Development of Korean Relative Clauses in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

38
Development of Korean Relative Clauses in L2 Learners’ Written Essays 15 th AATK Conference June 26, 2010 Washington University in St. Louis Sorin Huh University of Hawaii at Manoa

description

Development of Korean Relative Clauses in L2 Learners’ Written Essays. 15 th AATK Conference June 26, 2010 Washington University in St. Louis. Sorin Huh University of Hawaii at Manoa. Purposes of the Study. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Transcript of Development of Korean Relative Clauses in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Page 1: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Development of Korean Relative Clauses in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

15th AATK ConferenceJune 26, 2010

Washington University in St. Louis

Sorin HuhUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa

Page 2: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Purposes of the Study1. To examine the development of Korean

relative clauses (RCs) by second language (L2) learners of Korean at the descriptive level by analyzing L2 learners’ written essays using CHILDES.

2. To investigate whether typological differences between the target language and learners’ first language (L1) have influence on their acquisition of the Korean RCs

Page 3: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Characteristics of Korean RCs1. Korean RC is prenominal.

2. No relative pronoun is involved.

3. Instead, relativization is signaled by a set of adnominal verbal suffixes such as – 은 , 는 , and – 을 , which also express the tense of the RC.

4. Movement and pronominalization are not involved.

Page 4: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Characteristics of Korean RCsHead-external RCs

Head-internal RCs

존 - 은 [NP [ 책 - 을 빌린 ] 것 ]- 을 돌려 주었다 . John-TOP book-ACC borrow-REL.PAST thing-COMP.ACC return-AUX-PAST-DEC.“John returned the book he borrowed.” (from Jeon & Kim, 2007, p. 256)

[NP [ti 아기 - 를 보 - 는 ] 여자 i ] baby-ACC see-REL.PRES woman“The woman who looks at a baby.”

Head Noun

Gap

것Head Noun

Page 5: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Development of Korean RCs

저 남자 든 것that man [lift-REL.PRES COMP]What the man has lifted

Headless RCs

Head-Internal

RCs

Head-External

RCs

L1 (Cho, 1999; Cho & O’Grady, 2009; Y. Kim, 1987; K. Lee, 1991) and L2 acquisition studies (Jeon & Kim, 2007) have shown that Korean RCs develop in the order of:

No Head Noun

Page 6: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy

A typological generalization originally proposed by Keenan and Comrie (1977)

The relativizability of noun phrase is in the order of:SU

> DO >

IO > OBL >

GEN >

OComp

Page 7: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

NPAH and L2 AcquisitionThe NPAH was extended to SLA to predict the

difficulty order of acquiring RCs.

Research on European RC acquisition confirmed the NPAH. In other words, subject (SU) RCs are acquired earlier than direct object (DO) RCs. (Eckman, Bell, & Nelson, 1988; Gass, 1979; Doughty, 1999;

Izumi, 2003, Hawkins, 1989, Hyltenstam, 1984)

The NPAH has been regarded as a universal hierarchy which predicts L2 developmental order of RCs.

Page 8: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

NPAH and L2 AcquisitionRecent findings on the acquisition of

East Asian Language (EAL) RCs have challenged the universality of the NPAH.

Japanese RC acquisition: Mixed findings

◦ (Kanno, 2000, 2001, 2007; Sakamoto & Kubota, 2000 vs. Hasegawa, 2002; Roberts , 2000; Ozeki & Shirai , 2007)

Korean RC acquisition: Favorable findings◦ (Huh, in press; Jeon & Kim, 2007; O’Grady et al, 2000, 2003)

Page 9: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Influence of L1 on L2 RC acquisitionKanno (2007)

◦ Word order: SVO vs. SOV◦ Filler-Gap order: Prenominal (gap-filler) vs. Postnominal (filler-gap)

◦ Interestingly, CHN learners did not perform better than other learners with SVO postnominal L1. In other words, having prenominal RCs was not advantageous for the CHN learners.

In this study, only learners with CHN and JPN L1 backgrounds will be included.

Word Order Gap-FillerChinese (CHN) SVO PrenominalJapanese (JPN) SOV Prenominal

Page 10: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Research Questions

1. Do L2 learners of Korean show RC developmental order from headless to head-internal to head-external RCs?

2. Do L2 learners of Korean acquire the Korean RCs in the order consistent with the NPAH?

3. Does word order difference in L1 and L2 influence learners’ acquisition of the Korean RCs?

Page 11: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Korean Learner CorpusL2 Korean Learner Corpus

◦ In total, 406 essays written by 203 Korean as a second language (KSL) learners from beginning to high-advanced level were included in the analysis.

◦ Among them, 153 were JPN learners and 50 were CHN learners.

◦ Essays were written on various topics. (e.g., Introducing my family, describing a picture,

writing opinions about controversial issues, future plans, etc.)

Page 12: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Korean Learner CorpusCHILDES (McWhinney, 2000)

◦ A database of child language transcripts◦ A system of Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts of

child speech (CHAT)◦ A collection of Child Language Analysis programs (CLAN)◦ The essays were converted into the CHAT format and

analyzed using CLAN.

http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/

Page 13: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Coding and AnalysisAll sentences containing noun-modifying

clauses were extracted. Distinction of an RC (Ozeki & Shirai, 2007a, b)

Verbs

Adjectives with Complements

Adjectives in Past Tense Form

읽는 것내가 먹은 사과머리가 긴 여자즐거웠던 여행

RCs

Page 14: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Coding and AnalysisDistinction between RCs and other similar

clauses (Lee, 2001; Sohn, 1999)

RCsPseudo Relative Clauses

(Coreferent-Opaque Clauses)

Noun Complement Clause(Fact-S Type Clauses)

내가 먹은 사과밥이 타는 냄새

내가 사과를 먹은 사실

RCs

NoRCs

Further tests for RCs distinction (Lee, 2001)1. Is there a Gap inside

the RC?

2. Can the gap be filled with a

RP?

3. Can a Psuedo-cleft sentence be made from the

RC?

Page 15: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Coding and AnalysisRC Developmental Stages

◦ 7 RC developmental stages from headless to head-internal and head-external RCs (according to Jeon and Kim, 2007)

RC Gap Type◦ Subject (SU)/Direct object (DO)/Oblique (OBL)

Types of Errors Tense/inflection error (TIE) Case marker error (CME) Argument omission (ARG) Resumptive pronoun retention (RPR)

Page 16: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results: Types of RCs Produced Table 1. No. of RCs produced

In total, 812 RCs were produced. All of the RCs identified in this study were head-external RCs. Number of RCs per learner seems to increase as learner’s level

becomes higher. Dramatic increment appeared at Level 3 both in the number of

RCs per learner and the maximum number of RCs produced.

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 TotalTotal 62 91 263 158 119 119 812

RC/Learner 1.17 2.33 6.41 5.45 4.58 7.93 4.00

(Min-Max) (0-4) (0-7) (1-13)

(0-11)

(1-13)

(3-15)

(0-15)

Page 17: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results: Types of RCs Produced Table 2. Accuracy of the RCs produced

In general, learners produced RCs more accurately as their level increased.

Error types: Tense/inflection error (69%), case marker error (17%), and argument omission (14%)

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 TotalRC 62 91 263 158 119 119 812

Accurate RCs 47 76 225 142 113 108 711

Accuracy (76%) (84%) (86%) (90%) (95%) (91%) (88%)

Page 18: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results: RC Gap Types

Table 3. Gap positions of the RCs

At all levels, SU RCs were produced much more frequently than other types of RCs (SU > DO/OBL).

In total, larger proportion of DO RCs were produced than OBL, however such a pattern was not clearly shown at each level.

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 Total

SU 81% 62% 72% 57% 71% 51% 65%

DO 16% 14% 14% 30% 19% 24% 19%

OBL 3% 24% 14% 13% 10% 25% 15%

Page 19: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results: RC Gap Types

Table 4. Accuracy of each gap type

After finishing level 3, learners seem to be able to produce all three types of RCs quite confidently.

It should be noted than there were only 2 OBL RCs produced in Level 1.

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6

SU 80% 84% 87% 90% 95% 90%

DO 50% 69% 92% 89% 96% 93%

OBL 100% 91% 73% 90% 92% 90%

Page 20: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results: The Effects of L1 Table 5. No. of RCs and accuracy in each L1 group

At all levels, JPN learners produced greater number of RCs than CHN learners (JPN > CHN).

In addition, JPN learners produced RCs more accurately than CHN learners.

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 TotalJPN RC/ L 1.28 2.61 7.11 5.76 4.75 9.40 4.22

Accuracy 78% 83% 88% 93% 99% 93% 90%CHN RC/ L 0.70 1.25 4.92 4.63 4.00 5.00 3.34

Accuracy 57% 90% 77% 78% 79% 84% 78%

Page 21: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results: The Effects of L1

Table 6. RC gap positions for each L1 group

Both groups of learners produced SU RCs in much greater proportion than DO and OBL RCs.

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6JPN SU 82% 63% 75% 56% 71% 51%

DO 15% 14% 12% 29% 22% 24%OBL 4% 23% 13% 15% 7% 24%

CHN SU 71% 50% 63% 59% 71% 52%DO 29% 20% 19% 32% 8% 20%OBL 0% 30% 19% 8% 21% 28%

Page 22: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results: Learner’s L1 Effects

Table 7. Error types by each L1 group

JPN learners made much greater number of tense/inflection errors (TIE) than the other types of errors.

TIE was indeed the largest number of errors committed by CHN learners. However, considerable proportion of case marker errors (CME) were also produced.

TIE AGO CME RPR TotalJPN 48 9 7 0 64

(75%) (14%) (11%) (0%) (100%)CHN 21 5 10 1 36

(58%) (14%) (28%) (3%) (100%)

Page 23: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Discussion: Development of RCs (RQ1) Head-external RCs from

the beginning level (L1)◦ No indication of headless or

head-internal RC stages unlike previous studies

Considerably larger number of RCs as learners’ level increased

U-shape pattern of RC development

Level 36.41 RC/L

Level 45.45 RC/L Level 5

4.58 RC/L

Level 67.93 RC/L

Page 24: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Discussion: RC Gap Positions (RQ2)SU RCs were produced more frequently than

DO and OBL RCs at all levels, supporting the NPAH.

After completing level 3, the learners seem to be able to produce all three types of RCs quite successfully (over 90% accuracy).

However, no clear developmental pattern was manifested for DO and OBL RCs.

Page 25: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Discussion: L1 effects (RQ3)Overall JPN learners produced the Korean

RCs more frequently and accurately than CHN learners.◦ JPN: 4.22 RCs/L, 90% accuracy◦ CHN: 3.34 RCs/L, 78% accuracy

Types of errors made by each group seem to reflect the characteristics of their L1.◦ Japanese: TIE > AGO > CME◦ Chinese: TIE > CME > AGOLack of adnominal verbal

suffixesLack of case markers

(CHN)

Page 26: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Limitations & ConclusionsLimitations & Suggestions

◦ The small size of the learner corpus◦ Lack of control over the corpus

Unequivalent number of learners in each L1 group Different topics across levels and varied length of the essays

Conclusions1. The KSL learners produced Korean head-external RCs

from the beginning unlike children or other KFL learners in the previous studies.

2. The acquisition order of the NPAH was supported in this study; SU RCs were developed earlier than DO/OBL RCs.

3. The effects of learners’ L1 were manifested in this study; JPN learners produced the Korean RCs more frequently and accurately than CHN learners.

Page 27: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

References Cho, S. (1999). The acquisition of relative clauses: Experimental studies on Korean. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Hawaii at

Manoa. Cho, S., & O’Grady, W. (2009). The accessibility hierarchy in Korean: head-external and head-internal relative clauses, 168-174 Doughty, C. (199). Second language instruction does make a difference: Evidence from an empirical study of SL relativization. Studies in Second

Language Acquisition, 13(4), 431–469. Eckman, R., Bell, L., & Nelson, D. (1988). On the generalization of relative clause instruction in the acquisition of English as a second language.

Applied Linguistics, 9(1) 1–20. Gass, S. M. (1979). Language transfer and universal grammatical relations. Language Learning, 29(2), 327–344. Hasegawa, T. (2002). The acquisition of relative clauses by children learning Japanese as a second language. Unpublished manuscript,

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu. Hawkins, R. (1989). Do second language learners acquire restrictive relative clauses on the basis of relational or configurational information?

The acquisition of French subject, direct object and genitive restrictive relative clauses by second language learners. Second Language Research, 5(2), 158–188.

Hyltenstam, K. (1984). The use of typological markedness conditions as predictors in second language acquisition: The case of pronominal copies in relative clauses. In R. Andersen (Ed.), Second languages: A cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 39–60). Rowley. MA: Newbury House.

Huh, S. (in press). Does Noun Phrase Accessibility matter? A study of L2 Korean relative clause production. In S. Cheon, (Eds.). Japanese/Korean Linguistics, 19, Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

Izumi, S. (2003). Processing difficulty in comprehension and production of relative clauses by learners of English as a second language. Language Learning, 53(2), 285–323.

Jeon, K. S. & Kim, H-Y. (2007). Development of relativization in Korean as a foreign language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29, 253-276.

Kanno, K. (2000). Sentence processing by JSL learners. Paper presented at the Second Language Research Forum 2000, Madison, WI. Kanno, K. (2001). On-line processing of Japanese by English L2 learners. Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language, 4, 23–28. Kanno, K. (2007). Factors affecting the processing of Japanese relative clauses by L2 learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29(2),

197–218. Kim, Y. (1987). The acquisition of relative clauses in English and Korean: Development in spontaneous production. Unpublished doctoral

dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Lee, K. (1991). On the first language acquisition of relative clauses in Korean: The universal structure of COMP. Unpublished doctoral disserta-

tion, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Lee, S. (2001). Pseudo-Relative Clauses in Korean, ICKL Proceedings, 305-321. MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. 3rd Edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates O’Grady, W., Lee, M., & Choo, M. (2003). A subject-object asymmetry in the acquisition of relative clauses in Korean as a second

language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25, 433-448. O’Grady, W., Yamashita, Y., Lee, M., Choo, M., & Cho, S. (2000). Computational factors in the acquisition of relative clauses. Proceedings of the

International Conference on the Development of the Mind, (pp. 433-448). Tokyo: Keio University Ozeki, H., & Shirai, Y. (2007a). Does the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy predict the difficulty order in the acquisition of Japanese relative

clauses? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 29(2), 169 –196. Ozeki, H., & Shirai, Y. (2007b). The consequences of variation in the acquisition of relative clauses: An analysis of longitudinal production data

from five Japanese children. In Y. Matsumoto, D. Y. Oshima, O.W. Robinson, & P. Sells (Eds.), Diversity in language: Perspectives and implications, 243-70. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

Roberts, M. A. (2000). Implicational markedness and the acquisition of relativization by adult learners of Japanese as a foreign language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Honolulu.

Sohn, H. M. (1999). The Korean language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Page 28: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays
Page 29: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Korean Learner CorpusEssay Topics

Essay 1 Essay 2L1 Topics after studying Korean at

the institution Introduing my family

L2 Describing a given picture Public transportation in my home country

L3 Writing a complaining letter Writing opinions about a fixed idea (a pretty girl is not smart)

L4 My favoraite animal Writing opinions about the 10th-day-no-driving system

L5 Difference between my first language and Korean

Writing opinions about eating dog soup

L6 Things to improve about living in Korea or Korean people

Writing opinions about runaway teenagers

Page 30: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Korean Learner CorpusNo. of Participants

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 Total

JPN 43 31 28 21 20 10 153

CHN 10 8 13 8 6 5 50

Total 53 39 41 29 26 15 203

Page 31: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Korean Learner CorpusNo. of Participants, Writings, and Tokens

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 Total

JPN 43 31 28 21 20 10 153

CHN 10 8 13 8 6 5 50

Total 53 39 41 29 26 15 203

Page 32: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Korean Learner Corpus Table 1. No. of Learners, Essays, and

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 TotalLearne

rs 53 39 41 29 26 15 203

Essays 106 78 82 58 52 30 406

Page 33: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Korean Relative Clauses[NP [ti aki-lul po-nun] yecai ] baby-ACC see-REL.PRES woman“The woman who is looking at a baby.”

SU

[NP [yeca-ka tj po-nun] akij ] woman-NOM see-REL.PRES baby“The baby whom the woman is looking at”

DO

[NP [namca-ka tk phyenci-lul ssu-nun] yecak] man-NOM letter-ACC write-REL.PRES woman“The woman to whom the man is writing a letter”

IO

[NP [namca-ka tk phyenci-lul ssu-nun] phenk] man-NOM letter-ACC write-REL.PRES pen“The pen with which the man is writing a letter”

OBL

Page 34: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Development of Korean RCsA small number of studies have been

conducted. ◦ L1 Acquisition (Cho, 1999; Y. Kim, 1987; K. Lee, 1991)◦ L2 Acquisition (Huh, 2009; Jeon & Kim, 2007;

O’Grady, et al., 2000, 2003)

Similar findings were obtained from L1 and L2 studies.

• SU RCs are more easily acquired than DO.

No studies have investigated L2 acquisition of OBL RCs.

NPAH

Page 35: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Methods: Korean Learner Corpus Table 1. Number of learners and essays

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 TotalLearne

rsJPN 43 31 28 21 20 10 153CHN 10 8 13 8 6 5 50Total 53 39 41 29 26 15 203

Essays 106 78 82 58 52 30 406

Page 36: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results 1: Types of RCs Produced Table 2. Accuracy of the RCs produced

In general, learners produced RCs more accurately as their level increased.

Error types: TIE (69%), CME (17%), & AGO (14%)

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 TotalRC 62 91 263 158 119 119 812

Accurate RCs 47 76 225 142 113 108 711

Accuracy 76% 84% 86% 90% 95% 91% 88%

Page 37: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Results 3: Learner’s L1 Effects Table 6. RC accuracy by each L1 group

In general, JPN learners produced RCs more accurately than CHN learners.

Even at the high-advanced level, CHN learners did not reach the accuracy level of the JPN learners.

L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 Total

JPN 78% 83% 88% 93% 99% 93% 90%

CHN 57% 90% 77% 78% 79% 84% 78%

Page 38: Development of Korean Relative Clauses  in L2 Learners’ Written Essays

Discussion: Development of RCs (RQ1) The KSL learners included in this study

were able to produce head-external Korean RCs quite successfully from the beginning level (L1).

No occurrence of headless or head-internal RCs were identified.

The learners produced noticeably greater number of RCs as their level increased (1.17 -> 7.93).