The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context
Title
The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context
The Effect of Narrative Structure on Learner Use of English Tense and Aspect in an English as a Foreign Language Context
Keywords: Discourse hypothesis, tense and aspect, EFL, Thai learners, temporality, interlanguage
Authors
Mansoor Al Surmi
University of Central Missouri, USA
Mansoor Al Surmi
University of Central Missouri, USA
Bio Data
Mansoor Al-Surmi is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Central Missouri. His research interests broadly include investigating theoretical and practical issues in the areas of Corpus Linguistics, Assessment, SLA, and CALL.
Abstract
This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal morphology in L2 learners’ interlanguage temporality system. The aim was to retest the Discourse Hypothesis predictions regarding of the influence of discourse structure on verbal morphology use in oral narrative in an English as a Foreign Language context. The discourse hypothesis predicts that L2 learners will use past forms predominantly in the foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the background. Data obtained from 36 learners was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest productions by Thai L2 learners of English. Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking at six pictures. Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the foreground than the background while they use more non-past forms in the background. Learners’ systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the results of the present study. The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is supported and that English as a Foreign Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and aspect to English as a Second Language learners.
This paper investigates the influence of the discourse narrative structure on verbal morphology in L2 learners’ interlanguage temporality system. The aim was to retest the Discourse Hypothesis predictions regarding of the influence of discourse structure on verbal morphology use in oral narrative in an English as a Foreign Language context. The discourse hypothesis predicts that L2 learners will use past forms predominantly in the foreground of the narrative while non-past forms will be used in the background. Data obtained from 36 learners was randomly chosen from a pool of pretest productions by Thai L2 learners of English. Participants were asked to narrate a strange dream after looking at six pictures. Results revealed that participants show more use of the past forms in the foreground than the background while they use more non-past forms in the background. Learners’ systematic errors in tense marking could be understood in the light of the results of the present study. The paper concludes that the discourse hypothesis is supported and that English as a Foreign Language learners exhibit similar use of tense and aspect to English as a Second Language learners.
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See page: 64-86
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Category: Main Editions, Volume 15 Issue 1
