Cross-Cultural Studies (비교문화연구)
- Volume 43
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- Pages.459-483
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- 2016
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- 1598-0685(pISSN)
Effects of Lexical Aspect on the Interlanguage of Ibibio ESL Learners: Later than Sooner
- Willie, Willie U. (University of Uyo)
- Received : 2016.05.10
- Accepted : 2016.06.08
- Published : 2016.06.30
Abstract
The main objective of this paper is to test the major prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis on interlanguage narratives collected from 171 Ibibio ESL learners in a classroom setting using sets of picture stories. Aspect Hypothesis predicts that lexical aspectual classes of verbs would determine the pattern of acquisition and distribution of tense-aspect morphology at the very early stages of L2 acquisition of tense-aspect verbal morphology. That is, telic verbs would be marked with the past tense-aspect verbal morphology before atelic verbs in the interlanguage of ESL learners irrespective of their L1 background. The results of our data analyses show a significant effect from the lexical aspect on the acquisition and distribution of tense-aspect morphology with chi-square statistics of (
Keywords
- Lexical Aspect;
- Tense-aspect Morphology;
- Interlanguage;
- Aspect Hypothesis;
- ESL Learners;
- L2 Acquisition;
- Ibibio ESL Learners;
- Telic Verbs;
- Chi-square Statistics