This paper investigates how well adult Spanish-Dutch bilinguals have acquired grammatical gender agreement in Dutch and whether individual speakers apply specific strategies to resolve difficulties...Show moreThis paper investigates how well adult Spanish-Dutch bilinguals have acquired grammatical gender agreement in Dutch and whether individual speakers apply specific strategies to resolve difficulties associated with gender in Dutch. Both Spanish and Dutch have two-fold gender systems: Spanish differentiates between a feminine and a masculine gender; and Dutch distinguishes between a common and a neuter gender. In Spanish each gender is marked on the determiner and the adjective with a distinct morphological marker (e.g. the indefinite articles un – amasc and una - afem). In Dutch the indefinite article converges into one form for both genders (i.e. een) and the rules of adjectival agreement are less straightforward than the rules in Spanish. To examine how adult bilinguals handle the opaque Dutch gender system, data from four late Spanish-Dutch bilinguals (L1 Spanish, L2 Dutch), seven early Spanish-Dutch bilinguals and six monolingual Dutch speakers were collected by means of elicited production and analyzed for grammatical gender agreement on definite determiners and adjectival inflection. It was found that the four highly proficient late speakers of Dutch show non-target-like performance in their data involving agreement on both definite determiners and adjectives, regularly overgeneralize to the common gender, and tend to produce fewer indefinite than definite phrases in comparison to the monolinguals and early bilinguals. The findings in this study are discussed in light of previous research regarding the different mechanisms of child and adult (second) language acquisition of grammatical gender in Dutch (Blom et al., 2006, 2008; Prevost and White, 2000; White, 2003). The evidence from the current experiment suggests that: a. adults use two different routes for acquiring gender agreement in Dutch - a lexical route for agreement at the determiner, and a rule-based route for agreement at the adjective (Blom et al., 2006, 2008); b. adult speakers may have the knowledge of the rules of gender agreement in Dutch but are not successful in applying the rules consistently in their production (Prevost and White, 2000; White, 2003).Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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This thesis investigated the cognitive and neurological processes used to recognize visually presented words in a second language. In this study, Dutch second language learners of Russian and...Show moreThis thesis investigated the cognitive and neurological processes used to recognize visually presented words in a second language. In this study, Dutch second language learners of Russian and native speakers of Russian participated in a lexical decision task. Stimuli consisted of visually presented letter/character strings which increasingly deviated from existing Russian words. ERP measurements together with behavioural responses (error rates and reaction times) were recorded and analyzed.Show less
This thesis aims to research the way L1 pronunciation transfer occurs and how this could potentially be employed in order to improve pronunciation teaching. Dutch ESL learners were chosen for the...Show moreThis thesis aims to research the way L1 pronunciation transfer occurs and how this could potentially be employed in order to improve pronunciation teaching. Dutch ESL learners were chosen for the research and their pronunciation errors were analysed. Afterwards, the learners were offered two ways of instruction, one that explained how English sounds are made and one that compared Dutch sounds to English sounds. Finally, the learners were asked to explain which instruction type they ought to be more beneficial and their pronunciation was examined once more.Show less
This study aims to gain an insight into the similarities and differences in the acquisition of foreign language morphology in secondary school learners with different native languages. To this aim,...Show moreThis study aims to gain an insight into the similarities and differences in the acquisition of foreign language morphology in secondary school learners with different native languages. To this aim, the linguistic behavior of English and Dutch students was examined in the context of the overgeneralization phenomenon and the dual-mechanism theory. The groups were asked to conjugate both existing and non-existing nouns and verbs in one or two of their foreign languages. The results show that overgeneralization plays a major role in the foreign language acquisition of both groups, particularly in irregular conjugation. However, with more target language experience, these errors dissipated, confirming a prediction based on the dual-mechanism theory. Moreover, the results show that the language learning environment had a major influence on the students’ perception of foreign language learning strategies, which in turn affected their language use and behavior. The responses of the English students, who learned Dutch in a predominantly naturalistic learning environment, demonstrated spontaneous and intuitive language use. This contrasts with the responses of the Dutch students, who learned English in an institutional environment and showed forced, rule-based language use. These results are supported by findings in German, in which the Dutch students showed similar language behavior to English, despite the close genetic relationship between German and Dutch.Show less
Dans notre expérience, nous avons étudié le transfert négatif de la diphtongaison de la voyelle /e/ chez les apprenants néerlandophones du français. De plus, nous avons étudié si des cours de...Show moreDans notre expérience, nous avons étudié le transfert négatif de la diphtongaison de la voyelle /e/ chez les apprenants néerlandophones du français. De plus, nous avons étudié si des cours de prononciation aident à réduire le transfert négatif de la diphtongaison de la voyelle /e/. Premièrement, nous avons observé que les sujets ont prononcé la voyelle /e/ comme la diphtongue [ei] aussi bien en français qu’en néerlandais. Il y a donc un transfert négatif de la diphtongaison de la voyelle /e/ chez les apprenants néerlandophones du français. De plus, nous avons trouvé que l’accent et la durée jouent toutes les deux un rôle dans la réalisation de la diphtongaison. En ce qui concerne la durée, l’augmentation du degré de diphtongaison était significative au moment où la durée de la voyelle /e/ augmentait d’une milliseconde. Quant à la variable « accent », il y avait un effet entre la diphtongaison et la voyelle /e/ dans une syllabe non accentuée. Enfin, nous n’avons pas trouvé un effet entre la variable « séance » et la diphtongaison, donc les sujets n’ont pas su réduire le transfert négatif de la diphtongaison de la voyelle /e/ après six semaines de cours de prononciation.Show less
In the field of second language acquisition, the role of the mother tongue in acquiring a brand new linguistic system has been widely debated by many researchers. For a long time, experts in the...Show moreIn the field of second language acquisition, the role of the mother tongue in acquiring a brand new linguistic system has been widely debated by many researchers. For a long time, experts in the field held on to conservative notions about the relationship between the L1 and L2, and research and language acquisition paradigm in the past leaned towards an L1 interference model, which had blamed the mother tongue for most, if not all, challenges experienced by learners in acquiring an L2. Modern literature surrounding language acquisition, however, point to a change in trend and attitudes involving the use of L1 in acquiring an L2. Extensive studies involving primary research data have been undertaken to dispel the notion of L1 interference and, instead, encourage incorporating L1 in L2 instruction. The research questions that this thesis hopes to address and answer are: Does using L1 in the L2 classroom benefit English as a second and foreign language learners? What factors might hinder the effectiveness of using L1 in acquiring an ESL/EFL in the classroom? In the end, this paper will endeavour to suggest ways L1 should be integrated into classroom language teaching situations. This research study will undertake to review and consolidate all previous work done on the hindrance of using the L1, on one hand, and the effectiveness of L1 use in the L2 classroom on the other. Practical ways of using the L1 will be provided, using examples from research done involving primary data from the literature. To substantiate this section, teacher attitudes and classroom practices in using L1 in ESL situations in an international school in Amsterdam will also be presented.Show less
