This study examines the most prevalent lexical errors committed by Dutch learners when they write in Korean. It also examines whether the proficiency levels of learners influence their tendency to...Show moreThis study examines the most prevalent lexical errors committed by Dutch learners when they write in Korean. It also examines whether the proficiency levels of learners influence their tendency to make language transfer errors, distinguishing between inter- or intralingual errors. Although error analysis studies are plentiful in the field of second language acquisition, both lexical errors and Dutch learners of Korean have been neglected as research subjects. By making use of error and statistical analysis, this study aims to fill that gap. This results demonstrate that the most prevalent lexical errors among Dutch learners of Korean of all proficiency levels is literal translation, followed by confusion with semantic similarity, paraphrasing or circumlocution, confusion with formal similarity, and omission or incompletion errors. The study further finds evidence for the claim that learners with high proficiency levels of Korean make more intralingual errors than learners with low proficiency levels, but it does not find evidence that learners with low proficiency levels make more interlingual errors than learners with high proficiency levels. These results suggest that instructors might need to focus on helping advanced learners in their understanding and use of complex Korean language structures and vocabulary, whilst not neglecting correction of language transfer errors in general.Show less
The aim of this thesis was to determine whether Polish-Dutch bilinguals benefit from knowing a second language when learning to assign stress to English words. Specifically, the research targeted...Show moreThe aim of this thesis was to determine whether Polish-Dutch bilinguals benefit from knowing a second language when learning to assign stress to English words. Specifically, the research targeted children who were learning English in Dutch primary education, aged 10 to 12 years old. Earlier research on second language acquisition shows that because of language transfer, knowing an extra language is beneficial for learning a new language (Bartolotti & Marian 2016, Ellis 2015, Schwartz 2015). To find out if the bilingual children did better or worse in assigning stress to English words than monolingual Dutch children, a survey was carried out as a small pilot study on three participants. Here, the participants had to pronounce fifteen words from a word list. Next, the number of words where the participants had assigned stress correctly or incorrectly were counted and presented in different tables. This showed that although the overall performance of the Polish-Dutch bilingual participant was not better than that of the monolingual Dutch participants, the bilingual participant did significantly better in assigning stress to the English words that receive penultimate stress.Show less
This study examines L2 learners’ ability to distinguish category boundaries in two languages that differ in their semantic categorization and range of application. L1 Spanish speakers of L2 English...Show moreThis study examines L2 learners’ ability to distinguish category boundaries in two languages that differ in their semantic categorization and range of application. L1 Spanish speakers of L2 English were tested for their categorization of items in both languages. Participants were divided into three groups according to their English proficiency level. The data reveals that although high proficiency in an L2 correlates to less evidence of L1 influence in semantic processing, L2 learners are still influenced by the L1 even at high levels of proficiency. Moreover, the results suggest that L2 learners’ semantic system might be based on that of the L1 and that L2 words could be mediated by L1 meanings.Show less
