APLNG 591

Final paper

Xuan Liu

12/14/09

Article Review 1

Bardovi-Harlig, K. & Reynolds, D. W. (1995). The Role of Lexical Aspect in the Acquisition of

Tense and Aspect. TESOL Quarterly, vol. 29 (1), p. 107-131.

Summary
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of lexical aspect in the acquisition of the

simple past tense among adult classroom ESL learners and thus propose an acqusitionally based

approach to instruction. The authors hypothesize that lexical aspect would influence the

acquisition of simple past tense. Also, they hypothesize that the introduction of adverbs of

frequency would enhance or reduce the effect of lexical aspect. The results reveal that the

acquisition of past tense proceeds in stages and lexical aspect influences the sequence of it.

This large-scale cross-sectional study adopts the Vendler (1967) classification of lexical

aspect and uses 32 cloze passages to examine 182 adult classroom English learners’ use of

simple past tense for each lexical aspectual class. The participants are at six levels of proficiency

and represent 15 native languages. The authors find that learners at all levels of proficiency show

high rate of correct use of simple past with achievement and accomplishment verbs but lower use

of past with activity and state verbs. They also find that the introduction of adverbs of frequency

increases the use of non-past with both activity and state verbs.

Based on the findings, the authors conclude that learners tend to associate simple past

morphology with the concept of past punctual action and associate adverbs of frequency with
present tense during the early stages of acquisition. Classroom instruction is needed to help them

move beyond that one-to-one principle to achieve target-like association of form and meaning.

They suggest that using positive evidence and focused noticing exercise in the classroom would

be helpful.

Response to Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds (1995)

The strengths of this article lie in the following areas. First, it makes a contribution to the

empirical studies of aspect hypothesis by showing the lexical aspect impact on the distributional

pattern of grammatical aspect in different stages of morphological development among

instructed learners. Second, it points out the problematic areas in the acquisition of simple past

tense among adult classroom English learners and thus draws teachers’ attention to the simple

past usage concerning activity verbs and state verbs. Two main pedagogical suggestions are

made as well. Hopefully it will be useful for ESL teachers to locate their focus and improve their

instruction on tense and aspect. Third, the variety of first language groups in the sample is

impressive. It includes as many as 15 first languages in a single study. To certain extent, it

suggests that the impact of lexical aspect is universal across different first language groups.

However, the article has several shortcomings, too. First, though the findings indicate a

relationship between lexical aspect and learners’ correct use of verbal morphology, the authors

fail to identify whether the lexical aspect impact has the same intensity across different stages of

acquisition. For example, Salaberry (2000) studies the L2 acquisition of Spanish by instructed

learners and finds that the lexical aspect is stronger in the later stages than in the early stages. If

the authors have identified the intensity of lexical aspect impact on verbal morphology across

different stages of acquisition, the findings would have provided more accurate insights into the

relationship between lexical aspect and acquisitional sequence of simple past tense.
 Second, a justification of the usefulness of classroom instruction in the acquisition of

verbal morphology is missing in this article. The authors claim that instructed learners follow the

same acquisitional sequence as uninstructed learners. It implies that lexical aspect has no impact

on the acquisitional sequence. Then the question is whether instruction has an impact at all on

the acquisition of tense and aspect. The authors should have provided evidence to substantiate

the usefulness of classroom instruction in aspects in acquisition of tense and aspect other than

acquisitional sequence. In that case, the instructional suggestions they make would be more

convincing.

Third, this study uses a form-focused approach to investigate the acquisition of tense and

aspect. However, the approach is biased in some way since the authors have an exclusive focus

on forms such as inflectional verbal morphology. The target languages in this study and all the

other studies reviewed in this article are English or other European languages. Most of these

languages use inflectional verbal morphology to indicate tense and aspect, such as the “-ed” in

English. However, inflection does not exist in every language. What if the target language is

mandarin Chinese which does not have inflectional verbal morphology to indicate tense at all?

Therefore, a form-focused approach that ignores expressions other than inflectional forms fail to

reveal the full competence of learners with first languages that do not have inflections.

Fourth, the authors use the aspect hypothesis framework by Andersen (1991) extensively

without explaining it properly in the first place. The intended audience of this paper might

include ESL teachers who are not aware of this framework. So, a detailed explanation in the

background section would have aided in the readers’ understanding of the whole concept.

References
Andersen, R. W. (1991). Developmental sequences: The emergence of aspect marking in second

language acquisition. In T. Huebner & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), Second language acquisition

and linguistic theories (pp. 305-324). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins.

Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000). Tense and aspect in second language acquisition: form, meaning,

and use. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Salaberry, M.R. (2000). The development of past tense morphology in L2 Spanish. Amsterdam

and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Article Review 2

Taguchi, N. (2008). The role of learning environment in the development of pragmatic

comprehension: a comparison of gains between EFL and ESL learners. Studies in Second

Language Acquisition, vol. 30(4), p. 423-452.

Summary
Previous research on pragmatic competence has shown the superiority of a L2

environment over a FL environment in the production and perception of speech acts and in

pragmatic sensitivity. This study aims to find out whether a L2 environment is superior to a FL

environment for development in comprehension of conversational implicatures. It is conducted

among two groups of Japanese EFL and ESL students who are enrolled in IEP (intensive English

program) in a college in Japan and a college in Hawaii respectively. The author uses a

computerized PLT (pragmatic listening task) to examine the students’ gains in comprehension of

indirect refusal and indirect opinion over 120-130 hr of instruction.

There are three major findings. First, indirect refusals are easier than indirect opinions to

comprehend for both groups. Second, both groups show significant progress in accuracy and

speed of pragmatic comprehension over time. Third, the ESL group has greater gains in speed
than in accuracy over time and the EFL group is the other way round. According to the findings,

the author concludes that L2 environment is not superior to FL environment for pragmatic

comprehension development. But, a L2 environment might be advantageous in the development

of speed while a FL environment might lead to greater gains in accuracy. Besides, she claims

that the comprehension of more conventional implied meanings may precede that of less

conventional ones.

Response to Taguchi (2008)

Though several limitations must be considered in interpreting the findings, this study

breaks new grounds in pragmatics research. It focuses on one often neglected area of language

ability―pragmatic comprehension in relation to the learning context. It points out that pragmatic

comprehension development can occur in an at-home formal language classroom which gives

hope to both language learners and educators in a foreign language environment in terms of

pragmatics learning and teaching. However, it fails to identify the relative factors in that foreign

language classroom that give rise to the pragmatic comprehension development. Without such

identification, it is hard for teachers to arrange learning opportunities in a way which strengthens

the favorable environmental elements in order to facilitate the learners’ development of

pragmatic comprehension within a foreign language classroom. More needs to be done in this

area.

The value of this study also lies in that it is one of the few studies which pay attention to

the role of conventionality in assisting learners’ comprehension of conversational implicatures.

According to Van Dijk (1977), pragmatic comprehension consists of two main processes:

context analysis and utterance analysis. In context analysis, language learners use background

knowledge, past experiences and knowledge of social rules. Conventionality serves as a tool to

facilitate learners’ context analysis. One remaining question is that what are the learners’
attitudes towards the different kinds of conventionality in relation to English? Do they accept or

resist these conventionalized rules? It is important to include their attitudes towards what they

are exposed to as a variable in this study in order to understand their pragmatic comprehension

development better.

This study compares the gains in comprehension of conversational implicatures between

two groups of Japanese ESL and EFL students. But, it is noteworthy that the participants in this

study are college students. What if the participants here are kids? Will the findings be different?

Will age be a relevant factor to the interaction of learning context and pragmatic comprehension?

In other words, is there a critical period for pragmatic comprehension development in different

learning contexts? Another problem lies in the level of proficiency of these participants. The

author mentions that all of them are at the beginning level. I am wondering that is there a

threshold level of proficiency at which learners can truly benefit and make use of the

communicative and learning opportunities out there in a L2 environment. It is entirely possible

that this study does not show the superiority of a L2 environment over a FL environment in

pragmatic comprehension simply because of the students’ low proficiency level. The study

would be more convincing if they have incorporated learners at different proficiency levels.

References
Van Dijk, T. A. (1977). Context and cognition: Knowledge frames and speech act

comprehension. Journal of Pragmatics, 1, 211-232.

Article Review 3

Carpenter, H., Jeon, K. S., MacGregor, D., & Mackey, A. (2006) Learner’s interpretations of

recasts. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, vol. 28 (2), p. 209-236.

Summary

Building on previous research concerning learners’ interpretation of recasts, this study

was designed to identify whether learners recognize the corrective nature of recasts when they

are removed from their immediate discourse context and as well whether learners resort to

nonlinguistic cues when deciding whether utterances are recasts or repetitions. Videotapes of

task-based interactions including recasts and repetitions are used to examine 34 advanced

English learners. One group views the video which had digitally removed the learners’

nontargetlike utterance while another group views the video which includes both the learners’

utterance and the teachers’ response. All the learners are asked to tell what they think they are

hearing, a recast, a repetition, or something else and a subset of learners need to provide verbal

reports while evaluating the clips.

Results show that learners in the utterance-response group are significantly more

successful at distinguishing recasts from repetitions than learners in the response-only group.

Besides, the verbal reports of the subset of learners show that they don’t resort to nonlinguistic

cues from the speakers when they try to identify whether the teachers’ responses are recasts or

repetitions. Last but not least, the post hoc analysis indicates that morpho-syntactic recasts are

less accurately recognized than phonological and lexical recasts in this study. The authors

conclude that “the contrast between a problematic utterance and a recast contributes to learners’

interpretation of recasts as corrective”. (p. 210)

Response to Carpenter et al. (2006)

 One of the strengths of this article is that it critically points out that recasts are complex

discourse structures which include both implicit negative feedback and positive evidence. Even

if recasts might be ambiguous to learners, it does not mean that recasts are not helpful for L2

development since recasts still provide learners with positive evidence and sometimes it

increases the salience of positive evidence. In this connection, this study is consistent with

previous research findings that recasts are beneficial for L2 development. Besides, the findings

in this study also give prominence to the importance of “the contrast between the adjacent

sentence pairs” which serves as an important cue for learners to recognize the corrective nature

of recasts. (Farrar, 1992, p. 95)

This study should also be praised and highly evaluated because it uses several creative

methodological tools. One of them is think-aloud protocols and the other is edited videotapes.

The former tool taps into the learners’ thinking process and thus provides more convincing

evidence with respect to what kinds of contextual cues dose the learners resort to when they try

to identify whether the utterances are recasts or repetitions. However, this tool is slightly

problematic in this study, too. Only 14 out of 34 participants are asked to give oral reports while

there is no information about how they are selected and whether they are typical reflection of the

whole group. Since 34 is not a big number, it would be better if all of them could provide oral

reports. As for the use of edited videotapes, it not only provides a sharp contrast but also might

stimulate the learners to resort to nonverbal and nonlinguistic cues.

One shortcoming of this study is that since the participants have no contact with the

teachers in the videotape before. It is entirely possible that they don’t use nonverbal and

nonlinguistic cues much simply because they don’t know the teachers. The results might be

totally different if the participants are asked to evaluate the feedback from some teachers that
they are familiar with. Therefore, it is too hasty to draw the conclusion that “learners were not

looking for nonverbal cues from the speakers” (p. 209-210). More needs to be done in this area.

Another important issue is that the results are obtained in one specific experimental

setting and have yet to be replicated in other settings. It is quite possible that it is the

experimental setting that draws the participants’ attention to the recasts in the videotapes. But,

within the real content-based classrooms, students often focus more on meaning rather than

form. Previous research has shown that recasts are ambiguous especially in a content-based

classroom setting. (Lyster, 1998) Therefore, similar studies need to be done in real content-based

classrooms to see if the results remain the same.

References

Farrar, M. J. (1992). Negative evidence and grammatical morpheme acquisition. Developmental

Psychology, 28, 90–98.

Lyster, R. (1998). Negotiation of form, recasts, and explicit correction in relation to error types

and learner repair in immersion classrooms. Language Learning, 48, 183–218.