324 10 3494 https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/09f08c4f80be0946c5fd1bb11a93d447.pdf f2828d2b61681fef55b5aeef07b82533 PDF Text Text THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH L2 BY IMMIGRANT CHILDREN: EAL AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION IN MULTILINGUAL IRELAND Bronagh Ćatibušić Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Article History: Submitted: 10.06.2015 Accepted: 24.06.2015 Abstract Since the 1990s, Ireland has experienced considerable immigration. Currently, 12% of its schoolchildren come from immigrant backgrounds. The majority of these children learn English as a second (additional) language (ESL/EAL). The Irish Department of Education and Skills (DES) provides a programme of English language support for young ESL learners. To guide this programme, English Language Proficiency Benchmarks were developed by Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT), a campus company of Trinity College, Dublin. IILT produced two sets of context-appropriate ‘Benchmarks’, for primary and secondary education, derived from the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This paper focuses on English L2 acquisition in Irish primary schools. It reports on how the primary level Benchmarks describe L2 proficiency development across CEFR levels A1, A2 and B1 in a manner sensitive to age/cognitive stage and curriculum requirements. It discusses assessment resources based on these Benchmarks – a version of the European Language Portfolio (IILT 2004) and the Primary School Assessment Kit (DES 2007). These tools enable assessment of and assessment for learning and promote learner autonomy. Research conducted by the author of this paper (published in 2014) into the relation between learning outcomes expressed in the Benchmarks and immigrant children’s English L2 acquisition is presented. It reports on mixed-methods analysis of data from a longitudinal study of L2 acquisition involving 18 children, aged four to ten years, from ten language backgrounds (including Croatian and Serbian). The children’s acquisition of English oral and literacy skills indicate that the Benchmarks appropriately describe L2 proficiency development. Individual and interactional influences on L2 �acquisition and their pedagogical implications are discussed. The paper considers how CEFRrelated approaches can support language learning, teaching and assessment in an intercultural educational environment. Key words: language education, intercultural education, curriculum development, language assessment, teaching English as a second language, child second language acquisition, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, immigration, Ireland. �1. Introduction 1.1 Ireland and immigration Ireland, a country with a long history of emigration, has experienced substantial immigration since the 1990s. Among the early arrivals were up to 1200 refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina who were admitted as part of a United Nations resettlement programme for victims of conflict in the Balkans (UNHCR Ireland, 2004). Increasing numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers from other national backgrounds also sought to build new lives in Ireland. At the same time, Ireland’s economy was developing rapidly and, during this socalled ‘Celtic Tiger’ period, employment opportunities attracted people from across the world. The enlargement of the European Union in 2004 brought a further rise in the annual immigration rate which, data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show, peaked at 151,100 in 2007 (CSO, 2014)1. From 2008 onwards the rate of immigration slowed due to the impact of the global economic crisis on Ireland. As the country fell into recession, emigration –mostly of Irish nationals – again took precedence2. However, the results of the 2011 census reveal that immigration has far from ceased and that many immigrants have decided to stay in Ireland. At least 12% of residents are classified as ‘non-Irish nationals’, with 122.585 people of Polish nationality the largest ‘non-Irish’ group (CSO, 2012). 1.2 Consequences for education The 2011 census results further indicate that an increasing proportion of Ireland’s immigrant population is aged fifteen years and younger (CSO, 2012). Therefore, as acknowledged by the Irish Department of Education (DES) and Office of the Minister for Integration (OMI) in their Intercultural Education Strategy 2010–2015, ‘immigrants will remain a definite feature of the Irish education system’ (DES and OMI, 2010, p.10). Currently, it is estimated by the DES that around 12% of children at school in Ireland come from immigrant backgrounds (DES, 2011;2014). The majority of these children speak a home language other than English or Irish – the two official languages of Ireland. Consequently, as most of them attend schools in which English is the main medium of instruction, they are 1 The current population of the Republic of Ireland is 4.59 million (CSO, 2014). By 2013 the annual immigration rate was 55,900 (having fallen to 41,800 in 2010) with annual emigration of 89,000 (mostly of Irish nationals) recorded in that year (CSO, 2014); recent indicators suggest that net outward migration is now decreasing. 2 �learning English as an additional (second) language (EAL/ESL) in order to engage with the school curriculum and integrate into the wider community. 2. Responding to diversity 2.1 EAL teaching According to the DES ‘about 200 languages are used every day in Ireland’ (2014, p.4). The fact that Irish society has become so multilingual has significant implications for education. Clearly, it is crucial that immigrant children are enabled to acquire the language of schooling (generally English) in order to fulfil their full academic and social potential. To this end, the ‘English language support programme’ was established by the DES in the late 1990s. This programme provides EAL instruction for immigrant children during the first two years of their education in Ireland (see Ćatibušić and Little, 2014 for an overview). Schools have discretion as to how this support is organised. Typically it is provided through daily EAL lessons of 35–45 minutes duration but English language support teachers may also assist children in the mainstream classroom. Even if withdrawal lessons are the sole mode of provision, EAL learners spend over 80% of their time in mainstream education during their two-year entitlement to English language support3. After their support period has ended, they must continue to develop English L2 skills without this additional language-focused assistance. 2.2 Intercultural education Another key issue in responding to linguistic and cultural diversity in Irish schools is ensuring intercultural education for all children. This involves recognising and respecting the home languages and cultures of children from immigrant backgrounds. Guidelines for intercultural education for both primary and secondary level have been produced by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA, 2005; 2006). The Intercultural Education Strategy 2010–2015 (DES and OMI, 2010) has set further goals in this regard. However, implementation of this strategy has been seriously affected by Ireland’s economic problems which have led to reductions in state support for EAL and intercultural education in recent years. Nevertheless, initiatives taken in this field prior to the recession still serve as worthwhile models for responding to challenges faced by immigrant children. 3 The two-year limit on English language support was briefly rescinded in 2007 but was reimposed in 2009. Thereafter, appeals could be made for an extension of this support, based on the assessment of children’s English L2 proficiency. �3. A framework for English language support 3.1 English Language Proficiency Benchmarks The rapid transformation of schools into multilingual and culturally diverse environments was a shock to the Irish education system. A major concern among teachers was that most of them had little or no previous experience of teaching children who were non-native speakers of the language of education. Guidance and training was required in relation to EAL teaching. The DES assigned responsibility for delivering this to Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT), a campus company of Trinity College Dublin which was also involved in the provision of English language support for adult migrants. An essential first step in this process was the development of two sets of English Language Proficiency Benchmarks – one for primary and one for secondary education. These were derived from the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe, 2001) but adapted to meet the specific language learning needs of immigrant children at school in Ireland. They provided frameworks for English language support at both primary and secondary level and served as a basis for the development of resources for EAL teaching and in-service teacher training. 3.2 The Primary Benchmarks Since this chapter concerns the acquisition of English L2 among primary school children, it will focus on theEnglish language proficiency benchmarks for non-English-speaking pupils at primary level(IILT, 2003), hereafter referred to simply as the Benchmarks. As pointed out above, these Benchmarks are a context-appropriate adaptation of the CEFR designed for EAL pupils in Irish primary schools. They share the same ‘action-oriented’ approach to language learning adopted by the CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001, p.9) and use ‘can do’ descriptors to describe the development of communicative skills and communicative language competences. However, there are important differences between the CEFR and the Benchmarks. The CEFR was designed with the language learning experience of adult and late adolescent learners in mind. It describes language proficiency development across six Common Reference Levels (A1 to C2) spanning four wide-ranging domains of language use (public, personal, educational and occupational). The Benchmarks, on the other hand, are much narrower in their focus. Considering the L2 learning needs of EAL pupils at primary school in Ireland, they concentrate on the educational domain. �In addition, the Benchmarks cover only the three lower Common Reference Levels of the CEFR (A1, A2 and B1). Given the cognitive range of children at primary school, this restriction is necessary and appropriate. From level B2 upwards, many of the CEFR descriptors relate to academic or vocational uses of language which are beyond the cognitive abilities of most primary school children. Also, as the Benchmarks serve as guidelines for a two-year programme of English language support, progression from level A1 to level B1 seems a realistic target to be attained within this limited period. It also reflects the purpose of the Benchmarks: to ‘specify the minimum proficiency required for full participation in mainstream schooling’ (IILT, 2003, p.3). Setting B1 as an exit level does not mark an endstage in the child’s ongoing acquisition of English L2. Rather, it recognises that at this level the learner may be considered an ‘independent user’ of the language he/she is learning (Council of Europe, 2001, p.23) who can function in an L2 environment without direct assistance. Another fundamental feature of the Benchmarks is that they are deeply rooted in the Irish Primary School Curriculum (NCCA, 1999). Designed in consultation with teachers, they focus on key themes which recur across the curriculum. Therefore, the Benchmarks may be viewed as a ‘curriculum-within-the-curriculum’ (Little, 2010, p.19) which addresses the specific needs of EAL pupils. Furthermore, taking into account the age range of children in primary education in Ireland (from four to twelve years), the Benchmarks are expressed in a manner that allows their flexible application to pupils of different ages and stages of cognitive development. They thus recognise children’s ‘individual pathways of learning’ (IILT, 2003, p.4) which may also be affected by their home language backgrounds,learning styles and previous educational experience4. 3.3 Basis for language learning, teaching and assessment The Benchmarks ‘can do’ descriptors express anticipated L2 learning outcomes for EAL pupils. As such, they suggest suitable teaching activities and can be used as criteria for assessment. The Benchmarks have also served as a core document in the development of further resources for EAL teaching and intercultural education. These include the teachers’ handbook Up and Away (IILT, 2006) which outlines a wide range of classroom activities, explains aspects of second language acquisition, and highlights the importance of home language maintenance and engagement with immigrant parents. 4 The Benchmarks and their associated resources are available at www.ncca.ie/iilt. �Assessment tools based on the Benchmarks have also been produced. The European Language Portfolio, Primary (IILT, 2004) is a version of the CEFR-linked European Language Portfolio (ELP) specifically designed for EAL pupils in Irish primary schools. Essentially, it is a child-friendly, edited version of the Benchmarks which uses ‘I can’ descriptors for guided self-assessment. Its ‘passport’ and ‘biography’ sections enable both summative and formative assessment, while its ‘dossier’ section facilitates the storage of evidence of the child’s English L2 development. By encouraging reflection on the learning process and the setting of new goals, use of the Primary ELP can thus promote learner autonomy. To assess EAL pupils’ development of underlying L2 linguistic competence, the Primary Schools Assessment Kit (Little, Lazenby Simpson, and Finnegan-Ćatibušić, 2007) was also developed. This kit comprises short tests, based on communicative activities expressed in the Benchmarks descriptors, through which teachers can assess EAL pupils’ development of L2 vocabulary, grammatical, phonological and orthographic competences. While the Benchmarks were designed to guide EAL teaching, their approach to language learning, teaching and assessment reflects the CEFR’s promotion of plurilingualism as ‘a communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languages interrelate and interact’ (Council of Europe, 2001, p.4). Ensuring that children’s linguistic and cultural identities are recognised is a cornerstone of intercultural education. Practical ways of doing this are presented in resources associated with the Benchmarks, for example, Together Towards Inclusion –a ‘toolkit for diversity’ produced by IILT in collaboration with the Southern Education and Library Board (SELB) in Northern Ireland in 2007. This toolkit, which was distributed to all primary schools in Ireland, outlines classroom and whole school approaches to EAL and emphasises the value of home languages. EAL pupils can also record their home language abilities in the Primary ELP. Although present economic conditions in Ireland have curtailed efforts in this area, some schools have developed highly successful initiatives which demonstrate the benefits of plurilingual education (see Kirwan, 2013). 4. English L2 acquisition among EAL pupils 4.1 Empirical research Over the years, feedback from teachers has indicated that the Benchmarks and their associated resources are effective in supporting EAL learning, teaching and assessment. However, research was required to investigate the relation, if any, between the Benchmarks �and actual English L2 acquisition among EAL pupils. For this reason, a longitudinal study into English L2 development among EAL children within the context of their English language support lessons was conducted over the school year 2007–2008 in three Irish primary schools. Ćatibušić and Little (2014) report the results of this research in depth; some of its main findings are briefly summarised in the sections below. The study involved 18 EAL pupils, aged between four and ten years, from ten national backgrounds5. Eleven of these children were in their first year and seven were in their second year of English language support. To determine the appropriateness of the Benchmarks based on evidence obtained from EAL pupils’ actual English L2 use, 154 English language support lessons were recorded and transcribed. Examples of the pupils’ L2 written work were also collected. This data was then analysed to discover whether and, if so, how the 18 EAL pupils’ development of L2 oral and literacy skills related to the Benchmarks (see Ćatibušić and Little 2014 for discussion of methodology). A form-function analysis was carried out on the pupils’ English L2 usein activities that focused on the development of L2 oral skills. This mixed methods analysis examined the linguistic features of each pupil’s turns-at-talk within these activities and the functional characteristics of these turns, as determined from their links to the Benchmarks descriptors6. In all, 7,455 spoken turns which linked to specific descriptors were analysed. Although most of the teachers involved in this study used the Benchmarks only as a loose guide in their lesson planning, the vast majority of the pupils’ recorded turns related to existing descriptors. Any turns which did not were noted and, from these, suggestions were made regarding (generally minor) revisions to the Benchmarks (Ćatibušić and Little, 2014, p.41). The pupils’ L2 literacy development was then investigated through qualitative analysis of recorded activities which focused on L2 reading and writing and the examples of the children’s written work. Possible influences on the pupils’ English L2 acquisition were also considered. These included individual factors such as age, home language, personality and learning style. As interaction patterns appeared to impact on pupils’ L2 production, applied Conversation Analysis was used to ‘supplement the form-function analysis by providing information about the interactional context of pupils’ recorded turns’ (Ćatibušić and Little, 2014, p.43). Through 5 Children from Poland, Romania, Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, China, India, Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal participated. 6 Regarding linguistic features, the study focused on grammatical and lexical indicators of L2 development. �these multiple strands of analysis, it was possible to develop a ‘pupil profile’ for each of the 18 participants, indicating features of each child’s English L2 development over the study period. These ‘pupil profiles’ could then be cumulatively analysed to obtain overall results. 4.2 Development of L2 oral skills Cumulative analysis of the 18 profiles showed that, over the two-year period of English language support, progression in the EAL pupils’ L2 oral proficiency reflected the trajectory described by the Benchmarks (see Ćatibušić 2013, Ćatibušić and Little 2014). At the beginning of pupils’ English language support allocation, all or most of their turns linked to level A1 Benchmarks descriptors. The proportion of A2-linked turns in pupils’ L2 oral production increased during their first year of English language support. B1-linked turns emerged during the pupils’ second year of support and these began to dominate towards the end of this two-year period.As pointed out above, most of the turns produced by pupils in activities which focused on L2 oral skills could be linked to Benchmarks descriptors; i.e. descriptors for spoken interaction and spoken production. Links to descriptors for listening were likewise evident in the listening-focused activities which featured in the recorded lessons. Overall results were also obtained for indicators of English L2 grammatical and lexical development which emerged in the 18 EAL pupils’ recorded L2 use. Regarding the morphological indicators analysed, it was found that as the pupils’ English L2 proficiency progressed from level A1 to B1 their use of nouns, verbs, personal pronouns, articles, prepositions and auxiliaries increased. The accuracy of their production of these indicators also rose, albeit with considerable fluctuation. L2 syntactic development was similarly evident across proficiency levels A1 to B1. While pupils’ L2 production at level A1 was predominantly of noun-based structures, it became syntactically more complex as their turns began to be associated with levels A2 and B1. The range and accuracy of the negative structures and question forms they produced also increased, as did their ability to link clauses. Pupils’ L2 lexical range also expanded with proficiency. As they progressed beyond A1 proficiency their semantic range became broader and deeper. Production of verb lexemes grew from a minimal base when the pupils’ turns linked to A1 descriptors to the use of a wide variety of more complex verbs at level B1. Likewise, lexical diversification of nouns and �adjectives was apparent and the range of lexico-grammatical indicators (e.g. adverbs) produced by the children increased substantially across levels A1 to B17. 4.3 Development of L2 literacy skills Pupils’ writing and recorded literacy-related activities also linked to Benchmarks descriptors for reading and writing, thus indicating that these descriptors appropriately describe L2 literacy development8. It emerged that younger EAL pupils were capable of engaging with emergent literacy activities typical of the first two years of mainstream primary education in Ireland. However, older pupils faced the challenge of having to meet a rapidly ‘moving target’ (Cummins, 2012, p.67) to keep up with literacy demands of the primary school curriculum beyond the early years. 4.4 Possible influences on L2 acquisition Regarding individual influences on the pupils’ L2 acquisition it appeared that the older children in this study (those aged between seven and ten years) progressed slightly faster in their English L2 proficiency development than the younger children (those under seven years). However, as mentioned above, meeting age-appropriate curriculum requirements proved more challenging for older EAL pupils than for those who were younger. Cross-linguistic influence was apparent, particularly in relation to phonology and some aspects of grammatical development (Ćatibušić and Little, 2014, p.198). It also emerged that children with literacy skills in their home language made more progress in their development of L2 literacy than those who did not. This supports international research which stresses the value of biliteracy (see Cummins 2000, 2012). Personality factors and learning style were observed to be further potential influences on pupils’ L2 development. Some children who seemed more extraverted were good communicators but their L2 oral proficiency sometimes masked challenges they still faced, especially in relation to literacy. Two of the younger participantsin this study appeared to be going through a ‘silent period’ of largely receptive L2 acquisition. The analysis of classroom interaction revealed that responsive forms of discourse, typically ‘known-answer’ questions asked by the teacher, tended to dominate. However, when pupils 7 8 For a detailed analysis of pupils’ L2 grammatical and lexical development, see Ćatibušić and Little (2014). Pupils’ L2 literacy development is discussed in depth by Ćatibušić and Little (2014). �engaged in more ‘active’ forms of discourse – such as taking initiatives in classroom talk or elaborating on topics of interest – their L2 oral use was often associated with the highest L2 proficiency level they had thus far attained. This suggests that pedagogical practice which encourages more active classroom discourse could be beneficial regarding L2 acquisition (cf. Swain 2000). Increased peer discourse rather than pupil-teacher interaction, which was predominant in the recorded lessons, could facilitate this kind of classroom talk by offering children a wider range of discourse roles. 5. Conclusion The results of this research demonstrate that child second language acquisition is a complex phenomenon which is subject to considerable individual variation. This study also shows that context-sensitive adaptations of the CEFR can appropriately map young learners’ L2 development.These findings have implications for pedagogical practice. They also indicate that the Benchmarks ’positively focused ‘can do’ approach to language learning, teaching and assessmentcould be relevant beyond the Irish context. Internationally, it could be applied to immigrant children learning any language of schoolingor to children learning modern languagesin the primary school. This could have many benefits for young learners. For example, assessment tools such as versions of the ELPcould be used to support more effective and autonomous language learning. Finally, the plurilingual and intercultural approach underpinning the Benchmarks is one that, as outlined above, recognises the linguistic and cultural identity of each child. This allows the language learning experience to become an affirmation of children’s unique identities and an opportunity for intercultural sharing from an early age. Encouraging plurilingualism in this way can thus be an important aspect of developing democratic citizenship, as advocated by the Council of Europe (2001, p.4). Training with regard to such approaches, through initial teacher education and continuing professional development, is therefore essential. References Ćatibušić, B. (2013).Investigating the development of immigrant pupils’ English L2 oral skills in Irish primary schools, in Little, D., Leung, C. and Van Avermaet, P. (Eds), Managing Diversity in Education: Languages, Policies, Pedagogies (pp.111-131). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. �Ćatibušić, B. and Little, D. (2014).Immigrant Pupils Learn English: A CEFR-related empirical study of L2 development. (English Profile Studies 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Central Statistics Office. (2012). Profile 6: Migration and Diversity. Stationery Office: Dublin. Central Statistics Office. (2014, 21 January). Measuring Ireland’s Progress 2012.Retrieved June 5, 2014 from: http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p- mip/measuringirelandsprogress2012/society/society-population/#.VXGqMc-6fiq Council of Europe. (2001).The Common European Framework of References for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cummins, J. (2000). Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2012) Nurturing identities of competence among EAL learners.In ELSTA (Ed) English Language Support Teachers’ Association: Five Year Anniversary Journal(pp.59-76). ELSTA: Dublin. Department of Education and Skills. (2011).Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and life: The National Strategy to Improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People 2011-2020. Dublin: DES. Department of Education and Skills.(2014).Framework for Consultation on a Foreign Languages in Education Strategy for Ireland. Dublin: DES. Department of Education and Skills/Office of the Minister for Integration. (2010). Intercultural Education Strategy 2010–2015. Dublin: DES/OMI. Integrate Ireland Language and Training. (2003).English Language Proficiency Benchmarks for non-English-speaking pupils at primary level. Dublin: IILT. Integrate Ireland Language and Training. (2004).European Language Portfolio, Primary: Learning the language of the host community. Dublin: IILT. �Integrate Ireland Language and Training and Southern Education and Library Board. (2007).Together Towards Inclusion: Toolkit for diversity in the primary school. Dublin/Armagh: IILT/SELB. Kirwan, D. (2013). From English language support to plurilingual awareness, in Little, D., Leung, C. and Van Avermaet, P. (Eds), Managing Diversity in Education: Languages, Policies, Pedagogies (pp.191–205). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Little, D. (2010).Concept Paper: The linguistic and educational integration of children and adolescents from migrant backgrounds. Council of Europe: Strasbourg. Little, D., Lazenby Simpson, B. and Finnegan-Ćatibušić, B. (2007).Primary School Assessment Kit. Dublin: Department of Education and Science. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.(1999).Primary SchoolCurriculum. Dublin: NCCA. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.(2005). Intercultural Education in the Primary School.Dublin: NCCA. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.(2006). Intercultural Education in the PostPrimary School. Dublin: NCCA. Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue, in Lantolf, J. P. (Ed), Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning (pp. 97-114). Oxford: Oxford University Press. UNHCR Ireland. (2004, 30 June). UNHCR urges Ireland to resettle more refugees 25 years after first Vietnamese arrive. UNHCR Ireland. Retrieved June 5, 2015 from http://www.unhcr.ie/news/irish-story/unhcr-urges-ireland-to-resettle-more-refugees-25-yearsafter-first-vietname � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2906 Title A name given to the resource THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH L2 BY IMMIGRANT CHILDREN: EAL AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION IN MULTILINGUAL IRELAND Author Author Ćatibušić, Bronagh Abstract A summary of the resource. Since the 1990s, Ireland has experienced considerable immigration. Currently, 12% of its schoolchildren come from immigrant backgrounds. The majority of these children learn English as a second (additional) language (ESL/EAL). The Irish Department of Education and Skills (DES) provides a programme of English language support for young ESL learners. To guide this programme, English Language Proficiency Benchmarks were developed by Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT), a campus company of Trinity College, Dublin. IILT produced two sets of context-appropriate ‘Benchmarks’, for primary and secondary education, derived from the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This paper focuses on English L2 acquisition in Irish primary schools. It reports on how the primary level Benchmarks describe L2 proficiency development across CEFR levels A1, A2 and B1 in a manner sensitive to age/cognitive stage and curriculum requirements. It discusses assessment resources based on these Benchmarks – a version of the European Language Portfolio (IILT 2004) and the Primary School Assessment Kit (DES 2007). These tools enable assessment of and assessment for learning and promote learner autonomy. Research conducted by the author of this paper (published in 2014) into the relation between learning outcomes expressed in the Benchmarks and immigrant children’s English L2 acquisition is presented. It reports on mixed-methods analysis of data from a longitudinal study of L2 acquisition involving 18 children, aged four to ten years, from ten language backgrounds (including Croatian and Serbian). The children’s acquisition of English oral and literacy skills indicate that the Benchmarks appropriately describe L2 proficiency development. Individual and interactional influences on L2 acquisition and their pedagogical implications are discussed. The paper considers how CEFR-related approaches can support language learning, teaching and assessment in an intercultural educational environment. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed L Education (General),PE English https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/754850f391a49ba825e0b97ae2596da5.pdf ca61fb706f4fff46405e2494f59a47cb PDF Text Text THE ATTRITION OF PORTUGUESE AS A THIRD OR ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE OVER THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS Teresa Maria Wlosowicz Casimir the Great University, Poland Article History: Submitted: 13.06.2015 Accepted: 30.06.2015 Abstract: The present study aims to investigate the attrition of Portuguese as a third or additional language (L3, L4, etc., cf. de Angelis, 2007) over the summer holidays. The research questions concern the correctness of the participants’ responses, the language areas in which attrition is observed, the ways in which it manifests itself and the students’ perception of their own attrition. Since multilingual systems are dynamic and the languages are in constant interaction, when a language is not used, attrition sets in (Herdina & Jessner, 2002). However, some elements of linguistic knowledge are more prone to attrition than others (SharwoodSmith, 1989). The study was carried out with 42 Polish (L1) learners of Portuguese, 30 of whom were second-year students of Portuguese philology, and 12 were students of other Romance philologies who followed a Portuguese language course. After the summer holidays, they completed a vocabulary and grammar test and participated in oral interviews, followed by a questionnaire. In general, they produced more incorrect and partly correct (e.g. the right verb in the wrong form) than correct responses. Attrition could be observed in various language areas, from speaking fluency to grammar and vocabulary, though the subjunctive, which they had only started to study before the holidays, caused them the most difficulty. The attrition of Portuguese manifested itself in various forms, from avoidance and the inability to retrieve certain items, through the confusion of Portuguese forms, to interference from other languages. As the questionnaire indicates, the students were aware of the areas in which attrition occurred. It can be concluded that attrition is connected mainly with a decrease in the activation of a language. Given the interference from other Romance languages, it can be supposed that, as the activation of Portuguese items is lower, Spanish, French and Italian items compete for selection. �Key words: multilingualism, language attrition, interference, Portuguese. �1. Introduction The purpose of the study has been an investigation of the attrition of Portuguese as a third or additional language (term introduced by de Angelis, 2007, to include L3, L4, L5, etc.) over the summer holidays. The study investigated attrition observable in both oral and written production. On the one hand, fluency in oral communication deteriorates fastest (BardoviHarlig & Stringer, 2010, p. 32), but on the other hand, it may be reflected mainly in an increased number of hesitations and attempts to retrieve forgotten words, while errors in writing may constitute more substantial evidence of language attrition. On the basis of the results, it is attempted to draw some conclusions concerning language attrition in multilingual systems. 2. The phenomenon of language attrition In general, “language attrition may refer to loss of language as a result of contact with majority languages, loss of language by communities, or loss of language by individuals in both pathological and non-pathological settings” (Bardovi-Harlig & Stringer, 2010, p. 2). However, Köpke and Schmid (2004, p. 5, as cited in Herdina & Jessner, 2013, p. 753) propose a narrower definition, according to which language attrition is “the non-pathological decrease in a language that had previously been acquired by an individual” and is therefore distinct from such phenomena as language loss in aphasia. It often occurs in situations of language contact, for example, in the case of L1 attrition in immigrants living in a foreign country (Cherciov, 2013; Sharwood-Smith, 1989), but there can also be attrition of a foreign language learnt at school and not used any more, that is why in multilingual repertoires the chronological order of language acquisition does not necessarily correspond to language dominance, which is determined by the proficiency levels and the frequency of use of the particular languages (Herdina & Jessner, 2013, p. 754). According to Herdina and Jessner (2002), multilingual systems are dynamic and competence in each of them changes with time, due to constant cross-linguistic interaction (an umbrella term covering transfer, interference, borrowing, code-switching, etc., Herdina & Jessner, 2002, p. 29). Consequently, if a language is not used for some time, attrition sets in. Therefore, language learning does not take place “once and for all”, but, in order to prevent attrition, language users have to make an effort to maintain the competence they have acquired. Even though the patterns of language attrition can offer interesting “insights into the structure of the linguistic system” (Fase, Jaspaert & Kroon, 1992, p. 9, as cited in Herdina & �Jessner, 2002, p. 94), this phenomenon remains insufficiently researched for the following reasons: First, “language attrition is a gradual and much less spectacular phenomenon than abrupt complete language loss” (Herdina & Jessner, 2002, p. 96). Second, if language attrition becomes noticeable, speakers try to counteract it by using compensatory strategies. Third, “at least at an early stage, it expresses itself in the form of an increased scatter of performance” (Herdina & Jessner, 2002, p. 96). Indeed, errors in performance do not have to reflect a corresponding loss of competence. As Sharwood-Smith (1989, p. 190) remarks in reference to L1 attrition, “subjects in a loss situation can demonstrate their possession of native competence by various means, including self-correction and also the selection and rejection of test items exemplifying standard and deviant forms respectively.” To explain the order of language attrition, several hypotheses have been proposed, two of which are discussed by Riemer (2005, p. 217-218): “last learned - first forgotten”, with emphasis on the temporal sequence, and “best learned – last forgotten”, with emphasis on the depth of cognitive processing (Schöpper-Grabe, 1998, as cited in Riemer, 2005, p. 218). However, language attrition does not involve only the loss of language skills, because the incubation period, when the language is no longer studied actively, also involves language retention, or “the maintenance or improvement of proficiency in a language following its initial acquisition” (Gardner, 1982, p. 24, as cited in Riemer, 2005, p. 218) and even some residual learning, or a kind of cognitive maturation which can lead to an increase in competence (Riemer, 2005, p. 217-219). Moreover, if a critical threshold, or a level of competence which protects information from being forgotten, is reached (Neisser, 1984, as cited in Riemer, 2005, p. 218), a certain amount of knowledge remains permanently in the learner’s mind. Furthermore, some features of language are more prone to attrition than others. Preston (1982, as cited in Sharwood-Smith, 1989, p. 191) enumerates several sites of “high attrition likelihood”, such as marked items, low-frequency items, items learnt last, irregularities, etc. Moreover, the availability of a language for production and/or comprehension largely depends on its activation level, which is connected with the frequency and recency of its use. According to Green’s Inhibitory Control model (Green, 1986, p. 215), “a language can be selected (and hence controlling speech output), active (i.e., playing a role in ongoing processing), and dormant (i.e., residing in long-term memory but exerting no effects on ongoing processing)”. If a language is not used, its activation falls (Green, 1986, p. 215). Thus �a language that has undergone some attrition due to non-use can also be assumed to be partly deactivated. In order to speak a particular language, one has to suppress the other language(s), which requires inhibitory resources (Green, 1986, p. 217-218). As a means of ensuring that the speech plan is produced only in the selected language, Green (1998, p. 101) postulates the existence of language tags. In the Inhibitory Control model, the main role of language tags is that played in lemma selection (Green, 1998, p. 101). Finally, apart from linguistic factors, an important role is played by social and affective factors, such as language attitudes and motivation (e.g. Riemer, 2005). However, as Cherciov (2013) has shown, the relationship between attitudes and language proficiency is ‘neither clear-cut nor linear across all bilinguals’ (Cherciov, 2013: 730). A positive attitude does not constitute a guarantee of avoiding language attrition, but, as Cherciov (2013: 730) concludes, it can counterbalance attrition if it is “conducive to an active effort to maintain the L1.” 3. The study 3.1. Participants The study was carried out with 42 Polish (L1) learners of Portuguese, including 30 second-year students of Portuguese philology (22 from Maria Sklodowska-Curie University in Lublin and 8 from Jagiellonian University in Cracow) and 12 students of other Romance philologies (Spanish, French or Italian), who studied Portuguese as an additional foreign language at Jagiellonian University. They had a variety of language combinations, that is why Portuguese was not necessarily their L3, but rather a third or additional language (L4, L5, etc.). Apart from Polish and Portuguese, the participants’ language combinations included English (41 participants), Spanish (33), German (17), French (11), Italian (11), Russian (6), Romanian (5), Latin (3), Swedish (1) and Chinese (1). 3.2. Method The study consisted of a written grammar and vocabulary test, followed by oral interviews with the students, carried out by the researcher, and, finally, a questionnaire concerning the students’ language combinations and experience, and the study they had just participated in, paying special attention to the areas of attrition observed by the participants in their own performance. �The test consisted of three parts: cued translation (e.g. Se ________ esse livro, ____________ amanhã), gap-filling and a multiple-choice test. It involved items and structures which were either marked and specific to Portuguese (for example, the first conditional with the future subjunctive instead of the present indicative, e.g. Se encontrar esse livro,…, not: Se encontro esse livro), marked but common to Portuguese and Spanish (for example, certain uses of the subjunctive), or items slightly different in Portuguese in Spanish, which could lead to interference (for example, Vais tomar duche agora? vs. ¿Vas a ducharte ahora?). However, the items were typical and fairly simple, because they could not be completely new to the participants, but rather, the participants were expected to have already encountered and possibly forgotten them. Similarly, the topics of the oral interviews, which were randomly drawn out by the participants, were quite simple in terms of the background knowledge they required (hobbies, favourite animals, favourite books, travelling, etc.). The research questions were as follows: 1) How correct are the participants’ responses? 2) What areas of linguistic competence can attrition be observed in? 3) How does the attrition of Portuguese manifest itself? 4) How do the students themselves perceive their attrition? 3.3. Results and discussion In general, the participants produced a large number of errors, as well as partly correct responses (e.g. the right verb in the wrong form). The “partly correct” category was introduced to take into account responses which indicated that the students had retained some of the necessary knowledge, and only some of it had been affected by attrition. In the cued translation test, as Table 1 shows, most of the answers were partly correct, followed by incorrect and correct ones and, finally, avoidance. Table 1: The contingency table comparing the groups’ performance on the cued translation task Lublin Cracow Other Cracow Port. Correct 30 16 29 75 Partly correct 89 58 41 188 Incorrect 51 32 7 90 �Avoidance 50 14 3 67 220 120 80 420 df = 6 The difference between the groups, calculated by means of a chi-square test, is statistically significant at p< 0.001. By contrast, in the gap-filling task, most of the answers were correct (in most cases, more than one answer was possible), followed by incorrect answers, avoidance and partly correct answers. Table 2: The contingency table comparing the groups’ performance on the gap-filling task Lublin Cracow Other Cracow Port. Correct 90 45 48 183 Partly corr. 23 16 9 48 Incorrect 55 48 17 120 Avoidance 52 11 6 69 220 120 80 420 df =6 The difference between the groups, calculated by means of a chi-square test, is statistically significant at p< 0.001. In the multiple-choice test, most of the answers were correct, followed by incorrect ones and avoidance. Table 3: The contingency table comparing the groups’ performance on the multiple-choice test Lublin Cracow Other Cracow Port. Correct 197 77 70 344 Incorrect 19 41 10 70 Avoidance 4 2 0 6 220 120 80 420 df =4 The difference between the groups, calculated by means of a chi-square test, is statistically significant at p< 0.001. �The comparisons of all three groups indicate that there were indeed significant differences, and that the students of Portuguese as an additional language, not of Portuguese philology, performed significantly worse. On the one hand, they spent less time studying Portuguese, as their main foreign languages were Spanish, French or Italian, and on the other hand, the higher level of activation of the dominant foreign language probably led to more interference. Moreover, the correctness of the students’ answers also depended on the task. Table 4: The contingency table comparing the groups’ performance on all three tasks Translation Gap-filling MCT Correct 75 183 344 602 Partly corr. 188 48 0 236 Incorrect 90 120 70 280 Avoidance 67 69 6 142 420 420 420 1260 df =6 The difference between the tests, calculated by means of a chi-square test, is statistically significant at p< 0.001. All three groups performed significantly best on the multiple-choice test, which proves that recognition is easier than production. As the items were presented to the students, access to their meanings was easier than retrieving them from memory. Moreover, they performed significantly better on the gap-filling task, which was mainly lexical (though some items were located between grammar and vocabulary, such as inserting the right preposition) than on the translation task, which was predominantly grammatical (even if, for example, a verb had to be retrieved from the mental lexicon, it had to be given in the right form, for example, the subjunctive). On the one hand, it is possible that grammar is more prone to attrition than vocabulary, but this would require further research. On the other hand, it is possible that grammar requires greater precision and if a structure requires, for example, the subjunctive, an indicative form is incorrect, whereas in the case of vocabulary, a gap can allow several synonyms, their hyperonym, etc., as long as they fit in the context. Qualitatively, the errors can be said to have been the result of interference from several languages, especially Spanish, but also French and Italian, and, possibly, also a combination of languages, including Polish. However, as the present author remarked elsewhere (Wlosowicz, 2012), in the case of a foreign language distant from the native one, L1 influence �can be subtle, such as the preference of certain structures over others. Some examples of errors in the cued translation task are presented below. Table 5: Examples of errors in the cued translation task Student’s version Target version Problems detected Se a Sílvia não tivesse Se a Sílvia não rejeitou, The past tense (Pretérito recusado, trabalharia agora _____ agora numa empresa Perfeito) instead of the past numa empresa multinacional. multinacional. subjunctive: possible transfer from Polish; inability to retrieve the conditional form (trabalharia). Se encontrar esse livro, Se encontro esse livro, o lhe Interference from Spanish (Si emprestar-lho-ei amanhã. prestarei amanhã. encuentro ese libro, se le prestaré mañana); possibly also from English (If I find this book…). Enquanto o sol se punha, Mentre o sol tramontava, Interference estavam sentados terraça junto à praia. from Italian numa sentiam-se numa terraça à (mentre – while, tramontare praia. – to set); the confusion of two Portuguese verbs: sentarse (to sit down) and sentir-se (to feel). Não te preocupes! Não te preocupa! Retrieval of the wrong rule in Portuguese: imperative the negative takes the subjunctive form (‘não te preocupes’ instead of ‘não te preocupas’); instead of the subjunctive, the student used the indicative form of the third person singular. As for transfer from Polish, it was possibly due to the fact that it was the source language of the cued translations. While Portuguese was partly deactivated, the students’ native language remained constantly active, which may have made them fall back on L1 routines (cf. Sharwood-Smith, 1986). �In the gap-filling task, the sentences which posed the participants particular difficulty were Sentence 4 (Se ________ quente no domingo, __________ um piquenique), Sentence 6 (Não gosto que vocês _______ palavrões na escola), Sentence 8 (________-me ver o novo filme sobre Robin dos Bosques) and Sentence 10 (Como te __________ o exame ontem?). Sentence 4 required both the idiomatic use of two verbs (Se estiver quente no domingo, faremos um piquenique – If it’s warm on Sunday, we’ll have a picnic) and the correct forms (the future subjunctive and the future tense, which is irregular in the case of the verb ‘fazer’. Errors included, for example: “Se está (present indicative) quente no domingo, faziamos (past tense, also used as the second conditional) um piquenique.” Sentence 6 required the subjunctive: Não gosto que vocês usem (or: digam) palavrões na escola (I disapprove of your using (or: saying) swear words at school). As the participants had only started the subjunctive before the holidays, it posed them problems, just like the translation items which required the subjunctive. Sentence 8 was idiomatic (Apetece-me ver o novo filme sobre Robin dos Bosques – I feel like seeing the new film about Robin Hood), which proved quite difficult to retrieve and resulted in such errors and non-target responses as: Queria-me ver o novo filme sobre Robin dos Bosques (I would like me to see the new film…) or Deixa-me ver o novo filme sobre Robin dos Bosques (Let me see the new film… - actually, the latter version was accepted, as it was possible in the context). Finally, Sentence 10 was also idiomatic (Como te correu o exame ontem? – How did you do at the exam yesterday?). However, the participants tended to write: Como te passou o exame ontem?, which was most probably an interference from Spanish (¿Cómo te pasó el examen ayer?) The multiple-choice test was not very difficult, but Sentences 2 and 7 proved to be quite problematic. In Sentence 2 there were actually two possible options: Quando encontrei a Ana, usava/ vestia sandálias brancas (When I met Ann, she was wearing white sandals). However, the choice of the option “portava” reflected interference from French (“porter”) or from Italian (“portare”), while “trazia” (she was carrying) may have been an overgeneralization based on Polish, which does not differentiate between wearing and carrying (the verb “nosić” has both meanings). By contrast, Sentence 7 (No verão muita gente gosta de apanhar cogumelos – In summer many people like picking mushrooms) required the collocation “apanhar cogumelos”. However, especially the students of other philologies with Portuguese as an additional language (9 out of 12 chose non-target responses) tended to choose the other options, namely: �“coleccionar”(to collect – theoretically possible, but not idiomatic), “picar” (possibly under the influence of English) and “pegar” (to catch/grab – a loose synonym, but incorrect in the context). On the other hand, the oral interviews mostly revealed attrition in the form of a loss of fluency, which was also noticed by the students themselves (see below), however, some interference from other languages was also observed. The signs + and _ _ in the examples indicate the lengths of the pauses: + - a short pause, and _ _ - a medium pause. Example 1: eh sou + uma estudante de: + eh + leitetura eh + e língua + ehm + italiana (er I’m + a student of: + er + literature er + and language + erm + Italian) The example reflects interference from Italian: 1) an interlingual blend (cf. Dewaele, 1998): “leiteratura” instead of “literature”, cf. “letteratura”; 2) sou uma estudante: in Portuguese, professions with the verb “to be” do not require an article, e.g. sou estudante (I am a student; cf. sono una studentessa). Example 2: estudo anche inglês + com- + como: + os todos (I also study English + li- + like + everyone) “Anche” (also) is a switch into Italian; possibly the unfinished word (com-) was also an interference which the participant managed to control (“come” in Italian, instead of “como” (as) in Portuguese). Example 3: queria especialmente visitar eh + eh Lisboa + claro + eh: + e + otras + cidades + mais grandes acho + como Porto + ou Faro (I would especially like to visir er + Lisbon + obviously + er + and + other + cities + bigger I think + like Porto + or Faro) Interference from Spanish includes “otras” instead of “outras” (other) and “mais grandes” instead of “maiores” (cf. más grandes); the omission the article (“o Porto” takes the definite article, unlike other cities) may be either an overgeneralization, or interference from Polish, which has no articles. �Example 4: agora + gosto d’ameliorai + ameliorar a minha + eh conhecidade deste + hm + desta língua (now + I like to improve + improve my + er knowledge of this + hm + this language) “Conhecidade” instead of “conhecimento” (knowledge) is a spontaneous creation in Portuguese, but, possibly, Polish interfered with the speech plan, as in Polish “knowledge” (“wiedza”) is feminine (masculine in Portuguese), while “a language” (“język”) is masculine, that is why the student first wanted to say “deste língua”, but immediately corrected it to “desta língua”. Example 5: penso em + traduzir + eh + documentos + leies (I’m thinking of + translating + er + documents + laws) Interference from Spanish resulted in the form “leies” instead of ‘leis’, cf. “leyes”. Finally, as for the students’ own perception of the attrition of Portuguese, they mentioned a variety of problems in the questionnaires: They noticed attrition in the following areas: grammar (33 participants), fluency in oral production (31), vocabulary (30), writing skills (11), auditory comprehension (9), and one person wrote: “all of these, to different degrees” (translation mine). Only two did not report any decrease in language skills. Some of them mentioned particular structures, such as conjuntivo (the subjunctive), past tense forms, conditionals, some vocabulary items, some forms of the imperfect, or grammar in general. One person wrote: “all that I haven’t written, I forgot it over the summer holidays” (translation mine). 4. Conclusions: To answer the research questions, first, apart from the multiple-choice test, which required recognition rather than retrieval from memory, there were more incorrect and partly correct answers and avoidance, than correct ones. Quite a lot of interference was observed, from other Romance languages, especially from Spanish, but also French and Italian, as well as from Polish and possibly from English (the errors in the conditionals, such as “se encontro esse livro” may have been due to interference from Spanish or to combined interference from Spanish and English). It is possible that English, as the foreign language they have studied and/or used the longest, plays a special role in the participants’ language repertoires. Even though it cannot serve as a source of lexical transfer, it may be a point of reference at the �grammatical level, and transfer from Spanish which is also confirmed by the existence of a similar structure in English may seem to the learner more likely to be correct. However, Polish, as the native language, also remains active and is difficult to inhibit, that is why the participants sometimes fell back on L1 routines, probably without even realising it. Second, attrition can be observed in all areas, including fluency, pronunciation (some Portuguese words, e.g. “especialmente”, were pronounced the Spanish way), grammar, vocabulary and, as the students indicated, also writing skills and listening comprehension. However, it can be assumed that this attrition is only temporary, that is, it is reflected in performance, which is more prone to interference, but the underlying competence may not have been affected. In fact, some of the students who did not remember how to form the subjunctive at least wrote the word “conjuntivo” next to the sentences which required it, so they remembered the rule, but not the verb forms. As they had only just started studying the subjunctive before the holidays, the difficulty in using it suggests that the “last learned – first forgotten” hypothesis may be true in this case. Third, the attrition of Portuguese manifests itself, on the one hand, in the decreased availability of words and structures, which is visible not only in the hesitations in speech, but also in the gaps left in the test. On the other hand, the amount of interference from other languages suggests that, while interference leads to attrition, a language which has not been used for some time and has been partly deactivated may be even more prone to interference from languages which remain more active. Finally, as mentioned above, the students are aware of the attrition process and of the areas it occurs in. The only dubious cases are the two participants who did not indicate any decrease in language skills. The lack of attrition is quite unlikely; rather, it is possible that either they did not monitor their production well enough, or they lacked metalinguistic awareness. In fact, one person had visited Portugal during the summer holidays and worked there as a volunteer on an ecological farm, but she indicated some problems with vocabulary and writing and, rather surprisingly, speaking fluency. It is possible that while working on the farm, unlike at university, she had little opportunity to speak about different topics. In conclusion, one should agree with Herdina and Jessner (2002: 96) that attrition is reflected mainly in a scatter of performance and that, over such a short period as the summer holidays, it is performance rather than competence that undergoes attrition. In fact, in multilingual systems, attrition can be accelerated by constant cross-linguistic interaction. Given the interference from Spanish and other Romance languages (Italian and French), it can �be supposed that, as two similar languages are coactivated to a comparable degree, they influence and restructure each other more than less similar languages would. In fact, the whole phenomenon of attrition can be attributed to a decrease in language activation. As the activation of Portuguese items is lower, Spanish (and other) items compete for selection (cf. Green, 1993) and can be overlooked by control mechanisms, which leads to increased interference. It is also possible that not only does attrition increase the activation thresholds of languages, but it also weakens the control mechanisms which keep them apart; to use Green’s (1986) terms, attrition depletes the resources necessary for the inhibition of the non-target language. Another possibility is that the tags which indicate which language each item belongs to are also partly deactivated and thus less available, that is why an item from a non-target language may slip in. References Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Stringer, D. (2010). Variables in Second Language Attrition. Advancing the State of the Art. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, 1-45. Cherciov, M. (2013). Investigating the impact of attitude on first language attrition and second language acquisition from a Dynamic Systems Theory perspective. International Journal of Bilingualism, 17(6), 716-733. De Angelis, G. (2007). Third or Additional Language Acquistion. Clevedon/Buffalo/Toronto: Multilingual Matters. Dewaele, J.M. (1998). Lexical inventions: French interlanguage as L2 versus L3. Applied Linguistics, 19, 471-490. Green, D.W. (1986). Control, Activation and Resource. Brain and Language, 27, 210-223. Green, D.W. (1993). Towards a Model of L2 Comprehension and Production. In Schreuder, R. & Weltens, B. (Eds.), The Bilingual Lexicon (pp. 249 – 277). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Green, D.W. (1998). Schemas, tags and inhibition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 100-104. Herdina, P. & Jessner, U. (2002). A Dynamic Model of Multilingualism. Perspectives of Change in Psycholinguistics. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Herdina, P. & Jessner, U. (2013) The implications of language attrition for dynamic systems theory: Next steps and consequences. International Journal of Bilingualism, 17(6), 752-756. �Riemer, C. (2005). Erwerb und Verlust von Fremdsprachen. Pilotstudien zum Verlust der L2 Französisch. Zeitschrift für Fremdsprachenforschung, 16 (2), 217-233. Sharwood-Smith, M. (1986). The Competence/Control Model, Crosslinguistic Influence and the Creation of New Grammars. In Kellerman, E. & Sharwood-Smith, M. (Eds.), Crosslinguistic Influence in Second Language Acquisition. (pp. 10-21). New York/Oxford/Toronto/Sydney/Frankfurt: Pergamon Press. Sharwood-Smith, M.A. (1989). Crosslinguitic influence in language loss. In Hyltenstam, K. & Obler, L.K. (Eds.) Bilingualism across the lifespan: Aspects of acquisition, maturity and loss. (pp. 185-201). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wlosowicz, T.M. (2012). Cross-Linguistic Interaction at the Grammatical Level in L3 Comprehension and Production. In Gabryś-Barker, D. (Ed.), Cross-Linguistic Influences in Multilingual Language Acquisition (pp. 131-150). Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2921 Title A name given to the resource THE ATTRITION OF PORTUGUESE AS A THIRD OR ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE OVER THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS Author Author Wlosowicz, Teresa Maria Abstract A summary of the resource. The present study aims to investigate the attrition of Portuguese as a third or additional language (L3, L4, etc., cf. de Angelis, 2007) over the summer holidays. The research questions concern the correctness of the participants’ responses, the language areas in which attrition is observed, the ways in which it manifests itself and the students’ perception of their own attrition. Since multilingual systems are dynamic and the languages are in constant interaction, when a language is not used, attrition sets in (Herdina & Jessner, 2002). However, some elements of linguistic knowledge are more prone to attrition than others (Sharwood-Smith, 1989). The study was carried out with 42 Polish (L1) learners of Portuguese, 30 of whom were second-year students of Portuguese philology, and 12 were students of other Romance philologies who followed a Portuguese language course. After the summer holidays, they completed a vocabulary and grammar test and participated in oral interviews, followed by a questionnaire. In general, they produced more incorrect and partly correct (e.g. the right verb in the wrong form) than correct responses. Attrition could be observed in various language areas, from speaking fluency to grammar and vocabulary, though the subjunctive, which they had only started to study before the holidays, caused them the most difficulty. The attrition of Portuguese manifested itself in various forms, from avoidance and the inability to retrieve certain items, through the confusion of Portuguese forms, to interference from other languages. As the questionnaire indicates, the students were aware of the areas in which attrition occurred. It can be concluded that attrition is connected mainly with a decrease in the activation of a language. Given the interference from other Romance languages, it can be supposed that, as the activation of Portuguese items is lower, Spanish, French and Italian items compete for selection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/c4d94582539eab0d5c0510cf57b29a57.pdf 094dd99a868fcf50387ac473a255d8e3 PDF Text Text THE EFFECTS OF INTEGRATED FFI AND ISOLATED FFI ON THE ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PAST TENSE Danae Tsapikidou University of Cambridge, Greece Article History: Submitted: 10.06.2015 Accepted: 25.06.2015 Abstract This paper presents the results of a classroom-based study which I conducted for my PhD thesis. It is an experimental study on the comparative benefits of Isolated and Integrated FFI in primary EFL education. Greek 5th year primary learners aged 10-11 were exposed to Integrated FFI (n= 75) on the English Past Tense and their learning gains were compared to the gains of their peers who were exposed to Isolated FFI (n = 73), as these were first defined by Spada and Lightbown (2008). Integrated FFI was operationalised as the provision of comprehension and production structure-based communicative tasks; that is, tasks that were especially crafted to provide meaningful contexts for the practice of the English Past tense and its progressive aspect. In completing those tasks, learners focused on comprehension and the expression of meaning while they produced the target structures and received corrective feedback on their errors. Isolated FFI was operationalised as the explicit presentation and metalinguistic explanations of the rules that govern the formation and use of the same target structures, coupled with grammatical consciousness-raising tasks, structural grammar exercises and controlled oral and written production activities. I taught the groups myself as a teacher researcher throughout the intervention, which lasted for 12 hours. The two groups were tested four times; each test was given after completing six hours of treatment and two months after the end of the intervention. The tests included grammaticality judgments, multiple-choice tests, tense formation tests, an open cloze, a question formation task, picture description, sentence matching and text completion tests. I will present the results of the statistical analyses from the comparisons of these groups. One suggestion is that, planned Integrated FFI targeting specific structures in context, if applied consistently for some time, produces �equivalent learning gains to Isolated FFI even for elementary-level EFL learners whose opportunities for productive use of the language are generally limited within the classroom context. Key words: grammar, TESOL, young learners. �1. Introduction There is now consensus in the field of foreign language teaching that instruction is most effective when it includes attention to both meaning and form and discussion has now moved to the question of when and how it is most effective (Spada and Lightbown, 2008, p.184). In relation to this particular issue of pedagogical timing of focus-on-form, two types of FFI, Isolated FFI and Integrated FFI have been proposed by Spada and Lightbown (2008, p.187). According to the authors, both types of instruction assume a primary focus on meaning with the inclusion of attention to form, but they differ in terms of when attention to form is provided. In Integrated FFI, the learner’s attention is always drawn to form within communicative practice and activities. In Isolated FFI, the learner’s attention is always drawn to form separately from communicative practice and activities. The study reported here is a quasiexperimental study of form-focused instruction (FFI) in English-as-a-foreign language teaching in the Hellenic state primary sector. Specifically, the study compares the learning gains of 5th year Primary EFL learners aged 10-11 who received Isolated FFI and Integrated FFI for the acquisition of the English Past tense and its continuous aspect. According to the authors, (Lightbown and Spada, 2008, p.182), Isolated FFI has been hypothesized to work better than Integrated FFI in EFL settings, where the foreign language is exclusively taught in classrooms with learners and teachers who share the same mother tongue and there are limited opportunities to use the language outside the classroom. In order to test this hypothesis, the main research question in this study was whether there are differences in the grammatical knowledge of 5th year learners who received Isolated FFI or Integrated FFI as evidenced by written measures of performance at any time during a 12-hour intervention. 2. Research Methodology 2.1. Sample The study was conducted in four intact 5th year EFL intact classes that were assigned into two treatment groups. The research design was quasi-experimental with two treatments and four written measures (2x4). The treatment groups were named Integrated FFI and Isolated FFI. �The learner sample consisted of 89 native Greek 5th year primary learners of EFL aged 10-11 years old, in two state schools in Thessaloniki, Greece. Group sizes were equal, Isolated FFI N =39, Integrated FFI N=39. However, the number of students included in the statistical analysis was N=781 . There was a filter in this test and tests that scored equal to or less than 5% of the total score were excluded from the analysis. That filter excluded only students who answered just 1 out of 35 items in each test, and practically handed in a blank test. 2.2 Tests I designed and administered four different tests of grammatical knowledge on the target tense form and use in pen-and-paper mode during the intervention. The Isolated FFI and Integrated FFI groups completed three distinct grammar tests – Test 2, Test 3 and Test 4. The tests had the same format; each consisted of 5 sub-tests which measured the same construct. The content of each test was different every time, as variation was necessary in order to eliminate the risk of practice effects. The test format included grammaticality judgments, selected response and limited production tasks that emerge from Purpura (2004) and Gass & Mackey’s (2007) typologies for data elicitation techniques in linguistics- and interaction-based research. I administered Test 1, the pre-test, two weeks before the experiment and Test 2, the mid-test, after 6 hours of experimental treatment; Test 3, the post-test, after 12 hours, the endpoint of instruction. Each test was administered systematically after 6 hours of instruction for each group. Test 4, the delayed post-test, was taken two months after the end of the experiment. The scoring system was simple; 1 point was allocated for each correct answer out of a total of 35 answers. No point was given for an incorrect or a missing answer. Also, there was no partial credit for interlanguage forms. Each test took the whole class hour - 45 min- to complete. The test task types in all four tests were the following. 1 The reason why the number of subjects was reduced in the repeated-measures GLM was because it is a condition for running repeated measures that all students should have taken all the tests. Therefore 11 students who either missed one of the four tests or scored lower than 5% were excluded from the repeated measures analysis. �Table 1: Test task types 1. Grammaticality Judgement Test (10 items) 2. Multiple –Choice (MC) test (5 items) 3. Tense Formation (TF) task (5 items) 4. Word Order (WO) test (5 items) 5. Open Cloze (OC) test (5 items) 6. Picture description (PD) test (5 items) 7. Match Halves (MH) test (5 items) 8. Verb Completion (VC) test (5 items) 9. Question Formation (QF) (5 items) 10. Dialogue Completion (DC) (5 items) Table 2: Methodological design of the study Treatment Test x Time 0 (h) 6 (h) 12 hours 2 months Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Integrated FFI Isolated FFI 2.3 Target structures The structures under investigation were the English Past Tense and its continuous aspect. These target structures are part of the prescribed syllabus for the 5th year Primary English subject. They are problematic for Greek learners of English because of cross-linguistic differences and because they are difficult to acquire without �explicit instruction. Furthermore, mastery of the Past Tense is vital for attaining accuracy in a number of more advanced and complex grammatical phenomena. In summary, the following structures were taught in this experiment. Table 3: Target structures 1. Copula be in past tense (was/were) 2. Regular verbs ending in -ed in past tense 3. Past simple questions with did + Subject-Verb inversion 4. Past simple negative sentences with didn’t 5. Irregular verbs 6. Past progressive Affirmative forms (was/were + ing) 7. Past Progressive question forms with Subject-Verb inversion 8. Past progressive negative sentences (wasn’t/weren’t + ing) 9. Wh- Questions in the Past Simple and Past Progressive 2.4 Prior Knowledge The learners had 2 ½ years of EFL instruction in primary school prior to the experiment. In addition, many learners in the study attended either a private language school or received private at-home English tuition. Therefore, their general English language learning experience was not the same and the four groups may be classified as mixed-ability classes. Data collection took place in two phases; from September-October 2009 to December 2009 -February 2010. At that time, I had expected that most learners would have no prior knowledge of the grammatical phenomena in focus. The past tense is commonly taught toward the end of the school year around April. However, I administered Test 1, the pre-test, two weeks before the experiment to control for the possibility of learner prior knowledge. Test 1 showed that all groups were initially comparable to each other in terms of grammatical knowledge of the target structures. Hence, random assignment to the conditions was adopted. Since that point, I taught each group for three periods of 45 minutes every week over the course of four weeks. 2.5 Description of treatments Following Spada & Lightbown’s definition of Isolated FFI (2008, p.187), instruction in this group was operationalised as explicit FFI and form-focused practice plus �separate communicative tasks without feedback on form. Instructional time was equally allocated for both phases of this treatment; this means that, from the 12 hours of instruction, 6 hours in total were allocated to explicit FFI and 6 hours for communicative tasks. In the first phase of this treatment, Isolated FFI was provided through presentation of rules regarding the forms and use of the Past tense paired with practice in the form of controlled production exercises, oral and written ones as well as and grammatical consciousness-raising tasks. When students completed their exercises in this first phase of Isolated FFI, I provided whole-class feedback. In the second phase of the Isolated FFI treatment, students were given meaning-based comprehension and production tasks to complete, for which the use of the target structures was essential, useful or natural (Loschky & Bley-Vroman, 1993). During this phase, I did not give any corrective feedback on form, but only addressed pupils’ questions related to meaning and task procedure. In contrast, Integrated FFI (Spada & Lightbown, 2008) was operationalized as FFI within meaning-based activities which elicited the use of the target structures. Throughout the duration of instruction in this treatment, learners received FFI as in brief explanations, corrective feedback, explicit elicitations of correct forms and input enhancement provided within the process of completing a meaning-based comprehension or production task. I used structure-based tasks, oral and written ones, which necessitated either comprehension or production of the target structures in order to complete the task successfully. This treatment also experienced FFI implicitly through task modeling, and task-planning in the course of communicative tasks; at no point during the 12 hour intervention were they given a formal presentation of the structures or any form-related exercises to do as in the previous treatment. The materials for both the Isolated FFI and the Integrated FFI groups followed the school course book with some supplementary material that I brought specifically for this study. Both treatments were taught Unit 7 titled Going back in time and Unit 8 titled All about stories of the prescribed state-published 5th year Primary English course book series ((Kolovou & Kraniotou, 2008). Here, a short description of representative task types is provided for illustration, due to space constraints. �In the Isolated FFI group, students listen to an interrogation scene between a policeman and a suspect concerning a bank robbery. Then, they read the audio transcript for this dialogue which comes with a worksheet. The text has gaps for the Past verbs but the verb infinitive form is given in brackets. They listen and write down the correct verb forms on the worksheet. Example: What time 1. __________ _______ _________ (leave) the restaurant? Jack: Well, I don’t remember exactly, but I think it 2._________ (be) at about 3.30. In the Integrated FFI group, students listen to the same input but they are not given the dialogue transcript. Instead, they do a True or False activity based on this input and then they reconstruct the dialogue and role-play the above scene as in the example: 1. Where were you during the afternoon of May a. I was out of the restaurant. 4th? A rich variety of related tasks and activities were implemented that could not be replicated in more detail due to space constraints. In table, I provide a summary of the characteristics and activities for the two treatments. �Table 4: Summary of the characteristics and activities for the two treatments Characteristics of the treatments Integrated FFI Isolated FFI Attention to form always embedded in meaning-based Attention to form always separate from meaning-based and communicative practice and communicative practice Focus on form and focus on meaning integrated in Equally divided instructional time for focus on form and communicative activities at the same time focus on meaning Task-essential, task useful or task natural use of form Explicit presentation of rules before practice through need to communicate Attention to form feedback, brief explicitly through corrective Attention to form explicitly through language analysis metaliguistic explanations and negotiation of meaning during communicative activities Task modelling and task planning Corrective and meta-linguistic feedback provided ONLY in form-focused activities but NOT provided during communicative activities Noticing-the-gap between TL/IL Noticing through grammatical awareness activities Focus on accuracy within guided communicative Focus on accuracy practice in controlled structural pattern practice Activities Common for Isolated and Integrated FFI treatments For Isolated FFI treatment only Interactive information exchange tasks Controlled pattern questions/answers visual/verbal prompts Story comparison tasks Tense formation exercises with gap-filling Role-play Dictation Listening and reading comprehension tasks (True or Cloze task with verbal prompts false? answering questions) Picture-sentence and sentence matching, split Multiple choice exercises sentences Sentence writing Picture/sentence/paragraph arrangement Verb recognition ordering text re- Error correction grammar exercises using �Guessing activities Jumbled sentences: Word order Writing activities: story summarizing, text reconstruction, Consciousness-raising and dialogue creation, activities Dictogloss Text manipulation activities Jigsaw Word-order exercises Substitution tables, language transformations, restorations question/answer drills 3. Results The overall performance of the 2 groups in the 4 tests was examined using a repeatedmeasures general linear model (GLM); The Group factor contained 2 levels (Isolated FFI and Integrated FFI) and the Test factor contained 4 levels (Test 1 (0h), Test 2 (6h), Test 3 (12h), Test 4 (2m). The number of participants was originally 89 students but the number of students included in the RM GLM was N=78 2 . There was a filter in this test and tests that scored equal to or less than 5% of the total score were excluded from the analysis. That filter excluded only students who answered just 1 out of 35 items in each test, and practically handed in a blank test. Mauchly’s test showed the results did not meet the assumption of sphericity, Mauchly's W = ,788, χ²(5)=.17,766, p=.003. Two corrections were applied; the Greenhouse-Geisser p=.870 and Huynh-Feldt p=.916. The assumption of equality of covariance was met with Box’s Test p=.501. Also, the assumption of equality of error variances was also met (See Table 1 below) Table 5: Levene's Test of Equality of Error Variancesa 2 F df1 df2 Sig. Test 1 (0h) 1,491 1 76 ,226 Test 2 (6h) ,092 1 76 ,763 Test 3 (12h) 6,153 1 76 ,015 Test 4 (2m) ,241 1 76 ,625 The reason why the number of subjects was reduced in the repeated-measures GLM was because it is a condition for running repeated measures that all students should have taken all the tests. Therefore 11 students who either missed one of the four tests or scored lower than 5% were excluded from the repeated measures analysis. awareness sentence �Within subjects analysis showed a significant main effect of the Test factor F(3,228)=15,185, p<.001, effect size =.030, observed power=.588. The between- subjects comparison showed no significant group difference F (1,76)= 2,296, p=,134, =,029, observed power=.322. The interaction between Test and Group was not significant F (3,228)=2.366, p>.05, =.030, observed power=.588. The above results are displayed in Table 2. Table 6: Repeated Measures Anova for the two experimental groups in the four tests SS df MS F p η² Noncent. Observed Parameter Powera Within-subjects effects Test ,85 3 ,28 15,18 ,000 ,16 45,555 1,000 Test * Group ,133 3 ,04 2,36 ,072 ,03 7,097 ,588 Error 4,26 22 ,01 116,71 1 116,71 991,12 ,000 ,92 991,123 1,000 Group ,27 1 ,27 ,134 ,02 2,296 ,322 Error 8,95 76 ,11 Between-subjects effects Intercept 2,29 a. Computed using alpha = ,05 From Table 3 and Figure 1, it appears that both treatment groups improved from Test 1 to Test 2, Test 3 and Test 4. Specifically, the Integrated FFI group started off in Test 1 with an average mean score of 49%, which became 56% in Test 2, after 6 hours of treatment and 64% in Test 3, after doubling the duration of the treatment to 12 hours. This group managed to maintain stable performance in Test 4 with 62%, a result which shows that the effect of Integrated FFI was maintained in the long-term, two months after the study had ended. Table 3 displays the mean scores, standard deviations and number of students for this analysis. �The Isolated FFI group started off with an average mean score of 56%, which shows that this group was somewhat better in their knowledge of the English past tense than the other group in the beginning of the study. This group also improved by scoring 64% in Test 2 and maintaining approximately the same result in Test 3 with 63% at the end point of the study. It is important to point out that there were no significant differences between the two groups in any of the tests, and it is noteworthy that in Test 3 even the minor differences of the previous scores had been completely evened out. The Isolated FFI class however, showed significant pre-to delayed post-test improvement with a final score of 71% versus the start-off score of 56%. This result shows that the Isolated FFI had more significant long-term effects than Integrated FFI for the acquisition of the English past tense in this EFL young learner sample of our study. Table 7: Descriptive Statistics for the Effect of Isolated and Integrated FFI Test 1 (0h) Test 2 (6h) Test 3 (12h) Test 4 (2m) Group M SD N Integrated FFI .49 .26 39 Isolated FFI .56 .23 39 Total .53 .24 78 Integrated FFI .56 .20 39 Isolated FFI .64 .18 39 Total .60 .19 78 Integrated FFI .64 .15 39 Isolated FFI .63 .19 39 Total .63 .17 78 Integrated FFI .62 .21 39 Isolated FFI .71 .19 39 Total .67 .21 78 �1. 4. Discussion The main research question was answered with a no-difference result; that is, there was no significant difference between Isolated FFI and Integrated FFI at any point during the 12-hour experimental intervention. The pedagogical timing issue of FFI brings up the question of whether Isolated FFI should precede Integrated FFI of a new language feature. The answer from these results is that it may be beneficial, but not �necessary. Isolating a specific grammar feature to present it formally and practise it separately before any other input or output-based practice is a useful teaching technique, especially for young learners who need time to build up their interlanguage and should not be pushed to communicate before they are ready; developmentally or psychologically. Nevertheless, the provision of isolated structural practice outside of communicative tasks is not necessary for the proceduralization of these forms. Instead, explicit FFI during the completion of structure-based communication tasks can lead to equal levels of grammatical performance as more structural gap-filling exercises on forms. In this study, explicit knowledge of the target structures (form and use) gained either by presentation of the rules before practice – in the Isolated FFI groups- or during communicative activity as explicit corrective feedback – in the Integrated FFI groups- led to equal levels of proceduralization of the target structures after 12 hours of instruction. Hence, the answer to the issue of timing of focus on form as raised by Spada and Lightbown (2008) is that there is no difference as to when exactly FFI will be provided within the larger time span of a series of lessons. This outcome may be explained as the product of explicit grammatical knowledge that both groups cultivated throughout the study. Explicit rule knowledge may have been a more prominent feature in the Isolated FFI treatment which aimed at building correct use of the target structures in controlled pattern practice for half the instructional time - 6 hours out of 12. Explicit knowledge of the rules facilitated accuracy in these exercises; The Isolated FFI classes received feedback on the grammar exercises, explicit recasts and corrections with metalinguistic explanations and rule elicitations. The explicit knowledge gained during form-focused practice in the Isolated FFI treatment may have somewhat facilitated these learners in the subsequent tests; hence their small improvement from 56% to 63% after 12 hours of instruction. On the other hand, the Integrated FFI classes were also aware of the rules, which were taught not in a presentation format but through a range of explicit corrective feedback techniques, such as explicit correction, brief metalinguistic explanations, recasts, and prompts. Corrective feedback on form was given during task work. Learners were given time to work out the content of their task and to negotiate meaning as they engaged in oral pair work. It is known that corrective feedback gives learners the opportunity to notice the gap between the interlanguage form and the target structure (Sheen and Ellis, 2011). Thus, the Integrated FFI classes also built explicit knowledge �of the target forms as they engaged in focused communication tasks with the target structures embedded in them. It appears that focused corrective feedback on form in integrated practice of form and meaning can be particularly beneficial, equally just as Isolated FFI (Spada, Jessop, Tomita, Suzuki, & Valeo, 2014 ). However, the Isolated FFI classes were not provided with form-focused feedback on the oral and written output communicative tasks; only the Integrated FFI group received on-task feedback. One feature of the Integrated FFI treatment was the provision of a task model before a task was implemented that directed learner attention to the use of the target structures during task-work. This was done upon Mercer and Littleton’s definition on effective scaffolding that is “the sensitive supportive intervention of a more expert other in the progress of a learner who is actively involved in some specific task, but who is not quite able to manage the task alone” (Mercer & Littleton, 2007, p. 18) p. 18). The young learners in this study relied on the task model as a frame of reference and they restructured their interlanguage after noticing the grammatical structures in the task model (Mochizuki & Ortega, 2008; Skehan & Foster, 1999; Yuan & Ellis, 2003). As suggested by Ellis and Yuan, “guided planning can succeed in creating favourable conditions for striking a pedagogical balance between communication and grammar” (ibid, 2003, p.11) even with young learners in an EFL context. 5. Conclusion From the perspective of the language teacher, Spada (Spada, 2014 ) maintains that teachers use both Isolated and Integrated FFI as they see fit and that they realize the benefits of both approaches (2008, p.199). The results of this study also show that Isolated FFI and Integrated FFI constitute complementary instructional techniques that the English teacher may utilise to maximize the benefits of instruction. References Gass, S. M., & Mackey, A. (2007). Data elicitation for second and foreign language research. Mahwah, NJ ; London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kolovou, E.-K., & Kraniotou, A. (2008). ENGLISH 5th GRADE Teacher’s book. Athens: Pedagogical Institute, Hellenic Minstry of Education �Loschky, L., & Bley-Vroman, R. (1993). Grammar and task-based methodology. In G. Crookes & S. Gass (Eds.), Tasks and language learning (Vol. 1, pp. 123167). Clevedon:Avon: Multilingual Matters. Mercer, N., & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development of children's thinking: a sociocultural approach. New York, NY: Routledge. Mochizuki, N., & Ortega, L. (2008). Balancing communication and grammar in beginning-level foreign language classrooms: A study of guided planning and relativization. Language Teaching Research, 12(1), 11-37. doi: 10.1177/1362168807084492 Purpura, J. E. (2004). Assessing Grammar: C.U.P. Skehan, P., & Foster, P. (1999). The Influence of Task Structure and Processing Conditions on Narrative Retellings. Language Learning. Spada, N. (2014 ). Instructed Second Language Acquisition Research and Its Relevance for L2 Teacher Education. Education Matters, 2(1), 41-54. Spada, N., Jessop, L., Tomita, Y., Suzuki, W., & Valeo, A. (2014 ). Isolated and Integrated form-focused instruction: Effects on different types of L2 knowledge. Language Teaching Research, 18(4), 453-473. Spada, N., & Lightbown, P. M. (2008). Form-Focused Instruction: Isolated or Integrated? TESOL Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of Standard English as a Second Dialect, 42(2), 181207. Yuan, F., & Ellis, R. (2003). The Effects of Pre-Task Planning and On-line Planning on Fluency, Complexity, and Accuracy in L2 Monologic Oral Production. Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 1-27. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2907 Title A name given to the resource THE EFFECTS OF INTEGRATED FFI AND ISOLATED FFI ON THE ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH PAST TENSE Author Author Tsapikidou, Danae Abstract A summary of the resource. This paper presents the results of a classroom-based study which I conducted for my PhD thesis. It is an experimental study on the comparative benefits of Isolated and Integrated FFI in primary EFL education. Greek 5th year primary learners aged 10-11 were exposed to Integrated FFI (n= 75) on the English Past Tense and their learning gains were compared to the gains of their peers who were exposed to Isolated FFI (n = 73), as these were first defined by Spada and Lightbown (2008). Integrated FFI was operationalised as the provision of comprehension and production structure-based communicative tasks; that is, tasks that were especially crafted to provide meaningful contexts for the practice of the English Past tense and its progressive aspect. In completing those tasks, learners focused on comprehension and the expression of meaning while they produced the target structures and received corrective feedback on their errors. Isolated FFI was operationalised as the explicit presentation and meta-linguistic explanations of the rules that govern the formation and use of the same target structures, coupled with grammatical consciousness-raising tasks, structural grammar exercises and controlled oral and written production activities. I taught the groups myself as a teacher researcher throughout the intervention, which lasted for 12 hours. The two groups were tested four times; each test was given after completing six hours of treatment and two months after the end of the intervention. The tests included grammaticality judgments, multiple-choice tests, tense formation tests, an open cloze, a question formation task, picture description, sentence matching and text completion tests. I will present the results of the statistical analyses from the comparisons of these groups. One suggestion is that, planned Integrated FFI targeting specific structures in context, if applied consistently for some time, produces equivalent learning gains to Isolated FFI even for elementary-level EFL learners whose opportunities for productive use of the language are generally limited within the classroom context. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed L Education (General),PE English https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/308316a39bfb0fc45f682a6fe56ddfd2.pdf 2b0a97a0887d4adf33d2c962ffc79a4d PDF Text Text DEVELOPING BEGINNER TEACHERS’ PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS IN POSTLESSON REFLECTIONS Dr Helen Sherwin University of Western Hungary, Hungary Article History: Submitted: 10.06.2015 Accepted: 27.06.2015 Abstract Although reflective practice has gained popularity world-wide in recent years, some argue that the ‘reflective’ research has focused too much on different conceptualisations of reflection and not enough on how teachers actually think when they reflect. This article addresses this issue of teacher cognition by examining one skill underpinning reflective thinking, problem solving. Specifically, this study compares the problem solving of six inexperienced and three experienced teachers of English. It emerged that the experienced teachers developed sophisticated reasoning skills to help themselves analyse problems in principled ways. This article identifies what principled reasoning actually consists of and how it may be developed in inexperienced teachers of English to help them solve teaching problems and so reflect more effectively. Key words: reflection, cognitive skill psychology, expert-novice problem-solving, subject-specific pedagogy, generic pedagogy. �1. Introduction During the last 40 years, reflective practice and learning to teach by critically examining one’s practice, has received much support in teacher education. I do believe in the power of reflective thinking but have always found it a problematic skill to foster with the student teachers I work with in Hungary who describe rather than analyse their practice, experience difficulties with solving problems, evaluating their own and pupils’ performance. A desire to understand why beginners experience difficulties and how they may be helped to reflect triggered the study described belowthat addresses these questions. 1. Do differences exist in the reflective thinking of nine Hungarian English teachers with differing levels of teaching experience? 2. What implications do any findings have? This article focuses on just one aspect of reflective thinking, teachers’ problem solving skills inpost-lesson reflections. There is much research into reflective practice investigating reflection in diverse ways. Some researchers focus on the cognitive (Schön, 1987) or metacognitive dimension (Eraut, 1994) viewing reflection as a form of elaborate, internal problem solving. Others have investigated the importance of reflecting with someone rather than alone (Day, 1993) or whether the time when we reflect (Korthagen & Kessels, 1999) or socio-political contexts influence how we reflect (Boud, 1998). Still others investigate whether different levels of reflection exist with sophisticated reflections linked to experience (Collier, 1999). All conceptualizations though share the notion that reflection involves modifying our existing mental structures through our attempts to analyse our experiences. Therefore, the cognitive perspective unites somewhat the diverse views that exist and is the one that underpins this study. While the ‘reflective’ literature provides rich insight into the substance and nature of reflection, paradoxically it is vague in that it fails to illuminate what teachers actually do when reflecting, how they process information and how they learn. Few studies operationalize reflection that is, identify and illustrate teachers’ reflective thinking (McAlpine et. al., 1999; Ixer, 1999), little guidance is offered on how to analyse it (Korthagen and Wubbels, 1995; Hargreaves, 2004) all of which is problematic for researchers.This vagueness is also problematic for teacher educators. Reflective thinking is a non-visible skill and trainees often struggle to recognise what they are doing, are not doing and should be doing in order to reflect effectively. Teacher educators must be explicit about what effective reflection consists of, to make it accessible to trainees. To address this problem, �reflection here is conceptualised as a complex, cognitive skill encompassing various constituent sub-skills. This skill-based approach lends clarity to the concept as it allows reflection to be broken down into individual skills which can then be analysed, illustrated and taught, thus rendering it visible and tangible to the benefit of teacher education and research alike. This article addresses just one reflective sub-skill, teachers’ problem solving. 1.1 Problem solving Problem solving was analysed through the problem solving model developed by Mayer (1996). Central to Mayer’s model is the notion of problem space which consists of: the problem’s starting state (its context, its characteristics and how they interact); the goal/desired outcome; the procedures to move us from the start to goal state and any obstacles that constrain movement through the problem space. Skilled problem solvers first define their problem space before attempting a solution, which they do by working through four processes:  ‘Representing’ (Mayer, 1996, p.551), mentally defining the problem to ourselves by identifying the problem space components  ‘planning’, calculating how to best achieve a solution  ‘executing’, carrying out the plan  ‘controlling’, evaluating our progress towards the goal. Differences between skilled and unskilled practitioners stem from how they address these processes. For example, expert physicists (Chi et. al., 1981), political scientists (Voss et. al., 1983) and teachers (Swanson et. al., 1990) spend much time‘representing’ and ‘planning’ but novices tend to move directly onto ‘executing’, omitting almost the other three processes. Experts ‘represent’ problems in principled ways and consider why problems appear as they do and what inferences can be drawn but novices just attend to surface features and ‘how’ problems appear (Alexander, 2003). Interestingly, it was such principled reasoning that was the critical difference in problem solving capability of this study’s experienced and inexperienced teachers. 2. The Study The study took place at a Hungarian primary teacher education institution which offers two English teaching courses: a pre-service degree qualifying trainees to teach Hungarian curriculum subjects plus English language to 6–12 year olds; an in-service course for qualified, practising Hungarian teachers, retraining as English teachers (6-12 years). Nine teachers participated in the study. �Fig. 1Participants Groups English teaching Hungarian teaching experience Beginners: 3 pre-service teachers Beginner Beginner Accomplished Beginners: 3 in- Beginner Experienced service teachers Experienced: 3 local teachers Experienced Experienced 2.1 Data collection and analysis To research post-lesson problem solving, I observed each teacher’s lessons twice, held two postlesson discussions (Interview 1/Interview 2), analysed documentation. Data consisted of: observational field notes; interview transcripts; diary entries; lesson plans; local curricular. Data analysis followed grounded theory procedures (Rubin& Rubin, 1995) so data was broken down into thematic sections then segments then concepts until eventually thematic categories emerged that accommodated all data.One category was‘Cognitive Skills’ which refers to the six skills teachers used to process information in post-lesson reflections: the single descriptive skill, Describing and five analytical skills: Pedagogic Reasoning, Commenting, Evaluating, Predicting, Problem solving (Sherwin, 2011).These then, constitute the sub-skills of reflective thinking, one of which ‘problem solving’, is in focus here. 2.2 Analysing Problem Solving In the interview/diary data, I could identify Problem Solving episodes when participants reflected on problematic teaching events. I examined how, during each episode, participants addressed four problem solving processes adapted from Mayer’s (1996) model. Problem Solving Processes 1. Identifying the problem’s most significant features. This answers the question, ‘What’s the problem?’ and corresponds to Mayer’s ‘representing’. �2. Identifying the problem’s cause: Why did this occur? This focuses on one part of ‘representing’, of recognising the problem’s underlying principles. 3. Identifying solutions: How can I solve it?This refers to participants selecting and/or carrying out solution strategies. It relates to Mayer’s ‘planning’ and ‘executing’ (ibid). 4. Evaluation: What comments/reflections do I have on this episode? This corresponds to ‘controlling’ where participants comment on some aspect of the problem solving process. For example, There are some pupils not interested in studying English (Problem). English is a bit over their head, they always feel that the others are much better and maybe that’s why they are passive (Cause). The only thing that worked with them is differentiating and when they create something in groups and they all do different things. Then they are really interested (Solution). However if we do these things all the time then they don’t learn the material they should by the end of the school year and it’s lots of work for me, too(Evaluation). I then tallied the processes each teacher covered in each Problem Solving episode thus (see Appendix 1 for complete version). Fig. 2 Processes of Problem Solving(Sample) Identify Identify Identify Problem Cause Solution Evaluation Experienced Interview 1 5 5 5 5 Teacher Csilla Interview 2 1 1 1 1 The rows represent Problem Solving episodes, the columns the four processes, the numbers record when a participant completed a problem solving process. Thus, Csilla dealt with five episodes in Interview 1 and one in Interview 2 and always worked through all four processes. 3. Findings It emerged that the inexperienced English teachers (beginners/accomplished beginners) solved problems in similar ways, differently from and less proficiently than the experienced teachers and I �illustrate this through a comparison of three episodes. My comparison is structured through: the number of problem solving processes covered, the accuracy, the depth of participant’s performance. Beginner Amélia Amélia aimed to teach present simple through the context of jobs to her 10-year-old pupils. Pupils consistently made mistakes such as I wears a uniform...He wear a uniforms....she wear a uniform…They wears a uniforms .Amélia constantly corrected pupils, but mistakes persisted. Postlesson, Amélia commented, I think they don’t understand every words that “works in a uniform”…not “wears in a uniform”. Maybe don’t the form was the problem just the meaning of the words (Problem 1). But somebody change it so they don’t know that the boy is “he” and the girl is “she” (Problem 2). I tried to help them to show the picture that he hasn’t a…ponytail (Solution)..but I don’t know what was the problem with “he” or “she”. Amélia worked through two processes of identifying a problem and identifying a solution. Indeed, she identified two problems. Problem 1 concerned concept when Amélia believed pupils made mistakes because they did not understand the new vocabulary and Problem 2 concerned form when pupils were confused by ‘he/she’ pronouns. This suggests that Amélia herself was unsure of how to represent the problematic situation to herself. The problem was actually grammatical as pupils were confused by the‘s’ verb-ending (I wears), plurals (uniforms) and ‘he/she/it’ pronouns. Amélia’s solution of showing a picture of a boy referred neither to the problem nor its cause both of which were grammatical in nature and required a solution that helped pupils notice the ‘s’ forms. Amélia could not see the underlying cause, misinterpreted the problem and consequently identified an inappropriate solution. Thus, Amélia’s problem solving during and post lesson was inaccurate. Accomplished Beginner Bella Bella aimed to teach a restaurant dialogue to 12-year-olds. In the lesson, pupils were inattentive and disruptive. Post-lesson, Bella commented, Sometimes they talk when they had to listen to me (Problem).....I didn’t want to look like a witch but I think after that I will....tell them that...”What I promise badly or good, I always keep it. So, please be quiet and if you don’t then I will write a notice into your book” (Solution). �Bella accurately recognised the problem that pupils misbehaved, and suggested a solution that did refer to the problem, of punishing the miscreants. She did not however, consider the differing causes to pupils’ misbehaviour: seating arrangements were inappropriate; the lesson was late afternoon; a visitor (me) was present; the materials were perhaps uninteresting, irrelevant to pupils’ needs. Nor did she evaluate the episode. This suggests that she focused on the problem’s surface features rather than its underlying structure, creating the impression that her analysis lacked depth. Experienced Csenge In Csenge’s lesson, 12-year old pupils in groups had to construct from word cards, sentences related to a subsequent reading. Word cards were colour-coded to represent parts of speech (e.g. red = verb). Pupils found this extremely challenging. Csenge commented, They have the small cards and they were mixed, there was a pattern and they could not find the place (Problem)...I gave them some help and I think that they could solve the problem then (In-class solution). She continued that pupils did not know: The strategy where to start with and how to work with this pattern (Cause)........In previous lessons, I....should’ve tried some patterns (Solution).......it comes from history and we have to learn it...it takes time (Evaluation). NB: “it comes from history” means that she believes the traditional Hungarian education system does not foster the strategic thinking such problem solving tasks require. Experienced Csenge was more thorough, principled and critically aware in her problem solving than both Amélia and Bella. First, by working through all four processes, Csenge automatically considered more aspects of the situation suggesting a more thorough approach than Amélia and Bella who only considered two processes. Second, Csenge provided a principled, in-depth analysis and clearly perceived the problem through its cause, that pupils lacked problem solving skills and matched her solution of training in strategic thinking to this cause. Neither Amélia nor Bella addressed the cause and only discussed the problem and solution. This suggests they focused on the problem’s surface features rather than its underlying structure, implying that their analyses lacked depth. Third, by referring to Hungarian education in Evaluation, Csenge highlighted a constraint to �her solution that pupils need time to learn problem solving skills. This suggests she was more insightful and critically aware than Amélia and Bella who omitted this process. Analysis of all nine participants’ problem solving revealed similar findings. Processes of Problem Solving(Appendix 1) records the processes participants used when solving teaching problems.The table reveals that all inexperienced English teachers (beginners/accomplished beginners) worked through fewer processes and considered causes and evaluation far less frequently than the experienced teachers who in fact almost always worked through all four processes. This implies that all beginner/accomplished beginners were less thorough, principled, critically aware problem solvers than the experienced teachers. 4. Discussion: Developing Principled Reasoning Principled reasoning emerged as central to the proficient problem solving of the experienced teachers and refers here to how they automatically asked themselves questions about the problem’s underlying structures/principles: Why did this problem occur? What theory can explain it? How? Why? How can I break it down? What are my reasons for….? What comments do I have on the cause? Solution? It was the spontaneous posing and answering of these questions that underpinned the experienced teachers' principled reasoning. Therefore, I have been exploring ways to develop such principled reasoning with my teacher trainees through the activities presented below, which draw on two teaching methods: modelling and problem solving heuristics. Modelling gives learners access to the cognitive processes experts use in principled problem solving (Bandura 1996, has details on modelling). The problem solving heuristics below combine a task plus on-task questions to foster learners principled reasoning. Nickerson (2004) contains details on how problem solving heuristics, King 1991, on how guiding questions, Berry and Broadbent (1984), how on-task rather than pre- or post-task questions foster principled reasoning). These activities aim to help student teachers notice the underlying structures of problems and so view them in the principled, insightful ways of experienced teachers. 4.1 Discussing cases �Student teachers (STs) compare a real problem scenario (Teacher A) with two fictive scenarios of the same problem solved differently (Teachers B/C). STs observe how Teachers B and C consider the problem’s cause prior to selecting an appropriate solution and use theory in their explanations (differentiation, socialisation skills) whereas Teacher A just attends to surface features. Fig. 3 Same problem solved differently  Which problem solving do you like best? Why?  What are the differences between them? TEACHER A Sometimes they talk when they had to listen to me (Problem). I didn’t want to look like a witch but I think after that I will....tell them that...”What I promise badly or well, I always keep it. So, please be quiet and If you don’t then I will write a notice into your book. TEACHER B Sometimes they talk when they had to listen to me (Problem). I thinkthe exercise was too easy for Juli, Laci, Dani and Zsolti and they disturbed the others. Next time I will give them harder tasks and I think this will motivate them more. Children are different so we need to differentiate between them but I think we Hungarians are just learning how to do this. It takes time. TEACHER C Sometimes they talk when they had to listen to me(Problem). Daniand Zsolti and Juli and Laci are best friends and they always play too much when they sit together. Next time I will change the groups so they don’t work together. And this is also good‚ cos maybe they can get used to working with new people and develop socialisation skills. 4.2 Decomposing the problem STs break down the real problem scenario in ‘Teaching the Chant’ through one of the tasks below. �Fig. 4 Teaching the Chant Atilla wanted pupils to create new versions of a simple chant, to develop their speaking skills. Pupils were aged 8, beginner learners of English. Atilla, 1. Taught/revised new words: Snow, snowman, eyes, mouth, nose. 2. Taught and practised the chant. Snow! Let’s make a snowman! OK, 1, 2, 3. Eyes, mouth nose. Yippeeee! 3. Createda new version of the chant on the blackboard. Pizza! Let’s make a pizza! OK, 1, 2, 3. Salami, cheese, tomato. Yippeeee! 4. Askedpupils to create (in pairs) their own Pizza version by changing food items. 5. Pupils did one of the following 5a. Produced incomplete versions Pizza! 1,2,3, Yippeeee! OR 5b.Produced inaccurate versions Let’s Pizza! 1,2,3, Yippeeee! OR 5c.Copied Atilla’s bb. Pizza version 5d. Did nothing. 6. Atilla scolded pupils. 4.2.1Working Backwards �STs work backwards though the lesson guided by ‘Why?’ questions: Why did Atilla scold pupils? Why did some pupils do nothing? Etc… This task helps STs analyse a problem as experts do. The study’s experienced teachers (and experts in general, Nickerson, 2004) invariably decompose teaching problems by working backwards from the goal to start point, which helps them identify the problem’s key features(e.g. problem’s cause, reasons for their actions) and the causal links between them. 4.2.2 The Grid STs represent the problem scenario in columns that replicate problem solving processes (2.1). This task prompts STs to copy how experts decompose a problem for analysis, through the four processes. Fig. 5 The Grid Problem Cause Solution Evaluation What’s the Why did it happen? How would you Comments? problem? solve the your problem? Pupils (Will solution work?) Atilla taught wrong words: didn’t write Snow X  Let’s make a…..  new version 4.2.3 Concept map STs draw the teaching steps on individual pieces of paper (individual pictures for steps 5a-5d), arrange pictures on a poster, draw lines between them to show how they ‘fit together’, then write on the lines to express any relationships that exist. Prompts include: Why did pupils make the mistakes in Step 5a-5d? Where Atilla could avoid these mistakes? Etc… This task focuses STs’ attention on key events and how they interact. 4.3 Grouping problems STs group seven-eight problem scenarios according to whether they are: (a) Superficially different but with similar causes: e.g. pupils underachieve because they lack knowledge of how to fulfil a task(Appendix 2 has example scenarios). �(b) Superficially similar but with different causes: e.g. pupils are naughty but for different reasons (see 4.1, Fig. 3). The discussion generated by this task pushes STs to understand problems by examining the underlying rather than surface features thus mirroring the principled reasoning of experts. 5. Conclusion I argued earlier that the diversity and vagueness of the ‘reflective’ literature is perhaps unhelpful when teaching and researching reflection. I suggested that viewing reflection as a complex cognitive skill lends the specificity that the reflective literature lacks. It allows reflection to be decomposed into its constituent sub-skills, one of which is problem solving. I recognise that reflection is multi-layered, complex and so hard to capture in sub-skills which may not account for the collaborative, temporal, contextual dimensions mentioned earlier. But, decomposition has enabled me to identify aspects of expert performance to help beginner teachers. Experienced teachers address problems in principled ways, through four processes, by asking themselves principled reasoning questions. I now encourage beginner teachers to do the same by exposing them regularly and systematically to activities such as those described above. This approach to developing reflective thinking, I believe may be of use to teacher educators in Hungary and elsewhere. �References Alexander, P. A. (2003) ‘The Development of Expertise: The Journey From Acclimation to Proficiency’, Educational Researcher, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 10-14. Bandura, A. (1996) ‘Social Learning Theory of Human Development’, in E. De Corte and F. E. Weinert, (Eds.) International Encyclopaedia of Developmental and Instructional Psychology, New York, Pergamon. Berry, D. C. and Broadbent, D. E. (1984) ’On the relationship between task performance and associatedverbalizable knowledge’, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 36A, pp. 209-231. Boud, D. and Walker, D. (1998). Promoting reflection in professional courses: The challenge of context. Studies in Higher Education, vol. 23, no. 2, 191-206. Chi, M. T. H., Feltovich, P. J. and Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science, vol. 5, no. 2, 121-152. Collier, S. T. (1999). Characteristics of reflective thought during the student teaching experience. Journal ofTeacher Education, vol. 50, no. 3, 173-181. Day, C. (1993). Reflection: A necessary but not sufficient condition for teacher development. British Educational Research Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, 83-93. Eraut, M. (1994) Developing Professional Knowledge and Competence, Oxford, Routledge. Hargreaves, J. (2004). So how do you feel about that? Assessing reflective practice. Nurse Education Today, vol. 24, no. 3, 196–201. Ixer, G. (1999). There’s no such thing as reflection British Journal of Social Work, vol. 29, no. 4, 513–527. King, A. (1991) ‘Effects of training in strategic questioning on children's problem-solving performance’, Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 83, no. 3, pp. 307-317. Korthagen, F. A. J. and Kessels, J. P. A. M. (1999). Linking Theory and Practice: Changing the Pedagogy of Teacher Education.Educational Researcher, vol. 28, no. 4, 4-17. Korthagen, F. A. and Wubbels, T. (1995). Characteristics of reflective practitioners: Towards an operationalisation of the concept of reflection. Teachers and Teaching, vol. 1, no. 1, 51-52. Mayer, R. E. (1996) ‘Development of learning skills in problem-solving and thinking’ in E. De Corte and F. E. Weinert, (Eds.) International Encyclopaedia of Developmental and InstructionalPsychology, New York, Pergamon. McAlpine, C., Weston, C., Beauchamp, J., Wiseman, C. and Beauchamp, C. (1999). Building a metacognitive model of reflection. Higher Education, vol. 37, no. 2, 105-131. Nickerson, R. S. (2004) ‘Teaching Reasoning’, in J. P. Leighton and R. J. Sternberg, (Eds.) The �Nature of Reasoning, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Rubin, H, J. and Rubin I, S. (1995) Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Sherwin, H. (2011). A study into the reflective capability of Hungarian primary teachers with differing levels of experience. EdD Thesis. Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. Available from British Library (http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.539420) Schön, D. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Swanson, H. L., O'Connor, J. and Cooney, J. (1990). An information processing analysis of expert and novice teachers' problem solving. American Educational Research Journal, vol. 27, no. 3, 533-556. Voss, J. F., Tyler, S. W. and Yengo, L. A. (1983) ‘Individual differences in the solving of social science problems’, in R. F. Dillon and R. R. Schmeck, (Eds.) Individual differences in cognition, New York, Academic Press. �APPENDIX 1: Processes of Problem Solving This table records the problem solving processes used by participants when solving teaching problems. Problem Cause Solutio Evaluation n Beginners Amélia Interview 1 1 1 1 Anikó *1 1 Interview 2 1 1 Interview 1 1 Interview 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Int. 1 1 2 2 2 1 2 Int. Atilla Interview 1 1 1 1 1 Interview 2 1 1 Int. 1 Int. 1 1 Accomplished beginners Bettina Interview 1 1 Interview 2 Boglárka Interview 1 3 3 3 Interview 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 Bella Interview 1 1 1 1 1 Interview 2 *1 Interview 1 5 1 1 1 1 Experienced Csilla 5 5 5 �Csenge Interview 2 1 1 1 1 Interview 1 *1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 Interview 2 Cecília Interview 1 3 2 3 3 Interview 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 NB: The words “Int.” indicate the problem was identified by the interviewer but the other processes in this particular episode were completed by the participant. The * indicates that this episode was illustrated in ‘3. Findings’. APPENDIX 2: Superficially different, similar causes These two problem scenarios are superficially different because the lesson context, content, problem types are different. However in both cases the pupils underachieve because theyhave not yet learnt how to accomplish the taskof how to: (A) Work in pairs; (B) Guess meaning from the second language context using intrapersonal skills. (A) My 12 year old pupils don’t like each other. When I put them into groups to work together, they work by themselves, they don’t share ideas and they don’t help each other. This isn’t good. What can I do? (B) My ten year old pupils are a bit lazy. It’s a new class to me (They’ve been learning English for 2 years) and if I speak to them in English, they refuse to understand so I have to translate everything into Hungarian. This isn’t good. What can I do? � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2911 Title A name given to the resource DEVELOPING BEGINNER TEACHERS’ PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS IN POST-LESSON REFLECTIONS Author Author Sherwin, Helen Abstract A summary of the resource. Although reflective practice has gained popularity world-wide in recent years, some argue that the ‘reflective’ research has focused too much on different conceptualisations of reflection and not enough on how teachers actually think when they reflect. This article addresses this issue of teacher cognition by examining one skill underpinning reflective thinking, problem solving. Specifically, this study compares the problem solving of six inexperienced and three experienced teachers of English. It emerged that the experienced teachers developed sophisticated reasoning skills to help themselves analyse problems in principled ways. This article identifies what principled reasoning actually consists of and how it may be developed in inexperienced teachers of English to help them solve teaching problems and so reflect more effectively. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed L Education (General),PE English https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/b2f513586101058bffa95e70051368c8.pdf 4ed6ee26b910b832288c497382da9f84 PDF Text Text CONCEPT FOR UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK FOR CROATIAN STUDENTS (IN TERMS OF LEARNING A CLOSELY RELATED LANGUAGE) Lesya Petrovska & Ana Dugandžić Taras Shevchenko University, Ukraine & University of Zagreb, Croatia Article History: Submitted: 09.06.2015 Accepted: 29.06.2015 Abstract: In creating textbooks and course books for foreign language education, the starting point is the goal of learning the language – language acquisition either on the level of communication skills for specific purposes (business or daily), or as part of the process of training philology specialists, or more specifically, linguistics specialists. In this, among other factors, authors should take into account the ethno-linguistic characteristics of the audience, so the training process should be organised differently for groups of students who study a language closely related to their native language. In studying a closely related language, a variety of phenomena is observed, such as, for example, interference, cross-language homonymy, the fact that ability to perceive and understand a foreign language always outweighs the ability to reproduce material, etc. These points are important to consider when preparing textbooks and course books, and they should be reflected in the selection of lexical material and presentation of grammar. Existing textbooks for learning Ukrainian as a foreign language are mainly not designed for a Slavic languages-speaking audience, which makes the process of training specialists in Ukrainian in Slavic countries more difficult. On the other hand, the methods of organising the material in a textbook and its structure should be designed for philology students and therefore should feature a complex and comprehensive presentation of the language material and combine various methods of teaching. We propose the principles we follow in creating a textbook for learning Ukrainian designed for Croatian students whose primary field of study is the Ukrainian language. �Key words: teaching methodology, closely related languages, communication skills, teacher’s role, philology students �1 Introduction Ukrainian language studies at the University of Zagreb have a long and strong tradition. However, one of the constant tasks is to improve the effectiveness of training specialists in Ukrainian as future translators, teachers, and in broader terms – Slavic philologists with a high level of expertise. In classes, there is an obvious lack of appropriate teaching materials, handbooks and textbooks that could best meet the students’ needs. 2 The objective of this paper is to lay down for consideration and discussion the conceptual principles of such a textbook, its main characteristics, structure and methodology that are built into its basis. 3 Specific characteristics of materials used in teaching Ukrainian. In working with students whose field of study is a foreign language, special textbooks are commonly used, developed for the purpose of acquiring the language at the appropriate level, as well as grammar books, dictionaries and other academic publications that enable a deeper and more detailed study and research of certain linguistic phenomena. The existing textbooks of Ukrainian for foreigners partially cover our needs. In particular, teachers in our department use in their work Ukrainian language textbooks designed for foreigners who are not speakers of Slavic languages (Zhluktenko, Ju. O., & Toc’ka, N. I. (1973). Pidruchnyk ukrajins’koji movy. Kyjiv.; Zajchenko, N. F., & Vorobjova, S. A. (2004). Praktychnyj kurs ukrajins’koji movy dl’a inozemciv: usne movlenn’a. Kyjiv.; Jeshchenko, N.O. (Bojchenko) (2010). Praktychnyj kurs ukrajins'koji movy: usne movlennja. Navchaljnyj posibnyk dlja inozemnyh studentiv; Palins'ka, O., & Turkevych, O. (2011) Krok-1(ukrajins'ka mova jak inozemna). L'viv), and among the existing textbooks that take into account the needs of speakers of related languages, there are only those designed for students who speak Russian. Therefore, it is necessary to create a textbook that would successfully combine approaches to teaching Ukrainian for “distant” and “close” foreigners. In addition, the textbooks mentioned are designed to help students master Ukrainian in order to develop active communication skills and to master grammar structures, or for specific professional purposes (for example, foreign students learning Ukrainian at a basic level to be able to study at other, non- philological faculties in the Ukraine – medical, technical, natural sciences, �etc.). This approach, which can roughly be referred to as “communicative”, is generally prevalent in modern foreign language teaching, although it is not fully appropriate for philology students. In this case, the foreign language itself becomes the object of students’ study. Accordingly, students must not only develop the skills of expressing themselves in the foreign language (“surface” knowledge), but also understand the core of the language and linguistic phenomena (“deep” knowledge of the foreign language). Therefore, if we talk about training linguists in broader terms, we should use the “conceptual and functional” approach to teaching, and to the preparation of textbooks (Jarmak, 2001), since the training of philology students involves the introduction of a strong theoretical basis with numerous exercises. The aim of teaching in this case is to train expert philologists; they should gradually acquire both grammar and orthography, have a wide vocabulary and the ability to express themselves and even to “think” in the foreign language, i.e. acquire the cultural image behind the words. Hence, all language levels, and preferably in aspects that are as broad as possible, should be taken into account. Accordingly, in considering what exactly the kind of the textbook required is, it should be noted that this is a textbook for 1) philology students for whom the Ukrainian language is the major field of study, and 2) students who study a closely related language. To solve this problem, our goal was to prepare a Ukrainian language textbook for students studying Ukrainian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb, which would fit the education needs of philology students. The planned textbook is designed for students of the 1st and 2nd years of study, and is intended to be used during 4 semesters – the time required for a more or less full basic mastering of the language studied. 4 Conceptual principles The first of the conceptual principles in the Ukrainian textbook preparation is its focus on the professional education of philologists. This means that the presentation of material will cover the conceptual instruments and categories the philology students should know. Therefore, it is our task to prepare a textbook that would: - propose lexical and grammar material in accordance with the professional level of students; �- develop active language skills that ultimately form linguistic knowledge; - develop skills of appropriate language use depending on communicative situations; - fully cover the basic Ukrainian grammar system; - include wide but systematically framed lexical material, the mastering of which would allow students to freely use texts (both oral and written), in most everyday situations and in special texts, that is, which would constitute the basis for the further expansion of the lexical fund and the deepening of vocabulary in highly specialised fields; - contain a sufficient amount of exercises and practical tasks, which will provide a good drill and mastering of lexical and grammar structures at the appropriate level; - include a sufficient amount of texts related to the culture, history and geography of the country, etc., which are an obligatory component in the formation of professional competence of specialists in a foreign language (and beyond: in literature and culture). Therefore, this would be a single integrative foreign language textbook, which would develop various language skills in students, at the levels of both understanding and expression (Kljuchkovs'ka, 2009). 5 Textbook structure The overall textbook material can be divided into two parts: a) the beginners level, intended for the first two semesters of the language study, which would include grammar and lexical structures that allow students to express themselves grammatically correctly in basic everyday situations, and be able to construct simple syntactic structures (this refers to the knowledge of all cases, their forms and basic functions in a sentence, basic grammatical categories of verbs, such as tense and aspect, etc.); and b) the intermediate level that would continue the expansion of linguistic knowledge, building on the already acquired material, which will allow students to construct syntactically and lexically more complex structures (for example, the emphasis on individual case functions, verb categories such as aspect, voice, certain rules of word formation, etc.) The textbook consists of the main book and a workbook with exercises accompanying each unit. In considering the structure of the main part, we concluded that it is most appropriate to divide it into units (not lessons), each of which includes: 1) the main text; �2) vocabulary from the text with translations into Croatian; 3) orthoepy and orthography rules with exercises; 4) grammar rules and exercises; 5) speech structures; 6) lexical, grammar and communicative exercises; 7) translation exercises; 8) additional material for optional work (or self-study). More precisely, the main text should include lexical tools for a certain lexical topic (e.g., “family”, “house”, “food”, “clothing”, etc.). The text should also take into account the grammar structures dealt with in the unit, and repeat them several times, but it should not be loaded with other structures that are unknown to the student at this stage of language learning. However, it should be noted that such forms are allowed, as well as more complex structures. After all, the speakers of Croatian will more or less understand the majority of Ukrainian grammar forms from the context. For example, for students whose native language is Croatian, the meaning and grammatical characteristics of the Ukrainian sentence: “Я буду читати” should be clearly understandable already at the beginning of learning the language, without indicating that this is the future tense form of the verb (as in similar structures Вона читала – past tense; Ми пишемо – present tense), while for students who are native speakers of e.g. English or German, the introduction of such structures without explanation and multiple repetitions will aggravate understanding. Therefore, we allow the inclusion of more complex texts already at the initial stage of language learning compared to the texts in Ukrainian language textbooks for foreigners that are currently available. Croatian students will understand most material from the context, and more complex structures or complicated words are accompanied with comments or direct translation into Croatian. Therefore, students will immediately be provided with the entire logically complete text, expand their vocabulary more intensively and acquire expression skills more quickly. To this end, it seems appropriate to provide some additional vocabulary after the text that is related to the topic. A set of phonetic and orthography exercises is introduced to develop the skills of correct pronunciation of Ukrainian language sounds and stress. It should be noted that accentuation rules �are one of the main problems for Croatians who learn Ukrainian due to fundamental accentuation differences, whether it is the understanding of the nature of stress as a linguistic phenomenon, or mastering the Ukrainian “floating” stress. Special attention is paid to the pronunciation of certain sounds, especially those absent in Croatian, such as /г/, differences in pronunciation of hard and soft consonants, etc. We consider it useful to include exercises of expressive reading, tongue-twisters, etc. in phonetic exercises. Croatian students used to the Latin alphabet need orthography exercises primarily because of the different graphical system. Therefore, such exercises will enable a faster development of correct writing skills in Cyrillic. In addition, they will also help them master certain features of Ukrainian orthography, such as the apostrophe and the specific rules of its use, the implementation of morphological orthographic principle to a greater extent than in Croatian, change of sounds, etc. Grammar rules should be presented sufficiently broadly and comprehensively and must take into account similarities and differences of certain grammar forms in the foreign and native languages. For example, we believe that each case should be dealt with individually, not in the paradigm or declination. In this way, what is equal and different in the two languages is better observed – functions of cases in the sentence, specific formal forms, and links with verbs are taken into account, as is the presence of prepositions in structures. For example, 1st year students often make mistakes in the instrumental case, which, in addition to almost identical endings for masculine and neuter, has different endings for the feminine: masc. studentom=студентом, učiteljem=учителем, neutr. selom=селом, suncem=сонцем, but femin. sestrom–сестрою (not *сестром). Frequently there will also be errors in selecting the correct case in structures such as торт з малиною (instr.) – сік з малини (gen.), because in Ukrainian the same preposition is used with different cases (compared to Croatian – s čime instr. // od čega gen.). Special attention is given to certain verb categories, for example, reflexive verbs: differences in forms but also in expressing the reflexive category itself. In some cases a Ukrainian reflexive verb corresponds to a non-reflexive verb in Croatian (uživati u čemu – насолоджуватися чим, koristiti što – користуватися чим). To the same end, i.e. in order to detect differences between the two languages, we include �translation exercises from Croatian into Ukrainian, which also help understand, raise awareness of the differences between the native and the foreign language, in addition to, of course, contributing to the acquisition of translation skills. In the translation exercises students can visualise the characteristics of meaning, the nuances of the semantic structure of lexemes. Thus, it is appropriate to include exercises that would provide for the selection of several translation variants, search for synonyms (in foreign and native languages), and translation exercises containing proper names (especially toponyms). This is why lexical material is so important in the process of selecting material for the preparation of exercises. These are the words and phrases which represent the core of the language itself, but at the same time they are the basis for practising grammar structures. As for vocabulary, it should be noted and emphasised that closely related languages in their vocabularies have a large number of the same or similar words in terms of pronunciation and semantics. In the process of language learning, this phenomenon is at the same time facilitating and aggravating: on the one hand, it makes it easier to understand and master the language faster, but on the other hand it is often confusing (at the level of understanding if the same pronunciation has different meanings, the so-called cross-language homonymy; at the level of expression it can create a habit among students to use Croatian words, phonetically and morphologically adapted to the Ukrainian language, which is quite often the case, from our experience, for example *ормарик for ormarić, or *піджама for pidžama, etc.). By speech structures we mean various formulas, phrases typical of certain communicative situations that are introduced into example dialogues. These exercises are primarily intended for the acquisition of speaking skills which are the primary task for anyone who learns a foreign language. Such structures should take into account the different communication tonalities, both the formal, characteristic of official communication, and the purely conversational, typical of everyday situations, and even some forms of slang, since a philologist as a foreign language specialist should master the clear stylistic differentiation and have the ability to select linguistic resources in accordance with actual communicative situations. Therefore the use of multi-style language material in foreign language learning helps to achieve a more successful professional communication. Developed communicative exercises help the teacher to create communicative situations �that encourage students to speak actively. This is facilitated by dialogue exercises, as well as games (e.g., role-playing). We consider it appropriate to include in the structure of each unit additional material for optional use, or for self-study. These can be literary texts related to the topic learned (lexically or grammatically), or folk poetry, non-fiction texts, advertisements, jokes, etc., accompanied by exercises for individual work (e.g. “Answer the questions...”, “True or false?” – exercises to check understanding; “Write down synonyms/antonyms...”, “Write the meaning of words/idioms” – vocabulary exercises, etc.). Such or similar material is preferred in foreign language study, as it contributes to faster progress in learning. Therefore, its inclusion in the textbook facilitates primarily the work of the teacher as it builds on the vocabulary and grammar structures learned within the units. 6 As the conclusion, it should be pointed out that in teaching a foreign language to philology students a textbook is needed with the informative, developing, communicative, motivating, systematising and formative, in addition to instructive and control functions, i.e. a textbook that would “integrate” in its structure several aspects of training language professionals. �References: Jarmak, V. (2001). Aktuelni metodološki problemi nastave srpskog jezika kao stranog za studente početnike u Ukrajini. Slavistika, pp. 245 – 255. Beograd. Kljuchkovs'ka, I. (2009). Osnovy koncepciji integratyvnogo pidruchnyka z ukrajins'koji movy jak inozemnoji. Theory and practice of teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language, No. 4. pp 45-50 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2916 Title A name given to the resource CONCEPT FOR UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE TEXTBOOK FOR CROATIAN STUDENTS (IN TERMS OF LEARNING A CLOSELY RELATED LANGUAGE) Author Author Petrovska, Lesya Dugandžić, Ana Abstract A summary of the resource. In creating textbooks and course books for foreign language education, the starting point is the goal of learning the language – language acquisition either on the level of communication skills for specific purposes (business or daily), or as part of the process of training philology specialists, or more specifically, linguistics specialists. In this, among other factors, authors should take into account the ethno-linguistic characteristics of the audience, so the training process should be organised differently for groups of students who study a language closely related to their native language. In studying a closely related language, a variety of phenomena is observed, such as, for example, interference, cross-language homonymy, the fact that ability to perceive and understand a foreign language always outweighs the ability to reproduce material, etc. These points are important to consider when preparing textbooks and course books, and they should be reflected in the selection of lexical material and presentation of grammar. Existing textbooks for learning Ukrainian as a foreign language are mainly not designed for a Slavic languages-speaking audience, which makes the process of training specialists in Ukrainian in Slavic countries more difficult. On the other hand, the methods of organising the material in a textbook and its structure should be designed for philology students and therefore should feature a complex and comprehensive presentation of the language material and combine various methods of teaching. We propose the principles we follow in creating a textbook for learning Ukrainian designed for Croatian students whose primary field of study is the Ukrainian language. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/66c478be0c1a83494b767d03a24026af.pdf 753215c6a683d0839d9f6a962e55db9f PDF Text Text 1 HOW TO BUILD AN ENGLISH CLAUSE Ronald W. Langacker University of California, San Diego �2 1. Introduction I will be examining central aspects of English clause structure from the standpoint of Cognitive Grammar (CG). Though well known and extensively studied, these phenomena have eluded definitive treatment; they still have much to tell us. Indeed, working out their theoretical basis has contributed to further development of the CG framework (Langacker 1991, 2008a, 2012). Especially relevant are two general notions: the organization of structure in terms of baseline and elaboration; and grammar as the implementation of semantic functions. The elaboration of a baseline, which I refer to as B/E organization, is a kind of asymmetry pervasive in conceptual and linguistic structure. In one way or another, the baseline has a certain priority, being more fundamental and providing the basis for the elaborated structure: (B) > ((B)E). The baseline is generally simpler than ((B)E), tends to be more substantive than E (the elaborating element), and presupposes fewer and more basic capacities. Well-known examples of B/E organization include the centrality of a prototype in a complex category, the stem/affix asymmetry in morphology, as well as privative oppositions, such as [a] vs. [ã], where the unmarked member “lacks” an elaborating feature. Importantly, baseline status is only relative, since an elaborated structure functions as baseline for higher-level purposes: (B) > ((B)E)B > (((B)E)B E)B > ((((B)E)B E)B E)B ... To some extent structure is therefore organized in strata, each a substrate for the next, which draws on additional resources and affords a wider range of options. A second general notion is that grammar exists for the implementation of semantic functions (Croft 2007; Harder 2010), which are more fundamental and more consistent than any particular structural manifestation. As a case in point, nominals exhibit very different structures (e.g. Ellen, big dogs, the teacher, those with children, that she likes him) reflecting alternate strategies for fulfilling their referential function. We can note a broad (and permeable) division between descriptive vs. discursive functions. The former involve the conceptual content representing the objective scene (OS), i.e. the “onstage” situation being jointly apprehended by the offstage interlocutors. The latter concern the negotiation and effective presentation of descriptive content in a coherent discourse. Grammar is shaped by the interplay of descriptive and discursive functions. As viewed in CG, lexicon and grammar form a continuum consisting in flexible assemblies of symbolic structures (form-meaning pairings). �3 2. Descriptive Organization 2.1 Baseline A clause expresses a proposition. That is, it describes an occurrence—an event or situation—in enough detail to be significant and potentially assessed for validity. The function of describing an occurrence is often referred to as predication, a term that needs explication. In the CG analysis, a key notion is profiling: within the content invoked, an expression selects a particular substructure as its conceptual referent and thus a focus of attention. Its profile is either a thing or a relationship (under abstract definitions of those terms). As a special case of the latter, it is claimed that a clause profiles a process, characterized as a relationship followed in its evolution through time (Langacker 1991: Part II, 2008a: ch. 11, 2008b). The baseline for predication is a simple lexical verb (V), such as run, break, see, or admire. It functions as the clausal head, in the sense of providing the essential conceptual content serving to characterize the profiled relationship. We will not be greatly concerned with alternative means of forming the clausal head. It can be non-lexical, representing either a nonce verb or the extended use of a non-verbal element (e.g. The delivery boy porched the newspaper). Many heads are morphologically complex, obtained by derivation (solidify) or compounding (counterattack). There is also a productive pattern for deriving phrasal verbs (look up, turn off, back down), as well as a serial verb construction with come and go (You should come see our new house). Another alternative to a lexical verb is a clausal head consisting of be plus an adjective or a prepositional phrase: She is tall; It is on your desk. The construction is sketched in Figure 1, where the relation profiled by the adjective or prepositional phrase is labeled r. Though it typically endures, the profiled relation does not require a span of time for its manifestation: it obtains at a single moment (and can thus be observed in a photograph). This holistic nature makes it suitable to modify a noun (the tall girl; the picture on your desk), but not to head a clause (*The girl talls; *The picture ons your desk), since a clause profiles a process—a relationship tracked through time. For clausal use, English invokes the schematic verb be, which profiles the continuation through time of a relationship that is wholly non-specific; the arrow drawn in bold indicates this scanning through time. The result of their integration is a derived �4 process (labeled p) which tracks through time the specific relation profiled by the adjective or prepositional phrase. Note that this construction overtly reflects the conceptual characterization proposed for verbs and clauses in CG: that they profile a relationship scanned through time. Be extends through time the relationship specified by its complement. be + ADJ/PP p r r be ADJ/PP Figure 1 By itself, a lexical verb (or other clausal head) fails to express a usable proposition, as it merely describes a type of occurrence. Starting from this baseline, we build a clause through various dimensions of elaboration. The minimal elaboration—producing what I call a baseline clause—involves just two dimensions. There is first the specification of clausal participants. A verb makes schematic reference to its participants: a trajector (primary focal participant) and often a landmark (secondary focal participant). Nominals that specify these schematic elements thereby function as clausal subject and object. The resulting expressions—e.g. the boy break a cup or Alice admire Bill—describe an elaborated process type specific enough to be worth expressing. A proposition whose validity can be assessed represents a particular instance of this type, where the profiled occurrence is accorded some status in relation to the interlocutors and their conception of reality. This dimension of elaboration is known as grounding, the ground (G) being the interlocutors and their immediate circumstances. In English, minimal grounding is done by means of tense. An elaborated process type grounded by tense constitutes a baseline clause: The boy broke a cup; Alice admires Bill. Baseline clauses are a fundamental way of fulfilling the clausal function of expressing a proposition, i.e. describing an occurrence in sufficient detail to be useful and assessed for �5 validity. This global semantic function decomposes into three subfunctions—type specification, type elaboration, and grounding—representing one strategy for its structural implementation. Each subfunction is implemented by a particular structural element: type specification by the lexical verb, type elaboration by the subject and object nominals, and grounding by tense. Though minimal in terms of overt structure, a baseline clause is hardly self-contained. Every linguistic structure presupposes a conceptual substrate of indefinite extent, comprising mental capacities, background knowledge, and apprehension of the context. The substrate allows the structure to emerge, provides its coherence, and is thus an inherent aspect of its meaning. For baseline clauses—representing what is plausibly regarded as the minimal and canonical linguistic interaction based on propositions—the substrate includes the baseline viewing arrangement, shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 In the baseline arrangement, both the ground and the profiled occurrence are real. The interlocutors are together in a fixed location, engaged in observing and describing actual phenomena in the world around them. They are offstage conceptualizers, whose interaction establishes the profiled occurrence (p) as the shared focus of attention within the objective scene (OS), i.e. the “onstage” situation being described. The baseline speech act is a simple statement, where the speaker describes an occurrence for the benefit of the hearer, who is expected to listen, understand what is said, and accept it. A single statement of this sort constitutes a baseline discourse. �6 Given this substrate, a baseline clause contains the minimum needed to fulfill the clausal function: a lexical verb to describe an occurrence, nominals to specify its participants, and tense to ground it. When restricted to the baseline, there is no need for various elements that appear in more elaborate expressions representing higher strata. The substrate specifies the description of actual occurrences, so there is no need for elements like negation or modals, which exclude the profiled occurrence from reality. There is no indication of speech act, since the substrate incorporates the baseline act of statement. And as a stand-alone description, a baseline clause ignores discursive factors such as topic, informational focus, and connections with other clauses. So if you want to build an English clause, the elements of a baseline clause represent the simplest, most straightforward way to fulfill the essential semantic functions. These are summarized in Figure 3. Together, the lexical verb and its participants specify an elaborated process type (p), which functions as the grounded structure. Grounding by tense yields a proposition (P), which profiles an instance of that type situated with respect to the ground. Hence the clause both describes an occurrence and offers a rudimentary assessment of its epistemic status vis-à-vis the interlocutors. Figure 3 2.2 Perspective From a baseline clause, further elaboration produces expressions of greater complexity that I will refer to as basic clauses. There are two dimensions of elaboration. The first, pertaining to the grounded structure, consists in a range of alternatives for perspective. �7 A lexical verb embodies a particular way of apprehending the profiled occurrence (p). The verb being a conventional linguistic unit, this way of viewing it constitutes the neutral or baseline perspective. English clauses have three grammaticized means of effecting a perspectival adjustment: the familiar trio of passive, progressive, and perfect. Since these require additional conceptual capacities and afford a wider array of options, the resulting expressions represent a higher stratum. This is shown in Figure 4(a), where the dashed arrow indicates perspectival elaboration. At the lower stratum, S1, p is the process profiled by the lexical head, e.g. wash. At the higher stratum, S2, p' is the one profiled by a composite expression: be washed, be washing, or have washed. Figure 4 The passive, progressive, and perfect constructions form a cohesive system of perspectival elaboration. They are mutually exclusive—a set of opposing options—as only one �8 can appear on the lexical verb. They are also parallel in formation, each residing in a complex construction involving a participial element (-ed or -ing) and a schematic verb (be or have). These constructions all follow the pattern shown abstractly in Figure 4(b). The structure at the left is the process (p) profiled by the lexical verb; it profiles a relationship (r) scanned through time (thick solid arrow). From this, the participial morpheme derives a structure in which the verbal process is viewed holistically (thin solid arrow) from an altered perspective, indicated by using r' (instead of r) for the profiled relationship. This holistic view implies that the participle is not itself a verb, so it cannot itself function as clausal head. For clausal use, it combines with the schematic verb be or have in much the same way that be combines with an adjective or prepositional phrase (Figure 1). The composite verbal expression that results designates a process, p', in which r' (not r) is the relationship tracked through time. Each perspectival option affects the lexical process in a different way: the passive elevates the processual landmark to the status of trajector (primary focal participant); the progressive “zooms in” on p, taking an internal perspective that excludes its endpoints; while the perfect views the verbal process from a temporally posterior vantage point defining a sphere of interest (“current relevance”). The details are not essential here (see Langacker 1991: §5.2), but for sake of concreteness let us briefly consider the progressive. In 4(c), the complex relationship (r) profiled by the lexical verb (V) is decomposed into the series of component relationships, r1...ri...rn, manifested at successive points in time. The participial morpheme -ing views this holistically, imposing a limited temporal scope—or locus of attention—that excludes r1 and rn. As the specific focus of attention, the profiled relation is confined to this scope and is further construed as being internally homogeneous: the same relation (ri) obtains throughout. Being a relationship viewed holistically, Ving is actually adjectival, so it can modify a noun (e.g. the girl washing her dog). But clausal use requires a verbal head. So at the second level of composition, the verb be effects the scanning through time of the profiled relation ri to form a higher-level process, p'. The essential point is that p' embodies a perspective which makes it distinct from the baseline process p. If these perspectival adjustments are mutually exclusive, as in 4(a), how can they cooccur in complex expressions like be being washed, have been washed, and have been being washed? The answer is that they are mutually exclusive with respect to any one verbal process, p, but since the result of perspectivalization is a higher-level process, p', that in turn is subject to �9 perspectivalization. The maximal sequence is exemplified in 4(d): wash ---> be washed ---> be being washed ---> have been being washed. The permissible combinations represent wellentrenched conventional patterns, which are largely determined by semantic compatibility (Langacker 1991: §5.3.2). The system comprising perspectival adjustments and their combinations provide a substantial range of options for viewing the occurrence profiled by the lexical verb. As shown in 4(d), this ability to iterate adjustments produces progressively more complex structures representing successively higher strata. At each stratum, a verb is introduced—the lexical verb, be, or have—which functions as the constructional head: this verb (marked in bold) imposes its profile on the whole, designating the same process (p, p', p'', or p''') as the composite expression formed at that level. The structure produced at the highest stratum is the grounded structure. Its constructional head is the grounded verb. (a) ((((V) PASSIVE) PROGRESSIVE) PERFECT) -ed be -ing be -ed have (b) V+ ACTIVE Ø PASSIVE -ed be (c) + NON-PROGRESSIVE Ø PROGRESSIVE + NON-PERFECT Ø -ing be PERFECT -ed have wash = wash + [Ø] + [Ø] + [Ø] be washing = wash + [Ø] + [-ing be ] + [Ø] have washed = wash + [Ø] + [Ø] + [ -ed have] Figure 5 A conceivable alternative to B/E organization, with successively more complex structures at multiple strata, would be to posit a zero-morpheme counterpart to each perspectival construction. So instead of the layered structure in Figure 5(a), where wash is simply wash, a clause would always include the four-term structure in 5(b). Wash would thus be analyzed as wash + [Ø] + [Ø] + [Ø], be washing as [wash] + [Ø] + [-ing be] + [Ø], and so on. I doubt that anyone would seriously propose this account (which amounts to treating privative oppositions as �10 equipollent). Among its drawbacks is the infelicity of viewing a simple form as being analogous to a complex one that is clearly based on it. Though just a straw man, the analysis serves to illustrate the dubious consequences of allowing zero elements. These are avoided in CG, B/E organization being a means of doing so. 2.3 Grounding Perspectival adjustment elaborates the grounded structure of a baseline clause. A second dimension of elaboration pertains to grounding. I have often described English grounding (e.g. in Langacker 2011, 2012) in terms of two sets of opposing elements, each with a zero member, as in Figure 6(a). Within the tense system, present is marked by zero or -s, and past by -d (or some variant). In the modal system, zero contrasts with the other options by indicating that the profiled occurrence is real. Omitting third singular -s (which marks person as well as tense), these parameters define the paradigm in 6(b). Instead of PRESENT and PAST, I use the more general labels IMMEDIATE and NON-IMMEDIATE. The non-immediate modals (lacking in the case of must) are of course less than fully analyzable in both form and meaning. Figure 6 The description in 6(a) is reasonable if Ø is taken as merely indicating the absence of explicit tense or a modal. It is less so if Ø is interpreted as an actual structural element (a zero morpheme), as suggested by 6(b). I am proposing a B/E alternative to such an account. In this alternative, the present-tense form of a lexical verb (V) is just V, not V+ Ø (analogous to V + -d). �11 Likewise, the absence of a modal is just that—not the presence of a zero modal. So in the baseline clause We admire her, the verbal element is just admire (rather than Ø admire + Ø). Except for third-person singular (where -s preempts the general pattern), English does not mark present tense. Can we then speak of tense or grounding in such clauses? Can we characterize We admire her as a grounded clause in the present tense? We can if tense and grounding are regarded as semantic functions as opposed to specific structural elements. A clause serves the intersubjective function of coordinated mental reference, whereby the interlocutors direct attention to what is taken to be the same occurrence. This global function incorporates grounding as a subfunction: that of the interlocutors situating the profiled occurrence with respect to time and their conception of reality. This can be accomplished in different ways. It can be done by means of an explicit grounding element, like a modal or a tense marker. Alternatively, it may simply be inherent in the conceptual substrate presupposed by the clause as the basis for its form and meaning. If the substrate ascribes a certain status to the profiled occurrence, that alone fulfills the clausal grounding function. For English clauses, the baseline substrate includes the supposition that the interlocutors are engaged in describing real occurrences (Figure 2). Although the linguistically relevant notion of reality is quite complex (involving dimensions and levels of elaboration), we need only consider the baseline version. Out of all conceivable occurrences, only some are realized. Through time there is thus established a history of realized occurrences, which is continually being augmented. For a given conceptualizer, at a given moment, the established history of occurrences constitutes reality. Note that future occurrences are precluded, as they have not (yet) been realized. Reality (R) can thus be visualized as a cylinder which “grows” through time with new occurrences, as shown in Figure 7(a). The face of this cylinder—where the growth takes place in the form of new events and continuing situations—constitutes immediate reality (IR). In the baseline viewing arrangement, R includes both the ground (G) and the profiled occurrence (p). G is specifically in IR (defining the temporal deictic center), but p can be anywhere in R, as shown in 7(b). �12 (a) (b) G p t R IR R G (d) (c) p p p p G R IR DIST R S1 G IR S0 Figure 7 With 7(b) as part of the supporting conceptual substrate, a language might forgo explicit grounding in baseline clauses. One such language is Hopi, where a bare verb describes either a completed event or a stable situation: Taaqa wari ‘The man ran’; Taaqa qatɨ ‘The man is sitting’. These usually correlate with past vs. present, since a realized event is only describable as such upon completion whereas a stable situation is fully instantiated at the time of speaking (Langacker 2009: ch. 7). English, on the other hand, differentiates 7(b)—where p is simply in R—into the alternate configurations shown in 7(c); baseline clauses are conceptually more elaborate by virtue of indicating whether p is in IR or in its complement. A stable situation can thus be specified as either present or past: I love her; I loved her. Third-singular -s departs from the basic English pattern by preemptively marking person as well as tense. If we limit our attention to tense per se, baseline grounding can itself be seen as exhibiting the B/E organization in 7(d). Present occurrences, fundamental in the sense of being immediately accessible to the interlocutors, represent a lower stratum, S0. Describing past occurrences involves both formal elaboration, by -d, and conceptual elaboration based on an additional mental capacity, namely recall. The dashed arrow indicates elaboration as well as the distancing (DIST) whereby p is non-immediate to G. �13 Baseline grounding is further elaborated by the grammaticized modals. They represent a higher stratum characterized by additional conceptual resources, notably the ability to project the growth of reality to encompass occurrences not yet accepted as having been realized. So as a departure from the baseline substrate, modals situate p outside of R. This is true of both root and epistemic modals, as shown in Figure 8. In an abstract sense both are force dynamic (Talmy 1988; Sweetser 1990; Langacker To appear). The difference is that root modals are primarily interactive, intended to have some effect on the course of events: You may go to the party; They should be more polite; You must tell her the truth. By contrast, epistemic modals are primarily individual, the modal force consisting in the speaker’s own assessment of the prospects for p being realized: She will refuse the offer; They may not be home; We could fail. Figure 8 Elaboration by modals (M) defines the higher strata shown in Figure 9(a). The basic modals—may, can, will, shall, must—distance p from the ground by placing it outside of R (S2). Relative to this, the elaborated modals—might, could, would, should—consistently imply a longer “epistemic path” from G to p than their counterparts. An example is She will do it because she can vs. She would do it if she could, where will and can are matters of future potential while would and could are counterfactual. They represent a higher stratum (S3), since compared to their basic counterparts they are morphologically and conceptually more complex: ((M) DIST)M. �14 (a) S1 S3 S2 S0 p p DIST M G D IST IR R p G' M p IR' (b) [If he were not so poor] she would marry him. [he be poor] G [he not be poor] [she marry him] DIST G' will p Figure 9 Their conceptual complexity reflects an additional mental capacity: that of imagining a situation (G')—distinct from G—from which a basic modal projection could be made. It is exemplified in 9(b), where would effects the grounding of she marry him. The actual situation (immediate to G) is that he is poor. The imagined situation (at G') is that he is not poor. It is from the latter that the basic modal projection can be made: p is predictable (will) given the counterfactual situation of his not being poor (as part of IR'). So with modals the import of the non-immediate form is that the basis for prediction is distant (DIST) from G in the sense of not being real. In contrast to the basic modals, there is thus a two-step epistemic path from G to p. 2.4 Basic Clauses In Figure 10 I give an interim summary. In a baseline clause, grounding is effected by tense, with the grounded structure comprising the lexical verb and its participants. Each can be elaborated to form a basic clause; for grounding this is done by modals, and for the grounded structure through perspectival adjustment. These elaborations are primarily descriptive, serving to refine the characterization of the occurrence and its status. Either a baseline or a basic clause �15 expresses a negotiable proposition (P). By definition, a baseline clause represents the default option—when unelaborated, it stands alone as a basic clause with this function. Figure 10 The general grounding construction, exemplified by the baseline clause We liked her, is sketched in Figure 11(a). An overt grounding element—be it -d, -s, or a modal—profiles a fully schematic process, putting it onstage as the focus of attention within the objective scene (OS). This schematic process is identified with the specific one (p) profiled by the grounded structure (an elaborated process type). The clause thus designates an instance of p and indicates its epistemic status vis-à-vis the ground. �16 Figure 11 Grounding remains implicit in present-tense expressions such as We like her, represented in 11(b). Their formal simplicity reflects the baseline situation of the profiled occurrence being immediate to the ground. In terms of a path from G to p, this is the limiting, degenerate case: there is no path, since both are in IR. This pattern is conventional in English, hence an established linguistic unit. It simply specifies that the description of p itself—equivalent to the grounded structure in 11(a)—qualifies as a clause when its epistemic status is that of immediacy to G. �17 Figure 12 Thus a minimal clause consists of just a lexical verb and its participants, with grounding effected by the substrate: p is immediate to G and neutral in perspective. Other clauses have multiple strata reflecting elaborated grounding and/or perspectival adjustment. Various cases are �18 shown in Figure 12. In 12(a), overt grounding by the distal (past-tense) marker yields what is still a baseline clause (e.g. She washed it), while in 12(b) a modal results in a basic clause (She may wash it). The other examples combine explicit grounding with one or more perspectival adjustments. Each elaboration produces a structure representing a higher stratum by virtue of being formally and semantically more complex. The end result—at the highest level—is a full clause that profiles a grounded occurrence (p, p', p'', or p''') and expresses a negotiable proposition (P): She was washing it, It had been washed, It might have been being washed. At each stratum I have used bold type to indicate the verb word which first appears there. This word is always initial in the verb group at that level, where it is also the constructional head, profiling the same process as the composite expression. The initial word at the highest level is what is traditionally known as the finite verb, defined as the verb bearing tense. In CG terms, the finite verb can be characterized as the locus of grounding: the verb which registers the epistemic status of the profiled occurrence with respect to immediacy and reality. Included as a special case is the pattern in 11(b), where an uninflected verb registers the baseline status of immediate reality. Observe in this respect that a modal has all the properties of the finite verb. Being a grounding element, it is introduced at the highest stratum. It is also a verb, since grounding elements profile the grounded process, represented schematically as the onstage focus of attention. Clearly, a modal registers the epistemic status of this process in regard to both reality (by excluding p from R) and immediacy (indicating whether the basis for modal projection is G or G'). And in the generalized form of immediacy, it is the verb that bears tense. Finally, a modal (immediate or non-immediate) is a word. When present, therefore, a modal is itself the finite verb (hence excluded from non-finite complements). Otherwise the grounded verb functions in that capacity. In baseline clauses, the lexical verb is also the grounded verb as well as the finite verb. Perspectival adjustment creates a discrepancy between the lexical verb and the grounded verb, which is either be or have. Likewise, modals create a discrepancy between grounded verb and finite verb by assuming the latter role. As is common with B/E organization, conceptual and formal elaboration of the baseline results in differentiation of these three semantic functions. They can all be represented by different verbs in a basic clause. In 12(e), for example, wash functions as the lexical verb, have as the grounded verb, and might as the finite verb. �19 3. Discursive Organization 3.1 Factors A basic clause expresses a negotiable proposition (P), which describes an occurrence (p) from a certain perspective and indicates its epistemic status in regard to time and the speaker’s conception of reality (R). It still reflects a central feature of the baseline viewing arrangement: that the speaker merely describes, with the hearer just accepting what is said. Usually, though, the interlocutors engage in a longer discourse where certain propositions are negotiated by way of establishing a “common ground”. Employed for this purpose are interactive clauses, representing a higher stratum with a wider array of interactive and discursive options (cf. the “interpersonal metafunction” of Systemic-Functional Grammar [Halliday and Matthiessen 2004; Heyvaert 2001]). An interactive clause expresses an elaborated proposition, P', in which the validity of P is being negotiated. As noted in Figure 13 (an expansion of Figure 10), an interactive clause augments basic grounding (by tense and modals) with another sort of grounding characteristic of negotiation. Whereas basic clauses are limited to positive statements, interactive grounding provides additional options in regard to polarity and speech act. Basic and interactive grounding both pertain to epistemic status, but at different levels: the former concerns the status of p, as part of a proposition (P); the latter concerns the validity of P as a whole. Hence a basic clause functions as the grounded structure at this higher stratum. �20 Figure 13 The negotiation of P’s validity occurs through discourse (Verhagen 2005). There is no sharp distinction between descriptive and discursive functions, nor any precise correlation with strata or implementing structures. At most we can say that certain structures and functions are primarily descriptive or discursive. Factors that I regard as primarily discursive include speech management, interclausal connections, information structure, order of presentation, and the packaging of content. Speech management includes such matters as turn taking, holding or yielding the floor, and offstage indications of assent or disagreement. Elements specifying interclausal connections range from having substantial descriptive content (after, because, then) to being purely discursive (moreover, furthermore, and so). Information structure (e.g. notions like topic and informational focus) pertains to the discourse status of entities with respect to their intersubjective availability. The order of presentation is a central aspect of discursive organization. It always contributes to linguistic meaning, since processing time is one dimension of semantic structure (just as it is for phonological structure). Finally, semantic and phonological content is packaged into “chunks” of manageable size. Lexical items offer prepackaged chunks �21 of conceptual content. At a higher level, exemplified in (1), packaging consists in allocating content to grammatical structures, like sentences and clauses, as well as to prosodically delimited processing windows—notably, what Chafe calls intonation units and I refer to as attentional frames (Chafe 1994, 1998; Langacker 2001a). (1)(a) //I came//↓ //I saw//↓ //I conquered//↓ [3 clauses, 3 intonation units, 3 pitch contours] (b) //I came // I saw // and I conquered//↓ [3 clauses, 3 intonation units, 1 pitch contour] (c) //I came / I saw / and I conquered//↓ [3 clauses, 1 intonation unit, 1 pitch contour] (d) //I came / saw / and conquered//↓ [1 clause, 1 intonation unit, 1 pitch contour] Discursive structures have little content of their own, consisting instead in ways of organizing and presenting descriptive content for interactive purposes as a discourse unfolds. An example is the informational focus, where unreduced stress symbolizes new or significant information. This symbolic unit per se is too insubstantial to occur independently; it can only be manifested via the semantic and phonological content of the focused elements, e.g. may and work in She MAY have been WORKing. Grammar accommodates descriptive and discursive structures as co-existing facets of symbolic assemblies. In Figure 14 I show the basic functional groupings for the clause She have been WORKing. MAY The ones at the top reflect the descriptive organization already discussed; those at the bottom are primarily discursive. The latter include: (i) the order of presentation (>); (ii) the packaging of content into words (w); (iii) packaging of the clause in a single processing window (W); (iv) the informational focus; (v) organization into subject and predicate (cf. Kuroda 1972); and (vi) a functional grouping I call the existential core (to be considered shortly). �22 Descriptive Functions P CLAUSE p'' GROUNDING GROUNDED STRUCTURE PERSP' MAY W HAVE she > W MAY p' -EN > W PERSP BE -ING have > SUBJECT p ELABORATED TYPE BASIC TYPE PARTICIPANT WORK W be-en SHE > WORK-ing W PREDICATE EXISTENTIAL CORE FOCUS ATTENTIONAL FRAME / PROCESSING WINDOW W Discursive Functions Figure 14 It is hardly surprising that structures reflecting different functions are often in conflict with one another. These cross-cutting groupings are unproblematic in CG: since grammar consists in assemblies of structures (as opposed to rigid hierarchies), the same elements can perfectly well be organized simultaneously in non-congruent ways. In Figure 14, for instance, the informational focus MAY WORK—symbolized by unreduced stress—does not coincide with any other semantic or phonological grouping (Langacker 1997). The need to accommodate both descriptive and discursive functions has the consequence that not every grouping is symbolized individually. As a composite whole, for example, the elaborated process type SHE WORK does not correspond to any independently observable phonological grouping (being discontinuous in the clause). Despite such discrepancies, descriptive and discursive structures are readily apprehended on the basis of the overall assemblies and the constructions employed. 3.2 Negotiation �23 The negotiation defining an interactive clause pertains to polarity and speech act. For polarity, the baseline status is POSITIVE, with NEGATIVE and AFFIRMATIVE as additional options at a higher stratum. Negative is marked by not (often contracted), and affirmative by unreduced stress. Affirmative differs from positive by specifically viewing P in relation to the negative alternative: He IS smart suggests that the possibility of his not being smart is somehow within the realm of consideration (e.g. He may not be a genius, but he we will limit our attention to STATEMENT IS (the baseline) and smart). In the case of speech act, QUESTIONING. The latter is clearly more elaborate because the question scenario includes a statement (the expected response). The starting point for negotiation is thus a positive statement, i.e. a basic clause expressing a negotiable proposition (P). From this baseline, elaborations in regard to polarity or speech act produce an interactive clause representing a negotiated proposition (P'), as shown in Figure 15. The two dimensions of elaboration can also be combined, resulting in an affirmative or negative question (IS he smart?; Isn’t he smart?). P' Q P S1 AFF P' NEG P' Q Q P'' P'' S2 S3 S4 Figure 15 The various options in Figure 15 are all indicated by the subject and finite verb. In a positive statement, they simply occur in that sequence: He is trying. Non-baseline polarity is marked on the finite verb, by either unreduced stress or incorporation of not/n’t: He IS trying; He isn’t trying. And questioning is signaled by the finite verb preceding the subject: Is he trying?. As the manifestation of interactive grounding, the subject and finite verb—along with these basic indications of polarity and speech act—constitute a functional grouping with an important role in the grammar of English clauses. Underlined for ease of identification, I refer to this grouping as �24 the existential core. C∃ is adopted as an abbreviatory notation (∃ being the logical symbol for the existential quantifier). The term alludes to a basic claim concerning the semantic function of a clause: that it serves to predicate—and if need be, to negotiate—the existence of a relationship. In standard usage, of course, we do not speak of relationships as existing. But that is just a lexical idiosyncrasy of English. There is in fact good motivation for speaking this way, based on the wide-ranging parallelism between nominal and clausal structure (Langacker 2009: ch. 6). Consider just their prototypes, namely objects and events. We say that objects exist, while events occur (or happen), but these locutions obscure a fundamental similarity. An object consists of substance that occupies a continuous region in space; it exists by virtue of having spatial extension and a spatial location. Analogously, an event is an evolving relationship [given as r1...ri...rn in Figure 4(c)] that occupies a continuous region in time; it exists (or occurs) by virtue of having temporal extension and a temporal location. In the case of nominals, existence is generally taken for granted; the primary epistemic issue, reflected in nominal grounding, is identification. But for clauses the primary epistemic issue is existence: whether the profiled relationship actually occurs. A relationship that occurs is referred to in CG as a process—or more perspicuously, as an occurrence. Since a verb or a clause profiles a process, by definition it makes an existential predication, describing an occurrence. In the form of interactive grounding, negotiation concerning the validity of this predication is registered in the existential core. The core functions discursively by providing a compact, clause-initial presentation of the existential negotiation. It is optimal when (as very often happens) the subject is pronominal and the finite verb non-lexical; the core is then schematic, and in the absence of specific conceptual content negotiation comes to the fore. As non-lexical options, the finite verb is either be, have, do, or a modal—the so-called “auxiliary verbs”. These are better described as existential verbs: the profiled relationship being wholly schematic, their conceptual import centers on the very notion of its occurrence. Relevant here is the cross-linguistic prevalence of using be- and havetype verbs to predicate existence in the case of things. And despite some basic differences, an existential predication is clearly pivotal for both do and the modals. Do and the modals are alike in that they profile the same process as their complement but describe it only schematically. In terms of their onstage content, therefore, the combinations do + �25 V and M + V are non-distinct from V itself. One difference is that modals are grounding elements, whereas do augments the grounded structure. As grounding elements, modals profile the onstage process, even though their essential content resides in the offstage grounding relationship (Langacker 2002). They contribute semantically by indicating, through their offstage assessment of its potentiality, that the profiled occurrence is as yet unrealized. Unlike modals, do combines only with the lexical verb, which it elaborates for discursive reasons. This elaboration is not a matter of additional conceptual content, since do is schematic for the class of verbs. Its semantic contribution is rather to reinforce the notion of existence by expressing it individually. Observe that it occurs just when existence is being negotiated: in cases of negation, affirmation, and questioning (not in positive statements). Do + V can thus be characterized as a discursively motivated elaboration of V. Defined most narrowly, the existential core is a closely integrated system that lends itself to paradigmatic representation, as shown in the following table. The one apparent anomaly is in the upper left-hand corner, where the finite verb is lexical rather than existential. But this is not at all anomalous when analyzed in terms of B/E organization: the expressions involved are baseline clauses, which occur by default if nothing dictates otherwise. It is only at a higher stratum, through descriptive or discursive elaboration, that an existential verb is introduced to impose its profile and function as the tense-bearing element. With descriptive elaboration, that verb is be, have, or a modal. If there is only discursive elaboration, the lexical verb (V) gives way to the periphrastic alternative do + V. Existential status can then be indicated by the subject and a schematic finite verb (He didn’t; He DID; Did he?), in accordance with the general pattern. POS NEG AFF Q v/do He tried. He didn’t try. He DID try. Did he try? be He is trying. He isn’t trying. He IS trying. Is he trying? have He has tried. He hasn’t tried. He HAS tried. Has he tried? M He will try. He won’t try. He WILL try. Will he try? BASELINE ELABORATION (descriptive) �26 POS BASELINE NEG ELABORATION AFF Q (interactive/discursive) A brief summary will be useful. In all cases, existential status is indicated by the subject and the finite verb, the main elements of the existential core (C∃). As a succinct representation of the clause and its status, the core is optimal when the subject and finite verb are both schematic. Baseline clauses, where the verb is lexical and the subject may be as well, diverge from this general pattern but should not be thought of as exceptional—it is rather that they are more fundamental, for in the baseline substrate existential status is not at issue. At this lowest stratum, where negotiation is not a factor, core and clause are as yet undifferentiated. An important point is that the core is not a fixed, distinct, or discretely bounded structure but a functional grouping, variable in extent and membership depending on the function served. The finite verb, being the locus of existential negotiation and the pivotal element of the existential core (C∃), will also be referred to as the existential verb (V∃). To be sure, every verb is existential in the sense that it predicates the existence of a relationship. And being schematic in regard to that relationship, auxiliary verbs are existential in the further sense that their conceptual import centers on the very notion of its occurrence. The finite verb of a clause is existential in yet another sense pertaining to discursive function: the process it profiles is the one whose existence is being negotiated and whose epistemic status is registered by the core. 3.3 Anchoring The order of presentation has intrinsic conceptual import just by virtue of invoking semantic structures in a certain sequence. Order alone ensures that X > Y is never precisely equivalent to Y > X: they constitute distinct mental experiences, hence subtly different meanings, even if the difference is negligible for most purposes. Nor is it just a matter of sequencing, as what goes before unavoidably influences the processing of what follows. The manifestation of Y is at least minimally different in the sequence X > Y, where X is part of the supporting substrate, from when it occurs alone. (To some extent the influence is bidirectional, the anticipation of Y being part of the substrate for X.) �27 A variety of experimental evidence indicates that the initial element in a sequence has special status in this regard. It serves as a “starting point” to which other content is attached (MacWhinney 1977). Though demanding more cognitive capacity, it lays a “foundation” for “structure building”; it “gains a privileged status in the comprehenders’ minds”, being more accessible in subsequent processing tasks (Gernsbacher and Hargreaves 1992). The initial element in a sequence will be referred to as the anchor. Defined in this general fashion, an anchor can be a structure of any size or at any level of organization. Our concern here is with the anchor in a clause, so the elements involved are major clausal components, such as nominals, adverbials, and the existential core. The default in English is for the subject to function as anchor, whether it be a single word or a longer expression. The correlation of anchor and subject is natural from the standpoint of CG: the subject is the nominal expressing the clausal trajector (primary focal participant), characterized as initial reference point accessed in building up to a full conception of the profiled process (Langacker 1998, 1999; cf. Chafe 1994: ch. 7). A key point is that the extent and specific nature of their correlation differ at successive strata. In baseline clauses, there is only one option: the subject is always initial (hence the anchor) and expresses the trajector of the lexical verb. Things are slightly more elaborate in basic clauses owing to perspectival adjustment. In particular, the passive construction introduces a discrepancy between the trajector of the lexical verb and that of the clause as a whole. The anchor of a basic clause is still the subject—its primary focal participant (Tomlin 1995; Ibbotson, Lieven, and Tomasello 2013)—but in passives this coincides with the landmark of the lexical verb rather than its trajector. Interactive clauses, where discursive factors come into play, present a considerably more complex picture. They are structurally more elaborate both by containing additional components (such as adverbs) and also by letting word order vary for discursive purposes. Most relevant here is a particular construction in which the subject is preceded by another element, e.g. the object nominal: Dishonesty she can’t tolerate. By definition the preceding element functions as clauselevel anchor. This construction therefore differentiates the anchor and subject roles, just as the passive differentiates the roles of subject and verbal trajector. �28 The element preceding the subject will be called the discursive anchor (labeled A'). A wide array of elements function in this capacity, including non-subject nominals, prepositional phrases, and adverbial expressions. They have varied functional motivations, exemplified in (2). (2)(a) Obama he would never vote for. (b) In parts of Hawaii it rains almost every day. (c) From Houston he will drive to Dallas. (d) ??To Dallas he will drive from Houston. (e) Therefore you shouldn’t take the job. (f) On the counter it goes! (g) Carefully she unwrapped the present. One basic function is to provide a mental address for interpreting the clausal content, by directing attention to a certain portion of our conceptual universe. This is often a clausal participant, as in (a), in which case the anchor is said to be a clause-internal topic. But it can also be a location or a global setting (Langacker 1991: §8.1.3), as in (b). The discursive anchor has iconic motivation when it specifies the origin of a natural path, e.g. a path of motion, as in (c); note the relative infelicity of the counter-iconic order in (d). Another function is to indicate the connection of a clause with the previous one, as in (e). An alternative motivation is urgency: the anchor demands immediate attention. If I see you staggering under a heavy load, which you need to put down right away, I will probably state the location first, as in (f). The default order, It goes on the counter!, delays the essential information. A clearly discernible motivation is not always evident. It may just be that the speaker chooses to favor a certain component with the intrinsic salience of initial elements. In (2)(g), for example, coming first makes the manner specification a bit more salient than it would be otherwise. Whatever its motivation, the discursive anchor has at least this minimal conceptual import. Moreover, it frames the clause in the sense of providing an initial point of access to its content. Because it is already active when subsequent elements are activated, it has the potential to influence their interpretation. Discursive anchoring represents a dimension of B/E organization at the level of interactive clauses. The baseline—the most neutral order of presentation—is for the subject to be �29 initial as part of the existential core, as in Figure 16(a): I may not finish this paper on time. By definition the subject is then the clausal anchor (A), but as the default configuration this does not per se have any special discursive import. It is noteworthy that a clause of this sort displays a kind of functional optimality in having not just one but two natural starting points. The subject anchors the clause, as well as the existential core (C∃). But since an anchor can be of any size, the core itself can be thought of as a clausal anchor. It is a natural point of access which facilitates processing by offering a schematic preview of the profiled occurrence and its existential status. Whether taken to be the subject or the core, the anchor still frames the clause in the sense of being the initial point of access. Representing the baseline situation, this constitutes neutral framing, as distinct from the special framing giving rise to discursive alternatives at a higher stratum. Figure 16 Special framing implies a more elaborate conceptual structure based on discursive factors like those in (2). As shown in Figure 16(b), it creates a discrepancy between the discursive anchor (A') and the subject: This paper I may not finish on time. Note, however, that the subject still anchors the core as well as the sequence that follows A'. Indeed, except for the “gap” corresponding to A', that sequence still constitutes a clause which the subject frames in the same way as at lower strata. This construction can thus be seen as elaborating an interactive clause by introducing an additional level of structural and functional organization. It partially differentiates what would otherwise be a single clause, resulting in two layers of clausal structure, each with its own anchor: [A' [A ...]CL ]CL. The two anchors have slightly different framing functions, which are not yet differentiated at lower strata. The function of A is primarily descriptive: an active clause describes what the agent does, while a passive describes what happens to the patient. The choice �30 of subject—a matter of perspective on the lexical process—emerges at a lower level. By contrast, the function of A' is primarily discursive, pertaining to discourse factors at a higher level of organization. This is not to deny, of course, that passives are used for various discourse purposes. The point is rather that special framing constitutes a discursive overlay on a more basic descriptive structure. It can thus apply to either actives or passives, as in (3). (3)(a) Termites destroyed the house in just six months. [A = SUBJ = AG] (b) The house was destroyed by termites in just six months. (c) In just six months termites destroyed the house. [A = SUBJ = PAT] [A' ≠ A = SUBJ = AG] (d) In just six months the house was destroyed by termites. [A' ≠ A = SUBJ = PAT] Since A' and A represent semantic functions, rather than fixed or separate structures, different elements can assume either role. Nor does anything prevent the same element from functioning in both capacities. In (4)(a), we observe that a clause-internal topic, especially when contrastive, is fully stressed and prosodically salient in addition to being initial. When that element happens to be the subject, as in (4)(b), the neutral framing effected by a clause-initial subject is reinforced by the special framing of a discursive topic. In this case the subject functions as both A' (by virtue of being the topic) and as A (by virtue of being initial). The functions are conflated in a single element. (4)(a) STUPIDITY [A'] she [A/SUBJ] can tolerate. DISHONESTY [A'] she [A/SUBJ] can’t. (b) SHE [A'/A/SUBJ] can tolerate stupidity. HE [A'/A/SUBJ] cannot. 4. Inversion 4.1 Existential Core In Figure 16(b), and again in 17(b) Zelda he will never understand, we observe a parallelism between the core of an interactive clause and the clause as a whole. It is captured by the formula A > ∃ > R: an anchor (A), followed by an existential element (∃), followed by the remainder (R). Within the existential core, A is the subject, ∃ is the existential verb (V∃), and R �31 is any remaining core element (e.g. never). At the clause level, the corresponding elements are a discursive anchor (A'), the full existential core (C∃), and everything which follows it (R'). Representing a kind of fractal organization, this pattern repeats itself at multiple levels. We can recognize the same elements in a baseline clause, such as 17(a) Floyd broke the glass: A is the subject, ∃ the lexical verb, and R the object. It is also evident in the higher-level elaboration of an interactive clause, as in 17(c): Your son, at home he has always been pleasant, hasn’t he?. In this case A is a clause-external topic, ∃ is a basic interactive clause, and R is a question tag. Figure 17 Our main concern is with an interactive clause and its existential core. Let us first consider the motivation for recognizing the core as being linguistically significant. Recall that C∃ was characterized as a functional grouping comprising the subject, the finite (or existential) verb, and basic indications of polarity and speech act. One indication of its significance is the fractal organization noted in Figure 17: the core is a particular manifestation of a pattern that recurs at multiple levels. Also, within an interactive clause the core serves the important function of registering the existential status of the profiled occurrence. And with a baseline interactive clause, as in 16(a) I may not finish this paper on time, the core is a natural point of access �32 providing a schematic representation of the clausal occurrence, its existential status, and its main participant. These are indications that the core has functional significance. It also has structural significance. First, the division between C∃ and R' is a favored location for the interruptive occurrence of adverbs and other expressions pertaining to existential status, as in (5). Moreover, because C∃ satisfies the abstract definition of a finite clause—namely, it profiles a grounded process—it has the potential to stand alone as such. We see in (6) that it does so both as a question tag (e.g. will it?) and also as part of an elliptic response (No, it won’t). (5)(a) You should, I think, pass this test quite easily. (b) He did not, apparently, tell his wife about his affair. (c) She has, it seems, been complaining to her boss. (d) Are they, perhaps, being criticized unfairly? (6)(a) A: Our plan won’t be affected, will it? B: No, it won’t. (b) A: The boys have been quiet, haven’t they? (c) A: You’re cleaning your room, are you? (d) A: He DID vote for Romney, didn’t he? B: Yes, they have for the most part. B: Yes, I am. B: No, he didn’t, actually. Despite its structural significance, the existential core is not a rigid structure with clearcut boundaries. There is no definitive list of core elements, as they differ in degree of centrality and membership varies for different functions. The core is minimal, consisting of just the most central elements, in the case of question tags. There it is limited to the subject and existential verb—both of which have to be schematic—as well as baseline negation (not/n’t) and indication of speech act. We see in (7) that a tag is infelicitous with a lexical subject or verb. Nor does it tolerate ever, which occurs in the core of either a full clause or an elliptic response. (7)(a) Floyd broke the glass, {did he? / *did Floyd? / *broke he?}. (b) He has {never / not ever} broken one, has he (*ever)? (c) A: He didn’t break a glass. B: Has he ever (done so)? �33 At the other extreme, the core is maximally inclusive in the case of interruptive adverbials, as in (8)(a). It allows both lexical subjects and a substantial array of elements with epistemic import. The core also figures in the phenomenon known as “subject-auxiliary inversion”—here just inversion—where the subject follows the existential verb instead of preceding it. This represents an intermediate case, as only a subset of the elements preceding interruptive adverbials function as core elements for this purpose. And as noted in (8)(b), the judgments are not always clear, suggesting that their status as core elements is a matter of degree. (8)(a) Floyd has {never / seldom / often / always / even / certainly / clearly / in fact / indeed}, according to the evidence, been guilty of glass breaking. (b) {Never / Seldom / ?Often / ??Always / *Even / *Certainly / *Clearly / *In fact / *Indeed} has Floyd been guilty of glass breaking. I am proposing, then, that elements which induce inversion—like never and seldom in (8) (b)—belong to the existential core. Two issues must therefore be addressed. First, what is the basis for claiming that these “inversion triggers” are core elements? And second, why do they have this effect? How, exactly, does inversion come about? The analysis of inversion has been a point of theoretical contention. In the generative tradition, it is treated (following Chomsky 1957) as a “purely formal generalization”, thus supporting the autonomy of syntax (Borseley and Newmeyer 2009). In the cognitive-functional tradition, an alternative is naturally sought in which all the structures involved have semantic or discourse motivation. Goldberg (2006, 2009) describes inversion as a polysemous family of constructions which share the property of departing significantly from a prototypical sentence, characterized by the features positive, predicate focus, assertive, independent, and declarative. In my own analysis—which has much in common with one proposed by Chen (2013)—inversion is not a construction per se, but results from the interaction of discursive factors. 4.2 The Basic Analysis �34 Simply stated, inversion is just a consequence of special discursive framing by a core element other than the subject. Notions already introduced make it apparent why this is so. Special framing implies that there is indeed a discursive anchor, A'. When A' is a core element, it frames the clause in terms of some facet of the existential negotiation by the interlocutors. Since A' is then initial as well as being a core element, it is initial in the core, making it the core-level anchor, A; the functions A' and A are thus conflated. Now the existential core in English consistently follows the pattern A > ∃ > R, where ∃ is the existential verb (V∃). And only one core element can be initial. So when something other than the subject functions as both A' and A, the subject cannot, but has to follow V∃ as part of the remainder (R). Even if the basic outline is clear, the analysis requires more extensive discussion. Let us start with the observation that not every interactive clause has a discursive anchor. There is none in the case of neutral framing (the baseline in this respect), corresponding to the default word order of English clauses. As shown in Figure 18(a), the core is then initial, with the subject initial in the core. The subject thus functions as descriptive anchor (A) for both the core and the clause, but there is no discursive anchor (A'). �35 Figure 18 Moreover, most cases of A' do not trigger inversion. For instance, it does not occur with a clause-internal topic, as in 18(b). Nor does it occur in the examples given previously [in (2)] to illustrate the varied functional motivations of discursive anchors: (9)(a) *Obama would he never vote for. (b) *In parts of Hawaii does it rain every day. (c) *From Houston will he drive to Dallas. (d) *Therefore shouldn’t you take the job. (e) *On the counter does it go! (f) *Carefully did she unwrap the present. �36 In the spirit of Chen 2013, I am claiming that discursive anchors which do trigger inversion belong to the existential core. The basic rationale for this claim is that inversion triggers pertain directly to the clause’s existential negotiation, which is localized in the core. The strongest triggers embody the central core functions of negation and questioning. Thus in 18(c), A' is a negative adverb (never = not ever). In 18(d), it is a question word. By occurring initially, these elements frame the clause in terms of the existential negotiation. In such expressions the initial negative or question word is clearly a discursive anchor (A'): it is an anchor just by virtue of being initial; and it serves a discursive function, the interlocutors engaging in an existential negotiation which pivots on this element. And being pivotal to the existential negotiation, it belongs to the existential core (C∃). This is so even if it corresponds to an element that normally does not. In 18(d), the question word what functions as the clausal object, which is not per se a core element. What brings it into the core is not its status as an object, but its role in the existential negotiation. Obviously, when A' belongs to the core it does not precede it, as in 18(b), but is rather included within it, as in 18(c)-(d). And being initial in the clause, ipso facto it is initial in the core, hence the core-level anchor (A). The two anchoring functions, A' and A, are thus conflated in a single element. Moreover, since only one element precedes the existential verb, the core conforms to the general pattern A > ∃ > R. To state it another way, the A-slot in the pattern A > ∃ > R can be occupied by a single element with multiple functions (e.g. A'/A), or one that is internally complex (like a multiword subject). But it cannot be occupied simultaneously by distinct structures functioning individually in that capacity. Expressions like (10)(a)-(c), with two core elements preceding the existential verb, are thus precluded. So when a non-subject functions as discursive anchor, occurring directly before V∃ with the dual role A'/A, it fills the slot normally occupied by the subject. English resolves the conflict by having the subject follow V∃ instead of preceding it; though still a core element, it is relegated to the remainder (R). This alternative construction, providing another way of implementing some of the same semantic functions, is what we call inversion. (10)(a) *Never she can tolerate stupidity. (b) *What she can not tolerate? (c) *Never what can she tolerate? �37 Of course, the subject may itself take on the function of discursive anchor, as either a negative element, a question word, or a clause-internal topic. This has no effect on word order: as discursive anchor (A'), the subject must be initial; but as the default-case descriptive anchor (A), it is already initial in both the core and the clause. So instead of displacing the subject, this additional discursive function reinforces its claim to initial position. Merely the descriptive anchor (A) in 18(a), the subject has a dual anchoring role (A'/A) in 18(e)-(g). A classic problem—the absence of inversion in questions formed on the subject—is thereby resolved. The solution just falls out in the context of a more comprehensive analysis. Inversion is thus a matter of a non-subject core element preceding V∃ as discursive anchor, so that it preempts the A-slot in the pattern A > ∃ > R. How, then, do we account for polarity questions (those answerable by yes or no), where nothing precedes V∃? The analysis handles them straightforwardly. As seen in 18(h), polarity questions represent the special case where the existential verb is itself the discursive anchor. In Can she tolerate stupidity?, the core sequence can she conforms to the pattern A > ∃ > R with the minor qualification that the A- and ∃-slots are conflated in a single element (can). That element therefore has three semantic functions: A', A, and V∃. This is not just a formal solution, but directly reflects the meaning of polarity questions. The discursive anchor in a question assumes that role by virtue of being the question focus (Lambrecht and Michaelis 1998), i.e. it represents the information being sought. This, of course, is just what a question word does in content questions—in 18(f), who indicates that the question pertains to the identity of the human subject. In polarity questions, the information being sought is whether or not the profiled occurrence is real: existence per se is being negotiated. The existential verb is thus the question focus and discursive anchor. 4.3 Extensions A variety of constructions show the inversion of subject and existential verb. A standard inventory comprises those exemplified in (11). The issue, then, is whether this is simply an arbitrary list, or whether a unified characterization can be found. Goldberg (2006) is certainly correct that these constructions amount to a prototype category with central and more peripheral members, the latter exhibiting degrees of acceptability. There being no precise boundary, �38 inclusion is based on motivation rather than strict predictability, so unification consists in mappping out natural paths of extension from the central cases. Let me briefly sketch what such an account might look like. (11)(a) Have they been complaining? [questions] (b) May you have a happy marriage. [wishes] (c) Is Yao ever tall! [exclamations] (d) Were he rich I might marry him. [non-factual conditionals] (e) Never did they suspect the truth. [negative adverbials] (f) Only with pizza will she drink beer. [only] (g) The groom was more nervous than was the bride. [comparatives] (h) They should relax, and so should we. [certain conjunctions] (i) Truly are we lucky to have survived. [certain positive elements] At the center, being fundamental to the existential negotiation, are questioning and negation. In (12) I list some elements that consistently induce inversion. Among these robust inversion triggers are the basic question words as well as any complex expressions containing them. Also included are basic negative words and an open-ended set of complex expressions incorporating no. (12)(a) who, what, which, when, where, why, how, to whom, for what purpose, with whose wife ... (b) nobody, nothing, never, nowhere, neither, nor, at no time, in no way, to no avail ... Questioning and negation are primary interactive means of establishing joint epistemic control, i.e. building up a shared conception of reality. They embody different strategies for doing so. A content question, such as What was she eating?, is aimed at eliciting a response allowing a specific occurrence to be included in reality: She was eating a banana. It is a strategy of specific inclusion. By contrast, negation embodies the indirect strategy of universal exclusion: Nothing was she eating excludes all propositions of the form She was eating X. The baseline in either case—implemented by polarity questions and basic negation with not—is a global assessment pertaining to the grounded process as an undifferentiated whole. �39 But in either case we also have the option of more nuanced assessments in which status vis-à-vis reality depends on a particular element. That element—the question or negative focus—is specified by the expressions in (12). These are core elements because they are pivotal to the existential negotiation. And as core elements, they function as inversion triggers. These are core elements even if they correspond to non-core elements in positive statements. In (13)(a), for example, C∃ does not include the direct object nominal a banana. But in (13)(b)-(c), what and nothing belong to the core—a functional grouping, it will be recalled— even though it is discontinuous. Their pivotal role in the existential negotiation also makes them prime candidates to be the discursive anchor (A'), as in (13)(d)-(e), in which case they trigger inversion. However, we do have the option of leaving them in place, since focus and special framing are distinct functions despite their natural affinity. (13)(a) She was eating a banana. [OBJ is not in C∃] (b) She was eating what? [OBJ is in C∃, does not function as A or A'] (c) She was eating nothing. [OBJ is in C∃, does not function as A or A'] (d) What was she eating? [OBJ is in C∃, functions as both A and A'] (e) Nothing was she eating. [OBJ is in C∃, functions as both A and A'] In lists of inversion constructions, polarity questions are usually at the top. They represent a basic and obvious form of existential negotiation, being explicitly interactive and concerned with existence per se. The existential verb is therefore pivotal, whether we describe it as the default-case focus or say (from the standpoint of B/E organization) that there is no question focus. Either way, it is natural for V∃ to function as discursive anchor, framing the question in terms of existential status. Of course we also have the option of relying on intonation alone, with no special framing: She was eating a banana?. This alternative construction downplays the negotiation—it is not so much a request for information as a matter of seeking confirmation. But when V∃ does function as discursive anchor (A'/A), inversion is an automatic consequence: Was she eating a banana?. Other inversion constructions with V∃ as discursive anchor represent extensions from this prototype. Included are “wishes”, exclamations, and non-factual conditionals. They differ from polarity questions in regard to either the nature or the extent of the existential negotiation. �40 The first construction uses may as a root modal, being aimed at having some effect on the course of events. The sentence can be interpreted either positively, as a kind of wish (May there be peace on earth), or negatively, as a kind of curse (May you burn in hell!). In a departure from the prototype, the speaker is not negotiating with a human interlocutor, but is rather appealing to some higher power in the hope of inducing the profiled occurrence. Exclamations are emphatic, so they often incorporate reinforcing elements: Is he ever tall!; Man, is he tall!. Moreover, they focus on degree: Did he complain! does not relate to the fact of complaining but to its vehemence. The expressive function of exclamations thus rivals or surpasses their descriptive function. They are also interactive, as the hearer is invited to share and confirm the speaker’s reaction. Existence is still at issue with exclamations, but in a way that reflects their expressive and interactive function: what the interlocutors are negotiating is the degree of existence, i.e. its exceptionality. In non-factual conditionals, like those in (14)(a), the existential verb appears in its nonimmediate form, indicating distance from the ground in the sense of removal from reality. Being both initial and marked for distance, V∃ frames the clause in terms of non-reality. To be sure, non-factuality is simply presented, rather than being negotiated in any strong or narrow sense. But existence is nonetheless the pivotal issue, and the epistemic assessment—effected via grounding—inheres in the interlocutors’ apprehension of the scene. By contrast, in clauses introduced by if, as in (14)(b), non-factuality is directly symbolized and put onstage as an object of conception. (14)(a)(i) Were he rich, I might marry him. (b)(i) If he were rich, I might marry him. (ii) Had he won, he would have gloated. (ii) If he had won, he would have gloated. (iii) Should you see her, say hello. (iii) If you should see her, say hello. Finally, we need to consider inversion constructions in which the discursive anchor is something other than V∃. Exemplified in (15), these all represent extensions (or chains of extensions) from the more typical situation where the inversion trigger (A'/A) is a question word or an overtly negative expression. (15)(a) {Seldom / Rarely / Hardly ever} does he have any fun. Barely could he lift it. �41 (b) Little do they know. On few occasions would he complain. (c) ?{Many times / Often} have I asked myself that question. (d) Only at parties does he tell dirty jokes. (e) Thus did she learn the truth. In that way did he manage to survive. (f) Truly are we fortunate. (g) Jack fell, {and so / as} did Jill. Jack didn’t fall, {and neither / nor} did Jill. (h) Jack was more nervous than was Jill. The most obvious cases are quasi-negative expressions like seldom, rarely, hardly, and barely, which sanction negative polarity items such as any (Klima 1964). These constitute a natural extension—a simple matter of attenuation—from the negative strategy of universal exclusion to one of near universal exclusion. Further attenuation brings in the minimizing quantifiers little and few (Langacker 2009: ch. 3). These provide a bridge to positive expressions of quantity such as many and often, whose status as inversion triggers is rather marginal. Only is also a case of near universal exclusion, but since it limits the range of options to just one, it blends this with the question strategy of specific inclusion. The latter provides the basis for the relatively small number of positive inversion triggers, among them demonstratives, as in (15)(e). Note that demonstrative TH is closely related to the WH of question words (Langacker 2001b), often occurring in the answers to content questions. Another positive trigger, the non-deictic truly, is assimilated to the existential core because inclusion in reality is essentially what it means. Moreover, it is emphatic in this regard, making it similar to exclamations. Other positive triggers are so and as when they act as conjunctions, as in (15)(g). These, of course, are the counterparts of the negative triggers neither and nor. Their status as conjunctions is itself a motivating factor, as one function of discursive anchors is to specify a connection with the previous clause. The same is true for comparatives, as in (15)(h). And because it indicates non-identity of values, than is also quasi-negative. Much more can and needs to be said about inversion constructions. This brief discussion may at least indicate that, instead of being an arbitrary list, they represent motivated extensions from central cases. �42 5. Conclusion I have touched on many issues, both descriptive and theoretical, that are all deserving of far more extensive treatment. My main excuse for brevity is that they must all be considered together for an in-depth understanding of how to build an English clause. With even more egregious brevity, let me now conclude by reviewing some basic points. The analysis illustrates the pervasive organization of conceptual and linguistic structure in terms of baseline and elaboration. Although I discussed various strata as if they were discrete, that is at best a convenient simplification. The boundaries are often permeable. Moreover, successive strata may arise through multiple dimensions of elaboration that do not occur in lockstep but are basically independent. Another general notion is that grammar is the implementation of semantic functions. It consists in assemblies of symbolic structures, representing functional groupings whose emergence as fixed, discrete structures is a matter of degree. Grammatical structure reflects the interplay of discursive and descriptive functions. Finally, these notions are essential for understanding the structure of English clauses, especially in regard to verbal elements. The clausal function of predicating and negotiating the existence of a relationship is represented schematically in a functional grouping—the existential core—with a basic role in English grammar. In particular, it is crucial for inversion, which is not a “purely formal generalization” but has a unified characterization in terms of meaning and discursive function. �43 References Borseley, Robert D. and Frederick J. Newmeyer. 2009. On Subject-Auxiliary Inversion and the Notion “Purely Formal Generalization”. Cognitive Linguistics 20.135-143. Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Chafe, Wallace. 1998. Language and the Flow of Thought. In Michael Tomasello (ed.), The New Psychology of Language: Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure, 93-111. Mahwah, NJ and London: Erlbaum. Chen, Rong. 2013. Subject Auxiliary Inversion and Linguistic Generalization: Evidence for Functional/Cognitive Motivation in Language. Cognitive Linguistics 24.1-32. Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. Janua Linguarum 4. Croft, William. 2007. The Origins of Grammar in the Verbalization of Experience. Cognitive Linguistics 18.339-382. Gernsbacher, Morton Ann and David Hargreaves. 1992. The Privilege of Primacy: Experimental Data and Cognitive Explanations. In Doris L. Payne (ed.), Pragmatics of Word Order Flexibility, 83-116. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Typological Studies in Language 22. Goldberg, Adele E. 2006. Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalizations in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldberg, Adele E. 2009. The Nature of Generalization in Language. Cognitive Linguistics 20.93-127. Halliday, M. A. K. and Christian Matthiessen. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Third edition. London: Hodder Arnold. Harder, Peter. 2010. Meaning in Mind and Society: A Functional Contribution to the Social Turn in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton. Cognitive Linguistics Research 41. Heyvaert, Liesbet. 2001. Nominalization as an “Interpersonally-Driven” System. Functions of Language 8.287-329. �44 Ibbotson, Paul, Elena V. M. Lieven, and Michael Tomasello. 2013. The Attention-Grammar Interface: Eye-Gaze Cues Structural Choice in Children and Adults. Cognitive Linguistics 24.457-481. Klima, Edward S. 1964. Negation in English. In Jerry A. Fodor and Jerrold J. Katz (eds.), The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language, 246-323. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Kuroda, S.-Y. 1972. The Categorical and the Thetic Judgment. Foundations of Language 9.153185. Lambrecht, Knud and Laura A. Michaelis. 1998. Sentence Accent in Information Questions: Default and Projection. Linguistics and Philosophy 21.477-544. Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol. 2, Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1997. Constituency, Dependency, and Conceptual Grouping. Cognitive Linguistics 8.1-32. Langacker, Ronald W. 1998. Conceptualization, Symbolization, and Grammar. In Michael Tomasello (ed.), The New Psychology of Language: Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure, 1-39. Mahwah, NJ and London: Erlbaum. Langacker, Ronald W. 1999. Assessing the Cognitive Linguistic Enterprise. In Theo Janssen and Gisela Redeker (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations, Scope, and Methodology, 1359. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Cognitive Linguistics Research 15. Langacker, Ronald W. 2001a. Discourse in Cognitive Grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 12.143188. Langacker, Ronald W. 2001b. What WH Means. In Alan Cienki, Barbara J. Luka, and Michael B. Smith (eds.), Conceptual and Discourse Factors in Linguistic Structure, 137-152. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Langacker, Ronald W. 2002. Deixis and Subjectivity. In Frank Brisard (ed.), Grounding: The Epistemic Footing of Deixis and Reference, 1-28. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Cognitive Linguistics Research 21. Langacker, Ronald W. 2008a. Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. �45 Langacker, Ronald W. 2008b. Sequential and Summary Scanning: A Reply. Cognitive Linguistics 19.571-584. Langacker, Ronald W. 2009. Investigations in Cognitive Grammar. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Cognitive Linguistics Research 42. Langacker, Ronald W. 2011. Semantic Motivation of the English Auxiliary. In Klaus-Uwe Panther and Günter Radden (eds.), Motivation in Grammar and the Lexicon, 29-47. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Human Cognitive Processing 27. Langacker, Ronald W. 2012. Substrate, System, and Expression: Aspects of the Functional Organization of English Finite Clauses. In Mario Brdar, Ida Raffaelli, and Milena Žic Fuchs (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics between Universality and Variation, 3-52. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Langacker, Ronald W. To appear. Modals: Striving for Control. MacWhinney, Brian. 1977. Starting Points. Language 53.152-168. Sweetser, Eve E. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 54. Talmy, Leonard. 1988. Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition. Cognitive Science 12.49100. Tomlin, Russell S. 1995. Focal Attention, Voice, and Word Order. In Pamela Downing and Michael Noonan (eds.), Word Order in Discourse, 517-554. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Typological Studies in Language 30. Verhagen, Arie. 2005. Constructions of Intersubjectivity: Discourse, Syntax, and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2904 Title A name given to the resource HOW TO BUILD AN ENGLISH CLAUSE Author Author Langacker W., Ronald Abstract A summary of the resource. I will be examining central aspects of English clause structure from the standpoint of Cognitive Grammar (CG). Though well known and extensively studied, these phenomena have eluded definitive treatment; they still have much to tell us. Indeed, working out their theoretical basis has contributed to further development of the CG framework (Langacker 1991, 2008a, 2012). Especially relevant are two general notions: the organization of structure in terms of baseline and elaboration; and grammar as the implementation of semantic functions. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed BC Logic,P Philology. Linguistics,PE English https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/09b18f8924d7c2e0b43f795cb22a5fc0.pdf f0d360de490790f735422cebcc8c0f60 PDF Text Text EXTENDING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: SEMIOTICS AND CULTURE IN EFL COURSES Lejla Kucukalic Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi Article History: Submitted: 07.06.2015 Accepted: 21.06.2015 Abstract: This essay describes a semiotic analysis exercise designed to enhance students’ cultural and critical literacy, a skill necessary for language comprehension, pragmatics, and proficiency (Liton and Madanat). Rather than observing and comparing cultures as monolithic and unchangeable, students are encouraged to develop complex cultural understanding based on the reading of their surrounding semiosphere. Following Yuri Lotman’s concept of “semiosphere,” defined as a totality of signs in a certain system, students apply semiotic analysis on their local physical and media space in order to understand the signifying processes in their hybrid cultural environment. Rather than looking at the target culture as a separate Other, students observe the incursion of that culture into their own environment. The relevance of this approach is ensured by the system of signs in the Gulf – its semiosphere - being heavily influenced by mixing of Arabic and English, as well as Filipino/Tagalog, Bengali, and Hindi languages, by entertainment and media outlets of multiple cultures, and the logoed and branded presence of multinational companies. The semiosphere of the Gulf involves an array of signals that function both on the global and local scale, what Yuri Lotman describes as “a semiotic continuum filled with multi-variant semiotic models situated at a range of levels.” The exercise described in this paper invites students to use semiotics for analysis of culture and its objects, in turn increasing their integrated motivation, their agency, and their cultural literacy by getting them involved in “the processes of reflection and negotiation through which shared cultural understanding emerges” (Weninger and Kiss) �while relying on standard practical techniques for teaching culture in the EFL classroom, “noticing,” “prediction,” and “research” (Cullen and Sato). Keywords: semiotics, semiosphere, cultural literacy, glocalization, global citizenship. �1. Introduction: Teaching Culture in EFL Courses Research indicates that students’ comprehension and language skills require intercultural competence and instruction (Byram and Feng, 2004; Risager, 2011). Liton and Madanat (2013) also show a range of scholarship supporting the notion: successful EFL communication depends on “the understanding [of] the cross-cultural matrix” (p. 37). Aside from being influenced by non-linguistic factors and intrinsic connections between language and culture, however, language comprehension is also increasingly influenced by “diversification of culture and learning” (Liton and Madanat, p. 39-40). In the Gulf countries and the UAE, where this study was conducted, the need to address the influence of globalization on culture and language learning is evident, emphasized by the strong international presence wherein expats comprise as much as 80% of the UAE population. Such presence of foreignness creates “areas of multiple cultural meanings” that interact and compete with one another (Lotman, 2005, p. 211). An intercultural learning environment surrounds many EFL speakers, including those of the UAE. Therefore, in order to better understand the target culture, students need not only to understand its origin points, but the incursions of the target culture (English-speaking) into their own environment. 2. Hybrid Culture, Global Learning The situation in the Gulf reflects a wider trend toward cultural hybridity and globalization, including education. Students in the UAE represent a larger group of “learners who engage with globalized popular culture” that forge new identities and ways of language use (Higgins, ix) 1 . As the goals of EFL courses reach beyond the grammatical and communicative competence and into the teaching of culture, this raises a central question of the current EFL pedagogy: what kind of “culture” is being taught and presented to students? �Here, too, researchers increasingly agree that the view of ‘culture’ as monolithic and unchangeable does not provide an effective approach to teaching it (Weninger and Kiss, 2014). In his book on educating the nationals to become teachers of English in the UAE, Matthew Clarke (2008) writes about cultural reductionism of researchers who overgeneralize and overdetermine the Islamic-Arab identity of the Emirati students and their relationship to their teachers. “The problem with these views,” writes Clarke, “is that they rely on an essentialized notion of culture that is potentially reductive and is unable to do justice to the complexity of history and society in the UAE. Moreover, they ignore past and present contestations over the meaning of the ‘values’” that might be formatting the glocal culture” (p. 21). Clarke’s argument shows that cultural reductionism exists in defining and viewing both the host culture and the target culture. Aiming toward an expanded understanding of teaching of culture that would involve diversity and glocality expands the aims and goals of EFL instruction2. Weninger and Kiss argue that “teaching culture today has moved beyond the integration of cultural content into the language syllabus. It aims to develop the learners’ ‘global cultural consciousness’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2008) and promote their ‘intercultural citizenship’ (Byram, 2011)” (2014, p. 714). Clarke echoes the idea by stating that “what is needed are constructs that move beyond this [limited] framework and allow for a more dynamic, developmental view of both individuals and society” (22). Beyond learning a language and the associated culture, students are encouraged to become intercultural communicators, proficient in global transactions. The culture that they need to learn might involve multiple perspectives and identities, different generations, and modernized traditions. The standard ways of bringing culture into the classroom include “pedagogical use of authentic materials and techniques” such as video, film, and newspapers, (Liton and Madanat, 2013, p. 10); “proverbs, role playing and culture capsules,” the latter containing objects from the target culture (Purba 2011, p.52-3) and “giving learners experience of interacting with native speakers” through internet, e-mail, and electronic conferencing (Byram and Feng, 2004 p. 152). While important, many of these methods assume an �acute and clearly defined distance between the host and the target culture. Instead, the patterns of migration, travel, and intercultural exchange are so prevalent that they challenge “key concepts in applied linguistics such as language socialization, acculturation, and identity reconstruction” (Higgins, p. ix). Byram and Feng quote work or researchers such as Kramer (1995) and Zarate (2003), who call for “new purposes and re-definitions of language study to respond to ‘epistemological shifts occurring in academia’ (Kramer, 1995, p XIV).” This includes Zarate’s concept of “third space” and “stressing the significance of in between or border locations … as nation states and national identities fuse and change” ” (Byram and Feng, 2004 p. 152). 3. Semiotic Analysis Assignment and Lotman’s Semiosphere An effective way to understand and approach cultural hybridity in language instruction and to further understand the cultural and textual border spaces is through Yuri Lotman’s concept of “a semiosphere,” defined as a totality of signs in a given system. As Lotman states, “semiosphere is a specific sphere, possessing signs, which are assigned to the enclosed space” (Lotman 2005: 207). Likening the dynamics of biosphere to semiosphere, Lotman asserts that “in reality, clear and functionally mono-semantic systems do not exists in isolation” (p. 207). Lotman describes how a series of textual encounters and semiotic processes form any given semiosphere (p. 207). Therefore, semiosphere possesses “the structural heterogeneity” that implies myriad localized and temporal details, a diversity and hybridity of “a semiotic continuum” of culture (208). Lotman also argues that texts in a semiosphere can serve as “boundary mechanisms” that attempt to “connect two hostile cultural spaces” or that replace the central texts with the peripheral ones (p. 211). Subsequently, Lotman offers a concept of the dynamic cultural space in which meaningful exchanges occur on a variety of levels. Following Lotman’s idea of an environment structured by an interaction of its signs, an assignment was created asking students to examine their physical and media semiosphere. Students were instructed to re-view their surroundings, from architecture to ads, as an array of signs that create meaning and send a message. Next, students were �asked to trace the spreading of signs originating in the West – such as logos, slogans, and commercials -- in the local landscape and mediascape. In order to prepare, students read Naomi Klein’s essay on the intrusion of ads and corporate signs into the private and shared public spaces (1999, No Logo). Next, they read some brief pieces about advertising techniques, watched and examined selected images, newspapers, and videoclips, and participated in the class discussion. Finally, they were asked to look at images, logos, slogans and video clips from their semiosphere, to identify particularly ubiquitous ones, and to interpret their message in order to argue how these signs that they encounter daily shape their culture3. Students were shown how to read and analyze commercial signs and ads from the surrounding semiosphere, in part following Klein’s idea that “logos, by the force of ubiquity, have become the closest thing we have to an international language, recognized and understood in many more places than English” (2009, p. xi). Their assignment instructions were to find a recurring and pervasive commercial image from their environment, identify and describe those images, associated symbols, and comment on the techniques of persuasion. They were advised to pay attention to photographic and editing effects, and to comment on the emotions and the story-telling involved in their chosen ad. They were also asked to refer to Klein’s ideas and to specific advertising techniques discussed in class. Finally, students were encouraged to voice their own personal reaction to the ads, together with the comments and reactions that they might have gleaned first-hand from other observers. 4. Results: Expanding Beyond the Classroom The semiotic analysis assignment yielded a variety of responses and papers on the intrusion of the commercial ‘language’ into the public, communal, and individual space – the Gulf’s semiosphere. Here is a brief review of three representative papers. First is a student who wrote an essay titled “Hello Happiness” about �“an ad that shows a phone booth [Coca Cola company] calls “Hello Happiness” that allows poor workers in Dubai to make a phone call to their families and friends outside the country by using Coca Cola bottle caps instead of coins. In Klein’s book, she analyzes ideas and facts about such ads in communities and how corporations invade our privacy and public spaces by publishing their brands everywhere. According to Klein, these corporations also harm society.” This student goes on to show how, by using nostalgia, diversion and “weasel words” – all advertising techniques introduced in our class – the company profits from promoting “unhealthy risks to the laborers,” illustrating the increasing “connection between [branding,] products and lifestyle.” The students shows that Coca Cola inserts itself into the lives of laborers, as well as middle class viewers (by re-assuring them that the workers are, indeed, happy), offering its products as a solution to otherwise serious situations: “So what if every Coke came with extra happiness?” Another student, analyzing an omnipresent ad for a Nespresso machine featuring George Clooney, concludes that the company “falsely sells us luxury and exclusivity, with only a side of coffee.” She points out how “a massive image of George drinking his espresso, staring deep into your eyes and giving off a slight smile” encourages mall dwellers to actually visit the Nesspresso store and purchase its products. But, this student notes, the celebrity face also looks at us from the airplane seats before take off and from the streets of Dubai while driving. The message, according to my student, that “no matter who you are or what you do, you will always be treated like a star” in Nesspresso universe, capitalizes on the celebrity culture that, too, is imported and aggressively distributed worldwide. Similarly, the third student concludes: “McDonald’s is everywhere in Dubai!” She analyzes “the most recognized McDonald’s ad in Dubai – the ‘McDonald’s McArabia: True to Traditions” campaign, showing how the company is “targeting Arab families” and trying “not only to sell a lifestyle, but also trying to invade our public and private spaces,” following Klein. “The McArabia ad in my opinion is an ideal example of what �Klein was trying to designate about the intrusion of products since the ad is being forced upon the viewers in their daily lives, whether while watching a movie or driving to work.” This student concludes that she personally is quite affected by the McArabia’s careful representation of family values, confessing that she goes to McDonald’s “not for the taste, but for the (false) sense of community” that the company offers through this campaign. 5. Conclusion In their overview of scholarship on teaching of culture in EFL courses, Byram and Feng note that, based on recent publications in Language Teaching, they “concluded that intervention and development work is currently often focused on the ‘problems’ of difference and distance, and how to overcome them” (2004, p. 152). In the assignment described above, students come to understand that the cultural “Other” resides at a lesser distance than originally imagined (the “Other,” in fact, might be becoming “the same” through homogenizing forces of global capitalism). They also develop awareness that 1) meaning is created through a multiplicity of signs beside language; 2) that ‘culture’ is not monolithic and unchanging; and 3) that they have the ability and opportunity to decode complex intercultural phenomena around them. In turn, students’ integrative motivation for language acquisition, their agency as interpreters of culture, and their proficiency in generation of meaning is improved through this assignment. The hybrid space of the Gulf’s semiosphere -- created by the cultural, linguistic, experiential, and commercial encounters – becomes an important cultural context for the learners of English. Asking students to analyze the semiotic elements from the target culture in their local culture helps them understand the importance of sign exchange whether it happens on the level of language such as slogans and messages or non-verbal communication such as advertising images and architecture. By analyzing the glocal culture and its signs, students are involved in “the processes of reflection and negotiation through which shared cultural understanding emerges” (Weninger and Kiss 2014, p. 716). �The relevance of this approach is ensured by the fact that the system of signs in the Gulf, is heavily influenced by mixing of Arabic and English, as well as Filipino/Tagalog, Bengali, and Hindi languages, by entertainment and media outlets of multiple cultures, and the logoed and branded presence of multinational companies. The semiosphere of the Gulf therefore involves an array of signals that function on the global and local scale, what Yuri Lotman (2005) describes as “a semiotic continuum filled with multi-variant semiotic models situated at a range of levels” (p. 216). Commercial and popular culture, including ads, seeks to reconcile traditional and progressive views. The role of contemporary culture in the Gulf might be that of a border text that, according to Lotman, “sets cultural precedents and, in the long run, literally conquers the cultural sphere of the centre” (2005, p. 212). Regardless of the outcome, students are better equipped to understand these dynamic shifts through the semiotic analysis assignment. Recorded applications of semiotics in the EFL classroom include study of specific signs associated with classroom activities and discipline (McGill, 2014), studies on the semiotics of EFL textbooks (Weninger and Kiss, 2014) and investigation of the cultural differences in meaning of certain signs such as body language in different cultures (Unger and Walter, 2010). The fieldwork exercise described here employs a novel way of semiotic analysis that helps students understand the signifying processes at work around them and to develop complex forms of cultural understanding. Increased knowledge of semiotic analysis helps orient a generation of EFL learners facing both strong expatriate presence and a constant change in their environment. Students learn about signifying elements of the target culture, better understand their rapidly developing surroundings, and become involved in the global culture that is being constructed worldwide. The broader question raised by this approach, following Byram and others, is whether it is possible, through complex teaching of culture, to create a model for teaching English as a global language? �A hybrid language called “Arabizi” or “Arabish,” mixing words and letters from Arabic and English, has become a popular form of communication, especially among Arab youth. See, for example: Nadia Al-Sakkaf (2012)“Arabish: Arabic Chat Language” Yemen Times, http://www.yementimes.com/en/1517/variety/408/Arabish-Arabic-chatlanguage.htm 1 Roland Robertson, who introduced the concept of “glocalization” to a wider academic audience, defines it as a “synthesis of the local and the global,” where the distinction between the two aspects is being leveled by an “increasing connectivity and global consciousness” in the present world (2005). “Since the mid-1990s,” Robertson writes, glocalization has gradually come to occupy an increasingly central place in studies of globalization” (2005). 2 No Logo, Klein’s 1999 book, describes an economic model in which big multinational companies outsource the production of physical goods and instead focus on the creation of brand names and on selling of a lifestyle. A big part of the growth for this companies is branding with the ads that “creep into cafeterias, common rooms, even washrooms,” of the universities, schools, parks, theaters, libraries, poor neighborhoods, sidewalks and even pieces of fruit (8). These brands establish emotional ties, values, and their own mythologies in order to spread and grow. As Klein explains “corporations are hitching a ride on our cultural and communal activities” (35) but also invade the mediascape, sports, music, and of course politics. 3 References Byram, M. and Feng A. (2004) Culture and Language Learning: Teaching, Research and Scholarship. Language Teaching 37 (3), 149-168. doi: 10.1017/S0261444804002289 Clarke, M. (2008). Language Teacher Identities : Co-constructing Discourse and Community. Bristol, UK: Channel View Publications. Higgins, C., ed. (2011). Language and Social Processes: Identity Formation in Globalizing Contexts : Language Learning in the New Millennium. Berlin: De Gruyter. Klein, N. (1999) No Logo. Canada: Knopf. ----(2009) No Logo. 10th Anniversary Edition with a New Introduction by the Author. London: Picador. Liton, H., & Al Madanat, T. (2013). Integration of Culture into ESL/EFL Classroom: A Pedagogical Perspective. English for Specific Purposes World, 14, 39-47. �Lotman, Y. (2005) “On the Semiosphere.” Wilma Clark, tr. Sign Systems Studies, 33(1), 205-228. Risager, K. (2011). The cultural dimensions of language teaching and learning. Language Teaching, 44 (4), 485-499. McGill, Ross. (2014) Can Semiotics Be Used to Improve Teaching and Learning? @Teacher Toolkit. Retrieved from http://teachertoolkit.me/2014/01/26/cansemiotics-be-used-to-improve-teaching-and-learning-by-teachertoolkit/ Purba, H. (2011). The Importance of Including Culture in EFL Teaching. Journal of English Teaching , 1 (1), 44-56. Robertson, R. (2005). The Conceptual Promise of Glocalization: Commonality and Diversity. Art –e – Fact An Online Magazine for Contemporary Art and Culture. 4 Retrieved from http://artefact.mi2.hr/_a04/lang_en/theory_robertson_en.htm#_ftn1 Unger, J and Walter L. Gesture, Speech, and Graphic Organizers as Semiotic Resources for Summarizing: A Two-Case Analysis of the Genesis of Meaning Asian EFL Journal. Professional Teaching Articles. November 2010, Vol. 48 Weninger, C. and Kiss, T. (2014) Culture in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Textbooks: A Semiotic Approach. TESOL Quarterly 47(4), 694-716. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2914 Title A name given to the resource EXTENDING BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: SEMIOTICS AND CULTURE IN EFL COURSES Author Author Kucukalic, Lejla Abstract A summary of the resource. This essay describes a semiotic analysis exercise designed to enhance students’ cultural and critical literacy, a skill necessary for language comprehension, pragmatics, and proficiency (Liton and Madanat). Rather than observing and comparing cultures as monolithic and unchangeable, students are encouraged to develop complex cultural understanding based on the reading of their surrounding semiosphere. Following Yuri Lotman’s concept of “semiosphere,” defined as a totality of signs in a certain system, students apply semiotic analysis on their local physical and media space in order to understand the signifying processes in their hybrid cultural environment. Rather than looking at the target culture as a separate Other, students observe the incursion of that culture into their own environment. The relevance of this approach is ensured by the system of signs in the Gulf – its semiosphere - being heavily influenced by mixing of Arabic and English, as well as Filipino/Tagalog, Bengali, and Hindi languages, by entertainment and media outlets of multiple cultures, and the logoed and branded presence of multinational companies. The semiosphere of the Gulf involves an array of signals that function both on the global and local scale, what Yuri Lotman describes as “a semiotic continuum filled with multi-variant semiotic models situated at a range of levels.” The exercise described in this paper invites students to use semiotics for analysis of culture and its objects, in turn increasing their integrated motivation, their agency, and their cultural literacy by getting them involved in “the processes of reflection and negotiation through which shared cultural understanding emerges” (Weninger and Kiss) while relying on standard practical techniques for teaching culture in the EFL classroom, “noticing,” “prediction,” and “research” (Cullen and Sato) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed L Education (General),P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/37139a6489fe5a4d8e25c328b36549f4.pdf 0ef4af87a0479e201535e1509b720863 PDF Text Text LANGUAGE AND GENDER DIFFERENCE IN DISCOURSE Lendita Kryeziu University of Gjakova & University of Prishtina, Kosovo Article History: Submitted: 12.06.2015 Accepted: 30.06.2015 Abstract Many empirical researches on Gender and language have been conducted by numerous sociolinguists in order of finding out the relationship between them. These differences between women’s and men’s language consisted in terms of phonology, lexis, syntax, dominance and difference in discourse analysis. Some other studies have investigated the influence of female male language differences on maintaining the imbalance power between the two genders. This paper will aim at finding out the relationship between gender and language in political debates in Albanian and English while trying to identify the impact of gender based language in displaying the difference and dominance in conversational interaction. Political debates in English and Albanian will be analyzed in order to distinguish cross gender and cross language differences through the use of linguistic and discourse features such as: turn taking, dominance, minimal response, overlaps, hedges, interruptions etc. Key words: language, gender difference, discourse, dominance, interruptions. �1. Introduction Throughout history in different cultures, religions, and nations existed stereotypical belief that women speak more than men as well as sayings that women should not speak in public, but leave that to men, in other words: ‘women are words and men are actions’. Even today in the Kosovo’s institution such as the parliament of Kosovo, in which women are presented in percentage of 30% have been distributed some folders to its members which included some proverbs dedicated to women, some of them being very discriminating and prejudicial towards women’s character such as:”Silence is the only gold that women posses” and “Silence and modesty are the women’s most beautiful jewelry” Very controversial sayings for women who are supposed to represent people’s interest by discussing in the parliament’s podium. Moreover the women’s network of Kosova on the other side reacted at the declaration of the vice prime minister of Kosova, Hajredin Kuçi in the last session of the assembly who stated that:” he does not want to deal with women, but with men” (Tahiri.L: 2013) That woman are talkative and speak more than men, there are many sayings in English and Albanian that support this belief: “There are two types of women, those that speak always, and those that never remain silent” (O. Wild), and “Women have become talkative because of the man’s power that deprived them of everything except of the tongue” (J.Xoxa) Do women speak more than men in political debates? On whose side is dominance? Who gets the floor in Albanian and English political debates? Does language that women use differ from the language that men use in Albanian and English? “What are the cross gender differences? What are the differences between Albanian and English debates? Whose language variety is more prestigious, the women’s or the men’s? These are the questions that will be addressed in this research and the answers to these research questions will be sought through ought the research. 2. Literature Review about Language and Gender There are some early recordings on the difference between women’s and men’s language variety in Albanian according to the foreign Albanologist Maximilian Lambertz, who succeeded in introducing us the spoken variant of the Maliza Arbresh, while penetrating in their social ‘tissue’. �He is the first of the dialectologists who studied the mixture of the Arbresh language with that of Italian, while distinguishing women’s language. He stated that:”Language of every Arberesh individual is traversed by Italian elements the more he moves out of his village, and has to deal with Italians. Because of this reason, women’s language is purer for some degrees than that of men’s” (M.Lambertz, 1923) cited in (Gj.Shkurtaj , 2009 ;365) Similarly Albanian men of Mandrica (Bulgaria) because of their business dealings and encounters with Greeks, Bulgarians, and Turks were polyglots in contrast to women who were not able to speak different languages. Thus, according to Bojka Sokolova(1967) cited in GJ. Shkurtaj ; Albanian women of Mandrica, and elsewhere in Albanian and Arbresh Diaspora, have always shown an emphasized spirit in preserving native language and other ethno cultural features of their mother land . We have to deal here with the phenomenon which can be exemplified with the conditions which these women were subjugated to in the past by not attending school, not leaving their place for a long time, and having nothing to do with Bulgarians or other nationalities. For these reasons, nowadays you can find in Mandrica older women that are not able to speak Bulgarian but they speak a pure Albanian instead. While, in relation to language perseverance and conservativism ,Jespersen states that women are more conservative than men, they keep the traditional language that they learnt from their parents and they hand on to their children, while innovations are due to the initiative of men (Cameron, D 1998:229). Mainly because of the differences that existed between men and women, regarding tradition, labor division, temperament and character in Albanian region, cities and villages, these differences existed in speaking varieties as well, such as; terminology, lexical choices that women used in their daily life, housework, cooking, cleaning, baby talk towards their children etc. �On the other hand, with the improvement of social conditions for women, education, employment, gender equality, the development of internet and technology, these differences became smaller, while women gaining a new status in all social spheres of life. 2.1 Language cross gender differences influenced by powerlessness awareness. That women are less powerful than men in life, public sphere and politics and that they are expected to be polite, obedient, indirect, talk less and assertive, Robin Lakoff tells a story about the seven swans:” A girl’s seven brothers are changed into swans. She can transform them back into men only by sitting in a tree for seven years sewing them shirts out of daisies. If she utters one word during this period, she will fail. She succeeds, despite terrible obstacles. The moral: silence and obedience are the path to success for a women” (Lakoff.R, 2003: 162) Similarly, in the terms of men’s power Ronald Wardhaugh gives an example:” There is also a very interesting example from English of a woman being advised to speak more like a man in order to fill a position previously filled only by men. Margaret Thatcher was told that her voice did not match her position as British Prime Minister: she sounded too ‘shrill.’ She was advised to lower the pitch of her voice, diminish its range, and speak more slowly, and thereby adopt an authoritative, almost monotonous delivery to make herself heard.” (Wardhaugh,R. 2011; 337) On the other hand, sociological studies have made known that women are more prone to use linguistic forms thought to be ‘better’ or more ‘correct’ than those used by men. Trudgill provides two reasons for this. Firstly, women in our society are generally more status-conscious than men, and therefore more sensitive to linguistic norms- an idea known as hyper-correction. Secondly, “working-class speech…has connotations of or associations with masculinity, which may lead men to be more favorably disposed to non-standard linguistic forms than women.” ( Trudgill: 1983: 162) Women also tend to hypercorrect more than men, especially in the lower middle class. The definition of hypercorrection is:” the erroneous use of a word form or pronunciation based on a false analogy with a correct or prestigious form, such as between you and I for the standard between you and me”. Thus, the women tended to hypercorrect more than men because they tried to use prestigious variety of language for the reason of having been felt deprived from privileged social status. �Moreover, women may be using linguistic resources as a way to achieve status which they were deprived from. Since women have long been denied equality with men as far as educational and employment opportunities are concerned, these are not reliable indicators of a woman's status or the status she aspires to. Although the marketplace establishes the value of men in economic terms, the only kind of capital a woman can accumulate is symbolic. She can be a "perfect" housewife, a "perfect" mother, a "loyal" wife, a “reliable” friend, a “devoted” believer, a “dedicated” citizen and so on, with respect to the community's norms and stereotypes for appropriate female behavior. In this logic, the use of the standard might be seen as yet another reflection of women’s powerlessness in the public sphere. This interpretation accorded well with one of the assumptions made by early gender scholar such as Lakoff (1975), who saw women’s language as the “language of powerlessness” In Albanian culture and tradition, in pre-war time, men were considered as the main and the only means for providing for their families. Women were less employed, less educated and discriminated. They were occupied with housework, raising children, preparing food for the visitors who were welcomed in separate rooms for men guests known as “oda e burrave”, according to Albanian society norms and traditions. Thus being separated from men in general and mail guests in particular, unemployed and uneducated, spending their free time doing handicrafts for their daughters’ dowry surrounded by other women, they developed a quite different language variety from that of men’s. 3. Cross gender Phonological differences in English and Albanian Numerous studies and researches have been conducted by Trudgill, Labov, Millroy and Martin while investigating linguistic features such as phonological variability of male and female differences. The aim, on the one hand, was to identify the stratification of these variables and, on the other hand, to find support for the means of synchronic change. Women were found to be closer to a prestige norm (Received Pronunciation) than men. Therefore, from a large number of now classic findings emerging repeatedly, it is verified that there are also strong correlations between patterns of social stratification and gender. One of these sociolinguistic patterns is that women, regardless of other social characteristics such as class, age, etc., tended to use more standard forms than men (Trudgill, 1974) study in Norwich of �the variable (-ing), that is alternation between alveolar /n/ and a velar-nasal /-ng/ in words withing endings such as reading, singing, In relation to the variables of social class, style, and gender. Similarly Labov found out that there are some phonological variations between sexes in pronunciation of /əeh/ and /oh/. Accordingly:” …a close examination will show that women show more concentration in the extreme values, especially for /oh/. The progressions of the number informants in each category show that men and women follow the same stylistic variation, but that the total shift of the women speakers is much greater. The tendency of women to follow an extreme pattern of stylistic variation which we may call hypercorrection is an important aspect of the structure of New York City English.” (W.Labov, 2006; 196) Whereas according to Gj. Shkurtaj regarding phonological and pronunciation differences between men and women in Albanian language it states that: “From our research even though not elaborated enough, we can say that there is a kind of difference between men and women’s discourse in the field of pronunciation. It appears that from the previous observations in the city of Tirana and in many southern countries, the pronunciation of the phoneme /rr/ as a mono vibrant /r/ is a more occurring feature in female gender than in male gender. Likewise, the forms with /r/ are more frequent in standard language, and maybe in a way, indicators of being from the capital or other southern cities of Albania, whereas vibrant /rr/, draws upward towards northern parts “ (Gj.Shkurtaj, 2009 ; 372) Additionally;” Women, it seems, are considerably more disposed than men to upgrade themselves into the middle-class and less likely to allocate themselves to the working-class - a finding which confirms the common observation that status consciousness is more pronounced among women”. (Martin 1954:58) According to Labov, ”women in the lower middle class, lead in the introduction of the new standard forms, of many of the phonological variables studied in the United states, The UK, and other industrialized countries such as Sweden, while men tend to lead in instances of change from below” (Labov, W. 1990) 4. Cross gender lexical differences in English and Albanian �Nevertheless women raising children use ‘baby talk’ language variety which is not common for Albanian mail mentality, they curse more than men and do not swear or use taboo words. Accordingly: “From the currently available research, even though not explored enough, it turns out, however, that women speak in a different manner from men. Often they possess a different lexis of their own especially for intimate parts or phenomena of feminine life and in everyday speech in general which is distinguished from men’s language, even from their spouses or adult sons.”(Gj.Shkurtaj, 2009; 365) Moreover Linguistic means used by women to express their thoughts, beliefs, feelings and ideas, unveil the truth about their social status and interaction that through many years have placed them in marginal position, and forced on them rules and regulations. This is clearly reflected even nowadays in women’s language that can be unquestionably described in forms of hesitations and euphemisms. There is also a difference in cross gender language in the use of euphemisms in Albanian and according to Eqrem Ҫabej: ” Women in their language, even for the phrase ‘to kill someone’ they say: ‘e nxiruan, e shkretuan, e përmbisnë’ .For the ‘deceased’, women use the words: ‘i ziu, i nxiri’ whereas men mainly use the words’ i shkreti, in Skrapar; ‘i shuari’, in North ; ‘i mjeri’. Such expressions are the features of the ‘women’s language’ (language des femmes) (E.Ҫabej,1978; 23) “Similar sorts of disparities exist elsewhere in the vocabulary. There is, for instance, a group of adjectives which have, besides their specific and literal meanings, another use, that of indicating the speaker's approbation or admiration for something. Some of these adjectives are neutral as to sex of speaker: either men or women may use them. But another set seems, in its figurative use, to be largely confined to women's speech. Representative lists of women only adjectives are: adorable charming, sweet, lovely, divine and intensifiers such as: “awfully”, “pretty”, “terribly”, “quite” (Lakoff,1973; 51) Further on, Lakoff states that there is also a difference in the use of lexical items such as the case of color names: “Women, then, make far more precise discriminations in naming colors than do men; words like beige, ecru, aquamarine, lavender, and so on, are unremarkable in a women's active vocabulary, but absent from that of most men. I have seen a man helpless with suppressed �laughter at a discussion between two other people as to whether a book-jacket was to be described as 'lavender' or 'mauve'. Men find such discussion amusing because they consider such a question trivial, irrelevant to the real world”. (Lakoff, 1973; 49) Whereas in Albanian language, women, in their speech are prone to using diminutive suffixes, mostly in a liking way for example:, çikirush, bukuloshe, zemerushe, dali im, picirruki im etc.; they tend to use a lot of the superlative forms of adjectives like: shumë e zonja, jashtëzakonisht e bukur, shumë e pavyer, tepër elegante, shumë shtirëse, etc Albanian women’s gender specified language can be illustrated by the use of some linguistic structures such as wishes, curses, euphemistic expressions, etc, because women are predisposed in believing in paranormal phenomena such as, bad augur, bad luck and redemption. This can be presented with the frequent use of expressions such as: pika i raftë! , dreqi në bark i hiftë, syri i keq mos e paftë, t’shtifsha n’dhe! t’plaçin syt, t’u thafshin durtë, t’daltë e dala, etc. 5. Cross gender syntactic differences Apart from phonological and lexical differences between women’s and men’s language some syntactic differences may be identified as well and according to Robin Lakoff:” When we leave the lexicon and venture into syntax, we find that syntactically too women's speech is peculiar. To my knowledge, there is no syntactic rule in English that only women may use. But there is at least one rule that a woman will use in more conversational situations than a man. (This fact indicates, of course, that the applicability of syntactic rules is governed partly by social context the positions in society of the speaker and addressee, with respect to each other, and the impression one seeks to make on the other.) This is the rule of tag-question formation.” (Lakoff, 1973; 53) Therefore, using tag questions or declarative statements with rising final intonations when the speaker lacks confidence and wants confirmation from the addressee or in the cases when the speaker is certain about the information but in order to facilitate conversation requires yes or no questions from the addressee are features of women speech. Naturally, men also use tag questions but their intention mainly is asking for exact answers not because they lack confidence in declaring the statement. Such features are probably part of the general fact that women's �speech sounds much more 'polite' than men's. Aspect of politeness is as we have just described: leaving a decision open, not imposing your mind, or views, or claims, on anyone else. It is considered that women’s language is more standard and polite than that of a men’s language, but nowadays you can find women who swear, especially teens maybe for the reason of fitting in into the modernity’s norms. Accordingly: “Often we listen to the swearing from the mouths of children, teens, adults, even from women itself. From the examples presented in the dictionary, we can conclude that men swear more than women, but women also swear more than it was expected from them traditionally, and especially when they accompanied by the same sex.”(Ibrahimi, M. 2009; 32) 6. Dominance and difference in mixed gender discourse Obviously, men and women differ in their beliefs, perceptions and mainly in their use of language and according to Haas:” Male speech and female speech have been observed to differ in their form, topic, content and use. Early writers were largely introspective in their analyses; more recent work has begun to provide empirical evidence. Men may be more loquacious and directive; they use more nonstandard forms, talk more about sports, money and business, and frequently refer to time, space, quantity, and objects. Women are often more supportive, polite, and expressive, talk more about home and family, use more words implying feeling, evaluation, interpretation, and psychological state” (Haas, 1979). On the other hand, popular works by Deborah Tannen show that that while men view conversations as a way to establish and maintain status and dominance in relationships, women see the purpose of conversation to create and foster an intimate bond with the other party by talking about topical problems and issues they are communally facing (Tannen, 1990). One way of maintaining dominance in conversation in mix gendered group is through interruption as cited in West and Zimmerman (1983) that men dominate women by interrupting them in conversation. Whereas, other academic research argues that women use less powerful speech: they tend to swear less, speak more politely, and use more tag questions and intensifiers (Lakoff, 1975). Women also are inclined to interrupt less than men do; researchers have hypothesized that this is possibly because of their apparent lower status to men and due to community norms that impose this gender status hierarchy. Tannen continues to summarize the differences between men and �women at the basic level, such as:” If women speak and hear a language of connection and intimacy, while men speak and hear a language of status and independence, then communication between men and women can be like cross-cultural communication, prey to a clash of conversational styles. Instead of different dialects, it has been said they speak different genderlects. (Tannen, 1990 ; 18) Therefore, conversational patterns in cross gender studies offer evidence for the essential difference between men's and women's linguistic performance by the means of question tags and interruptions. Other linguistic tools which display the difference between women’s and men’s language use is the amount of speech and control of topic. Interruptions are manifested through the violations of the rules of conversation. According to Sacks/Schegloff/Jefferson's (1974) model of the structure of conversation, turns of speech are assigned such that the current speaker has the largest options. Overlaps are done at the end of the first speaker's turn and the beginning of the next speaker's turn. Moreover, overlaps in interaction are generally considered as facilitating conversational tools. Finally, another facilitating strategy is the use of minimal responses such as: aha, uhm, ehe etc . During the turn of the first speaker the addressee will provide agreement or encouragement through these interjections 7. Methodology used for the research With the goal of answering hypothetical questions presented in the introduction such as: Do women speak more than men in political debates? On whose side is dominance? Who gets the floor in Albanian and English political debates? Does language that women use differ from the language that men use in Albanian and English? “What are the cross gender differences? What are the differences between Albanian and English debates? Whose language variety is more prestigious, the women’s or the men’s? The research will be done while observing and analyzing three political TV debates of mixed gender in Albanian and three of those in English. These debates were chosen because there is one to one discourse interaction; therefore it is easier to measure the duration of speech, the longest speech turn, dominance, interruptions and differences in the spoken discourse. 8. Differences in language use in three debates in Albanian �In three political debates male discourse consisted of informal speech, using hedges like “ o burrë” (o man) - 2x, addressed female speaker, cynical laughter -3X, “haj zoti na rujt”, “a jini bre n’veti?” “po shkoni po ju mani ders”. Folk proverbial sayings like:”Punen e sotit mos e le per neser” and “ Katuni që shihet nuk do kallauz” Whereas, female discourse was more standard avoiding informal speech. The female speakers reminded male speakers that they had been talking for half an hour with: Lem te perfundoj , se une fillova ,” qasje e këtillë, arrogance e këtillë”. Other non-standard forms and expressions having many errors were found in male discourse such as: ”erov”, ‘ ket’, ‘qy qy’ ‘m’fal bre’ ‘do te perkrahmi’, ‘per Shqiprije’, ‘i ter kostoja’, ‘pruar’, ‘10 ditev’, ‘kam nje mbeshtetje te fuqishem’ Female discourse was more standard by even using some foreign phrases such as ‘facilituar’ hektike, ‘abstrahim’ ‘ekselent’ ect. There were many interruptions conducted by male counterpart and some of the interruptions were done through cynical laughter. 9. Differences in language use in three debates in English The differences in language use between female and male candidates consisted in the use of some informal expressions such as: ‘What the heck’, ‘that’s baloney’, ‘that’s absolute baloney’ and idiomatic expressions such as: “you let the chips lay where they may” and “we can’t bury our heads in the sands” by the male candidate. There was also cynical laughter by the male side. On the other side, female discourse contains richer terminology; their speech is more standard avoiding informal expressions and there were citations from famous personalities such as Benjamin Franklin’s quote:”If we sacrifice liberty for the sake of security, we will wind up losing both”. Female language is full of adjectives and intensifiers such as:”remarkable’ remarkably X 3, incredible, dreadful, and great’. The differences in the language use between two speakers in the second debate consists in the use of some idiomatic expressions by the male side: “With one hand you give it, with the other you take it”, “glass half empty, glass half full”, “they are getting the short end of the stick”, “you get knocked down, you get up and start again”. Whereas the female candidate uses the citations such as mr. Reagan’s quote:” Freedom is always one generation away from extinction, �we don’t pass it to our children in their blood stream. We have to fight for it, and protect it and hand it to them” Female discourse on the other side tends to be more polite whereas male discourse consists of some other informal expressions such as: “heck a lot better” “my goodness” “blla blla blla” towards female speakers 10. Conclusion The findings of the debates analyses clearly show that there are significantly differences between women’s and men’s language in Albanian and in English in particular, as well as the differences that exist between debates in Albanian and English in general. The differences mainly consist in the use of standard speech by the side of women both in Albanian and English. Men are mostly found in using informal expressions in Albanian and English in general. Some of the women according to debate analyses have used far more adjectives and intensifiers than men did. From the results it can be concluded that in Albanian debates longest speech duration was on the men’s side as well as the longest speaking turns. As far as interruptions are concerned in Albanian debates, women are found in making more interruptions than men. Regarding debates in English, the longest speech duration was on the women’s side, in three debate samples, whereas, the longest speaking turns are found to be on the men’s side. Women in both cases, in English and Albanian tried to be more polite, whereas men are found to perform a cynical laughter in most cases as a response to women’s statements. The most significant difference between debates in English and Albanian is respecting the coo speaker in the debate by not interrupting them, but using time reasonably in rebuttals for answers �References Cameron,D. (1998). “Gender and Language Ideologies” published in “The Handbook of language and gender” (2003) Blackwell publishing Ltd Coulmas,F. (1998) .”The Handbook of Sociolinguistics” Blackwell publishing Ltd. Ҫabej, E. (1978) .”Studime gjuhësore IV”.Prishtinë Eckert,P. and McConnell, -Ginet ,S. 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(2009). Sociolinguistika e shqipes; Nga dialektologjia te etnografia e te folurit. Tirana: Shtepia botuese Moravia. Tahiri.L. (2013) Gjuha dhe lufta e ideve. Shtepia botuese Naimi Tannen, D.(1990). “You just don’t understand” New York Tannen, D.(1993).”Gender and conversational interaction” Oxford University Press Trudgill, P.( 1983). “Sociolinguistics. An Introduction to Language and Society”. Revised Edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Wardhaugh , R.(2010) “An Introduction to Sociolinguistics”. Wiley- Blackwell UK � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2915 Title A name given to the resource LANGUAGE AND GENDER DIFFERENCE IN DISCOURSE Author Author Kryeziu, Lendita Abstract A summary of the resource. Many empirical researches on Gender and language have been conducted by numerous sociolinguists in order of finding out the relationship between them. These differences between women’s and men’s language consisted in terms of phonology, lexis, syntax, dominance and difference in discourse analysis. Some other studies have investigated the influence of female - male language differences on maintaining the imbalance power between the two genders. This paper will aim at finding out the relationship between gender and language in political debates in Albanian and English while trying to identify the impact of gender based language in displaying the difference and dominance in conversational interaction. Political debates in English and Albanian will be analyzed in order to distinguish cross gender and cross language differences through the use of linguistic and discourse features such as: turn taking, dominance, minimal response, overlaps, hedges, interruptions etc. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/4496ecd7636a66c7a3c343af3983c87c.pdf d55975cb4d55fa0371b6ba3701092b2c PDF Text Text WORD CLASS AND TEXTUAL FUNCTIONS OF ANTONYMS: A CORPUS STUDY Nataša Kostić University of Montenegro, Montenegro Article History: Submitted: 06.06.2015 Accepted: 27.06.2015 Abstract Antonymy is traditionally regarded as a paradigmatic relation, but recent studies of antonym co– occurrence in written discourse have shown that it can be investigated as a syntagmatic relation as well. Such investigations in the Untagged electronic corpus of Serbian identified two major and four minor functions of antonyms in discourse and its accompanying lexico-syntactic patterns, matching the results of similar analyses in English, Japanese, Swedish and Dutch. This paper presents a research on the relation between word class that antonym pairs belong to (e.g. adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs and prepositions) and their textual functions in Serbian written discourse. It is hypothesized that language users employ antonymous pairs in text irrespective of their grammatical class. The general conclusion is that the roles of antonyms in text are not influenced by word class as significantly as one might expect. Key words: antonymy, word class, textual function, antonymous pattern �1. Introduction Although the term antonymy is in some of the literature confined to binary opposition between contrary meanings in language, such as ‘hot/cold’, as opposed to complementaries (‘true/false’) and other opposites in language, such as ‘buy/sell’ or ‘come/go’ (e.g. Lyons, 1977; Lehrer & Lehrer, 1982; Cruse, 1986; Justeson & Katz, 1991; Murphy & Andrew, 1993; Fellbaum, 1995; Jones, 2002), it is in this article used for all form–meaning pairings that occur in binary semantic contrast in language use. Empirical investigations of antonymy in Serbian and English electronic corpora (Kostić, 2011, 2013), have shown that phrasal contexts in which antonyms are used in both Serbian and English written discourse are relatively stable and that at least some of the most frequent ones can be viewed as potential triggers of contrast relation in discourse. As Jones (2002) has also suggested, functions of antonyms do not vary in every new context but are systematic and receptive to categorization. The majority of functional classes of antonymy that he has been able to define in his English corpus of journalistic texts can also account for antonymous usage retrieved from the corpus of Serbian, suggesting that contexts of antonymous usage may be structured similarly across languages. This paper aims to investigate the relation between word class that antonym pairs belong to (e.g. adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs and prepositions) and their textual functions in Serbian written discourse. 2. Theoretical background This paper is based on Murphy’s (2003) theoretical model of antonymy (as well as all other lexico-semantic relations) in which antonym relation obtains between words in use. Antonymic relation is defined on the basis of minimal difference formulated in the relational principle Relation by Contrast-Lexical Contrast which states that: “A lexical contrast set includes only word-concepts that have all the same contextually relevant properties but one” (Murphy, 2003, p. 170). The differences among antonyms’ entailment relations are due to differences in the semantic structure of the individual words. Those that can be either complementary or contrary describe states that can be conceptualized as all-or-nothing or scalar. Murphy argues that antonymy is conceptual in nature and antonym pairs are always subject to contextual constraints. She also admits that there seems to be a small set of words with special lexicosemantic attraction that are entrenched in memory and perceived as strongly coupled pairings by speakers that she refers to as canonical antonyms. �Corpus–based approaches to antonymy are mostly done in English. Justeson and Katz analyzed the use of adjectival antonymous pairs in the one million Brown corpus of English and showed that “adjectives do indeed tend to co–occur in the same sentence as their antonyms far more frequently than expected by chance” (Justeson & Katz, 1991, p. 18). Fellbaum (1995) conducted the first large scale corpus work that looked at a wider class of antonym pairs, including nouns and verbs and found that antonyms in both groups co–occurred in the same sentence significantly more often than by chance. The largest and most systematic study of discourse functions of English antonyms is provided by Jones (2002) who described the contexts in which 56 antonym pairs co–occurred in the corpus of 280 million words taken from the Independent newspaper in the period of eight years (1988–1996). Just like Fellbaum, Jones noted the existence of lexical and syntactic frames in which antonyms co–occur but he also gave an in– depth analysis and classification of the discourse functions performed by antonyms in such frames. These discourse categories have been found in other genres (spoken English [Jones, 2006, 2007]) and registers of English (child and child–directed speech [Jones & Murphy, 2005; Murphy & Jones, 2008]) and other languages (Swedish [Murphy et al., 2009], Japanese [Muehleisen & Isono, 2009] and Serbian [Kostić, 2011]). 3. Word class and textual functions of antonyms With an aim to identify phrasal contexts in which antonyms co–occur in Serbian written discourse, as well as to classify their main textual functions, Kostić (2011) made a systematic description of phrasal contexts in which canonical antonyms co–occur in the Untagged electronic corpus of the Serbian language. Fifty canonical antonymous pairs were pre–chosen (30 adjectives, 6 nouns, 6 verbs, 6 adverbs and 2 prepositions) and all the sentences (a total of 4,903) in which these pairs co–occurred were analyzed in order to establish the role of the antonymous pair and its lexical and syntactic context. The sentences were grouped according to the textual function of the antonymous phrase in the given context. The lexical and syntactic environment common to the functions of antonyms in text will be referred to as antonymous pattern, a “formulaic structure in which certain grammatical and content words systematically house both members of an antonymous pair” (Kostić, 2011, p. 518). Since the phenomenon of antonymy is not restricted to a single word class, the list of antonyms searched for in the corpus contained antonymous adjectives, as well as nouns, verbs, adverbs and prepositions. This paper aims to �investigate whether the function of antonymy in text is related to word class, and, if it is, what is the relation between grammatical categories that antonyms belong to and their roles in sentential contexts. In order to do this, a total of 4,903 sentences was broken down according to word classes. Table 1 presents the distribution of sentences in relation to word class and functions of antonyms in text: Table 1: Functions of antonyms by word class (raw frequency and percentages) Other (%) Idiom (%) X–Y (%) Mutual exclusivit y (%) Comparis on (%) Change (%) Distinctio n (%) Lexical trigger of contrast Inclusiven (%)(%) ess Adj. Total 1,292 1,018 126 102 56 73 92 236 88 (41.9) (33) (4.1) (3.3) (1.8) (2.4) (3) (7.5) (3) 492 225 60 53 29 78 3 80 54 (45.8) (21) (5.6) (4.9) (2.7) (7.3) (0.3) (7.4) (5) 172 115 - - 4 7 1 5 - 304 (56.6) (37.8) (1.3) (2.3) (0.3) (1.7) Adver 203 104 3 3 2 2 48 13 4 382 bs (53.2) (27.2) (0.8) (0.8) (0.5) (0.5) (12.6) (3.4) (1) Prep. 32 24 - - 2 2 - - - 60 (53.4) (40) (3.3) (3.3) 2,191 1,486 189 158 93 162 144 334 146 4,903 (44,7) (30,3) (3.9) (3.2) (1.9) (3.3) (2.9) (6.8) (3) Nouns Verbs Total 3,083 1,074 3.1 Inclusiveness Antonyms are in this function used to indicate the inclusion of the whole semantic dimension to which the pair belongs. This is the most frequent role in Serbian corpus, as it is present in almost one half of all examples. It is also the most widespread since all fifty pairs �examined are used in this function at least once. Though some variation arises regarding the extent to which the function of inclusiveness is pervasive across different word classes, there is no doubt that it does arise in all word classes examined. For example: (1) Poslednji trijumf Novosađana propraćen je lepim, ali i ružnim stvarima koje su čini se neminovni pratilac našeg boksa. (antonymous adjectives) ‘The latest victory of the team from Novi Sad was accompanied by both beautiful and ugly things that always seem to be present in our boxing sport.’ (2) Dučić je našao večni mir stigavši na Crkvinu, na breg smrti i života. (antonymous nouns) ‘Dučić finally found his eternal peace upon arriving to Crkvina, the hill of death and life.’ (3) Reke čoveku daju, ali i uzimaju. (antonymous verbs) ‘The rivers can both give and take.’ (4) Mnogo je bivših asova ovog kluba koji su tu, blizu, ali i daleko od kluba u kojem su proveli najlepše godine života. (antonymous adverbs) ‘There are a lot of former athletes of this club who are there, both near and far from the club where they have spent the best days of their lives.’ (5) Vatra je progutala celu šumu iznad, ali i ispod puta. (antonymous prepositions) ‘The fire has engulfed the entire forest both above and under the road.’ These examples testify that the immediate environment of each antonymous pair remains unaffected by grammatical class and that the function of the antonymous framework is similar in each example: regardless of whether the antonyms are adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs or prepositions, they always signify inclusiveness or exhaustiveness when inserted into this framework. 3.2 Lexical trigger of contrast Antonyms can be used as means of generating contrast between another pair of words, phrases or clauses in the same sentence. Antonyms are the most important signals of contrast owing to the possibility to be used as parameters of simultaneous similarity and difference and �establish another pair as the contrasting one within the same conceptual dimension. This function of antonyms appears to cross grammatical class, as the following examples illustrate: (6) Ovo hapšenje je najodvažniji korak novih vlasti u izvođenju pripadnika starog režima pred pravdu. (ant. adjectives) ‘This arrest is the bravest action of the new authorities in order to take to the court the members of the old regime.’ (7) To je bio kraj slobode i početak ropstva pod Turcima. (ant. nouns) ‘That was the end of liberty and the beginning of slavery under the Turks’. (8) U Srbiji, pak, vlast uvek dobija, a opozicija uvek gubi izbore. (ant. verbs) ‘In Serbia, the position always wins and the opposition always loses the elections.’ (9) Sledeći tom ove knjige je nova vrsta izazova jer je mnogo zvanih, malo odabranih. (ant. adverbs) ‘The next volume of the book is a new kind of challenge since many are called, few are chosen.’ (10) S vrha lestvica mogao je iznad sebe videti sve Brahmaloke, a ispod sebe je video dubine Pakla. (ant. prepositions) ‘From the top of the ladder he could see all the Brahmaloke above himself and the depths of the Hell below.’ 3.3 Distinction Antonyms can mark the parameters of a distinction, either literally or metaphorically, with an aim to emphasise the existence of some kind of difference. In the group of sentences that contain antonyms marking the parameters of a distinction, some word classes were not found in my database. This function of antonyms seems to be suitable for adjectives and nouns, and only marginally for adverbs, whereas there were not any examples featuring antonymous verbs or prepositions. This distribution across word classes could be the consequence of the lexicosyntactic pattern itself, which is more suitable for expressing the difference between things rather than between actions. Pairs of nouns and noun modifiers (i.e. adjectives) are differentiated between more frequently than pairs of verbs (and their modifiers).The following sentences illustrate this: �(11) Neće li to zamagliti razliku između “teških” i “lakih” tema? (ant. adjectives) ‘Isn't that going to blurr the difference between “difficult” and “easy” topics?’ (12) I gde je razlika između istine i laži? (ant. nouns) ‘And where is the difference between a truth and a lie?’ (13) Velika provalija Slovence poslednjih godina deli na levo i desno orjentisane. (ant. adverbs) ‘There is a huge gap that has recently kept the Slovene divided into the left and the right oriented.’ 3.4 Change Antonyms can be used in contexts in which they mark the starting and ending points of a change, either from one place or time period to another or from one state to another. The change can also be a metaphorical transition when one talks about transformation from one state to another. Antonyms are especially suitable for this role, as they occupy opposing poles along the same dimension of similarity. These contexts are also restricted to the classes of adjectives, nouns and only marginally adverbs. The following examples serve as an illustration: (14) Dešava se da ove lake bolesti pređu u teške, kao što su je meningitis. (ant. adj.) ‘It happens that these harmless diseases can turn into the harmful ones, such as meningitis.’ (15) Rat je iz svog početka prerastao direktno u svoj kraj. (ant. nouns.) ‘The war has, from its beginning, directly turned into its end.’ (16) Jer ono što mi se činilo jako daleko sada je postalo blizu. (ant. adverbs) ‘What seemed to be very far away has now become very near.’ 3.5 Comparison Antonyms can help create comparison along the dimension to make a point in the context in which they are used. All these phrasal contexts involve the use of comparative structure, either in the form više x nego y ‘more x than y’ or comparative form of certain adjective can either �precede antonyms or appear between them, followed by od ‘than’. The following examples illustrate all five word classes used to create comparison between antonymous concepts: (17) To je ona generacija, više sita nego gladna. (ant. adj.) ‘That generation is more full than hungry.’ (18) U svetu “koji u zlu leži”, mržnje je bilo uvek više nego ljubavi. (ant. nouns) ‘In a world full of evil, hate has always been more pervasive than love.’ (19) Dakle, iz naše države više se izlazilo nego što se u nju ulazilo. (ant. verbs) ‘Consequently, the number of people who left the country is higher than the number of people who entered.’ (20) E, znaš, da si još napornija kada si daleko nego kada si blizu. (ant. adverbs) ‘Just to let you know, you are even more difficult when you are far away than when you are near.’ (21) Maldivi su više ispod nego iznad mora. (ant. prepositions) ‘The Maldive Islands are situated more below than above the sea level.’ Grammatical class seems to hold relatively little influence over the semantic and pragmatic function served by antonymy in these examples. Such flexibility of word class confirms that the antonymous pairs in the sentences above appear to have been chosen more because of their conceptual opposition than because of any grammatical criteria. 3.6 Mutual exclusivity Antonyms can imply mutual exclusivity within the context in which they are used. In such contexts one member of the pair is negated, typically in the phrase x, a ne y ‘x, and not y’ and ne x, (već) y ‘not x, (but) y’. The omission of the y element in the following sentence would certainly detract from its intended rhetorical effect: (22) Nenadovi su bili novi a ne stari stanari. (ant. adj.) ‘Nenad’s family was new and not old neighbour.’ (23) “To je trougao ljubavi, a ne mržnje”, kaže on, izlazeći iz svog dvora. (ant. nouns) ‘It is a tringle of love, and not hate, he said coming out of his castle.’ �(24) Obe ste lepe i šarmantne, prirodno je da ništa ne dobijate, već da gubite. (ant. verbs) ‘You are both beautiful and charming, and it is natural that you don’t receive but lose.’ (25) Oltar se nalazio ispred apside a ne iza. (ant. prepositions) ‘The altar was in front of the apse, and not behind.’ In all such cases the insertion of the second member of the antonymous pair is essential if the writer wants to convey the intended meaning. It is not surprising that antonyms are exploited to achieve such rhetorical effect. The textual functions of implying mutual exclusivity crosses all word class boundaries and, despite a relatively small number of sentences extracted from the corpus, it yields a fairly even distribution of antonyms across grammatical classes. The data in Table 1 also provide the frequencies of two very specific uses of antonyms that have not been ascribed to any of the functions, namely the contexts in which antonyms are hyphenated (‘X–Y’, e.g. muško-ženske razlike ‘male-female differences’) and the contexts in which antonyms are part of a well known idiom (e.g. kako došlo tako i otišlo ‘easy come easy go’). The frequency of these contexts in any databse depends on the pairs chosen for analysis, since some adjectival, nominal and adverbial pairs from my list are rather often used in such contexts (e.g. adjectival pair crni/beli ‘black/white’ referring to the football club Partisan, adverbial pair levo/desno ‘left/right’ in the phrase gledati levo-desno ‘to look left and right’, etc.) 4. Conclusion Starting from the notion of antonymous pattern, that refers to relatively stable phrasal contexts of antonym co-occurrence in the sentence, adjectival, nominal, verbal, adverbial and prepositional antonyms were investigated in the corpus of contemporary Serbian language, with an aim to establish whether the word class to which the antonymous pair belongs influences the functions that antonyms serve in text. Data evidence some correlation, but this correlation is relatively minor. In all five word classes examined, at least 60% of sentences fall into one of the two major textual functions of antonyms, and in all five word classes the former is more frequent than the latter. On the other hand, some textual functions of antonymy avoid certain word classes entirely (at least in my database) because it is grammatically difficult to house such words within their associated frameworks. In marking the parameters of a distinction and in marking starting and ending points of a change or a transition, there were no verbal and prepositional pairs in my �database. This may suggest that textual functions profile of antonymous verbs and prepositions is slightly different from the profile of other parts of speech. However, there is not any other minor textual function that shares this trait, in which word class distributions are mostly consistent. The general conclusion is that the roles of antonyms in text are not influenced by word class as significantly as one might expect. Language users employ antonymy to serve much the same semantic and pragmatic purposes, regardless of whether those antonyms are adjectives, nouns, adverbs, verbs or prepositions. Being a conceptual relation, antonymy is not only a relation which crosses word classes, it is to the largest degree a relation which functions irrespective of word class. �References Cruse, D. A. (1986). Lexical semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fellbaum, C. (1995). Co-occurrence and antonymy. International Journal of Lexicography, 8(4), 281-303. Jones, S. (2002). Antonymy: a corpus-based perspective. London and New York: Routledge. Jones, S. (2006). Antonym co-occurrence in spoken English. Text and Talk, 26(2), 191-216. Jones, S. (2007). ’Opposites’ in discourse: A comparison of antonym use across four domains. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(6), 1105-1119. Jones, S., & Murphy, M. L. (2005). Using corpora to investigate antonym acquisition. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 10(3), 401-422. Justeson, J. S., & Katz, S. M. (1991). Co-occurrences of antonymous adjectives and their contexts. Computational linguistics, 17, 1-19. Kostić, N. (2011). Antonymous frameworks in Serbian written discourse: phrasal contexts of antonym co–occurrence in text. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 47(3), 509-537. Kostić, N. (2013). Antonimija u diskursu. [Antonymy in Discourse]. Podgorica: University of Montenegro. Lehrer, A., & Lehrer, K. (1982). Antonymy. Linguistics and Philosophy, 5(4), 483-501. Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Muehleisen, V., & Isono, M. (2009). Antonymous adjectives in Japanese discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(11), 2185-2203. Murphy, G. L., & Andrew, J. M. (1993). The conceptual basis of antonymy and synonymy in adjectives. Journal of Memory and Language, 32(3), 301-319. Murphy, M. L. (2003). Semantic relations and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murphy, M. L., & Jones, S. (2008). Antonyms in children’s and child-directed speech. First Language, 28(4), 403-430. �Murphy, M. L., Paradis, C., Willners, C., & Jones, S. (2009). Discourse functions of antonymy: a cross linguistic investigation of Swedish and English. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(11), 2159-2184. Ogden, C. K. (1967). Opposition: a linguistic and psychological analysis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2918 Title A name given to the resource WORD CLASS AND TEXTUAL FUNCTIONS OF ANTONYMS: A CORPUS STUDY Author Author Kostić, Nataša Abstract A summary of the resource. Antonymy is traditionally regarded as a paradigmatic relation, but recent studies of antonym co–occurrence in written discourse have shown that it can be investigated as a syntagmatic relation as well. Such investigations in the Untagged electronic corpus of Serbian identified two major and four minor functions of antonyms in discourse and its accompanying lexico-syntactic patterns, matching the results of similar analyses in English, Japanese, Swedish and Dutch. This paper presents a research on the relation between word class that antonym pairs belong to (e.g. adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs and prepositions) and their textual functions in Serbian written discourse. It is hypothesized that language users employ antonymous pairs in text irrespective of their grammatical class. The general conclusion is that the roles of antonyms in text are not influenced by word class as significantly as one might expect. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed P Philology. Linguistics https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/files/original/7badfda9480410ab26b135061953c894.pdf 97964772da89c82e6cae4059a175ba3d PDF Text Text A CASE STUDY: EFL LEARNERS’ AND WRITING TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS PERFORMANCE BASED PORTFOLIO IN A UNIVERSITY CONTEXT Sera Güvenç Toros University, Turkey Article History: Submitted: 10.06.2015 Accepted: 25.06.2015 Abstract This study has been carried out to investigate the attitudes of students and writing teachers towards the performance-based portfolio. In the study, both qualitative and quantitative research methods have been used. Within the process of qualitative research, teacher reflection papers have been used and interviews with the teachers and students have been made. Within the quantitative research process, an attitude survey designed by Brooks (1999) has been used and the student attitudes have been investigated. The participants of the study are 89 university students and 5 writing teachers. In the light of the findings obtained from this study, it has been concluded that the majority of the writing teachers and the interviewed students have a positive attitude towards the performance based portfolio while the findings from the student attitude survey displays the opposite. According to the findings from the general attitude survey, the majority of the students show a negative attitude towards the performance-based portfolio. Key words: Performance Based Portfolio in Writing Classes, Teacher and Student Attitudes. �1. Introduction Assessment has a major role in teaching. Evaluating learners’ performances in an effective way is as crucial as putting the methods and approaches to teaching into practice. How should learners be assessed? This is an age old but still an important question, because experience and research tell us that assessment impacts what is taught and learned in classrooms. Students spend a great deal of time reviewing information, and instructors spend a great deal of time teaching and assessing. The field of assessment has been given a special emphasis especially in recent years when the need for a more effective assessment system has been realized. In the past few years, there has been a shift of interest from classical assessments to alternative assessments. In parallel with this paradigm shift, teacher and students roles have also undergone certain changes. Today, teachers are not the sole authorities and learners are no longer passive recipients of the language. Instead, teachers are facilitators who guide the learners and facilitate the whole learning process and learners are active involvers that make discoveries and develop their own strategies for their learning.The active role of the learners in the learning process has led to an increasing popularity of the use of performance based assessments in classroom practices. As a result of the increasing need for performance based assessments, portfolio assessment, which is an alternative to traditional teaching, has gained popularity. Portfolio assessment is defined as ‘a purposeful collection of student work that shows student’s efforts, progress and achievements in more than one era’ (Paulson, Paulson and Meyer 1991, p.61). In literature, portfolio assessment has proved to have a variety of benefits for learners. Paulson, Paulson and Meyer (1991) states that: An application portfolio is a visual representation of who you are as an artist, your history as well as what you are currently doing. It is representing you when you are not present. Part of the evaluation of a portfolio is based on the personal choices you make when picking pieces for the portfolio. It tells the school something about your current values; that’s why you will rarely get a school to be very specific about what they look for in a portfolio. You should not be afraid to make choices (p. 2). In general, the literature highlights the autonomous, authentic and performance based nature of the portfolio assessment. Although the benefits of the portfolio assessment model have been proved in literature, some challenges along with those benefits have also been observed. The time consuming, difficult to monitor nature of the portfolio assessment and the issue of �reliability can be listed as the main challenges of the portfolio assessment. Cirneanu and Chirita (2009) point out the disadvantageous nature of the portfolios by stating that it is not easy and quick to assess since learners reflect their creativity and originality in their works 2. Assessment: A Shift from Teacher Centered to Student Centered Learning In the past few decades, approaches to language assessment and learning have changed with an emphasis on a student centered and classroom based language assessment. Within this process, language teachers undertake several roles that are significant in the assessment process. Stoynoff (2012) highlights the need for language teachers to reflect their own assessment practices since there is not enough research conducted on the assessment of young learners. Andrade and Huff; et al. (2012) emphasize the key role of the student centered selfassessment by stating that student centered assessment can improve learning and motivation. They also indicate that student centered approaches to learning offer active engagement and self-management which are considered to be crucial to learning. Moskal (2010) puts forward that self-assessments are indicators of learners’ motivation, satisfaction and self-efficacy. Hancock (1994) highlights the role of self-assessment and claims that there is a need for a new assessment initiative in education which highlights the importance of performance, competence and self-assessments. 3. Writing Assessment Writing is a constructivist process in which writers try to make meaning of the world by their own experiences. This makes writing assessment complicated since more than a set of single sentences is needed to construct meaning. Graves (1999) states, “Every study of young writers I’ve done for the last 20 years has underestimated what they can do. In fact, we know very little about the human potential for writing” (p.99). The nature of writing skill is not only tough for the writers but also many teachers. Many writing teachers feel concerned about teaching writing due to the inadequate preparation programs, which give limited knowledge for teachers on how to teach writing. Huot (1996) asserts that teachers have doubts about assessment practices in writing as they think the real values of writing are not reflected. As what Hillocks (2002) suggests, writing has complicated mental functions and they are not easy to be assessed by objective tests. He also claims that �the formulaic nature of the objective tests apparently ignores the importance of planning, drafting, revising and editing parts of the writing process. 4. Methods 4.1 Participants In the study, the targeted participants were 89 students from six EFL writing classes. As modular system is used at Toros University, those students involved in the study were at elementary level. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in this study. A qualitative research with five writing teachers was also conducted to give support to the findings of the study. Data from the teachers were added with the belief that it would enrich the conclusions drawn from the study. The ages of the students ranged between 19 and 21. There are six EFL writing classes at Toros University. The teacher participants were the teachers of these six EFL writing classes 4.2 Data Collection Tools Both qualitative and quantitative research designs were used in the study to investigate the attitudes of students towards the use of portfolio in EFL writing classes. In the process of quantitative research, a portfolio attitude survey that was designed by Brooks (1999) was applied to six EFL writing classes with 89 students. The original attitude survey was not used in the study. Instead, the researcher adopted the original attitude survey. The adopted version of the attitude survey was applied as a post study at the end of the module. Ten questions were asked in the survey and a five point Likert attitude scale was used. In the process of qualitative research, two different interviews were conducted to investigate the attitudes of students and teachers towards the use of portfolio. One was conducted with the students and the other was with the teachers. The interviews were also conducted as a post study at the end of the module (8 weeks). The interviews were semi- structured and open-ended questions were asked. In the interview for students, 5 questions were asked whereas in the interview for teachers, 8 questions were asked. Apart from the interviews, as a part of the qualitative research, reflection papers were collected from five writing teachers. Before the implementation of the study, 5 writing teachers had been asked to record their observations over a span of eight weeks (a module) on those reflection papers. Accordingly, the data from the reflection papers were also gathered. �4.3 Data Analysis The data obtained from the performance based portfolio attitude survey was analyzed by using SPSS. The data from the survey was interpreted using a five point rating scale from “strongly agree”, “agree”, “don’t know”, “disagree” and to “strongly disagree”. The percentages, frequencies and related statistical data were obtained through SPSS. For the analysis of the reflection papers and the interviews, categorization was made to conduct content analysis. 5. Findings and Discussion 5.1 Evaluation of the Findings from Teacher Reflection Papers and the Teacher Interview In the light of the data received from the teacher reflection papers, it can be concluded that all the writing teachers teaching in six EFL writing classes believe that students have a positive attitude towards the use of portfolio assessment. From the comments they made on the reflection papers, it is easy to observe that their personal comments as teachers of writing skill are positive, too. Similarly, in the teacher interviews, their comments were positive and they all reported in the interviews that the students benefit from the use of portfolio throughout the portfolio keeping process. We may also conclude that portfolio keeping process helps the students learn about their mistakes. Students’ learning out of their mistakes by regular feedback is also reinforced by the teacher interviews and reflection papers. They also reinforced that portfolio keeping process helps the students monitor and keep track of their own progress. Moreover, it became clear that the students feel motivated towards learning when they see their own progress. This conclusion is based on the data gathered from the reflection papers and the interviews. The teachers put forward that the students feel motivated, as the whole process is encouraging. Although the teachers find the process as a whole useful for the students and have a positive attitude regarding this, in both the reflection papers and the interviews, they reported the same problems. They articulated that writing the papers over and over is an extra burden for the students in the modular system, which is also difficult to adapt. They think that the students feel lost and overwhelmed in the process. Among the other problems that the teachers identifies throughout the process are boring and long lasting nature of the process, overload of work, the students’ tendency to lose their drafts and their unwillingness to write each time. Additionally, when asked about the problems related to the process both in the interview and �reflection papers, the teachers claimed that there were some students who seemed really demotivated and lost in the process. They suggested that these students were especially the ones who weren’t able to keep the track of their own progress. 5.2 Evaluation of the Findings from the Student Interview and the Student Attitude Survey In the light of the data obtained from the student interviews, it might be concluded that the students have a positive attitude towards the use of portfolio as an assessment as in the findings of Yang (2003). All the students reported that the portfolio keeping helped them learn about their weaknesses and strengths. Additionally, the majority of the students articulated that they felt motivated in the process. They claimed that once they realized they could succeed, they felt more motivated and tried to write better with fewer mistakes each time. They added that they felt more responsible when they were actively involved in the process. It can also be revealed from the data that all of the students find the process objective. They suggested that there is a standard, equal and just system for each student and the teachers do grading objectively through standard evaluation criteria. However, the results from the student survey showed that the students in general do not believe in the objectivity of the portfolio assessment. Similarly, although both the teacher and student interviewees claimed that the portfolio assessment helped the students learn about their mistakes and strengths and that the students felt motivated throughout the process, the survey displayed the opposite. Table 1 mirrors the percentages of student responses to student survey: Table 1. Student Responses to Attitude Survey SD DA DK A SA F% F% F% F% F% Q1. 48.3 12.4 3.4 32.6 3.4 Q2. 41.6 23.6 6.7 21.3 6.7 Q3. 39.3 11.2 14.6 15.7 19.1 Q4. 40.4 15.7 18.0 16.9 9.0 Q5. 38.2 13.5 13.5 24.7 10.1 ITEM �Q6. 44.8 20.7 10.3 13.8 10.3 Q7. 37.9 17.2 12.6 18.4 13.8 Q8. 28.7 17.2 21.8 16.1 16.1 Q9. 44.8 14.9 11.5 18.4 10.3 Q10. 46.0 16.1 8.0 25.3 4.6 As represented in Table 1, we received variety of answers for each question. The item " strongly disagree" has the biggest percentage in each question which reveals a disfavor by the majority of students for being marked on portfolio. ( Q1 48.3, Q2 41.6, Q3 39.3, Q4 40.4, Q5 38.2, Q6 44.8, Q7 37.9, Q8 28.7, Q9 44.8, Q 10 46.0) 6. Conclusion In the light of all the data gathered for this study, it is easy to conclude that the student attitude survey contradicts with the other findings such as teacher reflection papers, student and teacher interviews. Although the writing teachers had a positive observation about the student attitudes, the student survey revealed the opposite. Instead, it revealed a disfavor by the majority of the students. The reason for the attitudes of the students in the interviews to be positive might be the limited participants that involved in the interviews since the study revealed the opposite findings when more participants were included. Interestingly, the majority of the writing teachers claimed about a positive overall student attitude in both the reflection papers and the teacher interviews. On the other hand, they reported some problems related to the portfolio keeping process. However, they put forward that these problems were related to only some students and some situations. The problems the teachers reported in the reflection papers and the findings from the attitude survey showed similarity only in the way that the students found the process time consuming. More interestingly, the students as well as the teachers reported in the interviews that they found the process objective. However, the results from the survey showed that the students in general do not believe in the objectivity of the portfolio assessment. Similarly, although both the teacher and student interviewees claimed that the portfolio assessment helped the students learn about their mistakes and strengths and that the students felt motivated throughout the process, the survey displayed the opposite. Furthermore, although the students reported some changes in their attitudes related �to the portfolio keeping, the results from the survey revealed that the majority of the students did not have any attitude changes. Lastly, the student attitude survey results contracted with the student interviews in that the student interviewees reported they made more effort when they learnt about their mistakes and received regular feedback from their teachers. �References Andrade, H., Huff, K., & Brooke, G. (2012). Assessing Learning. Students at the Center: Teaching and Learning in the Era of the Common Core. Boston, MA: JFF. Brooks, L. A. (1999). Performance-based Assessment. Unpublished doctoral dissertation University of Toronto. Brooks, L.A. (1999). Adult ESL student attitudes towards Performance - based assessment. Published MA thesis: University of Toronto. Cirneanu, N &Chırıta, M & Cirneanu, A (2009). Portfolio- learners’ performance complementary assessment instrument. University of Bucharest, 14 (2), 25-29. Hancock, C.R. (1994). Alternative assessment and second-language study. ERIC Digest [Online]: http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=E D376695 Hillocks, G. (2002). The testing trap: How state writing assessments control learning. Teachers College Press. Huot, B. (1996). Toward a new theory of writing assessment. College composition and communication, 47, 549-566. Moskal, B. M. (2010). Self-assessments: what are their valid uses? Academy of Management Learning & Education, 9(2), 314-320. Paulson, F., P., & Meyer, C. (1991). What makes a portfolio a portfolio? Educational Leadership, 48 (5), 60-63 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 2920 Title A name given to the resource A CASE STUDY: EFL LEARNERS’ AND WRITING TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS PERFORMANCE BASED PORTFOLIO IN A UNIVERSITY CONTEXT Author Author Güvenç, Sera Abstract A summary of the resource. This study has been carried out to investigate the attitudes of students and writing teachers towards the performance-based portfolio. In the study, both qualitative and quantitative research methods have been used. Within the process of qualitative research, teacher reflection papers have been used and interviews with the teachers and students have been made. Within the quantitative research process, an attitude survey designed by Brooks (1999) has been used and the student attitudes have been investigated. The participants of the study are 89 university students and 5 writing teachers. In the light of the findings obtained from this study, it has been concluded that the majority of the writing teachers and the interviewed students have a positive attitude towards the performance based portfolio while the findings from the student attitude survey displays the opposite. According to the findings from the general attitude survey, the majority of the students show a negative attitude towards the performance-based portfolio. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available International Burch University Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-09 Keywords Keywords. Article PeerReviewed L Education (General),LB Theory and practice of education,LC Special aspects of education