Telicity and the Developmental Acquisition of the English Present Perfect by L1 Spanish Speakers
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Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Theses Theses and Dissertations 8-1-2014 TELICITY AND THE DEVELOPMENTAL ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT BY L1 SPANISH SPEAKERS VIRGINIA TERAN Southern Illinois University Carbondale, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses Recommended Citation TERAN, VIRGINIA, "TELICITY AND THE DEVELOPMENTAL ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT BY L1 SPANISH SPEAKERS" (2014). Theses. Paper 1446. This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TELICITY AND THE DEVELOPMENTAL ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT BY L1 SPANISH SPEAKERS by Virginia Terán B.A., Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, 2000 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics and TESOL Department of Linguistics In the Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale August, 2014 THESIS APPROVAL TELICITY AND THE DEVELOPMENTAL ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT BY L1 SPANISH SPEAKERS By Virginia Teran A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in the field of Applied Linguistics and TESOL Approved by: Dr. Krassimira Charkova, Chair Dr. Usha Lakshmanan Dr. James Berry Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale May, 2014 AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF VIRGINIA TERAN, for the Master’s degree in APPLIED LINGUSITICS, presented on *MAY, 6TH 2014, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: TELICITY AND THE DEVELOPMENTAL ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PRESENT PERFECT BY L1 SPANISH SPEAKERS. MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Krassimira Charkova The Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1994; 1996) proposes that the inherent lexical aspect of verbs plays a major role in the acquisition of tense-aspect (TA) morphology in both first and second language. This has been attested in most studies on TA morphology conducted with past and present TA markers. The present study examined the acquisition of Present Perfect, a rather insufficiently studied TA form from a Prototype Account, in two of its four functions, Experiential Past and Persistent Situation. The subjects were 85 L1-Spanish English language learners at intermediate and advanced levels. All participants had received formal instruction in English grammar as part of their curriculum. The data was collected through a forced-choice task with 16 situations equally distributed between the two Present Perfect functions and between telic and atelic verbs of four semantic categories: stative, activities, achievements, and accomplishments. Participants had to choose the correct verb form out of three options (Present, Past or Present Perfect) that would best complete the sentences given. The results showed evidence of clear developmental stages in the acquisition of the Present Perfect. The stages were characterized by an important role of proficiency level and lexical aspect as the more proficient participants showed a more accurate use of the target form. In addition, both the intermediate and advanced groups showed a tendency towards employing Persistent Situation with atelic verb types, whereas they used Experiential Past with telic verbs. i Contrary to the predictions of the AH, the use that seemed to be first acquired and easier to learn was Persistent Situation, which obtained higher correctness rates in both groups than Experiential Past. When the results were analyzed across each aspectual verb type, the pattern of acquisition was less clear and thereby partly met the claims of the AH. This irregular trend attested in the data encouraged the argument that the acquisition of the functions of the Present Perfect may not be solely influenced by lexical aspect and verb prototypicality but several other factors may be at stake, such as sentence-type effect, input distribution, L1 transfer and rote-learned forms. Therefore, developmental stages in the acquisition of the Present Perfect should be examined in view of an interplay of “multiple factors” as already proposed by Sugaya and Shirai (2007), which work simultaneously and in a complementary fashion in the acquisitional process of TA morphology. ii DEDICATION As the symbol of the culmination of one of my dreams about studying abroad in order to develop professionally, this research study is dedicated to my parents in the first place for their constant support to pursue my dreams, to achieve my aims and to be the person who I really want to be. They have certainly taught me that there is no limit in life and that I can get as far as I intend to. For this far distance and long way that I have walked, I will always be grateful to them. To my dearest brother, to my “nona”, to my family and friends, who have always supported me in this American experience. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My first acknowledgement is to my Chair, Dr. Charkova, for genuinely guiding me in the very first, middle and final steps of how to conduct research providing me with the necessary tools to write a successful thesis research study. She has always believed in my work, she has answered chains of emails and supported me all through the writing process, she has helped me organize my thoughts and has polished every single idea I have written. If I learnt research methodology, it was because of her impeccable instruction. Secondly, I would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by the two committee members. Dr. Lakshmanan has been very generous in sharing with me her world of knowledge in the field of Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and in helping to further improve this research study. Dr. Berry has also contributed to a better investigation with his Linguistic knowledge and sensible advice and he certainly made things easier with his sense of humor. The other acknowledgement is for Dr. Shirai. I will always be grateful for the possibility to talk about my research with him via email and in person. It was a pleasure for me to discuss the results of my study with the originator of the Aspect Hypothesis and to receive his opinion, which certainly influenced my discussion of the findings. I would also like to thank the data collector, my friend and colleague from my Argentinian University, Carolina De Piero. Without her predisposition to comply with the requirements from the Human Subjects Committee, I would not have been able to gather the data for this study. I will always appreciate her disinterested and genuine assistance. With her, I would like to thank the participants for providing the data. Finally, I would like to thank my mentors Guadalupe Zamora and Sara Lopez for inspiring me in the learning of English Grammar and pushing me to reach the highest standards. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... i DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTERS CHAPTER 1 – Introduction.................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 – Empirical Studies ......................................................................................32 CHAPTER 3 – Methodology .............................................................................................42 CHAPTER 4 – Results ......................................................................................................54 CHAPTER 5 – Discussion, Limitations, Pedagogical Implications, Conclusion..............72 REFERENCES or BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................124 APPENDICES Appendix A – Forced-Choice Task ................................................................................130 Appendix B – Proficiency Test .......................................................................................135 Appendix C – Instrument .................................................................................................136 Appendix D – Cross tabulations 1 ...................................................................................141 Appendix E – Cross tabulations 2 ...................................................................................143 VITA ..........................................................................................................................................144 v LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE Table 1 .............................................................................................................................................6 Table 2 .............................................................................................................................................7