year. Her guidance since that year has actually helped me find my way in this process and complete the research successfully. Besides my advisor, I would like to extend my thanks to the rest of my thesis committee, Assist. Prof. Dr. Duygu Özge and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Elena-Antonova Ünlü, for their constructive feedback and suggestions about how to evolve this paper into a better one. It was a great privilege and honor to have them in my jury as the acknowledged experts in their own fields. I am very much thankful to my friends, especially Melike Ayşe Gürgen for her keen interest and encouragement to finish my thesis successfully. She has been bearing with my everlasting phone calls and repeatedly asked questions as the one who has just gone through the same process (I never let her stand back from this crazy process, though.) The completion of this thesis could not have been possible without the genuine support and understanding of my life-long companion, Tuğrul İşbilir. I am truly indebted to him for encouraging me to pursue my dreams even if this has cost the quality time spent together for the last three years. Although he does not have a grasp of the field at all, he has always been patient with my long-lasting talks on thesis preparation. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, Nazmiye and Şenol Geydir, who one way or another shared their support. Although we have been away for 15 years now, they kept me going by contributing spiritually to the person who I am now. Their unconditional love and faith in me are deeply appreciated. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM .................................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... iv ÖZ ..................................................................................................................................... vi DEDICATION ............................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. x LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................ xiv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background to the Study ......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Significance of the Study ......................................................................................... 7 1.3 Research Questions and Predictions ...................................................................... 10 2. THEORATICAL BACKGROUND ............................................................................ 14 2.1 Interface Hypothesis .............................................................................................. 14 2.2 Earlier Research on the Interface Hypothesis ........................................................ 17 2.3 Article System and Subject Realization in Relation to the Interface Hypothesis .. 20 2.3.1 (In)definiteness in English
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