The genitive alternation in Chinese and German ESL learners

Abstract

This paper exemplifies an approach to learner corpus data that adopts a multifactorial definition of 'context' . We apply a logistic regression to 2,986 attestations of the genitive alternation (the squirrel's nest vs. the nest of the squirrel) from the Chinese and German sub-sections of the International Corpus of Learner English and the British component of the International Corpus of English that were coded for 12 factors. Importantly, the speakers' L1 was included as a predictor to be able to compare properly the native speakers with the learners as well as the two learner groups with each other. The final regression model predicts all speakers' genitive choices very accurately (> 93%) and suggests that (i) the learners rely heavily on processing-related factors, which can be overridden by semantic constraints, and (ii) learners' choices are differentially modulated by their L1. We close with a discussion of how this context-based, multifactorial approach goes beyond traditional learner corpus research.

Prenominal adjective order preferences in Chinese and German L2 English

“…When seen in complementation of recent studies of different alternations such as the genitive alternation (Gries & Wulff, 2013), the choice of modal verbs (Gries & Deshors, 2014), or subject realization in Japanese (Gries & Adelman, 2014), to give but a few examples, the present study also underscores the point that NS knowledge underlying different phenomena is differently predictable. This implies that there is no 'native speaker norm' in the strict sense -rather, if comparisons with learner behavior are intended, what constitutes native-like behavior has to be identified quantitatively and phenomenon-specifically.…”

“…These findings are reminiscent of those we found for the genitive alternation in the same two learner groups (cf. Gries & Wulff 2013), so it appears that a systematic L1-specific pattern emerges here. As to the deeper causes for this pattern, we can only speculate.…”

“…The second phonological factor included here is Rhythmic Alternation, which denotes the postulated universal tendency for sequences to be preferred when they display a strict alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables (Couper-Kuhlen, 1986, p. 60;Shih et al, to appear;Gries & Wulff 2013 provide evidence that rhythmic alternation impacts the genitive alternation in English). That is, when considering this factor in isolation, Chinese traditional band will be preferred over traditional Chinese band because the latter contains a sequence of three unstressed syllables.…”

“…Corpus data are being used to inform the development of experimental stimuli (the MRC Psycholinguistics Database and the English Lexicon Project are widely used, for instance); corpus analyses are presented alongside experimental case studies to gain complementary insights into second language production, development, and the role of second language input (Gries & Wulff, 2005, 2009Gilquin, 2007;Siyanova & Schmitt, 2008); and a growing number of published studies is entirely corpus-based (Tono, 2004;Paquot & Granger, 2012;Gries & Wulff, 2013).…”

EFL and/vs. ESL?

“…Over time, this has also begun to influence both learner and variety corpus research. In learner corpus research, studies such as Gries & Wulff (2013), Gries & Adelman (2014), , Deshors (to appear a, to appear b) are all multifactorial studies of alternative (lexical or grammatical) choices and all compare (in similar ways) the choices EFL and ENL speakers make and why. Similarly in variety research, studies like Bresnan & Hay (2008), Bresnan & Ford (2010), Bernaisch et al (2014), Nam et al (2013), Schilk et al (2013), and Deshors (to appear c) all explore the dative alternation and have been moving the field along to its current relatively sophisticated state of the art.…”