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ERIC Number: EJ1235734
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Dec
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0272-2631
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Observing the Emergence of Constructional Knowledge: Verb Patterns in German and Spanish Learners of English at Different Proficiency Levels
Römer, Ute; Berger, Cynthia M.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition, v41 n5 p1089-1110 Dec 2019
Based on writing produced by second language learners at different proficiency levels (CEFR A1 to C1), we adopted a usage-based approach (Ellis, Römer, & O'Donnell, 2016; Tyler & Ortega, 2018) to investigate how German and Spanish learner knowledge of 19 English verb-argument constructions (VACs; e.g., "V with n," illustrated by "he always agrees with her") develops. We extracted VACs from subsets of the Education First-Cambridge Open Language Database, altogether comprising more than 68,000 texts and 6 million words. For each VAC, L1 learner group, and proficiency level, we determined type and token frequencies, as well as the most dominant verb-VAC associations. To study effects of proficiency and L1 on VAC production, we carried out correlation analyses to compare verb-VAC associations of learners at different levels and different L1 backgrounds. We also correlated each learner dataset with comparable data from a large reference corpus of native English usage. Results indicate that with increasing proficiency, learners expand their VAC repertoire and productivity, and verb-VAC associations move closer to native usage.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A