Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
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Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
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Volume 186 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English. The syntax–pragmatics interface in second language acquisition. by Marcus Callies
Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English The syntax–pragmatics interface in second language acquisition
Marcus Callies University of Freiburg
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Callies, Marcus. Information highlighting in advanced learner English : the syntax-pragmatics interface in second language acquisition / Marcus Callies. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 186) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language--Syntax. 2. English language--Study and teaching--German speakers. 3. German language--Syntax. 4. English language--Grammar, Comparative--German. 5. German language--Grammar, Comparative--English. 6. Pragmatics. 7. Second language acquisition. I. Title. PE1395.C35
2009
425--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 5431 3 (hb; alk. paper) isbn 978 90 272 8948 3 (eb)
2009007777
© 2009 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Abbreviations List of tables List of figures Preface chapter 1 Introduction chapter 2 Information highlighting in English 2.1 General functional principles of discourse organization 10 2.1.1 Major concepts of information structure 13 2.1.1.1 Sentence position and information status 13 2.1.1.2 Syntactic weight 17 2.1.1.3 Topic and focus 19 2.1.1.4 Cases of emphasis: Intensification and contrast 21 2.2 Means of information highlighting in English 24 2.2.1 Lexico-grammatical means 24 2.2.1.1 Emphatic do 24 2.2.1.2 Focus particles 26 2.2.1.3 Pragmatic markers 29 2.2.2 Focus constructions 31 2.2.2.1 Inversion 32 2.2.2.2 Preposing 36 2.2.2.3 Clefts 40 2.2.2.4 Extraposition 47 2.2.2.5 Frequency and register variation 51 2.2.2.6 The markedness of focus constructions 53 chapter 3 Information structure and information highlighting in English and German 3.1 Basic word order in English and German and its impact on information structure 59
ix xi xv xvii 1 9
59
vi
Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
3.2 Focusing devices in English and German 66 3.2.1 Topicalization vs. preposing 66 3.2.2 Inversion 68 3.2.3 Clefts 69 3.2.4 Lexico-grammatical means 77 3.2.5 Summary 77 chapter 4 Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research 79 4.1 Pragmatics in SLA 79 4.1.1 The syntax-pragmatics interface in language acquisition 85 4.2 Information structure and focusing devices in SLA research 89 4.2.1 Information structure in early and advanced SLA 89 4.2.2 Lexical intensifiers and focus particles 96 4.2.3 Pragmatic markers 99 4.2.4 Focus constructions 100 4.2.5 Summary 104 4.3 Language universals, markedness and crosslinguistic influence in SLA 106 4.3.1 Language universals, language typology and SLA: Universal Grammar vs. the functional-typological approach 106 4.3.2 Typological markedness and its interplay with crosslinguistic influence 108 4.4 Research hypotheses 111 chapter 5 115 Research design 5.1 Assessing L2 proficiency: Defining the advanced learner 115 5.2 Research instruments 117 5.2.1 Experimental study 118 5.2.1.1 Production: Discourse completion 120 5.2.1.2 Metapragmatic assessment: Pragmalinguistic judgments 123 5.2.1.3 Introspection: Retrospective interviews 126 5.2.2 Learner-corpus study 127 5.3 Procedures of data analysis 129 5.3.1 Experimental data 129 5.3.2 Corpus data 133 chapter 6 Experimental study 6.1 Elicited production 135 6.1.1 Native speakers vs. learners 135
135
Table of contents vii
6.1.1.1 Syntactic means 141 6.1.1.2 Lexico-grammatical means 145 6.1.2 Learners’ L1 vs. L2 147 6.1.2.1 Syntactic means 151 6.1.2.2 Lexico-grammatical means 156 6.2 Metapragmatic assessment 158 6.3 Introspection 164 6.4 Summary 177 chapter 7 Learner-corpus study 7.1 Syntactic means 181 7.1.1 Clefts 181 7.1.2 Preposing 194 7.1.3 Inversion 195 7.1.4 Extraposition 198 7.1.5 There-sentences: Existentials and presentationals 201 7.2 Lexico-grammatical means 202 7.3 Summary 204 chapter 8 Discussion and conclusion 8.1 Interpretation of findings 207 8.2 Methodological problems and limitations of the study 213 8.3 Pedagogical implications 215 8.4 Suggestions for further research 219
181
207
221 References Appendices 237 Appendix 1. Story used for the elicitation tasks 237 Appendix 2. Elicitation questionnaire – English version 247 Appendix 3. Elicitation questionnaire – German version 261 Appendix 4. Contingency tables 278 Appendix 5. Individual use of focusing devices by native speakers and learners (experimental study) 281 Appendix 6. Rankings for individual test items, native speakers vs. learners (assessment questionnaire, English version) 283 291 Index
Abbreviations
AdjP ADV ALV BNC C/COMPL CA CD DA DCT DM DO DWDS EFL/ESL EIC FSP GWO HNPS ICE ICLE IL ILP IO IS L1 L2 LOB LOCNESS MDH NNS
adjective phrase adverbial Advanced Learner Variety British National Corpus complement Contrastive Analysis communicative dynamism dative alternation discourse completion task discourse marker direct object Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache des 20. Jahrhunderts English as a Foreign/Second Language Early Immediate Constituents Functional Sentence Perspective Grammatical Word Order Heavy-NP-Shift International Corpus of English International Corpus of Learner English interlanguage Interlanguage Pragmatics indirect object information structure native language foreign/second language Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays Markedness Differential Hypothesis non-native speaker
x
Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
NP NS O PP PWO R S SCH UG V V2 VP
noun phrase native speaker object prepositional phrase Pragmatic Word Order researcher subject Structural Conformity Hypothesis Universal Grammar verb verb-second verb phrase
List of tables
Table 1.
Distribution of different types of focusing adverbials across spoken and written English (Tottie 1986: 98) 28
Table 2.
Non-be main verbs appearing in inversions (adapted from
Table 3.
Average length of focused and presupposed elements in it- and wh-clefts
Birner 1995: 251f.) 34 (Prince 1978: 886) 42 Table 4.
Predicate types of focused utterance in wh-clefts (Kim 1995: 252) 42
Table 5.
Distribution of (non-)extraposed clausal subjects (Erdmann 1988: 330f.) 49
Table 6.
Frequencies of (non-)extraposed clausal subjects in ICE-GB (Kaltenböck 2000: 158) 49
Table 7.
Information status of the subject clause in (non-)extraposition (Kaltenböck 2000: 163, 165) 50
Table 8.
Frequencies of preposing and cleft constructions across discourse types per 75,000 words (adapted from Geluykens 2000: 44) 52
Table 9.
Frequency of (non-)extraposed clausal subjects in the spoken and written part of ICE-GB (Kaltenböck 2000: 158) 53
Table 10. Topological fields in the German sentence 62 Table 11. Frequencies of cleft types in English and German (Erdmann 1990b/Kiese 1993) 73 Table 12. Focused elements in es-/it-clefts in English and German (Erdmann 1990b/Kiese 1993) 73 Table 13. Constituents to be highlighted for intensification 121 Table 14. Constituents to be highlighted for contrast 122 Table 15. Overall use of focusing devices by native speakers and learners 136 Table 16. Native speakers’ use of focusing devices for intensification and contrast 139 Table 17. Learners’ use of focusing devices for intensification and contrast 139 Table 18. Position of key information in responses without specific focusing device 140 Table 19. Syntactic and lexical devices used in combination 141
xii Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
Table 20. Overall use of truncated and full it-clefts 142 Table 21. Native speakers’ overall use of clefts 142 Table 22. Learners’ overall use of clefts 142 Table 23. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in clefts (native speakers) 143 Table 24. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in clefts (learners) 143 Table 25. Fronted constituents in preposed structures 143 Table 26. Types of (non-)extraposed subject clauses used 145 Table 27. Use of focus particles 145 Table 28. Use of emphatic do 146 Table 29. Native speakers’ use of pragmatic markers 146 Table 30. Learners’ use of pragmatic markers 146 Table 31. Pragmatic markers used in combination with other lexical devices 147 Table 32. Learners’ overall use of focusing device in L1 and L2 148 Table 33. Learners’ use of focusing devices for intensification in L1 and L2 149 Table 34. Learners’ use of focusing devices for contrast in L1 and L2 150 Table 35. Learners’ responses without specific focusing device in L1 and L2 151 Table 36. Position of key information in learner responses without specific focusing device in L1 and L2 151 Table 37. Overall use of clefts in L1 and L2 152 Table 38. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in learners’ English clefts 152 Table 39. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in learners’ German clefts 152 Table 40. Learners’ use of clefts in L1 and L2 for intensification and contrast 153 Table 41. Preposed/topicalized constituents in L1 and L2 153 Table 42. Type of preposed constituents in inversion in L1 154 Table 43. Types of (non-)extraposed subject clause used in L1 and L2 154 Table 44. Syntactic and lexical devices used in combination 155 Table 45. Learners’ use of modal particles in German 156 Table 46. Learners’ use of combinations of lexical means in German 156 Table 47. Learners’ use of focus particles in German 157 Table 48. Learners’ use of pragmatic markers in German 157 Table 49: Learners’ use of pragmatic markers in English 158 Table 50. Overall use of clefts by native speakers and learners in the corpora 181 Table 51. Log-likelihood and significance rates for the use of clefts in the corpora 182 Table 52. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in it-clefts in the corpora 182 Table 53. Type of focus conveyed in it-clefts in the corpora 183 Table 54. Additional lexical devices occurring in it-clefts in the corpora 184
List of tables xiii
Table 55. Wh-elements in wh-clefts in the corpora 185 Table 56. Highlighted elements in basic and reversed what-clefts in the corpora 186 Table 57. Average number of words of highlighted element in what-clefts in the corpora 186 Table 58. Initial elements in reversed wh-clefts in the corpora 187 Table 59. Types of verbs typically used in the initial wh-clause of wh-clefts (Kim 1995) 189 Table 60. Functions of basic wh-clefts in the corpora 190 Table 61. Verb types in the initial wh-clause of basic wh-clefts in the corpora 191 Table 62. Additional lexical devices in intensifying uses of wh-clefts in the corpora 191 Table 63. Basic and reversed th-clefts in the corpora 192 Table 64. Highlighted elements in basic th-clefts in the corpora 193 Table 65. Initial elements in reversed th-clefts in the corpora 193 Table 66. Average number of words of highlighted element in th-clefts in the corpora 193 Table 67. Preposed constituents in preposing structures 194 Table 68. Verbs occurring in inversions in the corpora 195 Table 69. Types of preposed constituents in inversions depending on verb type 196 Table 70. (Non-)extraposed subject clauses in LOCNESS 199 Table 71. (Non-)extraposed subject clauses in ICLE 199 Table 72. Average number of words and information status of non-extraposed to-clauses and remaining part of the sentence 199 Table 73. Use of existentials and presentationals by the native speakers and learners in the corpora 201 Table 74. Type of focus conveyed in emphatic do 203 Table 75. Lexical devices occurring in contrastive and non-contrastive uses of emphatic do in the corpora 203 Table 76. Frequency of use of focus particles and lexical intensifiers by the native speakers and learners in the corpora 204
List of figures
Figure 1. Taxonomy of assumed familiarity (Prince 1981) 15 Figure 2. Information-status categories in a system of identifiability and activation (adapted from Lambrecht 1994: 109) 16 Figure 3. Example of discourse completion task in production questionnaire, situation 1 120 Figure 4. Example of discourse completion task in production questionnaire, situation 2 120 Figure 5. Example of judgment task in assessment questionnaire, situation 1 124 Figure 6. Explicit contrast in response options in assessment questionnaire, situation 2 125 Figure 7. Triangulation of research instruments (experimental study) 127 Figure 8. Use of it-clefts by native speaker and learners 137 Figure 9. Use of preposing by native speakers and learners 137 Figure 10. Use of questions by native speakers and learners 138 Figure 11. Medians for the rating of preposing by native speakers and learners 159 Figure 12. Confidence intervals for the average ratings of inversion and preposing 162 Figure 13. Confidence intervals for the average ratings of it- and wh-clefts 162
Preface
The present book is the revised version of my PhD thesis that I submitted and defended in 2006 at Philipps-University Marburg. First and foremost, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my dissertation director Rüdiger Zimmermann for interesting me in the topic and supervising this dissertation, but also for his academic teaching, support and encouragement throughout the years. Next, I would like to thank my co-director Richard Young for being my sponsor during my research scholarship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His constructive criticism and challenging comments have proved to be essential for carrying this project forward. Thanks also to his family for their hospitality. I also want to thank Ingo Plag for hiring me as a student assistant years ago, and for initiating my interest in empirical linguistic research in the first place. A number of people have provided very helpful (e-mail) comments, suggestions, and advice at various stages of this project: Betty Birner, Mia Boström Aronsson, Monika Doherty, Paul Hopper, Gunther Kaltenböck, Terence Odlin, Clive Perdue, Paul Rayson, David Smith, and Gregory Ward. I also acknowledge the valuable and insighful comments of two anonymous reviewers for John Benjamins. I am grateful to all of them for letting me benefit from their expertise. Of course, they are not responsible for any errors and shortcomings of this work. Furthermore, I’d like to thank Sabine Arndt-Lappe and Maria Braun for their help with collecting data at the University of Siegen, and all my participants in Madison, Marburg and Siegen for their time and efforts in taking part in the project. I presented proposals and preliminary results of this research at various conferences and colloquia: International Conference on Foreign and Second Language Acquisition, Szczyrk/Poland, 2002; Conference on the Pragmatics of Interlanguage English (ConPILE), Münster/Germany, 2002; International Conference of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA 12), Basel/Switzerland, 2002; Linguistics Colloquium, Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee/USA, 2003; Second Language Acquisition Talk Series, University of Wisconsin-Madison/USA, 2003; Annual Meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguistics, Kings College London/UK, 2004. I am
xviii Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
indebted to the audiences for their constructive comments. I should especially like to thank Edith Moravcsik and Fred Eckman for having me in Milwaukee. Special thanks go to the organizers and participants of the highly stimulating summer school “Learner Corpus Research: Theory and Applications” held in Louvain-la-Neuve in September 2004. In particular, I would like to thank Sylviane Granger and her team for their help and generous support with the learner and native speaker corpora. I acknowledge financial support by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) who granted a research scholarship which enabled me to pursue my studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am also grateful to the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Marburg for various travel grants. On a more personal note, I would like to thank my former colleagues at the University of Marburg, Christian Uffmann, Michael Waltisberg, and Wolfram Keller, for talking linguistics and other stuff. To all my friends, old and new, I wish to express my appreciation for cheering me on and distracting me from the peculiarities and petty things of linguistic research. Marcus Kostka and family deserve special mentioning for teaching me Cockney Rhyming Slang, and Chris Sieck for his companionship, support and kind hospitality during my time in Madison. Thank you Mikael and DT for sharing my Hours Passed in Exile. We have become good friends over the last years. Very special thanks go to Martin and Anna Engelhardt, and Katharina, Yara, Lilly and Christian Hugo for their friendship and support during a difficult phase of my life. Finally, and most importantly, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my family for their love, encouragement, support and understanding. Without you I would never have been able to get this far.
chapter 1
Introduction
In recent years, the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research has seen an increasing interest in advanced stages of acquisition and questions of nearnative competence, or what is considered as the successful acquisition of a foreign/ second language (L2). However, there are still relatively few studies of advanced learners compared to learners at early and intermediate stages of the learning process. It has been a matter of controversy to what extent adult L2 speakers achieve native-like proficiency. Moreover, while in many European countries the ultimate goal of foreign language teaching at the advanced level is for the students to achieve a near-native command of the target language, it is often left unspecified what native-like proficiency exactly means (de Haan 1997: 55). Despite the growing interest in what has also been called the advanced learner variety (ALV), the field is still struggling with both a definition and clarification of the concepts ‘advanced learner’ and ‘nativelikeness’, and an in-depth description of the ALV, especially when it comes to learners’ acquisition of optional and highly L2-specific phenomena in all linguistic subsystems. Advanced learners have typically mastered the L2 rules of morphosyntax, and their written production is mainly free from grave grammatical errors. However, their writing often sounds unidiomatic and shows subtle differences to texts produced by native speakers (NSs). It seems difficult to pin down the exact reasons for this non-nativeness or foreign-soundingness of learner writing, and therefore it is frequently explained by using vague cover terms such as ‘unidiomaticity’ or ‘style’. In the last 15 years or so, corpus-based research into learner language has yielded substantial empirical evidence that texts produced by advanced learners and native speakers differ in terms of frequencies of certain words, phrases and syntactic structures. In a recent overview of the field, Granger (2004: 135) defines
. See Birdsong (1999) and the recent special issue of the International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (IRAL) (43:4, 2005) for studies that investigate advanced learners’ success in areas such as phonology, grammar and discourse. . See Hinkel (2005) for a review of research on second language writers’ texts. Hinkel (2002) provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of English native speakers’ and second language writers’ texts. Studies that focus on specific linguistic features are for example Lorenz (1998,
Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
advanced interlanguage (IL) as “the result of a very complex interplay of factors: developmental, teaching-induced and transfer-related, some shared by several learner populations, others more specific”. According to her, typical features of the ALV are overuse of high frequency vocabulary, overuse of a limited number of prefabs and a much higher degree of personal involvement, as well as stylistic deficiencies, often characterized by an overly spoken style or a somewhat puzzling mixture of formal and informal markers. In addition, there is evidence that another factor that distinguishes advanced learners from native speakers is the way they use linguistic structures to organize information in discourse, and that L2 learners who have mastered the formal system of the target language to a near-perfect degree have problems in applying grammatical forms according to the principles of information structure which these forms entail in the L2 (Carroll et al. 2000, von Stutterheim 2003). Thus, even advanced L2 learners are likely to have problems with certain formfunction mappings in the target language, for example with respect to certain areas in which syntax, semantics and pragmatics interact. Previous research has shown that information structure management is problematic even for advanced L2 learners, and that they have limited awareness of the appropriate use of lexical and syntactic focusing devices in formal and informal registers in the spoken and written mode. Clearly, the principles of information structure are to a certain extent language-specific and form a part of native speakers’ linguistic knowledge. While the term ‘information structure’ is traditionally used to refer to the information status and distribution of elements within a sentence or utterance, there are other factors that influence the way speakers organize their discourse and what linguistic features they use to express propositional content. Pragmatically speaking, an utterance must be relevant, and in both speech and writing speakers must indicate and justify why something really needs to be said or written down. They often want to highlight a certain part of the utterance to secure the interlocutor’s attention and to signal that this is the most important piece of information. There are various reasons for highlighting discourse elements: emphasizing a certain point, correcting a misunderstanding, or repairing a communicative breakdown. English offers a variety of means that can be used to highlight information. Given the sentence in (1.1), speakers may want to emphasize different elements
1999) on adjective intensification, Boström Aronsson (2001b, 2003) on clefts and extraposition, Callies (2008a, 2008b) on raising / tough-movement, Granger and Tyson (1996) on connectors, Granger (1997) on participle clauses, and Nesselhauf (2005) on verb-noun collocations.
Chapter 1. Introduction
for various reasons. Probably the most readily available and commonly used device in spoken English is prosody, exemplified in (1.2): (1.1) Frank went to Germany last summer and he told me that he liked the beer there. (1.2) a. FRANK liked the beer. b. Frank LIKED the beer. c. Frank liked the BEER.
Depending on stress, either Frank, liked or beer can be marked as the most prominent piece of information. Also very common are lexico-grammatical means, for example emphatic do, emphatic reflexives such as himself/herself, focus particles like only and even, or lexical intensifiers such as really and extremely, exemplified in (1.3) – (1.7). (1.3) Frank himself went to Germany. (1.4) He did like the beer. (1.5) He only/even liked the beer. (1.6) He really liked the beer. (1.7) His trip to Germany was extremely interesting.
Apart from phonological and lexico-grammatical means, word order and more complex syntactic constructions are also important and frequently used options to structure and highlight information in spoken and written discourse. Given that the speaker wants to stress that it was the beer that Frank particularly enjoyed while being in Germany, there are several syntactic devices that can be used, depending on the context. Particularly interesting are those word order patterns which diverge from the canonical subject-verb-object (SVO) word order in English, exemplified in (1.9) – (1.13). They can be understood as
. By convention, capital letters will be used to indicate nuclear sentential stress. . Most examples used in this book are authentic, contextualized tokens that have either been extracted from large text corpora of British English and German, or have been collected from the web editions of national and local US-American, British and German newspapers and magazines. For all such corpus examples the source is indicated. A list of the corpora and newspapers/magazines that have been used can be found in the reference section. Examples for which no source is given have been invented for illustration.
Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
iscourse-motivated variations of the basic order in (1.8) and represent more or d less marked syntactic devices. (1.8) Frank liked the German beer.
(basic SVO word order)
(1.9) It was the German beer (that) he liked.
(it-cleft)
(1.10) What he liked was the German beer.
(wh-cleft)
(1.11) The German beer was what he liked.
(reverse wh-cleft)
(1.12) The German beer he liked.
(preposing)
(1.13) Particularly tasty was the German beer.
(inversion)
These syntactic means of information focusing, also called focus constructions, are specifically useful in writing where information cannot be highlighted by prosodic means. Although in principle a proposition can be expressed in different ways, with more or less the same truth value, native speakers do not use linguistic structures randomly. They choose from among several options to serve their communicative needs. Thus, the focusing devices that are available in a given language are used with an explicit discourse-pragmatic intention. In other words, their use is pragmatically motivated because they serve to express a certain pragmatic function or effect. I will distinguish between two basic pragmatic notions that aim to capture the diverse communicative intentions which motivate speakers’ need to highlight information: intensification and contrast. Both concepts are understood as special cases of emphasis that arise when discourse elements are given special prominence. It is reasonable to assume that information structure is a concept that exists in all natural languages. However, the way information structure is encoded, and the formal linguistic means to express pragmatic functions are language-specific and vary across the languages of the world (Foley 1994: 1678). English and German are closely related languages and share some basic principles of information structure. For example, both languages favour the placing of given before new information in unmarked declarative sentences. However, despite a number of formal and functional characteristics that the two languages have in common, it will be shown in the course of this book that there are in fact fundamental differences in terms of information highlighting between English and German, and that each language has its own preferences to realize the pragmatic functions of intensification and contrast.
. By convention, underlining will be used to mark highlighted elements throughout the book.
Chapter 1. Introduction
L2 learners’ knowledge of specific lexico-grammatical and syntactic means of highlighting information in spoken and written discourse is an underexplored area in SLA research, and a potential learning problem even for advanced learners. Focus constructions have been claimed to be significantly underrepresented even in the production of proficient L2 learners (Schachter 1988: 224). There is an explicit research gap as to learners’ comprehension and use of these grammatical structures and their discourse-pragmatic functions. The aim of the present study is to compare English native speakers and advanced German learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), and to investigate their production and comprehension of focusing devices used to convey specific pragmatic functions in discourse. The investigation is primarily concerned with the syntactic devices of focus marking, that is focus constructions such as preposing, inversion, different types of clefting, and extraposition. The study adopts, broadly speaking, a functional approach to syntax and word order in that syntactic patterns are primarily dealt with in terms of their functions in discourse, serving the communicative needs of the speaker. I follow a function-to-form line of inquiry which means that other syntactic structures (for example existentialpresentative constructions introduced by there), lexico-grammatical means such as emphatic do, focus particles (only, just, even), and pragmatic markers (e.g. actually) that can also be used as focusing devices will be taken into consideration where appropriate and necessary. Given that the lexico-grammatical and syntactic means of information highlighting are particularly useful and relevant in writing, the focus of this study is clearly on the written mode and investigates written production only, although one of the data collection techniques involves a pseudo-oral setting. Therefore, prosodic means will not be discussed, unless they are important in terms of their interaction with the other structures. The central research questions are: – What (pragma)linguistic resources (defined as the structural linguistic means available in a language for realizing certain pragmatic functions) do native speakers of English and German EFL learners use to highlight information? – Do native speakers and learners differ in their preferences for the use of certain (syntactic) means that are available to highlight information? – Do the learners have (explicit) knowledge of the syntactic focusing devices that exist in English, and do they have knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of these devices? . Lexical intensifiers such as really, extremely or enormously will not be considered in detail, though. Lorenz (1998, 1999) provides detailed studies on adjective intensification based on learner corpus material that was in part also used for the present study.
Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
As far as SLA theory is concerned, the aim of the present study is twofold, namely first to explore the interrelationship of grammatical and pragmalinguistic abilities in an L2, that is the interplay of principles of information structure and (pragma)linguistic means in an L2, and second the impact of the principles of information structure in the learners’ native language (L1) German on the acquisition of L2 English. The study is relatively broad in scope in that it is related to L2 knowledge of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. I adopt a modular view of linguistic knowledge, use and development which presupposes that a learner’s knowledge of a foreign language consists of several semi-autonomous modules such as phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. These modules have their individual structural and functional properties, and interact with each other and with the learner’s pragmatic system. The interactional processes are known as interface relations. Of particular interest in the present context is the syntax-pragmatics interface, that is how the syntactic module interacts with the pragmatic system. Finally, this study also has implications for pragmatics within SLA research. Pragmatics as a domain of inquiry within SLA is usually referred to as Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP), and has predominantly been concerned with issues of cross-cultural politeness by investigating non-native speaker comprehension and production of a small number of individual speech acts. I have outlined above that the choice and use of focusing devices is pragmatically motivated, and thus relates to pragmatic knowledge of a language. Consequently, it will be argued that pragmatic knowledge of an L2 includes more than the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities for understanding and performing speech acts, and that the significance of L2 pragmatic knowledge beyond the domain of speech acts has been neglected in ILP research to date. In that respect, the present approach differs from analyses of (advanced) learner language that have investigated the organization of written discourse in terms of coherence/cohesion, thematic structuring and progression, as for example Braecke, Geluykens and Pelsmaekers (1997) or Mauranen (1996). These studies are predominantly anchored in the framework of textlinguistics or contrastive rhetoric. The book is structured as follows: Chapter 2 outlines how the study of information structure ties in with linguistic pragmatics, introducing some general functional principles of discourse organization. The chapter’s second part deals . This modular view does not imply a commitment to a Universal Grammar (UG) approach to SLA. Although modularity is of central importance in the UG-framework, the approach taken here is similar to the componential view of language proficiency and linguistic competence. See Gregg (1996: 57–66) for a discussion of the nature of L2 competence and (non-)modular approaches to SLA.
Chapter 1. Introduction
with the structural properties and discourse-pragmatic functions of selected lexico-grammatical and syntactic focusing devices in English, including a concise review of the pertinent literature and a brief discussion of the concept of markedness with respect to structural and pragmatic aspects of focus constructions. Chapter 3 provides a contrastive analysis of word order, information structure and focusing devices in English and German, concentrating on how basic word order influences information structure and which focusing devices are available and preferred in the two languages. Chapter 4 begins with a discussion of linguistic pragmatics within SLA, followed by a comprehensive review of previous research on information structure and focusing devices in second language studies. I then briefly compare the two major approaches that employ linguistic universals to explain SLA phenomena (Universal Grammar and the functional-typological approach) and show how an integration of typological markedness and crosslinguistic influence can be applied to make predictions as to both the order and difficulty of linguistic features in the acquisition process. Drawing on the contrastive analysis in Chapter 3 and the review of research findings in Chapter 4, I then propose several research hypotheses as a basis for the empirical study. Chapter 5 describes the research design, the methods of data collection and the procedures of data analysis. The study consists of an experimental part that is based on triangulated elicitation data which were collected using established techniques such as discourse completion, pragmalinguistic judgments – administered in the form of written questionnaires – and retrospective interviews. The second part is a corpus-based analysis of argumentative essay writing by native speakers of English and advanced German EFL learners, which is an ideal database to study learners’ pragmalinguistic repertoire and its contextual use in the written mode. Thus, experimental and corpus data serve as corroborating evidence. Chapters 6 and 7 present and discuss the findings of the experimental and the learner-corpus study respectively. Chapter 8 provides a summary and interpretation of the study’s main findings in the light of the central research questions and hypotheses. It also discusses the limitations of the study, outlines some pedagogical implications for EFL teaching, and finally makes suggestions for further research.
chapter 2
Information highlighting in English
This chapter outlines how the study of information structure (IS) ties in with linguistic pragmatics and introduces several fundamental principles of information structure. In view of the lamentable fact that information structure is a research area with a most diverse, if not confusing terminology, it is inevitable to lay out and define the basic concepts and terms needed for the empirical investigation. I will first discuss the main dimensions of information structure (sentence position, information status and syntactic weight) and related concepts (topic, focus, emphasis, intensification and contrast). The chapter’s second part consists of a review of the pertinent literature on the structural properties and discoursepragmatic functions of several lexico-grammatical and syntactic focusing devices in English, including a brief discussion of the structural and pragmatic markedness of focus constructions. In view of the focus of this book, an IS analysis of advanced learner language, the review and discussion of current research about fundamental IS concepts and several major focusing devices will be concise and necessarily selective. It is clearly not the purpose of this book to present an extensive overview or even unified account of the various models and approaches to information structure which are in themselves very complex. For such studies, the reader is referred to Thein (1994), von Heusinger (1999, chapter 3), Hetland and Molnár (2001), or Gómez González (2001). The terminological and conceptual overlap and fuzziness in IS research reflects both its study from a wide variety of perspectives and disciplines, and the controversies about the status and place it should have in grammar. It is these characteristics that make it impossible to cover and do full justice to the different approaches to IS here. Needless to say then, for the empirical part it is necessary to operationalize IS categories such as topic, focus and contrast. Sections 2.1.1.3 and 2.1.1.4 in particular will discuss this. The need for such an operationalization is also driven by the fact that this book is concerned with an IS analysis of learner language, the interlanguage produced by advanced foreign language learners. It may appear that such an operationalization results in a discrepancy between insights gained from more theoretically oriented research and the implementation of these insights in empirical studies. While difficulties of implementing the results
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of theoretical work into empirical research are of a more general nature, there are two factors that are special in the present context. First, generally speaking, there is a fairly wide gap in the literature between theoretical approaches to IS concepts, which contain relatively few detailed empirical analyses, and descriptive accounts that examine a particular IS phenomenon in one or more languages, or investigate several of these within one particular language. This may be a consequence of the terminological and conceptual confusion which makes their application to practical analyses very difficult. More important, however, is the second factor. Although the relevance of IS for linguistic analysis is widely recognized, its exact nature and position in human language and cognition is still poorly understood. It seems to be largely unclear to what extent constructs such as topic and focus are grammar-driven, i.e. linguistic concepts, or belong to specific cognitive mechanisms interacting with language. To what extent are very fine-grained distinctions of (contrastive) focus discussed further below the result of intensive theoretical linguistic and cross-disciplinary research, and in how far do they bear sufficient (psycho)linguistic reality in (foreign) language learning? It seems unlikely that IS phenomena can fully be captured by linguistics alone because IS is partly anchored in human cognition. Thus, linguistic studies of IS should be complemented with interdisciplinary and applied linguistic research and vice versa, in order to test hypotheses that see IS as fundamental in language production.
2.1
General functional principles of discourse organization
According to Roberts (1997), there are three ways of characterizing discourse: 1. A type of event in which human agents engage in a verbal exchange, 2. The linguistic content of that exchange, that is an ordered string of words with their associated syntactic and prosodic structures, and 3. The structure of the information involved. Information structure refers to the complex interaction of numerous phenomena and principles that govern the organization of information in discourse. The term itself was coined by Halliday (1967; see von Heusinger 1999: 101), and various other expressions have been put forward since. One of the most influential functional approaches has been the model developed by the Prague School of functional linguistics (see Daneš 1964 and Firbas 1971), characterized by the key concepts of ‘functional sentence perspective’ (FSP) and ‘communicative dynamism’ (CD). Another term is ‘information packaging’ which was introduced by
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
Chafe (1976) to refer to the use of syntactic structures to serve specific pragmatic functions. Information packaging is now frequently used (for example in Birner 1996, Birner and Ward 1998, Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002) to describe “a structuring of sentences by syntactic, prosodic, or morphological means that arises from the need to meet communicative demands of a particular context or discourse” (Vallduví and Engdahl 1996: 460). Theories of information structure can be divided into those that primarily deal with structural properties, and those that focus on pragmatic properties. Structural approaches can be of a syntactic nature, concerned with the identification of IS concepts such as topic and focus, strongly tying IS to sentence positions and syntactic phenomena. In particular, the use of the notions of topic and focus in generative grammar may be considered as “devoid of their semantic/pragmatic import” (Sornicola 1994: 4634). Semantically oriented structural approaches investigate the interaction between IS and meaning, concentrating on phenomena such as focus-sensitive constructions and focus particles in which IS affects semantic meaning. Pragmatic approaches highlight the communicative purpose of IS in that topic and focus are defined independently of syntactic or prosodic features, and that the use of information structure is more strongly connected to its pragmatic purpose. I adopt a pragmatic approach to the study of IS taken by Lambrecht. He proposes that IS is concerned with the relationship between linguistic form and the mental states of speakers and hearers and that the linguist dealing with information structure must deal simultaneously with formal and communicative aspects of language (Lambrecht 1994: 1).
In his view, IS is a component of grammar, more specifically of sentence grammar, i.e. I take it to be a determining factor in the formal structuring of sentences. Information structure is not concerned with psychological phenomena which do not have correlates in grammatical form (1994: 3, emphasis in original).
Lambrecht makes clear that in his approach, the purpose of IS is to influence lexico-grammatical and syntactic form. Thus, in IS “propositions as conceptual . See Hetland and Molnár (2001: 620ff.) and Cowles (2003: 4ff.) for concise overviews. Gomez Gonzalez (2001: 15ff.) identifies and discusses three dominant trends of research in IS: semantic, informational and syntactic. . Cf. Steube, Alter and Späth (2004) for a view that IS is not a separate module of grammar, but rather a pragmatic factor determined by the interaction of the different modules of grammar.
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representations of states of affairs are paired with lexicogrammatical structures”, or in other words “the information structure of a sentence is the formal expression of the pragmatic structuring of a proposition in a discourse” (1994: 5). Hence, his treatment of IS is different from more general discourse studies in that IS “is not concerned with organization of discourse, but with the organization of the sentence within a discourse” (1994: 7). Another term that is frequently used to refer to what has been described as information structure is discourse pragmatics, which reflects that the study of information structure is related to the domain of linguistic pragmatics. Lambrecht provides the following definition: Since discourse involves the use of sentences in communicative settings, such research is clearly associated with the general area of pragmatics. The general domain of inquiry into the relationship between grammar and discourse is therefore often referred to as ‘discourse pragmatics’ (1994: 2, emphasis in original).
He distinguishes two important, although not clear-cut areas within the general domain of linguistic pragmatics: conversational pragmatics, concerned with the interpretation of sentences in relation to conversational settings, and discourse pragmatics: while conversational pragmatics is concerned with the question of why one and the same sentence form may express two or more meanings, discourse pragmatics is concerned with the question of why one and the same meaning may be expressed by two or more sentence forms (1994: 5).
Thus, IS analysis is centered on the comparison of semantically equivalent but formally and pragmatically divergent sentence pairs, such as active vs. passive, canonical vs. topicalized, canonical vs. clefted or dislocated, subject-accented vs. predicate-accented sentences etc. (1994: 6).
What Lambrecht refers to is the fact that the meaning of a sentence or utterance can be subdivided into content meaning and pragmatic meaning. It can be observed that while particular syntactic constructions such as clefting or preposing may have the same propositional content as their canonical counterpart, they clearly differ in the way they convey this propositional content (cf. Carston 1998). Consider the sentences in (2.1). (2.1) a. A motorbike hit me last week. b. I was hit by a motorbike last week. c. Last week I was hit by a motorbike.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
d. It was a motorbike that hit me last week. [“not a bus”] e. What hit me last week was a motorbike. [“not a car”]
It is obvious that these sentences differ in pragmatic meaning and convey different pragmatic functions. It may be claimed that sentences (2.1)a–(2.1)c make a statement about a vehicle that caused an accident (a motorbike) and the time the accident took place (last week). Sentences (2.1)d and (2.1)e may additionally involve a contrastive implicature to the exclusion of an alternative that is not explicitly stated, but contextually evoked. What is important is the fact that native speakers of a language do not use these specific syntactic structures randomly. They choose from among several options to serve their communicative needs in discourse and therefore use these devices with an explicit discourse-pragmatic intention.
2.1.1 Major concepts of information structure It has been claimed that information structure is an area of linguistic research with the most diverse, confusing and overlapping terminology,10 with most theoretical models and frameworks being characterized by and associated with their own metalanguage. What all of these approaches have in common, however, is the idea that the formal properties of sentences can only sufficiently be explained by taking into account the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts in which sentences and utterances are embedded. Also, most of the models acknowledge the existence of certain fundamental structural and pragmatic concepts of IS, or even IS primitives. These concepts relate to the position, information status and structural complexity of discourse elements, which will be discussed in turn.
2.1.1.1 Sentence position and information status Possibly the most important factor that influences IS is the information status of discourse elements. It is widely assumed that information status strongly correlates with sentence position, and that there is an interrelationship between the mental and structural encoding of these IS concepts. In most theoretical frameworks, the description of sentence position and information status involves conceptual dichotomies variously referred to as topic/comment, theme/rheme,
10. See, for instance, Levinson who in the early 1980s wrote that “terminological profusion and confusion, and underlying conceptual vagueness, plague the relevant literature to a point where little may be salvageable” (1983: x). The situation has become even worse ever since.
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topic/focus, or presupposition/focus.11 However, sentence position and information status do not represent one and the same dimension, but two different axes of information flow. A sentence or utterance can be divided into two parts: a first part that relates it to the preceding discourse and contains known/given information (alternatively called topic, theme, or presupposition), and a second part that contributes unknown/new information to the discourse (the comment, rheme, or focus). Generally speaking, the organization of information in discourse tends to follow a so-called information principle (Biber et al. 1999: 896). This refers to the fact that the unmarked distribution of information in English, and also crosslinguistically, is that given information is followed by new information. Given information tends to appear initially but this is not an inviolable principle. It is assumed to be familiar from the preceding discourse or at least recoverable from the context, either directly or via inferences. The notion of context relates to both linguistic and extralinguistic dimensions such as shared speaker/hearer world knowledge. New information is not recoverable from the preceding discourse. Moreover, new information in basic, unmarked sentence types receives prominence, hence end-focus. The information principle seems psychologically and psycholinguistically plausible, for given information usually helps to process and uncover new information. It facilitates both the planning process of the speaker and the decoding on the part of the hearer, thereby contributing to the overall cohesion of discourse.12 Clark and Haviland (1977) present (psycho-)linguistic evidence for the existence of a fundamental pragmatic principle of communication related to the co-operative principle. They identify this as the given-new contract between speaker and listener: As part of the co-operative principle, speaker and listener have an implicit agreement about how a) information that is known to the listener, and b) information that is novel to the listener are to appear in sentences. This is the given-new contract (1977: 3).
A more fine-grained and influential approach to information status has been presented by Prince (1981, 1992).13 Prince rejects the strict given vs. new dichotomy 11. See Vallduví and Engdahl (1996: 462–468), von Heusinger (1999: 102), and Gomez Gonzalez (2001) for a comparison of separating vs. combining approaches to IS categories. 12. S ee also Vande Kopple (1986) who demonstrates that the given-new ordering of information also makes written texts more readable and facilitates memorization. 13. Ward (1988, 1990), Birner (1994, 1996), Birner and Ward (1998), and Ward, Birner and Huddleston (2002) provide studies of non-canonical word order constructions from the per-
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
and proposes a referential account of the given/new distinction, introducing the concept of assumed familiarity.14 She presents a scalar taxonomy of assumed familiarity, ranking discourse elements from most to least familiar (see Figure 1). Evoked > Unused > Inferable > Containing Inferable > Brand-New Anchored > Brand-New Figure 1. Taxonomy of assumed familiarity (Prince 1981)
She further distinguishes between discourse-old/discourse-new information and hearer-old/hearer-new information. Discourse-old/discourse-new information is what has previously been evoked in the discourse or what is new to the discourse, while hearer-old/hearer-new information refers to what the speaker believes to be either familiar or new to the hearer. Prince argues that a two-way division of the information status of sentence elements is insufficient, and recognizes that discourse-familiarity and hearer-familiarity are not congruent, but may actually overlap. This accounts for the fact that there may be cases in which information is new to the discourse, but already familiar to the hearer. By contrast, information that is discourse-old, because it has been evoked in the preceding discourse, can be assumed to be hearer-old, too. Prince offers a matrix which models the four theoretically possible information statuses (cf. Birner 1996: 82; Birner and Ward 1998: 13–16, 176–178): – Hearer-old, discourse-old (evoked and inferable information) – Hearer-old, discourse-new (unused information) – Hearer-new, discourse-new (brand-new anchored and brand-new information) – Hearer-new, discourse-old (presumably does not occur in natural discourse) Thus, in an example such as (2.2), the discourse elements Frank and Germany are discourse-new but potentially hearer-old, since the addressee can be expected to know both the person called Frank and the country called Germany, while the beer represents hearer-new and discourse-new, thus brand-new information. By contrast, the use of the anaphoric pronouns he and there signals hearer-old and discourse-old, hence evoked information (that is Frank and Germany respectively). spective of information packaging and anchor their work in a general functional framework, drawing on Prince’s approach. 14. See for example Gomez Gonzalez (2001: 34ff.) for a discussion of referential vs. relational accounts of givenness vs. newness.
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(2.2) Last summer Frank went to Germany. He told me that he didn’t like the beer there, which surprised me.
Another approach to the information status of discourse entities is offered by Lambrecht (1994). He distinguishes between identifiability, which relates to “a speaker’s assessment of whether a discourse representation of a particular referent is already stored in the hearer’s mind or not”, and activation, that is “the speaker’s assessment of the status of the representation of an identifiable referent as already ‘activated’, as merely ‘accessible’, or as ‘inactive’ in the mind of the hearer” (1994: 76). Similar to Prince, Lambrecht proposes a set of possible informationstatus categories, exemplified in Figure 2. unanchored unidentifiable anchored IDENTIFIABILITY identifiable ACTIVATION
inactive accessible active
textually situationally inferentially
Figure 2. Information-status categories in a system of identifiability and activation (adapted from Lambrecht 1994: 109)
Hence, unidentifiable discourse referents are by definition outside the domain of cognitive activation. In a similar vein, Givón (2001: 221ff.) recognizes two opposite cognitive dimensions he calls ‘informational predictability’ and ‘counterexpectancy’, both being scalar concepts. Depending on the communicative context, there are identifiable and non-identifiable discourse entities. Identifiable entities are definite referents, which contain presupposed information and are thus more predictable, while non-identifiable entities are indefinite referents with asserted information, hence being less predictable. In sum, what the proposed referential models of information status share is the assumption that information in discourse can be conceived of as being located on a continuum of what may alternatively be called contextual familiarity, recoverability or identifiability, which correlates to the mental encoding and cognitive activation.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
2.1.1.2 Syntactic weight Chafe (1986: 26f.) claims that there is what he calls the “light subject constraint” in conversation in English which states that the subjects of clauses usually express given and activated information in both speaker and hearer. By using ‘light’ in an IS context, Chafe refers to a second fundamental concept that influences the ordering of discourse elements: the weight principle, or principle of increasing constituents. It is assumed to be a universal principle of word order and information structure (Siewierska 1994: 4997f., Bußmann 1996: 520), and is based on the notion of syntactic weight, sometimes also referred to as heaviness, measured in terms of the length (number of syllables or words) and/or the morphosyntactic complexity of sentence constituents. The weight principle states that the relative syntactic weight of sentence constituents determines their positional distribution: shorter (lighter) constituents precede longer (heavier) ones. In English long and complex constituents are placed towards the end of a clause (hence end-weight), otherwise a sentence may sound awkward and unbalanced. Wasow (1997a) evaluates several proposals that have been brought forward to characterize and measure syntactic weight. He demonstrates that in contrast to categorial characterizations of heaviness, graduated measures can much better account for the factors that are responsible for weight effects in constituent ordering, hence supporting the view that syntactic weight is best understood as a scalar concept. The weight principle has also been shown to play a major role in word order alternations and weight-sensitive constructions such as extraposition and clefting, the dative alternation (DA), verb-particle alternations, and Heavy-NP-Shift (HNPS) (Wasow 1997a and 1997b, Arnold et al. 2000, Wasow and Arnold 2003). There are a number of models that have been proposed to account for variation in constituent ordering. What most of these explanatory accounts have in common is that they assume that the ordering of discourse elements according to the weight principle can be linked to and correlates with the cognitive and perceptual restrictions that guide our ability of processing sentences, such as the span of immediate memory, which is supposed to comprise no more than seven items (Erdmann 1988: 337). Thus, the weight principle serves as a means to facilitate the parsing and comprehension of syntactic structures. From a psycholinguistic perspective, it has been argued that long, heavy subjects impair cognitive interpretation, and thus comprehensibility and memorization, and that for example extraposition can be understood as means to reduce and simplify unnecessarily complex and informationally packed subjects (Erdmann 1988: 337f.). Hawkins (1992, 1994) proposed a highly influential model accounting for the interaction of IS and syntactic weight, taking a performance-based perspective aimed at explaining word order variation in terms of language parsing, that is in
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terms of their processability by the hearer. Hawkins suggests a basic processing principle called Early Immediate Constituents (EIC) and argues that the major determinant of word order variation in free word order languages is not pragmatic factors but syntactic weight.15 He claims that constituents occur in the orders they do so that syntactic groupings and their immediate constituents (ICs) can be recognized (and produced) as rapidly and efficiently as possible in language performance. Different orderings of elements result in more or less rapid IC recognition (Hawkins 1994: 57).
This reasoning is exemplified by considering a case of HNPS shown in (2.3) (Hawkins 1994: 20). (2.3) a. b.
I VP[gave NP[the valuable book that was extremely difficult to find] PP[to Mary]]. I VP[gave PP[to Mary] NP[the valuable book that was extremely difficult to find]].
In Hawkins’ terms, (2.3)b provides a more rapid presentation of the immediate constituents of the verb phrase (VP) than (2.3)a. While in (2.3)b, the listener can predict the constituent structure relatively early, namely as soon as the direct object occurs, parsing takes much longer in (2.3)a, since the full structure is only revealed after the occurrence of the indirect object late in the sentence. In contrast to Hawkins, Wasow (1997a, 1997b) provides a production-based, speaker-oriented explanation of (end-)weight. He claims that weight effects in constituent ordering cannot be explained in terms of the facilitation of parsing alone. He argues that delaying longer constituents also helps the speaker’s planning process in on-line sentence production, namely by buying time to plan the remainder of the sentence. While parsing is easier for the hearer when sentence structure can be predicted early in the sentence, the speaker’s production is facilitated when options are kept open as long as possible. Consequently, there is a discrepancy in that listeners prefer early commitment, but speakers prefer late commitment in utterance planning and production. Using data from the Switchboard and Brown corpora, Wasow evaluates the listener- and speaker-based explanation of weight effects on the basis of how well they predict constituent ordering. His data demonstrate that there are effects in weight-sensitive ordering phenomena such as HNPS and DA that can be related to the subcategorization possibilities of certain verb types which are best explained from a speaker-based perspective.
15. See also Primus (1993) for a similar view.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
Arnold et al. (2000) investigate the interaction of syntactic weight and information status and present evidence from corpus analysis and elicitation experiments that both factors may simultaneously and independently influence word order variations in HNPS and DA. Most recently, Wasow (2002) and Wasow and Arnold (2003) have proposed a multicausal approach to explain word order variation in several constructions. These studies provide an in-depth discussion of various factors that have been shown to influence variation in post-verbal constituent ordering, such as syntactic weight, information status, semantic connectedness and lexical bias. In sum, although syntactic weight in principle focuses on the structural properties of discourse elements and has been considered as an independent concept, it needs to be emphasized that there is an interaction and high correlation between syntactic weight, sentence position and information status. Heavy constituents are more likely to contain new than old information, while elements that have already been introduced to the discourse can be referred to by short deictic markers, typically anaphoric pronouns (Arnold et al. 2000: 34). Consequently, the principle of end-weight interacts with the principle of end-focus (Birner and Ward 1998: 24f.; Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1371 for English). While this interaction is typical of the majority of declarative sentences, it is when the principles of end-focus and end-weight clash that non-canonical word order patterns and focus constructions come into play. There are cases in which the subject may be unusually long (as in non-extraposition), where the initial sentence element is not the subject (as in inversion and preposing), or when a constituent other than the sentence-final one is being highlighted (as in preposing and several types of clefting).
2.1.1.3 Topic and focus There are at least two notions of topic that need to be separated (see Sornicola 1994 and Frey 2000: 138 for discussion). First, similar to the concept of theme in the Prague School of functional linguistics, topic can be used to refer to the element that comes first in a sentence or utterance. In this sense, topic also correlates with information status, that is the sentence topic is typically a nominal that contains given/presupposed information which the rest of the sentence comments upon. This is also known as the familiarity-concept of topic. Second, topic can be used in a general sense to denote the discourse entity that contains what the clause is about, irrespective of information status, known as the aboutness-concept. Given these rather vague definitions, it turns out to be difficult to unambiguously identify sentence topics, especially in languages which do not necessarily use formal means to mark them. In English, for example, topics are not syntactically marked, although there are markers which identify the topic of a
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sentence such as As for...., With respect to..., or Regarding... (Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1371). In some theories of IS the concept of focus is understood as the center of information which contains the new, non-presupposed part of the sentence or utterance. It is in this sense that focus complements the concept of topic, where the topic/focus dichotomy refers to the position and information status of discourse elements. In this book, the term ‘focus’ is used in a theory-independent sense to refer to the idea that one particular discourse element is highlighted, foregrounded or simply given more prominence than other elements (Miller 2006: 129ff.). It is understood as a discourse-functional notion related to what the speaker or writer wants to draw the listener’s or reader’s attention to. Lambrecht (1994: 207) in his pragmatic approach to information structure considers focus as a pragmatic relation linked to information. He defines focus as the element of information whereby the presupposition and the assertion DIFFER from each other. The focus is that portion of a proposition which cannot be taken for granted at the time of speech. It is the UNPREDICTABLE or pragmatically NON-RECOVERABLE element in an utterance (Lambrecht 1994: 207, emphasis in original).
More precisely, focusing in the present context of information highlighting will be understood as marking a discourse element as the prominent piece of information by phonological, lexico-grammatical or syntactic means. Hence, the term is used in a pragmatic rather than formal syntactic sense in that it refers to something that the speaker/writer intends to be at the center of the hearer’s/reader’s attention. It is not used in a primarily syntactic, structural sense complementing the notion of topic (in analogy to dichotomies such as topic/comment, theme/rheme, or presupposition/focus). There has been a close association of focus and the notion of contrast (which will be discussed in the following section) in earlier functionally-oriented research, for example as used by Halliday (1967) or Chafe (1976). Halliday distinguishes between unmarked focus and marked focus. Unmarked focus holds if a clause-final constituent is made salient by receiving sentence stress (end-focus), contrast being an optional feature in this case. According to Halliday, if sentence stress falls on a constituent other than the last major element in a clause, then this constituent carries marked focus and is inevitably contrasted with another constituent. Focus has often been considered as being contrastive per se (Molnár 2002: 148). In the present study, however, both concepts will be seen as independent from each other, because focus does not necessarily involve contrast. Speakers have various reasons for highlighting information in discourse, for example
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
topic re-introduction, attention-marking, or repair, contrast being just one of the reasons (see Miller 2006: 129). Two different types of focus have been identified in the literature: information focus, also termed presentational focus or focus of assertion, and identificational focus, also referred to as contrastive focus (see Dik et al. 1981: 57ff.; Kiss 1998: 245; Drubig and Schaffar 2001: 1079; Givón 2001: 221; Drubig 2003: 2). While the differentiation of the two types of focus has been made on semantic grounds in that an emphatic constituent, traditionally called focus, can either perform exhaustive identification on a set of entities given in the context or situation, or simply mark the nonpresupposed nature of the information it carries (Kiss 1998: 248),
many languages in fact mark these two focus types prosodically and syntactically (cf. Kiss 1998, Drubig 2003: 2). While information focus serves to introduce new information, identificational focus has a contrastive value and singles out a candidate from a limited contextually given or inferable set of alternatives. However, this distinction has often been neglected in language description (Kiss 1998: 246f.). I will broadly distinguish between contrastive and non-contrastive cases of focus. Contrastive focus is characterized by a closed set of relevant alternatives, with these alternatives often being explicitly mentioned or at least involving their contextual salience, whereas non-contrastive focus involves an open set of possible referents. Moreover, contrastiveness requires the presence of certain additional conditions which will be outlined in the following section. Thus, contrast is considered an optional, non-obligatory feature of focus. Although focus can in principle be seen as independent from information status in that both familiar and unfamiliar information can be highlighted, there is nevertheless a strong correlation between focus, sentence position and information status. In English, the general principle is that of end-focus. According to the information principle, new information at the end of a sentence is in focus and thus receives prominence.
2.1.1.4 Cases of emphasis: Intensification and contrast In contrast to focus, I consider emphasis a semantic notion which can be expressed by a variety of means, such as prosodic, lexico-grammatical and syntactic markers. However, a straightforward definition and identification of emphasis turns out to be rather difficult. There is a considerable degree of overlap with other concepts of information structure (Molnár 2002: 147), and there exist similar notions such as intensification and contrast. Matthews points out that “ ‘Emphasis’ and ‘contrast’ can in principle be distinguished but, since their realizations tend to be the same,
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contrastive especially is often used for both” (1997: 113). A workable solution to this problem is the distinction made by Biber et al.: “The terms intensification and contrast apply to special cases of emphasis arising when elements are in focus” (1999: 897, my emphasis). But how can these special cases of emphasis be defined and kept apart? Halliday provides a rather general description of contrast and defines contrastive as “contrary to some predicted or stated alternative” (1967: 206). More specifically, Chafe (1976) argues that contrastiveness involves three factors: – Background knowledge of the discourse context, – A limited set of possible candidates, and – One candidate is picked to the exclusion of the others. Besides this definition, even more detailed taxonomies of contrast have been proposed. Givón (2001: 224) suggests a rank-order of contrastive strength, while Dik et al. (1981: 59–68) and Drubig and Schaffar (2001: 1085ff.) identify up to five different subtypes of contrastive focus. While the set of criteria proposed by Chafe appears to be useful for distinguishing between contrastive and non-contrastive cases of focus, there remain two major questions as to the linguistic status of contrastiveness. First, whether it is an information structure primitive itself or only an additional feature of other IS primitives such as topic and focus, and second, whether it can be understood as a gradient or distinct notion. As for the first question, the debate centers around the claim whether or not contrastiveness requires formal encoding in the grammar. Lambrecht argues that “contrastiveness, unlike focus, is not a category of grammar but the result of the general cognitive processes referred to as ‘conversational implicatures’ “ (1994: 291). By contrast, Molnár, who presents data from a number of languages such as Hungarian, Finnish and Basque, where contrast requires formal phonological or syntactic marking, argues that contrastiveness has to be considered as an autonomous concept of IS. As for the second question, although it is possible to distinguish between contrastive and non-contrastive cases of focus on the basis of a set of criteria such as those proposed by Chafe, the gradient view has the advantage that it allows for clear and less clear cases of contrastiveness (Lambrecht 1994: 290), because in languages where formal marking of contrast is only optional and not unambiguous (as in English or German), the strict distinction of the contrastive and noncontrastive cases is empirically not so well-founded – supporting the gradient view of contrast (Molnár 2002: 154).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
Despite the obvious problems of identification of (non-)contrastive cases of focus, I adopt Biber et al.’s distinction as a practicable working model for the empirical studies presented later. Thus, I consider intensification and contrast as special cases of emphasis arising when elements are in focus. As there seem to be no well-established descriptive terms for these notions, and for want of a better term, I refer to them as pragmatic functions.16 Intensification will be taken to “add importance to a certain piece of information without explicit or implicit contrast”, involving an open set of possible alternatives. Following Halliday (1967) and Chafe (1976), contrast will be defined as “contrary to some predicted or stated alternative”, involving the three factors mentioned above (background knowledge of the discourse context and a limited set of possible referents from which only one is picked to the exclusion of the others). Since more fine-grained differentiations of focus mentioned above are considered neither useful nor applicable to the present study, the various shades of contrast or contrastive strength will be operationalized by distinguishing between explicit and implicit cases of contrast. Explicit contrast holds when there is a clear opposition between two referents, that is the relevant alternatives are explicitly mentioned, contrasted or denied in the same stretch of discourse (see Taglicht 1984: 47; Dik et al. 1981: 45). (2.4) exemplifies explicit contrast.17 (2.4) For most students at the University of Wisconsin, football and men’s basketball are the top dogs when it comes to collegiate sports on campus. That’s not the way it always was, however, because two decades ago, it was Badger men’s hockey that reigned supreme at UW. (The Daily Cardinal web edition, December 09, 2003)
By the use of an it-cleft the noun phrase (NP) Badger men’s hockey is explicitly contrasted with two other, previously mentioned types of collegiate sport, football and men’s basketball. Implicit contrast holds when the relevant alternative is implied and contextually salient, but not explicitly mentioned. (2.5) is a case of implicit contrast.
16. See Krifka (2007) for a discussion of a number of pragmatic and semantic uses of focus. Following Quirk et al. (1985), Lorenz (1999) considers intensification “a lexico-grammatical category that is mainly employed to achieve expressivity” (1999: 143). Hence, his use of the term is limited to the category of intensifying adverbs, which not only include amplifiers but also downtowners that actually have a lowering effect on their focus. This understanding of intensification as a lexico-grammatical category appears to be too narrow to capture all relevant linguistic means that can be used to achieve it. It excludes other lexico-grammatical and syntactic devices. 17. Contrasted referents and elements conveying implicit contrast are given in italics.
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(2.5) “Good food choices are difficult to make when you’re cramming for exams, staying up late at night and have a haphazard way of eating,” said Litt in a phone interview from Bethesda, Md. The bottom line is that weight gain is a concern, especially for female students, she says. Litt counsels a lot of college students, dancers and figure skaters about their eating habits. She’s also a nutritionist for the Washington Redskins. “A recent study by Cornell University found that first-time college students really do gain weight,” Litt says. “So the notorious ‘Freshman 15’ is not fictitious.” (Capital Times web edition, October 30, 2003)
Here, a combination of the intensifier really and emphatic do is used to contrast a study that appears to prove that first-year college students gain weight with the assumption that weight-gains among freshmen due to unhealthy eating habits were a myth without empirical evidence. Although this claim is not explicitly stated in the previous discourse, it is contextually salient and thus implicit.
2.2 Means of information highlighting in English In line with the function-to-form line of inquiry adopted here, the subsequent discussion of focusing devices in English includes both lexico-grammatical means such as emphatic do, focus particles and pragmatic markers − associated with the notion of focus and/or the pragmatic functions of contrast and intensification − and syntactic means, namely focus constructions.
2.2.1 Lexico-grammatical means 2.2.1.1 Emphatic do Emphatic do “commonly serves a specialized function of emphasizing the meaning of the whole following predicate” and “usually marks a state of affairs in contrast to some other expected state of affairs, which is by implication denied” (Biber et al. 1999: 433). Examples (2.6) and (2.7) show that in addition, this contrastive presupposition is often explicitly marked by connectives such as but, however, nevertheless and although.18 (2.6) In fact the USSR’s oil production did not peak in 1980 and a production level higher than the Jeremiahs of the late seventies predicted, was achieved. It may be that the USSR exportable oil surplus did peak in 1980. However, even if the
18. Connectives are given in italics.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
USSR does feel it necessary to reduce oil exports, any foreign exchange gap created should be filled by growing gas exports. (BNC, AT8 69ff) (2.7) Because of the market sensitivity of such a decision, ministers were refusing to respond to questions. But one well-placed Cabinet source did say privately that he would not put money on it; there was no such thing as an easy answer to current problems; and that ERM entry would be tantamount to jumping from “the puddle and into the pond”. (BNC, A4K 682ff)
Huddleston (2002) lists four non-canonical constructions found with auxiliary verbs which he labels NICE constructions, NICE being an acronym for the construction types that express negation, inversion, code and emphasis. Among the do-support constructions, he also identifies an emphatic type which serves the general function to express emphatic polarity, that is emphasizing the positive or negative polarity of the clause. In addition, do also occurs in what he calls “emphatic positives”, “which serve to contrast the positive with a corresponding negative proposition that has been expressed or implicated in the preceding discourse” (2002: 97f.). In both cases, (heavy) stress is placed on the primary verb. Huddleston provides the examples given in (2.8) to (2.10). (2.8) Kim’s the one who did make a donation. (2.9) He didn’t win but he did come in the first half dozen. (2.10) I do think you could be more tolerant.
In cases such as (2.10), an emphatic positive may occur to indicate the strength of one’s beliefs or feelings. Nevalainen and Rissanen (1986) offer a detailed account of (non-)emphatic uses of do in affirmative statements in contemporary spoken English on the basis of the London-Lund Corpus. Their analysis focuses on the prosodic realization of do and the question to what extent contextual functions are reflected in the prosodic form of do. Drawing on Quirk et al. (1985: 1371f.), who very broadly assign two functions to emphatic do, namely indicating contrastive and emotive emphasis, they base their discussion of contrastive uses of do on the following tripartition: – Expressions of explicit opposition (DO1) – Expressions of implicit contrast (DO2) – Expressions in which there is no obvious opposition or contrast (DO3). A first analysis shows that of the 358 instances of emphatic do in the corpus, 63 instances (18%) represent cases of explicit opposition, 101 (28%) are cases in which do expresses implicit contrast, whereas in 194 instances (54%) there is no obvious
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opposition or contrast implied. Nevalainen and Rissanen also observe some very interesting co-occurrence patterns of do with pragmatic particles and intensifying adverbs (1986: 43). A lexical marker of this kind occurs in about half of the instances of non-contrastive do, the most frequent ones being the intensifier really and the pragmatic markers well, yes, I think, actually, you know, of course, and I mean. DO1 and DO2 occur with lexical markers of this type only in 30% of the corpus data. Interestingly, however, 47% of the clauses that contain DO1 are introduced by but. This appears to be a significant collocation pattern which provides further evidence for the explicit contrastive implication of DO1 when compared to DO2 and DO3, as these co-occur with but in only 27% and 9% of the cases. In sum, the majority of functions of emphatic do that have been identified in the literature imply some degree of opposition, contrast and/or counter-expectancy. Additionally, do tends to co-occur with lexical intensifiers, pragmatic markers and contrastive connectives. Emphatic do is most commonly used in conversation, but it is also found in other registers, such as academic writing, news and fiction (Biber et al. 1999: 433). It is significantly more frequent in spoken than in written English (0.8 vs. 0.2 instances per thousand words) and appears to be most frequently used in public conversation such as radio debates and parliamentary discussions (1.8 instances per thousand words). This is supported by Nevalainen and Rissanen (1986) as mentioned above.
2.2.1.2 Focus particles Focus/scalar particles, also called focus(ing) adverbs/adverbials (cf. König 1991, 1993) or focusing modifiers (Pullum and Huddleston 2002: 586) are a group of adverbs that can be distinguished on the basis of its semantic and syntactic properties. They are included as focusing devices here since they clearly “interact with the focused part of the sentence they occur in” and because of the “essentially pragmatic nature of the meaning of focus particles” (König 1991: 3). They are thus “one of the formal exponents of focus structure, in addition to prosodic prominence, morphological markers, word order and specific syntactic constructions which consistently identify focus” (König 1991: 13). König (1991, 1993) describes the properties of focus particles and emphasizes positional variability and interaction with focus as their most important characteristics. They interact with the focus-background structure of a sentence in that their focus depends on their position and on the placement of sentence stress. In spoken language, the focused constituent of a focus particle is typically marked by sentence stress. However, this is not a prerequisite for focus-placement and does not necessarily coincide with focus. Compare examples (2.11) and (2.12), taken from Pullum and Huddleston (2002: 589).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
(2.11) They only gave me a sandwich for lunch. (2.12) Only Kim preferred the original version.
In (2.11), both sentence stress and focus is on sandwich. In (2.12) however, the focus of only is Kim, but for reasons of contrast the sentence stress is on original. Since it is frequently difficult to unambiguously identify the focused constituent, focus particles have also been characterized as “focus-sensitive” or “associated with focus” (Krifka 1997, Hetland and Molnár 2001: 627). Some focus particles are extremely variable as to their position within a sentence (König 1991: 10), and they can modify a wide range of constituents from simple NPs to full clauses (see König 1991: 17 and Pullum and Huddleston 2002: 587 for an overview). They are scope-bearing elements and consequently, their position also determines their scope within a sentence, which in turn contributes to the meaning of the sentence, see the examples in (2.13) from König (1993: 981). (2.13)
a. b. c. d.
Even JOHN sold rifles to the terrorists. John even SOLD rifles to the terrorists. John sold even RIFLES to the terrorists. John sold rifles even to THE TERRORISTS.
Focus particles can be grouped into two major classes on semantic grounds. Depending on whether they in- or exclude alternative values of the propositional content of the focused constituent, they have either restrictive/exclusive meaning (for example alone, only, just, merely) or additive/inclusive meaning (for example also, too, even) (König 1991: 33). Consequently, exclusive focus particles bear contrastive focus because they identify one possible referent to the exclusion of other alternatives.19 In addition, König (1991: 125ff.) identifies a group of particles that do not fit into either of these two subclasses. He argues that the basic function of particles such as German ausgerechnet, genau, gerade, eben and their English counterparts such as exactly and precisely is not exclusiveness but rather “emphatic assertion of identity”, that is “to assert the identity of one argument in a proposition with an argument in a different, contextually different proposition” (König 1991: 127). These particles are sometimes also referred to as ‘particularizers’ (see for example Quirk et al. 1985: 604, Taglicht 1984: 3, note 7). Their function is likened to the one fulfilled by cleft sentences. Whereas clefts identify the missing argument in
19. See also Givón (2001: 226) and Drubig and Schaffar (2001: 1086) who identify the subtype of ‘restrictive contrastive focus’ that is realized with this type of focus particles.
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a single proposition, focus particles with the aforementioned function assert the identity of two arguments that play different roles in different propositions. Tottie (1986) examined, among other things, focusing adverbials in British English and their distribution in spoken and written discourse, based on a sample of 25,000 words each from the London-Lund Corpus and the Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen (LOB) Corpus. She uses the taxonomy proposed by Quirk et al. (1985: 604) and subdivides focusing adverbials into two major categories: restrictives, which are in turn further differentiated into exclusives (alone, just, only) and particularizers (especially, exactly, largely), and additives. Tottie finds striking differences in the distribution of these semantic categories across the two modes, as can be seen in Table 1. Table 1. Distribution of different types of focusing adverbials across spoken and written English (Tottie 1986: 98) type of focusing adverbial
spoken english (N)
written english (N)
restrictives exclusives particularizers subtotal restrictives additives total
91 2 93 24 117
54 33 87 59 146
While exclusives are almost twice as frequent in speaking than in writing, particularizers and additives are more often used in written English. As for the exclusives, just dominates in the spoken mode (61 vs. 6 occurrences), whereas only is more frequent in writing (37 vs. 22 instances). The most frequent among the 33 particularizers that Tottie counted were particularly (9), especially (5), mainly and chiefly (4 instances each). Finally, in the class of additives, also and even occur significantly more often in writing than in speaking (30 vs. 5 and 11 vs. 3 instances respectively). Due to the relatively small sample, Tottie’s results are of course of limited value. However, some of her findings are supported by Biber et al (1999). They observe that “conversation (both BrE and AmE) and to a lesser extent fiction have especially high frequencies of the adverb[s] just (in restrictive, not time, sense)” (1999: 795). Similarly to Tottie, they note that “academic prose is marked by the relatively high frequencies of the additive adverb also and the restrictive adverb only” (1999: 795).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
2.2.1.3 Pragmatic markers Not long ago, lexical items such as you know, well, like or actually were “merely considered ‘fillers’ used in spoken language, or optional items empty of lexical meaning that were assumed not to contribute anything to the proposition of the utterance or sentence in which they occur” (Lenk 1997: 1). The study of what is now generally known as discourse markers (DMs) has seen an ever increasing interest in the last fifteen years, and has yielded an enormous body of research (see Lenk 1997 and Schoroup 1999 for overview articles). As in other comparatively recent fields of linguistic inquiry, there exists a large number of different terms used for the items that are studied from various perspectives: pragmatic particles, pragmatic markers, pragmatic expressions, phatic connectives, discourse particles, discourse connectives, discourse operators, and discourse markers (cf. Lenk 1997). Schoroup states that “despite the quantity of research in this area, however, no consensus has emerged regarding fundamental issues of terminology and classification” (1999: 228). In spite of the fact that there seems to be agreement as to a small number of defining criteria of the concept of DM, for example that “the term DM typically refers to a more or less open class of syntactically optional, non-truth-conditional connective expressions” (Schoroup 1999: 242), he concludes that “there is, however, wide disagreement about the nature of the connection DMs express, the nature and extent of the elements connected, and the grammatical status of the DM category” (1999: 242). Lenk proposes the following definition: discourse markers are short lexical items, used with a pragmatic meaning on a metalingual level of discourse in order to signal for the hearer how the speaker intends the present contribution to be related to preceding and/or following parts of discourse (1998: 52).
In accordance with Fraser, I will use the term ‘pragmatic marker’ to refer to specific linguistic elements which contribute to non-truth conditional sentence meaning which are “linguistically encoded clues which signal the speaker’s potential communicative intentions” (1996: 168). Clearly, pragmatic markers are typical of conversation and are extremely rare, if used at all, in writing, leaving aside fiction which of course partly tries to model conversation. They have been recognized to fulfill “important functions on the textual as well as on the interpersonal levels of spoken discourse” (Lenk 1997: 1). This is exactly what makes them relevant for inclusion in the present study. After reviewing the extensive body of research on pragmatic markers, Lenk summarizes that
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recent research on discourse markers has shown that one of their important characteristics is the fact that their use in a discourse structuring function constitutes a pragmatic use – that is with a pragmatic meaning – of lexical items on a structural level that are otherwise used in a propositional meaning with a propositional function on the content level. The pragmatic meaning of discourse markers, which results in a system signaling the structural organization of discourse, differs from, but is probably etymologically related to, the same items’ propositional meaning and function. This pragmatic use co-occurs with a kind of delexicalization which results in a pragmaticalization of these items (1997: 14, emphasis in original).
Among the various interactional functions that have been ascribed to pragmatic markers are marking topics and contrast (Schoroup 1999: 257ff., Lenk 1998). Given the variety of lexical items and phrases that have been subsumed under the notion of pragmatic marker, I will only deal with those that have been found to serve discourse functions that are relevant for the present study. But even as to these functions, there is in principle a large number of potential candidates that cannot be discussed in detail here (cf. Schoroup 1999: 257ff. and Fraser 1993: 9–13 for a list of topic and contrastive markers). In what follows, I will discuss one pragmatic marker that has been studied very closely and found to carry contrastive meaning: actually. The focus will be on actually, because – as will become clear in the subsequent paragraphs – it carries contrastive meaning, introduces a counterclaim and at the same time functions as a face-saving device. There are a number of detailed studies that have specifically examined the use of actually.20 In an early study of British and American English corpora, Aijmer (1986) finds that in sentence initial position actually is used as “a device for selfrepair”, “if the speaker disagrees, changes his mind or corrects a previous speaker” (1986: 123f.). She further observes that actually frequently collocates with but, and concludes that this indicates contrast, as if the speaker contradicts the previous message. Similarly, she observes in a later study that the meaning of contrast is particularly obvious when actually collocates with but and no (2002: 267). Lenk (1998) argues that actually as a discourse marker can function as a) an opinion marker, b) marking an objection or (self-)correction and c) introducing a topic shift. Particularly interesting is what she has to say about the use of actually as a marker of objection or correction. According to her findings it is used to “object to another speaker’s contribution either in form of a clear contradiction or a simple correction”, and “signals that the utterance marked with actually in some way deviates from the normally expected development of the conversation due to 20. See Aijmer (1986 and 2002, chapter 7), Lenk (1998), Oh (2000), Smith and Jucker (2000) and Taglicht (2001).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
the objection being expressed” (1998: 167). Furthermore, she points out that actually also fulfills both a mitigating function for the speaker and a face-saving function for the hearer by decreasing the force of the objection (1998: 188). In a similar vein, Oh (2000) notes that “when used with [...] face-threatening acts, actually functions as a pragmatic softener (i.e. as a face-saving strategy)” (2000: 257), and Taglicht argues that actually makes a correction less offensive, calling it “ ‘mild’ (or conciliatory)”, involving “an element of apology” (2001: 2f.).21 Oh (2000) presents a corpus-based investigation of actually and in fact in spoken and written American English. Similar to Aijmer (1986), her findings show that when actually occurs in initial position, it “functions to contradict an expectation which has been raised in the prior discourse” (2000: 250). Thus, it has a contrastive meaning, denying a proposition that is asserted or implied previously. Oh concludes that what both actually and in fact share is the core meaning of “unexpectedness” (2000: 266). In sum, studies that have investigated the use of actually agree that in many contexts it carries contrastive meaning and “appears to serve as a general-purpose signal for a counterclaim” (Smith and Jucker 2000: 214), at the same time functioning as a face-saving pragmatic softener.
2.2.2 Focus constructions A focus construction is “a type of sentence that serves to promote a specified constituent, its focus, to a position of particular prominence by setting it off from the rest of the sentence in one way or another” (Drubig and Schaffar 2001: 1079). Focus constructions have been studied in great detail in the last three decades and have been ascribed a variety of functions relating to discourse organization and management.22 By now, there is a vast amount of research. What follows is a review of the pertinent literature, focusing on the core discourse functions that have been identified and seem applicable to the present investigation. 21. The pragmatic marker well has been assigned similar functions. Watts (1986) states that well is used to signal and mitigate some sort of confrontation, and interprets it as “a move minimizing the face threat" (1986: 44). Jucker (1993) identifies a similar function (“face-threat mitigator”) for well. Finnell (1989) argues that well signals that “the speaker wants to be on friendly terms with the interlocutor” and expresses a sort of concession despite disagreement about the issue in question (1989: 654f.). 22. It is arguable whether preposing and inversion can be understood as specific constructions in their own right, since they merely involve a reordering of constituents and do not exhibit a syntactically more complex structure such as clefts or extraposition (cf. Ward and Birner 2001: 119 vs. Lambrecht 1994: 32ff., who advocates a Construction Grammar approach). In view of the discourse-functional understanding of focus constructions adopted in this book, I also count re-arrangements of the basic word order as such constructions.
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I will also discuss the type of focus that these constructions typically convey. That they differ in focus assignment can already be seen in the fact that the literature, in keeping with the two different types of focus discussed earlier, distinguishes between presentational and contrastive focus constructions (Drubig and Schaffar 2001: 1079ff.), or contrastive focus constructions and marked topic constructions (Givón 2001, chapters 15–16), which may, however, partially overlap. Drubig and Schaffar state that a “contrastive focus construction isolates narrowly focused arguments or adjuncts in specific syntactic positions” and that “the interpretation of such constructions is predominantly contrastive” (2001: 1085). Presentational focus constructions, such as inversion, extraposition, and the presentational there-construction, convey wide focus and have event-introducing and presentational function. They have a tendency to be weight-sensitive.
2.2.2.1 Inversion Inversion in English has received a considerable amount of attention in recent years and has been studied intensively within a variety of theoretical frameworks.23 What these studies have in common is that they aim to account not only for the structural, but also the discourse-functional and pragmatic characteristics of inversion. Birner (1994, 1995, 1996) presents a discourse-functional account of English inversion. In a detailed study of inverted sentence structures in written and spoken English based on a corpus of naturally occurring tokens, she argues that inversion primarily serves an information-packaging function and identifies two discourse-pragmatic constraints on its felicitous occurrence, both relating to the information status of sentence constituents: the fronted constituent and the verb (other than be) that can appear in full inversion have to represent information that is familiar relative to the postposed constituent. According to her, an inversion is “a sentence type in which the logical subject appears in post-verbal position while some other, canonically post-verbal, constituent appears in clause-initial position” (Birner 1996: 12). Thus, full inversion in independent declarative clauses is a syntactic pattern which involves both the fronting of a certain constituent, functioning either as adverbial/adjunct or complement, and subject-verb inversion.24 The fronted constituent may be a prepositional phrase (PP) as in (2.14), a VP headed by a present or past participle as in 23. See Chen (2003: 7–32) for a concise review of previous research on English inversion. 24. Here, the term complement is not used in its meaning as a cover term for any obligatory constituent which follows a syntactic head, but refers to the syntactic functions of subject and object complement which differ from other syntactic functions such as direct/indirect object and adverbial/adjunct. Another commonly used term is ‘predicative’ (Biber et al. 1999: 122).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
(2.15), an adjective phrase (AdjP) in (2.16), or an NP in (2.17) (fronted constituents are given in italics).25 (2.14) New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner estimated the primary would draw 184,000 voters, and the candidates greeted some of the early risers. “I hope I’ve earned your vote,” Kerry told voters at a school in Manchester, N.H. At stake for the day were 22 national convention delegates – as well as incalculable political momentum in the contest to pick a Democratic challenger for President Bush. (Capital Times web edition, January 27, 2004) (2.15) I was at Canterbury Booksellers this week, kneeling down in front of the New York Times puzzle books trying to choose one as a gift for my husband. Hunkered down next to me was Canterbury’s manager, Soren Schoff. He was helping me look through the collections and giving me advice on how the puzzle difficulty is rated. He recounted a funny story about his wife, and for just a moment, it seemed like any other shopping day in the store. But, of course, it wasn’t. Hanging heavy over everyone who has grown to love and admire Canterbury Booksellers is the fact that come March 1, it won’t be around anymore. (Capital Times web edition, January 9, 2004) (2.16) In population, Wisconsin and Hessen are roughly equal, although Wisconsinites are spread out over considerably more land. (The entire country of Germany, with its 80 million people and 16 states, occupies as much real estate as Montana.) Also close in population are the two states’ largest cities – Milwaukee, the most German city in America, and Frankfurt, called the most American city in Germany. (Wisconsin State Journal web edition, November 19, 2000) (2.17) Shrove Tuesday is, of course, a religious festival; a fact St Mary’s is anxious we don’t forget. In years gone by, emptying the larder of flour, milk and eggs was the traditional way of starting the fast of Lent. An equally serious tradition, of course, is pancake racing. (BNC, K1F 3319)
What these sentences have in common is that the NP of which something is being predicated, that is the logical subject, appears to the right of the verb, while some other, canonically post-verbal constituent, appears in clause-initial position.26 25. Although Birner (1996: 45) includes the type of AdvP inversion, preposed locative and directional adverbials like then and here are included under PP inversion in her study. 26. The situation with NP inversions appears to be less clear, however. Structurally, it looks like a canonical SVC sentence, and the NP-be-NP sequence makes it difficult to identify subject and complement/predicative, so that “it is difficult to tell on syntactic grounds alone whether such a sentence is an inversion or not” (Birner 1996: 42). See Birner (1994: 42ff.) for several arguments that support an analysis of such structures as NP-inversions.
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It has been argued that verbs other than be that may occur in inversions are semantically restricted to verbs of existence and appearance on a scene, a constraint which is assumed to be related to the presentational function of inversion (Biber et al. 1999: 911). Verbs appearing in full inversion are usually intransitive or copular and have less weight than the subjects. They typically indicate position (be, stand, lie, sit, hang) or motion (come, go, fall, roll), while the fronted constituent has locative meaning and is usually an adverbial of place or direction, hence the term locative inversion (Quirk et al. 1985: 1381, Leech and Svartvik 1994: 202). Similarly, Bresnan (1994: 77) proposes a transitivity restriction, claiming that locative inversion occurs only with intransitive verbs such as be, sit or come. Birner (1995, 1996) closely investigates the types of verbs that occur in inversions. She finds that of the 1778 tokens in her corpus, the vast majority of verbs are intransitive. 654 tokens (37%) are inversions with forms of be, the remaining 1124 items (63%) contain other main verbs. Table 2 gives an overview of the most frequent non-be verbs that occur. Table 2. Non-be main verbs appearing in inversions (adapted from Birner 1995: 251f.) main verb come stand lie hang sit go grow rise appear live total
number of occurences in 1124 tokens overall 204 121 110 46 41 33 24 23 22 19 643 = 57%
Her analysis also shows that it is the type of verb used in an inversion that determines the syntactic and semantic properties of the whole construction, with inversions around non-be verbs being syntactically and semantically much more constrained than be-inversions. In inverted sentences with non-be verbs, 97% of the preposed constituents are locative PPs, while in inversions with forms of be, only 29% of the fronted elements are locative PPs. Therefore, be-inversion allows a larger variety of preposed constituents than inversions with other main verbs (Birner 1995: 241).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
In Birner’s view, however, the felicity of a verb in an inversion is not dependent on the semantic class of the verb, but rather on an interaction of verb meaning and discourse context, that is the verb’s lexical content must have been evoked in the preceding discourse, or must at least be inferable from the context (1995: 245). Thus, a supposedly semantic restriction on verbs appearing in inversions follows directly from a discourse-pragmatic constraint, namely that the verb to be used has to represent evoked or inferable information and must not contribute discourse-new information, in this way explaining the high occurrence of informationally light verbs. Non-be main verbs are rendered informationally light in that their semantic properties are made inferable from either the pre-inversion context, or the preposed and/or the postposed constituent in the inversion itself. Thus, it could be argued that in inversion, verbs undergo a process of semantic bleaching or desemanticization. Dorgeloh (1997) analyses the semantics, pragmatics and discourse functions of inversion in English based on material from LOB and the Brown Corpus, and interprets inversion as a speaker-based decision for re-ordering within a fairly rigid word order system. She identifies the meaning of the construction in terms of point of view and speaker subjectivity. Dorgeloh emphasizes that inversion implies an extra meaning, which is an interpersonal one: it carries ‘emotivity’ and ‘subjectivity’, which she uses as a cover term for several subfunctions of the construction. Chen (2003) presents a discussion of inversion anchored within the framework of cognitive grammar, based on a corpus of real-life examples from written (97%) and spoken (3%) English. His data confirm some well-established facts and tenets about inversion, for example that it is virtually restricted to the written mode and strongly conditioned by context, and that it is a preferred option in fiction due to its presentative, topic- and setting-introducing function (see also Green 1980: 589, Bresnan 1994: 85, Biber et al. 1999: 911). Chen introduces a cognitive model named Ground-before-Figure. Inversion is seen as a linguistic instantiation of this model: the preverbal constituent of inversion represents the ground, the postverbal subject NP the figure. Adopting a linear spatial orientation, this model also intends to capture the function of inversion as a focus construction. Chen argues that inversion serves to first direct the hearer’s attention to the ground, which also contains a landmark, that is the previous discourse context. This landmark then serves as a signpost, navigating the hearer to the figure, which is placed in the focus of the hearer’s attention. Kreyer (2006) identifies two major discourse functions of full inversion in English: topic-management (topic shift and topic introduction) and the creation of an “immediate observer effect”. According to him, inversion creates the illusion of immediacy by simulating ‘natural’ perception. Based on data from the BNC, he
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shows that the latter function is typical of fiction, while topic-management more often occurs in academic writing. How is inversion used for information highlighting, and what type of focus does it convey? Biber et al. (1999: 911f.) note that inverted structures serve to create both end-focus and double-focus. This can be explained in view of the fact that it is a complex syntactic pattern which involves the preposing of an element with concomitant subject-verb inversion. The (often heavy) subject, which contains new information, is moved into sentence-final focus position, in line with the information principle. In view of its presentational function mentioned above, inversion has been classified as a means to convey emphasis, more specifically intensification (Biber et al. 1999: 911). While there have also been early attempts to describe inverted structures as a means to signal counter-expectation, thus implicitly carrying a contrastive value (see Birner 1996: 55 for a summary), more recent studies have clearly shown that inversion does not necessarily convey information that is contrary to expectation (Birner and Ward 1998: 160), and that it does not mark contrastive focus (Green 1980: 595, Birner 1996: 55f., Dorgeloh 1997: 41f.).
2.2.2.2 Preposing Preposing, also known as (object-)fronting, topicalization or Y-movement, is a “sentence type[s] in which a canonically postverbal phrasal constituent appears in preverbal position” (Birner and Ward 1998: 31). Thus, preposing differs from inversion in structural terms in that the subject remains in preverbal position. The construction is not limited to the fronting of any particular phrasal category. However, fronted complements, causing subject-verb inversion,27 and objects are most common (Biber et al. 1999: 910), while VP preposing appears to be most constrained (Birner and Ward 1998: 47), see examples (2.18)–(2.20). (2.18) At the chilly boarding-school to which her parents sent her in the mistaken belief that she would be less lonely among girls of her own age, the prizes for mathematics – a subject which she didn’t particularly care for but which came easily to her – were framed reproductions of the works of Italian painters.Duccios and Signorellis andMartinis hung by her bedside at a time when other girls pinned up Elvis and Cliff or even Paul Anka. Such pictures she always found calming to her nerves [. . . ] (BNC FB9, 74–76)
27. These have been discussed in the context of inversion above and are not dealt with any further in this section.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
(2.19) It’s difficult to do so, but we must get behind our team and manager unfortunately this is the team we all chose to support, and support them we must. (Internet mailing list BLACKCATS, November 5, 2001) (2.20) Well, this term [Old Europe, MC] is now here to stay, and is well-used throughout policy discussions by parties other than America or Old or New Europe. You might not like its use, but used it is – by non-Americans and non-Old Euros alike. (Internet discussion forum at http://www.talkaboutusa.com)
It is important to note here that most descriptive analyses of preposing are restricted to the fronting of those phrasal constituents that are lexically governed by the verb (for example Birner and Ward 1998). Hence, obligatory, subcategorized constituents are included, while optional adjuncts/adverbials which are mobile per definition (see for example Aarts 2001: 21) are excluded. Birner and Ward (1998) argue that similar to inversion, preposing serves an information-packaging function. They observe a general discourse constraint on preposing: there is a prominent linking relation between the preposed constituent and the preceding discourse, for example set/subset, part/whole, type/subtype, greater-than/less-than, or identity, that is the preposed constituent must represent previously (and more or less explicitly) evoked information, thus serving as a link to prior discourse (1998: 45). This also explains why for example the preposing of indefinite NPs is acceptable, as demonstrated by examples (2.21) and (2.22) taken from Ward and Prince (1991: 168ff.). (2.21) A: Do you think you’d be more nervous in a job talk or a job interview? B: A job talk I think you’d have somewhat more control over. (2.22) Brains you’re born with. A great body you have to work at.
Birner and Ward identify two major types of preposing. The first type is focus preposing where the preposed constituent contains the focus of the utterance, see (2.23) and (2.24) (Birner and Ward 1998: 84). (2.23) I had two really good friends. Damon and Jimmy their names were. (2.24) I promised my father – on Christmas Eve it was – to kill a Frenchman at the first opportunity I had.
Focus preposing includes the subtype of echoing, exemplified in (2.25) and (2.26), used to convey a speaker’s uncertainty or disbelief/doubt with respect to the link of the preposed constituent, that is the appropriateness of the link is questioned or challenged (Birner and Ward 1998: 88f.).
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(2.25) A: Cheeseburger and a large coke, please. B: Large coke you ordered? (2.26) A: I wish George W. Bush would run for President. B: George W. Bush you’d vote for !?
The discourse function of emphatic echo, especially relevant for fronted VPs, has also been pointed out by Biber et al. (1999: 905). VP preposing has been studied in detail by Ward (1990). According to him, the function of VP preposing is to “affirm a speaker’s belief in a salient proposition explicitly evoked in the discourse” (1990: 742f.) and “suspend a speaker’s belief in an explicitly evoked and salient proposition” (1990: 744), thus proposition affirmation and suspension. While VP preposing has to obey the general discourse-pragmatic constraint found in other types of preposing, that is there must exist an anaphoric relation between the preposed constituent and the previous discourse, this turns out to be a very heavy constraint indeed. Ward finds that with respect to the formal properties of evoking, only alternations in morphological form seem to be tolerated. A preposed VP (for example consume) might be evoked by a corresponding NP that precedes it (consumption), but close synonyms and even overt pragmatic inferences appear to be disallowed, for example insult > *upset; quit > *resign; hungry > *eat, compare (2.27) and (2.28), adapted from Ward (1990: 757). (2.27) a. b.
Inside the truck was beer for the students’ consumption. And consume they did. Inside the truck was beer for the students’ consumption. And *drink they did.
(2.28) I told my boss I was going to quit today. *And resign I did.
In other words, the anaphoric relation has to be very explicit both informationally and formally (see also Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1373). In sum, Ward’s findings suggest that the discourse functions of VP preposing are more restricted than those involving the preposing of other phrasal constituents, where implicit anaphoric relations are allowed. The second type of preposing that Birner and Ward describe is topicalization,28 where the preposed constituent does not contain the focus of the utterance, but is marked as the sentence topic or theme for contrastive emphasis, example (2.29) (from Birner & Ward 1998: 38) being a case in point. This holds for over 50% of their data (1998: 40f.).
28. This is often termed contrastive topicalization in the literature, see for example Givón (2001: 225, 262).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
(2.29) G: Do you watch football? E: Yeah. Baseball I like a lot better.
To conclude, Birner’s and Ward’s findings suggest that both inversion and preposing favour the fronting of discourse-old information, and that the relative discourse-familiarity of the preposed and postposed constituents is decisive for the felicity of such constructions. Thus, generally speaking, preposing serves as a syntactic means to place discourse-familiar information in preverbal position (1998: 255). However, inversion and preposing differ with respect to weight distribution. With fronted objects, the end of the clause is light, since both object and subject precede the verb (OSV). With fronted complements, the distribution is much more balanced, also due to the fact that such fronting is usually accompanied by subject-verb inversion (CVS). In that case, the subject is often a substantial NP rather than just a pronoun, so the outcome is a clause with balanced weight at both ends (Biber et al. 1999: 905). Various discourse functions of preposing have been proposed in the literature. There appears to be consensus on two main functions. First, preposing fulfills a linking function in that it relates the preposed element to the previous discourse, often by using anaphoric deictic markers such as this, that, these and such, or it echoes preceding information. Second, it expresses contrast (contrastive topicalization), and Biber et al. note that in preposing, contrast is often made explicit by the mentioning of both contrasted referents and the presence of connectives such as but (1999: 900f.). In particular, the fronting of objects is typically chosen in contexts where there is a need to emphasize or contrast a discourse element (1999: 904). Ward, Birner and Huddleston also discuss several cases in which preposing requires contrastiveness, notably AdjP preposing which is “restricted to cases where we have an explicit contrast between one property and another” (2002: 1375). In fact, there is agreement in the literature that the majority of preposing constructions involve contrastive emphasis (cf. Leech and Svartvik 1994: 200ff., Birner and Ward 1998: 40f., Givón 2001: 225). Preposing has a contrastive pragmatic effect not only in English, but also crosslinguistically. Sornicola (1994: 4637) points out that in many European languages, fronted constructions have a contrastive value, and that in these marked word order types topic and focus coincide. In a similar vein, Molnár (2002), referring to cases of left dislocation and topicalization in discourse and quoting Prince (1984), argues that “contrastiveness in some sense is important for the adequate use of these marked constructions” (2002: 153). Crosslinguistically, the sentence periphery plays a major role in focus placement. The left periphery is used to encode highly marked, emphatic focusing which often interacts with prosodic marking (Hetland and Molnár 2001: 625). All languages seem to allow for the initial
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placement of at least some temporal and spatial adverbials, and for the fronting of emphatic and contrastive constituents (Siewierska 1994: 4998).
2.2.2.3 Clefts Transformational approaches to cleft sentences (for example Akmajian 1970) focused on the analysis on how clefts and so-called pseudo-clefts were derived. Clefts were merely understood as being derived from pseudo-clefts.29 Therefore, the view prevailed that they had the same presupposition, focus and information content, and it was claimed that both types could be used synonymously and interchangeably. These assumptions, however, neglect the fact that both types actually differ in focus assignment and allow different constituents to be highlighted. Since I am not interested in a generative perspective but will favour, broadly speaking, a functional approach, I will briefly outline the basic structural differences of clefts that have been identified and then concentrate on the discoursepragmatic functions of cleft constructions. This section discusses a rather broad range of syntactic phenomena. Some of them are not canonical clefts and differ in terms of their syntactic structure and the type of constituent they allow to be focused. Nevertheless, they are very closely related to clefts or can be understood as compensatory structures. The reason why they are dealt with in one section is that they serve very similar discourse functions. Generally speaking, clefting involves the splitting of a sentence into two clauses, thereby focusing a certain sentence constituent, the clefted element. The most common types are the it-cleft and the wh- or pseudo-cleft.30 Both types differ in focus assignment and allow different constituents to be highlighted. In it-clefts, exemplified in (2.30)–(2.33), subject and object NPs (both animate and inanimate), as well as PPs occur most frequently (Collins 1991: 56, Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1418), while VP focusing is ungrammatical. (2.30) The Capitol Square was filled with a wide variety of ethnic foods, but it was the diversity of people that brought many to the 19th annual Taste of Madison on Sunday. (Capital Times web edition, September 2, 2003) (2.31) Liverpool’s success is based on successful partnerships all over the pitch, but last night, when they were frustrated both in midfield and attack, it was the defenders who stood firm and proved the difference. (The Times web edition) 29. See Pavey (2004, chapter 3) for discussion. 30. In view of its transformational tradition and implication, I do not use the term ‘pseudocleft’ but prefer the theoretically more neutral and also well-established term ‘wh-cleft’.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
(2.32) By Friday night, according to the prominent Paris-based Romanian human rights activist, Mr Mihnea Berindei, the chain around the pastor’s house was 200 strong. It was at this point that police initially peacefully and totally unsuccessfully, sought to persuade the protesters to disperse. (BNC, AA4 91–92)
The focusing of full clauses in it-clefts is possible, but dispreferred (Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1418ff.). (2.33) Most of all worth remembering is the trenchant declaration: “ ... no art, major or minor, can be governed by the rules of social amenity”. It was because Pound behaved always in the spirit of this remark that he could not fail to offend Englishmen of the type of Beerbohm and Bowra, and that he continues to offend their likes and their successors (in all social classes) at the present day, as, for instance, his confrere T.S. (BNC, A1B 1059)
Wh-clefts also have (often heavy) NPs appearing in focus position as in (2.34), but more typically serve to highlight full VPs and finite content clauses (Collins 1991: 58, Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1418ff.), exemplified in (2.35). (2.34) Hotspur had felt some curiosity about this father of hers, for she was not a woman whose antecedents could easily be guessed at. What he saw was a man of about sixty years, older than he had expected, but still hale, and of a powerful frame. (BNC, HGG, 624–625) (2.35) And not only was it expensive to wash and refill the brown glass bottles, Reynolds said, but fewer and fewer of the cases were being returned for the deposit. [...] “What’s happened is that college kids were keeping the cases and using them for furniture,” said Reynolds. (Capital Times web edition, November 21, 2003)
These structural differences between the two main types of clefts have also been shown to be evident in quantitative aspects. Prince (1978: 886) found that the highlighted element in it-clefts comprises only around 33% of the lexical material of the whole sentence, while the presupposed relative clause takes up 66%. By contrast, the focused part in wh-clefts constitutes an average of 75%, and the presupposed part only 25% of the whole sentence. This distribution is summarized in Table 3.
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Table 3. Average length of focused and presupposed elements in it- and wh-clefts (Prince 1978: 886) cleft type
focused part
presupposed part
it-cleft wh-cleft
33 % 75 %
66 % 25 %
Prince’s findings are supported by Kim (1995), who found that the majority of focused elements in wh-clefts are full clauses, as shown in Table 4. Table 4. Predicate types of focused utterance in wh-clefts (Kim 1995: 252) full clause
infinitive
gerund
NP
64 %
9%
3%
24 %
These quantitative findings can be explained in terms of the elements that are typically highlighted in the two constructions. The focused part in wh-clefts is significantly longer than in it-clefts, because wh-clefts are the preferred option for focusing heavy NPs (Erdmann 1988: 333ff.), full VPs and content clauses, while it-clefts serve to highlight shorter subject/object NPs and PPs. Apart from it- and wh-clefts, there are several additional types of cleft constructions. One of these is the so-called inverted or reverse wh-cleft (rwh-cleft), in which the order of the wh- and cleft-clause is simply reversed. Detailed corpus-based studies suggest that reverse wh-clefts are limited as to the type of focused constituent that can occur. The vast majority of rwh-clefts have the deictic demonstratives that or this as initial elements, that being much more frequent than this (Collins 1991: 139, Weinert and Miller 1996: 177, Oberlander and Delin 1996: 189). Owing to this fact, they are sometimes referred to as ‘headless’ reverse wh-clefts, headless “because of the presence of the demonstrative as initial element” (Oberlander and Delin 1996: 187), or simply as “demonstrative wh-clefts” (Biber et al. 1999: 961). They typically occur with an additional wh-element, such as what, where, when, why, and how, the first three, exemplified in (2.36)–(2.38), being the most frequent ones (Collins 1991: 28, Oberlander and Delin 1996: 187). (2.36) Crash survivor Pam Warren, who founded the Paddington Survivors Group, today spoke of her hope that the inquiry report would give “closure” to survivors. “The report will officially recognize what happened on the day and that is what I mean by closure,” she told GMTV. (The Guardian web edition) (2.37) As far as Grip is concerned, the debate about Beckham’s best position is a non-starter. ‘He plays on the right wing for Manchester United, and I’m sure Sir Alex Ferguson would know if there was a better place to play him,’ he said.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
‘I accept that United have Roy Keane in their midfield, but if that is where Beckham plays his football every week then that is where he will feel most comfortable playing for England’. (The Guardian web edition) (2.38) On Saturday, he received 15 new prisoners, 14 of whom the doctor put straight on the detox register. He should have 12 officers to control the wing. Today he has nine. When he hasn’t the staff, he has to bang the men up. That is when they get angry, that is when they start mutilating themselves, killing themselves. (The Guardian web edition)
As for the rare cases of rwh-clefts that do not have an initial demonstrative, Erdmann (1986: 852) observes that a large variety of wh-forms occurs. Typical examples are (2.39)–(2.41). (2.39) Susanna beams. “And now I feel it’s so nice to be free to try things. If you do a photo session and you look ridiculous, it’s just one day, you move on. I don’t feel I have to establish any one version of who I am, ‘cos I don’t know what that is, anyway.” A future Queen of Pop, ma’am, is who you are. (BNC, CAD 2728) (2.40) Strach said the relief/celebrations/satisfaction was possibly better than winning the league – Scotland qualifying for the World Cup ... (and some other top sporting moments I’ve forgotten about!). He also said this kind of feeling is why he wants to stay in football as long as possible. (BNC, J1F 845) (2.41) If you get an obscene or abusive phone call, don’t say anything and hang up immediately! An emotional reaction is what the caller wants. If the calls continue, tell the operator and the police. (BNC, ARA 158)
By contrast, canonical wh-clefts are usually restricted as to the occurrence of whelements in the initial wh-clause, what being most frequent in this position (Collins 1991: 27f.). Only rarely do other wh-elements such as where or when occur. Who, and thus the focusing of animate NPs, is of dubious acceptability, if not entirely ungrammatical (Quirk et al. 1985: 1388; Collins 1991: 29; Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1422). A consequence of this constraint on English wh-clefts is that there exist compensatory or paraphrasing structures such as the person/one (who), the time (when) or the thing (that), exemplified in (2.42)–(2.44). (2.42) It was the teachers in prison who got me back into education. They encouraged me to do two GCSEs. Jane, who took English, put a lot of time into making sure I did good. I felt she cared, and Stella who taught maths made us laugh so I looked forward to lessons. The person who was the biggest influence, though, was Steve Butler, the head of arts training. (The Guardian web edition)
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(2.43) Blair’s suggested timing is precisely wrong. Any serious debate taking place after Washington has decided where it’s about to go can only be destructive to the alliance. The time when a European argument might be useful is now, before the stone is set. (The Guardian web edition) (2.44) It seems to bear out another theory formulated by Rice during his busking days and applied to his career as a superstar-in-waiting. “The thing that pleases me and the audience most, I’ve discovered, is when I am almost ignoring the fact that there’s an audience there, when you’re consumed by the moment.” (The Guardian web edition)
Clearly, the initial NPs in these structures are lexical variants of their corresponding wh-elements which “provide[s] one way of filling the gap created by the inadmissibility of who in fused relatives” (Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1423). However, the constructions under discussion are obviously not canonical whclefts. Consequently, they have been treated as an extra type of cleft, for example by Erdmann (1990b) and Kiese (1993), who classify them as focusing copula sentences headed by general nouns. In accordance with the terminological proposal made by Collins, I will call these sentences th-clefts which are “introduced by the in conjunction with the pro-form equivalents of the English interrogatives (thing, one, place, time, reason, way)” (Collins 1991: 27). Admittedly, the sentence type under discussion could merely be regarded as an identifying copula sentence. However, they carry information-structural characteristics and fulfill pragmatic functions similar to those of clefts proper, that is to highlight heavy NPs, VPs and content clauses by placing them in end-focus position and to “single out part of the propositional content as containing the communicative focus” (Breivik 1986: 823). For that reason, I follow Geluykens (1988) and Ward, Birner and Huddleston (2002), who allow for an expansion of this class, incorporating “semantically empty” head nouns (Geluykens 1988: 832). However, it appears to be extremely difficult to delimit the class of constructions to be included as this would result in principle in an open-endedness of the class of general nouns that allow for modification of the head (Collins 1991: 30f.). Similarly to Collins, who excludes general nouns with specific lexical content like artist or car instead of one or thing, I will only consider sentences with general, abstract nominals such as thing, reason or way as head. Such th-clefts can also occur in reversed order, see examples (2.45) and (2.46). (2.45) As Tyson walked towards Lewis after both men had been introduced, a huge Lewis bodyguard reached out to restrain the former champion. Tyson aimed a punch which missed – perhaps intentionally – and all hell broke loose. “People did not realize what really happened,” says Emanuel. “Tyson was the one who lost control and was shouting and cursing at reporters afterwards.” (The Guardian web edition)
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
(2.46) Dido has ransacked the shelves of her house in Islington to focus on about 100 of her most important albums, and her enthusiasm for music in its many forms shines through. “The genius thing about our upbringing is that because we didn’t have TV or many outside influences, music was the thing that I would actively search for,” she explains, pulling out one favourite album after another. (The Guardian web edition)
Another lexical variant worth mentioning is what Collins labels all-clefts, that is “identifying constructions with a nominal clause headed by all” (1991: 27), followed by a personal pronoun, most frequently I, you and we (see Tognini Bonelli 1992: 30), by a verb form and the copula as in (2.47). (2.47) “I was just a skinny kid from Nottingham [Forest] making my debut for England,” Anderson said. “I never really thought about being the first black player. I never realised what a big deal it was until years afterwards. All I wanted to do was play my best and secure a place in the team.” (The Guardian web edition)
What type of focus is conveyed in the different cleft types? It- and wh- clefts have complementary discourse functions. They are used as a means of foregrounding (it-clefts) and backgrounding (wh-clefts) (Jucker 1997: 197) in that they activate discourse entities. It-clefts are commonly considered to be syntactic markers of contrastiveness par excellence (Kiss 1998: 250; Cowles 2003: 32ff.), a belief that may go back to the father of the term ‘cleft’, Otto Jespersen, who suggested that the it-cleft “serves to single out one particular element of the sentence and very often, by directing attention to it and bringing it, as it were, into focus, to mark a contrast” (1949: 147f.). This view can also be found in the major reference grammars of contemporary English. Ward, Birner and Huddleston write that “the it-cleft is characteristically used when the foregrounded element is contrastive” (2002: 1426), and Biber et al. note that “it-clefts are typically contrastive; the contrast is often quite explicit” (1999: 962). Examples (2.30) and (2.31), repeated below, are cases in which it-clefts are used for explicit contrast in that the focus contains new and contrastive information. (2.30) The Capitol Square was filled with a wide variety of ethnic foods, but it was the diversity of people that brought many to the 19th annual Taste of Madison on Sunday. (Capital Times web edition, September 2, 2003) (2.31) Liverpool’s success is based on successful partnerships all over the pitch, but last night, when they were frustrated both in midfield and attack, it was the defenders who stood firm and proved the difference. (The Times web edition)
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Collins even claims that both it- and wh-clefts contain an additional semantic feature he calls “exclusiveness implicature” (1991: 69ff.). This refers to the observation that the highlighting of a particular piece of information may also convey an implicit exclusive meaning which is not present in the non-clefted counterpart. For example, the focusing of the NP the defenders in (2.30) may be understood to have the implicit meaning ‘the defenders, and only them, no-one else’. By contrast, Ward, Birner and Huddleston (2002: 1416) point out that what they term ‘exhaustiveness implicature’ holds for it-clefts only. Since one of the defining features of contrastiveness is that only one candidate of a limited set of possible referents is chosen to the exclusion of the others, this would mean that according to Collins, all cases of it- and wh-clefts necessarily involve a contrastive reading. However, the reference grammars note that “both cleft types (...) are used to bring particular elements into additional focus, which may be contrastive” (Biber et al. 1999: 959, my emphasis), and “the pseudo-cleft can also be used in contexts of contrast” but “also readily occurs in the absence of contrast” (Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1426). Consequently, the existence of an exclusiveness implicature as a characteristic feature of clefts seems to apply to contrastive cases of it-clefts only, and certainly less so for wh-clefts (see Givón 2001: 225). (2.48) and (2.49) clearly do not represent contrastive, but rather intensifying uses of the it-cleft. (2.48) They trooped off into the night, short of food and water, but incredibly a freak rainstorm burst, turning the desert into a lake. It was at this stage that the intensive training in navigation paid off. When dawn broke, the rain ceased and the various parties were able to take stock of their positions. (BNC, AR8 343–345) (2.49) Hitting me with her little fists, but I couldn’t get the smile off my face. For some reason I couldn’t, though I could see it was that which infuriated her more than anything. I wanted to but I couldn’t. Your smile destroyed her, Goldberg said. She told me it was your smile that did it. (BNC, A08, 1504–1508)
Weinert and Miller (1996) present further evidence that contrastiveness is not a necessary condition for clefts. They found that only 0.5% of wh-clefts, but 36% of it-clefts in their data express explicit contrast. Hence, whereas their corpus findings suggest that “IT clefts are the preferred cleft for focusing on subjects and for expressing overt contrast” (1996: 205), they concede that “only a minority of clefts indicate contrast” (1996: 179) and that “IT clefts can be contrastive and non-contrastive” (1996: 200). In fact, a distinction between contrastive and non-contrastive cases of it-clefts can be found in most of the pertinent litera-
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
ture.31 In sum, the claim that all clefts necessarily involve and imply a contrastive reading cannot be maintained. Both types of clefts may convey contrast, it-clefts being the more prototypical option to mark contrastive focus. This actually provides further evidence for a gradient view of contrastiveness. Contrast is a matter of degree, not an either-or category. Wh-clefts differ from it-clefts in that they serve various additional functions relating to discourse-management (see Kim 1995 and Hopper 2001). Most importantly, they can be understood as a “springboard in starting an utterance” (Biber et al. 1999: 963). Its purpose is to signal explicitly what is taken as background information and what constitutes the main communicative point of the sentence or utterance. The initial wh-clause typically contains informationally light verbs such as do, happen, say, mean, think or need (Kim 1995, Biber et al. 1999: 963, Hopper 2001: 117). These verbs downgrade the wh-clause in its information content, but increase its function as an attention marker (Weinert and Miller 1996: 194ff.). This suggests that the speaker adds the initial wh-clause before the presentation of a major point in the focused sequence. The focused part of the wh-cleft is delayed and framed by the initial wh-clause for specific interactional reasons, for example buying time in spontaneous discourse (cf. Hopper 2001: 120). As for reverse wh-clefts, Weinert (1995: 343, 349f.) observes that only a small proportion of these indicate overt contrast, and that whereas preposing constructions regularly carry a contrastive interpretation, this is absent from rwh-clefts in the same context. What distinguishes reverse wh- and th-clefts from their basic forms in terms of discourse function is thematization or clause-initial focusing. Similarly to it-clefts, the focused information appears early in the sentence. Given that the large majority of rwh-clefts are introduced by demonstratives, conveying anaphoric or cataphoric deixis (Weinert and Miller 1996: 188, Oberlander and Delin 1996: 189), they have “a powerful pointing function” (Miller 2006: 172), depending on the demonstrative used. With that as the initial element, they are typically used to sum up previous discourse or to make reference to what has been mentioned before (Biber 1999, Weinert 1995: 343, Weinert and Miller 1996), while those introduced by this are used as an attention marker (Weinert 1995).
2.2.2.4 Extraposition Extraposition will be briefly discussed here since it is a construction that strongly interacts with the weight principle, and a prime example for the interaction of the structural and cognitive dimensions of information structure: sentence position, information status, syntactic weight, and processing factors. It is a means 31. See, for example, Prince (1978: 896ff.), Declerck (1984, 1988), Geluykens (1988, 2000), Hedberg (1990), and Delin and Oberlander (1995).
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48 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
of postponing a heavy sentence constituent, usually a clausal subject, to a later position in the sentence by moving it to the right periphery.32 There are three major types of extraposition, depending on the subject clause, exemplified in (2.50)–(2.52) (see Erdmann 1990a and Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1403ff.). In the non-extraposed, basic counterparts, the subject position is occupied by a subordinate clause, either a that-, wh-, or infinitival clause. In the extraposed variants, the subject position is filled by the pronoun it, also referred to as anticipatory it (Kaltenböck 2003). The former subject clause is moved into sentence-final, hence extraposed subject position and is co-referential with the dummy subject it. (2.50) a. To hear her say that surprised me. b. It surprised me to hear her say that. (2.51) a. That he was late again didn’t really bother me. b. It didn’t really bother me that he was late again. (2.52) a. Why they never answered to my letter is unclear. b. It is unclear why they never answered to my letter.
Additionally, there is a fourth type which involves an extraposed subject -ing-clause. However, this type is frequently considered to be marginal since “gerund-participals extrapose less readily and generally than content clauses and infinitivals” (Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1407). Moreover, extraposed -ingclauses appear to be uncommon except in informal speech (Quirk et al. 1985: 1393), and are of dubious acceptance in comparison to extraposed infinitivals and the basic forms (Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1407, their examples). (2.53) a. Telling my parents was stupid. b. ?It was stupid telling my parents. c. It was stupid to tell my parents. (2.54) a. Calling in the police would make things worse. b. ?It would make things worse calling in the police. c. It would make things worse to call in the police.
32. Another type of construction which involves the postponement of a constituent to the left or right sentence periphery, its canonical position being filled by a pronoun or a full lexical noun phrase with the same reference, is left- and right dislocation (for example John, I like the old chap and I miss him, John). However, dislocations are rather topic-marking than focusmarking devices, and are virtually restricted to the oral mode and typically found in spoken language. They will not be discussed further in the present context. For detailed investigations of the structural properties and discourse functions of left- and right-dislocation see Geluykens (1987, 1992) and Prince (1984, 1997).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
The sentences with clausal subjects are considered to be the syntactically more basic ones because they are simpler and exhibit canonical word order. However, it is in fact the extraposed variants which are much more frequent than the nonextraposed ones, especially with subject that- and infinitival clauses (Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1404), and should thus be considered as the statistically unmarked counterparts (Biber et al. 1999: 676, 725; Kaltenböck 2000: 158), because they reflect the general preference for light subjects in English. Erdmann shows that extraposition clearly predominates over non-extraposition in that-clauses and the to-infinitive (1988: 330f., 1990a: 135). His results are given in Table 5. Table 5. Distribution of (non-)extraposed clausal subjects (Erdmann 1988: 330f.) type of subject
extraposed
non-extraposed
total
that-clause to-clause
416 (92.04%) 617 (95.07%)
36 (7.96%) 32 (4.93%)
452 (100%) 649 (100%)
Erdmann also finds that “it is only with nominalized -ing forms that the two structures [the basic variant and its extraposition, MC] are more or less equally balanced” (1988: 330). These findings are confirmed by Kaltenböck (2000) who investigated a large amount of naturally occurring tokens of it-extraposition and non-extraposition in spoken and written English extracted from the British component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB).33 He presents detailed results for the occurrence of the (non-)extraposed variants according to type of extraposed subject clause which are reproduced in Table 6. Table 6. Frequencies of (non-)extraposed clausal subjects in ICE-GB (Kaltenböck 2000: 158) type of subject
extraposed
non-extraposed
total
that-clause wh-clause to-clause for/to-clause -ing-clause
731 (98.4%) 56 (57.7%) 665 (95.1%) 107 (98.2%) 48 (27.3%)
12 (1.6%) 41 (42.3%) 34 (4.9%) 2 (1.8%) 128 (72.7%)
743 (100%) 97 (100%) 699 (100%) 109 (100%) 176 (100%)
33. Mair (1990: 22) used the Survey of English Usage Corpus and reports very similar findings for (non-)extraposed to- and for...to-clauses.
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Evidently, that-, to- and for...to-clauses prefer extraposition, wh-clauses show no clear preference, while -ing-clauses strongly disprefer extraposition. Ward, Birner and Huddleston (2002: 1403ff.) show that the (in-)felicity of non-extraposed clauses is best explained in terms of three interacting factors: context, syntactic weight and processability, none of which alone can explain the preference/occurrence of one or the other construction. Similarly, Biber et al. argue that four grammatical and discourse factors influence the preference for the non-extraposed over the extraposed variant: register, information structure, grammatical complexity, and topic and personal style (1999: 676ff., 724ff.). As for the contextual factors involved in the (in-)felicitous occurrence of nonextraposition, Ward, Birner and Huddleston observe that very often, the non-extraposed content clause represents discourse-old or background information, therefore presupposed information (2002: 1404f.). Biber et al. note that in non-extraposed that-and to-clauses, the subject clause presents factual, generally accepted or topical information and often provides an anaphoric link to the preceding discourse (1999: 677, 725). These general observations are confirmed by Kaltenböck (2000), who also examined the information status of the subject clause in itand non-extraposition. Using a slightly modified version of Prince’s (1981, 1992) taxonomy of assumed familiarity, he distinguishes between two types: a) subject clauses which contain given, contextually retrievable information (either directly or via inferences), and b) subject clauses which consist of new, brand-new or new-anchored information. His analysis clearly shows that non-extraposed subject clauses predominantly contain retrievable information, whereas extraposed clausal subjects largely consist of new information, see Table 7. Table 7. Information status of the subject clause in (non-)extraposition (Kaltenböck 2000: 163, 165) information status extraposition
non-extraposition
‘given’ ‘new’
174 (80.2%) 43 (19.8%)
484 (28.5%) 1217 (71.5%)
These results receive further support from a study by Miller (2001) who analyzed the discourse conditions governing the choice between extraposition and nonextraposition of that-clause subjects and infinitival-VP subjects. On the basis of a large corpus of naturally occurring data, he demonstrates that non-extraposition requires that the content of the subject be discourse-old or directly inferable. If the content is discourse-new, then extraposition is necessary. As mentioned above, syntactic weight plays a major role in extraposition and interacts with processing factors. Not surprisingly, Ward, Birner and Huddleston
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
state that “the effect of extraposition is to place a heavy constituent at the end of the clause, in conformity with the general tendency [...] for heavy constituents to occur in this position” (2002: 1403), and that in cases where both orderings are permissible, the weight factor may well result in the extraposed version being preferred (2002: 1405). Referring to processing factors, they argue that “extraposition places the subordinate clause in a position where it is easier to process than when it is in subject position” (2002: 1405). It can be understood as means to reduce and simplify unnecessarily complex and informationally packed subjects (Erdmann 1988: 337f.). Hence, extraposition allows for an information-structural organization where both structural and textual requirements are fulfilled: postponing a heavy subject which contains new information to a later position in the sentence, either for end-weight or for end-focus, in line with the information principle of end-focus and end-weight.
2.2.2.5 Frequency and register variation34 Full inversion is relatively rare and strongly conditioned by context. It is least common in conversation and virtually restricted to the written mode, showing its highest frequency in journalistic writing, academic prose and fiction as a device for the description of settings and for stylistic effects (see, for example, Kreyer 2006). The preposing of core elements, that is obligatory, subcategorized constituents, in independent declarative sentences seems to be relatively rare, its overall frequency being less than half of that found for inversion. Fronted complements/ predicatives are most common, especially in academic prose for textual cohesion, followed by fronted objects and other nominals, which have been found to be particularly frequent in fiction and conversation. It-clefts occur frequently in all registers but are most common in writing, especially in academic prose. Given the diverse discourse-management functions of wh-clefts, it is no surprise that they are most common in spoken language, especially in dialogues. Based on an analysis of the London-Lund Corpus and the LOB Corpus, Collins (1991: 178ff.) found that wh-clefts outnumber it-clefts in speech by 3.3: 1, while it-clefts outnumber wh-clefts in writing by 1.3: 1. Contrary to Biber et al.’s findings, who claim that “reversed wh-clefts are infrequent in all registers” (1999: 961), more detailed studies have found that reversed wh-clefts are in fact more frequent in speech than both wh- and it-clefts (Oberlander and Delin 1996: 186, Weinert and Miller 1996: 176). They clearly
34. The findings reported here are largely based on Biber et al. (1999).
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outnumber the basic wh-cleft in both speech and writing (Collins 1991: 178ff.). The demonstrative wh-clefts with the text-anaphoric pronoun that seem to be common in conversation only (Collins 1991: 179f., Breivik 1986: 817). Biber et al. state that their distribution is “sharply stratified by register: common in conversation and rare in academic prose” (1999: 961). These findings are further supported by Geluykens (2000) who presents frequency counts for preposing and various cleft constructions across discourse types based on the Survey of English Usage corpus. The analysis is carried out for the main four subdivisions made in the Survey of English Usage. His findings are summarized in Table 8. While it can be observed that it-clefts occur with roughly similar frequencies in the four subcorpora, reversed wh- and canonical wh-clefts clearly predominate in conversation. Geluykens’ data also confirm that preposing is considerably less frequent than clefting. Table 8. Frequencies of preposing and cleft constructions across discourse types per 75,000 words (adapted from Geluykens 2000: 44) discourse type
it-cleft
wh-cleft* reversed wh-cleft
preposing
spoken conversational spoken non-conversational total spoken written printed written non-printed total written grand total
28 30 58 28 20 48 106
62 36 98 28 16 44 142
13 35 48 15 11 26 74
80 43 123 19 10 29 152
* These are called pseudo-clefts by Geluykens and include sentences of the type the one (who)... and the thing (that)... which I refer to as th-clefts; the same is true for the reversed counterparts.
Non-extraposed that- and to-clauses are rare in all registers. They do occur in academic prose and news, but are virtually non-existent in conversation. It seems obvious that they are extremely rare in spoken unplanned discourse because speakers are constrained by online production and comprehension needs (Mair 1990: 40). By contrast, extraposed that- and to-clauses are moderately common in news and academic prose, but rare in fiction and conversation. They can be said to be characteristic of written academic discourse when compared to other registers. Extraposed ing-clauses appear to be uncommon except in informal speech (Quirk et al. 1985: 1393). Kaltenböck’s study (2000) of it-extraposition and non-extraposition in spoken and written English also shows that while it-extraposition is clearly preferred over non-extraposition in both modes, non-extraposition is more likely to occur in writing (Table 9).
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
Table 9. Frequency of (non-)extraposed clausal subjects in the spoken and written part of ICE-GB (Kaltenböck 2000: 158) mode
extraposed
non-extraposed
total
spoken (250 texts) written (250 texts) total
730 (90.2%) 971 (87.6%) 1701 (88.7%)
79 (9.8%) 138 (12.4%) 217 (11.3%)
809 (100%) 1109 (100%) 1918 (100%)
He also observes that only non-extraposed wh-clauses are almost equally distributed in both modes (48.8% in the spoken vs. 51.2% in the spoken part), whereas with all other types he finds that their non-extraposed variants predominate in writing (70.6% for to-infinitivals, 62.5% for -ing-clauses and even 100% for that-clauses). Mair’s (1990) study of to-infinitivals on the basis of the Survey of English Usage corpus reports comparable results. 41 out of a total of 52 non-extraposed to-clauses (78.8%) occurred in the written part of the corpus. Mair concludes that “this suggests that the non-extraposed infinitival clause is not a stylistically neutral construction but has a formal flavour” (1990: 40).
2.2.2.6 The markedness of focus constructions Syntactic patterns which diverge from the canonical word order can be understood as discourse-motivated variations and represent marked syntactic devices. Markedness is one of the central ideas in crosslinguistic research, and various criteria for a comprehensive definition of markedness have been proposed in the literature (for example Croft 1990: 92 or Bußmann 1996: 294f.). What most definitions have in common is that they assess the relative (un-)markedness of a linguistic feature in terms of structural, distributional and frequential parameters in that “the unmarked value has a smaller number of morphemes used to express the value and a greater inflectional range, grammatical and crosslinguistic distribution and textual and crosslinguistic frequency, than the marked value” (Croft 1990: 92). Additionally, markedness is frequently related to the behaviour of linguistic entities in language acquisition and language change. Givón (1991, 1995) proposes a definition of markedness that includes the following correlates: structural complexity, frequency distribution, and cognitive complexity. According to these criteria, marked elements are structurally more complex, less frequent and therefore cognitively more salient. They require more attention, mental effort and cause more processing time for the recipient. Givón’s characterization of markedness has been criticized because his understanding of cognitive complexity is entirely hearer-based and does not take into account the perspective of the speaker (Dryer 1995: 129f.). Nevertheless, his definition is very useful in the
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present context since it integrates the notion of cognitive complexity, reminiscent of Naturalness Theory (Dressler et al. 1987), which postulates a correlation between markedness and the cognitive-physiological complexity of linguistic units: Marked structures require more cognitive work in order to be processed. For the present purposes, it is important to distinguish between two types of markedness: structural markedness and pragmatic markedness, also termed discourse markedness or informational markedness. Structural markedness refers to the ordering of sentence constituents in comparison to the basic, unmarked word order, while pragmatic markedness relates to the presentation and ordering of information within a sentence or utterance compared to the unmarked distribution according to the information principle (given before new information, end-focus and end-weight). However, the notion of pragmatic markedness appears to be a more intricate set of complex dependencies, especially since information organization correlates with the respective type of syntactic construction. Givón (1979a) defines markedness in discourse as “the degree to which a discourse phenomenon constitutes a surprise, a break from the communicative norm”, correlating with the degree of discourse presupposition of a syntactic construction (1979a: 88). In a later work, Givón (1995) acknowledges that discourse markedness depends on context and discourse-type: one and the same structure may be marked in one context or discourse-type, and unmarked in another.35 Lambrecht (1994: 15ff.) also examines the role of markedness in information structure and argues that the pragmatically unmarked word order, that is the neutral sequence of information structure, exhibits the following characteristics: its constituent order is SV(O), it has clause-final focus-accent position, and its information structure sequence is topic-focus. He further argues that the pragmatically unmarked word order has greater distributional freedom and greater overall frequency of occurrence. Dryer’s (1995) characterization of pragmatic markedness is to some extent similar to the one proposed by Givón. He also notes that word order types considered to be pragmatically marked often involve some sort of unexpectedness, some information that involves a change in the direction of the flow of information, either because some information is counter to expectations or because a new participant is introduced to the discourse. Word orders that are described as pragmatically unmarked, on the other hand, are often used in clauses which continue the existing flow (1995: 108).
35. See Weskott (2004) for a formalistic approach to the information-structural markedness of a construction relative to the context it appears in.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
In addition, Dryer suggests that pragmatic markedness can also be understood as having additional meaning, thus being semantically marked. Given his examples, reproduced in (2.55)–(2.57) (1995: 112) (2.55) John saw Mary. (2.56) It was Mary that John saw. (2.57) John saw MARY.
he argues that (2.56) has the meaning of (2.55), plus the additional presupposition that John saw someone.36 Dryer further notes that the canonical structure in (2.55) can also be used with the same presupposition as the it-cleft, provided it receives an appropriate prosodic marking as in (2.57), and concludes that the set of contexts in which the it-cleft variant can occur is a proper subset of the contexts in which the SVO pattern is felicitous. In sum, he considers a construction to be pragmatically marked relative to another construction “if the range of contexts in which it is appropriate is a proper subset of the set of contexts in which the unmarked construction is used” (1995: 112). Also important is Dryer’s observation that languages vary in terms of the discourse contexts associated with pragmatic markedness, and the degree to which a word order pattern may be considered to be pragmatically marked or unmarked. While a particular word order pattern may be considered pragmatically marked in one language, it may be pragmatically unmarked in another language. Dryer concludes that “any attempt to define ‘pragmatic markedness’ in universal pragmatic terms cannot succeed” (1995: 127). Based on the discussion above, pragmatic markedness will be defined by the following criteria: – A pragmatically marked construction is characterized by a break from the communicative norm in that it involves some sort of surprise or unexpectedness, either by a change in the direction of the flow of information or the introduction of (a) information that is counter to expectation or (b) a brandnew discourse entity. – In contrast to a pragmatically unmarked construction, the pragmatically marked variant has additional pragmatic meaning, for example expressing contrast, and the range of contexts in which it is appropriate is a proper subset of the set of contexts in which the unmarked construction is used. Hence, the unmarked construction has greater distributional freedom and overall frequency of occurrence. 36. One could even argue that given a suitable discourse context, (2.56) contains an exclusiveness implicature, namely that John saw Mary, not Linda or any other person.
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English focus constructions exhibit varying degrees of structural markedness. As for preposing, CSV/OSV is highly marked in a crosslinguistic perspective, since it is the rarest of the basic word orders that have been attested (Odlin 1989: 44, and Waugh and Lafford 1994: 2380). However, OSV is relatively unmarked in English since SV is retained. Inversion (OVS/CVS) is clearly the most marked pattern in English because it involves the reversal of subject and verb. As mentioned earlier, it- and wh-clefts involve the splitting of a basic SVO declarative sentence into two clauses with SVC/SVO or SVC/OSV structure, respectively. Although this results in a higher degree of sentence complexity, the construction is structure-preserving in that, generally speaking, SVO/SVC word order is retained. For extraposition, the non-extraposed variants with clausal-subjects are considered to be the syntactically more basic ones because they are simpler and exhibit canonical word order (SVO/SVC). However, we have seen that the extraposed variants are much more frequent than the non-extraposed ones, especially with subject that- and infinitival clauses and should thus be considered as unmarked. How can the notion of pragmatic markedness be related to focus constructions? In what follows I will discuss the pragmatic markedness of the major types of focus constructions in English examined in this book by applying the criteria outlined above. As for the first criterion, which states that a pragmatically marked construction is characterized by a break from the communicative norm, it has to be added that the norm for presenting information in discourse in English is reflected by the information principle: given information is followed by new information in end-focus position. In inversion, due to the pragmatic constraints on the information status of the fronted constituent and the verb, there are two discourse elements that present relatively familiar information in sentence-initial position. They are followed by a (heavy) subject which contains new and focal information in sentence-final position. This distribution of information is clearly in line with the information principle. Nevertheless, the reversal of two core syntactic arguments makes inversion a highly marked construction in structural terms. Similar to inversion, there is also a general discourse constraint on preposing because the preposed constituent must represent previously (and more or less explicitly) evoked information. Again, this means that relatively familiar information is followed by new(er) (or less familiar) information, and that the flow of information is in keeping with the information principle. However, preposing is frequently used to express contrastiveness and thus carries an additional pragmatic feature. It has also been demonstrated that the contextual use of preposing constructions is more restricted than that of canonical SVO word order patterns. Accordingly, preposing can be considered pragmatically marked.
Chapter 2. Information highlighting in English
As for the flow of information, cleft sentences may be taken as pragmatically marked because the information which could be presented in a simple declarative sentence is split up into two clauses. However, clefts are informationally unmarked since they clearly and unambiguously indicate which element is to receive special emphasis (see for example Jucker 1997). In it-clefts, the focused constituent appears early, contains the new information and is highlighted. This clearly stands in opposition to the information principle. In wh-clefts, however, the background information is given first, presented in the wh-clause. The focused constituent comes at the end of the sentence, in line with the information principle, end-focus and end-weight. The same holds for the class of th-clefts. With regard to the second criterion for pragmatic markedness, it-clefts in particular exhibit additional pragmatic meaning in that they often express contrast and may carry the conversational implicature of exclusiveness/exhaustiveness. Since their contextual use is thus more restricted than the one of canonical SVO word order patterns, they can also be considered pragmatically marked. It has been outlined that sentences with extraposed clausal subjects should be considered as the unmarked counterparts because they reflect the general preference for light subjects in English. While non-extraposed subject clauses predominantly contain retrievable information, extraposed clausal subjects largely consist of new information. In terms of processing, extraposition places the clausal subject in a position where it is easier to process, reducing and simplifying complex and informationally packed subjects. Hence, extraposition allows for an information-structural organization where both structural and textual requirements are fulfilled.
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chapter 3
Information structure and information highlighting in English and German A comparative perspective
This chapter presents a contrastive analysis of the characteristics of information structure in English and German, how focus may be encoded and how the pragmatic functions of intensification and contrast are realized in the two languages. First, I will provide an overview of the basic word order in English and German from a typological perspective, and discuss to what extent basic word order influences the principles of information structure. Then, I will compare the availability and preferred use of focusing devices in the two languages.
3.1
Basic word order in English and German and its impact on information structure
The concept of basic word order goes back to Greenberg (1966) who proposed a typological classification of languages on the basis of the order of the major clausal constituents. In terms of the relative positioning of subject, object, and verb, Greenberg identified a six-way word order typology for the languages of the world: SVO, SOV, VSO, OVS, VOS, and OSV. The basic word order in a given language is the predominant order in stylistically neutral, independent, indicative clauses with full noun phrase (NP) participants, where the subject is definite, agentive, and human, the object is a definite semantic patient, and the verb represents an action, not a state or an event (Siewierska 1994: 4994).
The notion of basic word order may, but need not, correlate with the statistically most frequent word order in a language. Siewierska (1994: 4994f.) summarizes the findings of several independent typological studies that have examined the frequency of occurrence of the six basic word order types. According to these, subject-before-object languages (SVO, SOV, and VSO) are widely attested crosslinguistically, and are the predominant types in the languages of the world, with SVO- and SOV-languages largely outnumbering
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the VSO ones. By contrast, object-before-subject word orders (OVS, VOS, and OSV) occur in less than five percent of the world’s languages, OSV being particularly rare. Li and Thompson (1976) propose another typology of language based on the grammatical relations subject-predicate and topic-comment. They distinguish between subject-prominent and topic-prominent languages, claiming that some languages can more insightfully be described by taking the concept of either subject or topic as basic. They emphasize that this typological difference may not be understood as an either-or distinction but rather as a continuum. In topic-prominent languages, the topic-comment construction is the basic sentence type. The topic is discourse-dependent and serves as the center of attention of the sentence. Topics can be marked by morphological markers or by sentence-initial position. In subject-prominent languages, however, the subjectpredicate order is the basic sentence type, and in contrast to the topic, the subject has only minimal discourse-function. It is more prominent in terms of noun-verb relations and grammatical processes. Thompson (1978) examines English from the point of view of the function of word order as a typological parameter. She distinguishes between languages with Pragmatic Word Order (PWO) and Grammatical Word Order (GWO). What underlies this distinction is the observation that languages can use word order primarily either for pragmatic purposes, that is to signal the information status of sentence constituents (given vs. new), or for grammatical purposes, that is to encode the grammatical relations within a sentence (subject vs. object). This typological parameter she considers to be “a continuum along which languages may position themselves” (1978: 20). Thompson concludes that English with its rather fixed SVO word order, which requires the subject to occur before the verb, is positioned towards the grammatical end of the typological continuum, since the primary function of word order is to signal grammatical relations within a sentence (1978: 25). She identifies a range of linguistic features that are characteristic of GWO languages: subject prominence, the use of articles, the occurrence of so called dummy or semantically empty subjects (it, there), and a variety of “structure-preserving operations” and “root-transformations”, terms she borrows from transformational generative grammar. Structure-preserving operations are sentence patterns which “move or delete elements in such a way as to maintain the subject before the verb and the object after the verb” (1978: 30), among them the passive, raising constructions, and clefting. Root transformations include marked sentence types such as topicalization and dislocation. Of particular interest for the present study are focus constructions which have also been interpreted as “compensatory syntactic processes for the loss of inflectional morphology and the subsequent inflexibility
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
of word order” (Kortmann 1998: 150, my translation; see also Legenhausen and Rohdenburg 1995). Also characteristic of GWO languages and their subject-prominence is the interaction of the principle of end-weight and information status. In English, it is unusual to present brand-new, indefinite information sentence initially. Only rarely do indefinite or heavy subjects occur in sentence-initial position (Foley 1994: 1682, Esser 1995: 154). Dummy subjects such as it or there often act as subject-placeholders to move the new information further back in the sentence, see (3.1) and (3.2). (3.1) a. A fly is in my soup. b. There’s a fly in my soup. (3.2) a. Something must be wrong. b. There must be something wrong.
Compared to English, German is located at the pragmatic end of the GWO/PWO continuum. It is predominantly considered a verb-second (V2) language with greater word order flexibility and a rich overt case marking system used to encode the grammatical relations within a sentence.37 Thus, it has often been argued that “the case system of German is responsible for the greater clause-internal word order freedom of that language” (Hawkins 1986: 40). There is agreement that the historical reason for this difference between the genetically closely related languages English and German is case syncretism: “All the major English/German contrasts to be considered are plausibly either direct consequences of case syncretism, or further consequences of these direct consequences” (Hawkins 1986: 7).38 The topological field model (for example Eisenberg 1999: 387ff.) is a well-established descriptive model of the constituent order in German and several other Germanic languages. The term ‘topological fields’ refers to positional sections in the German sentence with regard to the distributional properties of the verb. German allows discontinuous verbal constituents with other clause elements intervening. Metaphorically speaking, the parts of the verbal complex may embrace other clausal elements, and thus, the term Satzklammer (‘sentence bracket’) has been introduced to refer to this phenomenon.
37. It has also been argued that the basic word order of German is verb-last, see Erdmann (1990c) for discussion. In subordinate clauses SOV holds anyway, and this order can also be claimed to be the basic one for declarative sentences, considering not the position of the finite verb but the position of the main verb, be it finite or non-finite. See also Hawkins (1986: 131) and Eisenberg (1999: 385). 38. Compare also Engel (1994: 198) for a similar line of argumentation.
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The left and the right part of the sentence bracket divide the sentence into three major positional fields: the section preceding the left part of the sentence bracket, the Vorfeld (‘forefield’ or ‘prefield’), the section which is framed by the left and the right part of the sentence bracket, the Mittelfeld (‘middle field’), and the section following the right part of the sentence bracket, the so-called Nachfeld (‘post field’). These are illustrated in Table 10. Table 10. Topological fields in the German sentence conjunc- vorfeld tion
left bracket: finite verb
mittelfeld
right bracket: nachfeld non-finite verbal complex gezeigt
a. Denn
Irene
hat
b. Und c. d. e.
daß er geht Ihm Ein Auto Heute
wird ist hat haben
ihm den Stern seinen Sinn der Pfusch heute jeder. wir die Frau
f.
Joseph
fährt
mit dem Rad.
heute morgen.
haben. aufgefallen. sehen wollen
die hier wohnt.
English translations of the German example sentences are given below: a. Because Irene has shown him the star this morning. b. And that he goes will make sense. c. He noticed the bungling. d. Everyone has got a car these days. e. Today we wanted to see the woman who lives here. f. Joseph goes by bike.
With regard to the distributional properties of the finite verb, three different types of clauses can be distinguished: verb-last clauses (subordinate clauses introduced by a subordinating conjunction), verb-first clauses (mostly imperatives and yes/no-questions) and verb-second clauses (independent declarative sentences). V2-word order in independent declarative clauses as shown in (f) above is highly frequent in German and can be considered as the unmarked and basic word order (see Pittner and Berman 2004: 83), more or less equaling the English SVO/C word order. What is the impact of a language’s basic word order for the organization of information in that language? When studying the link between certain typological features and information structure in a given language, it is important to take into account two general observations that have been made in comparative and crosslinguistic research. First, in the languages of the world there seems to be an interaction of basic word order and the principles of information structure
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
(Siewierska 1994: 4998). Second, this has consequences for the inventory of formal linguistic means that are available to mark focus in a given language, and the degree of markedness of a certain focusing device in that language (Hetland and Molnár 2001: 624). Comparative and crosslinguistic research has tried to identify a set of possibly universal IS primitives that can be useful for identifying structurally different but informationally equivalent means of focus marking. As for the interaction of basic word order and the principles of information structure, Siewierska notes two rivaling general principles that influence the ordering of information in the world’s languages: addressee orientation (old before new information), prevalent in SVO languages, and speaker orientation (new before old information), typical of OVS languages (1994: 4995). Despite this difference, some of the factors that influence information structure have been found to be universal features of all natural languages, and are due to the cognitive, communicative and structural characteristics of human language and interaction (Hetland and Molnár 2001: 623f.). In particular, the organization of information in discourse according to the information and weight principles are believed to be universals of word order and information structure. These principles are psychologically and psycholinguistically motivated and usually explained in terms of the restricted cognitive and perceptual abilities of human beings and the facilitation of cognitive interpretation and information processing. As for the position of topic/focus in the languages of the world, the subject position is the most common, neutral or unmarked for topic, and the object position the most common for focus (Siewierska 1994: 4998). However, the situation turns out to be different in cases of contrastive focus. Drubig and Schaffar (2001: 1079), in their overview of contrastive focus constructions, state that focus in initial position (as for example marked through clefts or displaced constituents) is very frequent in natural languages, and Givón, discussing the syntactic coding of contrastive focus, even writes that “focused elements tend to be fronted”, a tendency “manifest in the universality of cleft and Y-movement constructions” (2001: 234). What, then, are the implications of the typological differences between English and German for the organization of information in the two languages? German as a V2-language readily allows the presence of a constituent in the Vorfeld, preceding the finite verb which is usually fixed in second position. The V2-principle creates an “empty slot” (Erdmann 1990b: 74; my translation) that can be occupied by a large variety of sentence constituents (see Hawkins 1986: 162ff. and Engel 1994: 191ff., 200f.). Thus, the greater word order flexibility of German means that focused information can easily be topicalized by moving it into the Vorfeld (Musan 2002: 205f.).
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64 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
English does not readily offer a focus position preceding the verb because in most cases, the subject must precede the verb. Thus, English permits only very few non-subjects preverbally. The option that remains is preposing in which SV is retained. Instead, English allows a number of clause-internal and clauseexternal syntactic operations which are either impossible or limited in other languages, for example German. Again, the main reason for this syntactic behaviour can be found in the historical development of English, in particular in the weakening of the case system. Clause-internal effects are for example a larger degree of freedom in selecting the basic syntactic functions of subject and object. The result is that English verbs show a great number of so-called alternations, that is occurrences of a verb with a range of combinations of arguments and adjuncts in various syntactic contexts such as transitivity alternations, the middle alternation, and the subjectivization of non-subcategorized arguments, so-called oblique subject alternations. Among the clause-external effects are syntactic operations that move arguments across clause boundaries, for example raising constructions. In all three types of raising, English is more productive than German because there are many more verbs and adjectives that trigger a certain raising construction (Hawkins 1986: 75ff.). What is important in the present context is that some of these characteristics of English syntax are interesting from the point of view of information structure. It has been argued that one of the major consequences following from the fixed SVO word order in English is that it has developed a wide range of options to cater for the communicative needs of its speakers, still keeping the subject in its required initial position. Most importantly, the grammatical function of the subject has considerably been expanded, both semantically and functionally (see Legenhausen and Rohdenburg 1995). In this context, Foley observes that there is, in fact, a very strong correlation between the concepts of topic and subject in English. [...] Thus, the typical way to express alternatives of topic choice is to select different subjects. This is very common in English (1994: 1679).
Among these alternative ways of topic choice are also the focus constructions, especially clefting, but also non-agentive subjects, existential sentences, raising constructions and the passive. Where German has equivalent structures, it offers fewer options and is more restricted than English (Legenhausen and Rohdenburg 1995: 134). All these structures exhibit a comparatively large distance between surface form (or grammatical function) and semantic meaning. Hawkins (1986) studies a number of areas in which English and German show significant contrasts, including a number of syntactic operations that have been mentioned above: inflectional morphology, word order, basic grammatical
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
relations and their semantic diversity, raising, extraction and deletion. He suggests that these contrasts can be explained by making reference to a typological continuum whereby languages vary according to the degree to which morphological and syntactic surface form and semantic meaning correspond. He proposes a unifying generalization for the contrasts between English and German: where the surface structures (morphology and syntax) of English and German contrast, English regularly exhibits greater ‘distance’ between form and meaning in specifiable ways. I.e. English surface structures exhibit less correspondence with their semantic representations than do those of German...” (1986: 6); “the surface forms (morphological and syntactic) of German are in closer correspondence with their associated meanings...” (1986: 121).
Hawkins argues that there is a greater ambiguity and/or vagueness of surface forms in English. While German exhibits a tight-fit between surface form and semantic representation, English shows a loose-fit correspondence. What this leads to is that many of the aforementioned syntactic structures are in fact functionally and semantically more complex, less transparent and less explicit, causing more cognitive cost and requiring more processing time for the recipient in terms of the analyzability and decoding of the form-function relation. While Hawkins’ claims have partly been relativized, in particular by a number of papers by Rohdenburg,39 his general line of argumentation has proved to be extremely fruitful and stimulating for the contrastive study of these two genetically closely related languages. To summarize this comparative overview, it can be assumed that despite the typological differences discussed above, the two languages do not differ significantly as to the general ordering of given and new information in discourse. Both languages favour the placing of given before new information, and in both languages, the principles of end-focus and end-weight exist. But we have also seen that there are nevertheless fundamental differences and specific preferences to encode information structure and focus between English and German. Some of these will be discussed in more detail in the following section.
39. This dispute has come to be known as the Explizitheitskontroverse (‘explicitness controversy’). It is not possible to give an extensive account of this controversy here. The key publications are Hawkins (1981, 1986), Rohdenburg (1990) and Kortmann and Meyer (1992). See Kortmann (1998) for a concise summary.
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3.2
Focusing devices in English and German
3.2.1 Topicalization vs. preposing We have already seen that in German, the V2-principle provides a sentence-initial position that can be occupied by a large variety of constituents. The greater word order flexibility of German means that information can easily be topicalized by moving it into first position within a sentence. In contrast to preposing in English, topicalization is accompanied by subject-verb inversion.40 Moreover, it is not associated with contrastiveness as strongly as preposing in English, which can be seen in the fact that in English, the preposed constituent usually receives sentence stress, while this is only an optional feature with German topicalized constituents (Hetland and Molnár 2001: 624). It is important to note that there are two main patterns of topicalization which have different functions and consequences for the positioning of information in the sentence (see Musan 2002: 206). The first is what may be called ‘focus topicalization’, in which the highlighted information is moved into sentence-initial position for focus, exemplified in (3.3). (3.3) a. Michael sollten wir in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennenlernen. b. Während dieser Zeit hatten wir am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten ‘zu unterhalten’.
In the second pattern, shown in (3.4)c, some other than the constituent to be highlighted is moved to the left into sentence-initial position for the key information to appear in end-focus position (inversion). (3.4) a. b. c.
Wir hatten während dieser Zeit am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten ‘zu unterhalten’. Während dieser Zeit hatten wir am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten ‘zu unterhalten’. Am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten ‘zu unterhalten’, hatten wir während dieser Zeit.
Another peculiarity of German word order is the fact that there is an enormous variation as to the ordering of constituents in the Mittelfeld. In Generative Grammar, this specific kind of word order variation in the Germanic languages is re40. For reasons of terminological precision, I will refer to instances that involve the fronting of a constituent without subject-verb inversion (XSV) in English as preposing, and the semiequivalent counterpart in German (XVS) as topicalization. X is used as a placeholder for any sentence-initial constituent such as object, adverbial or complement.
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
ferred to as ‘scrambling’. The term is used to refer to the ordering of argument NPs with respect to each other and/or with respect to adverbial phrases. In German, two objects may be scrambled as illustrated in (3.5).41 Moreover, one or both objects may even scramble over the subject as in (3.6).42 (3.5) a. b.
Er behauptet, daß S[ein Kollege] IO[der Ehefrau] DO[den Rasenmäher] wegnahm. Er behauptet, daß S[ein Kollege] DO[den Rasenmäher] IO[der Ehefrau] wegnahm.
(3.6) a. b.
Er behauptet, daß IO[der Ehefrau] S[ein Kollege] DO[den Rasenmäher] wegnahm. Er behauptet, daß IO[der Ehefrau] DO[den Rasenmäher] S[ein Kollege] wegnahm.
The situation becomes even more complex if an adverbial is added. The adverbial may follow or precede the subject and object(s) as in (3.7). (3.7) a. b. c. d.
Er behauptet, daß ADV[gestern] S[ein Kollege] IO[der Ehefrau] DO[den Rasenmäher] wegnahm. Er behauptet, daß S[ein Kollege] ADV[gestern] IO[der Ehefrau] DO[den Rasenmäher] wegnahm. Er behauptet, daß S[ein Kollege] IO[der Ehefrau] ADV[gestern] DO[den Rasenmäher] wegnahm. Er behauptet, daß S[ein Kollege] IO[der Ehefrau] DO[den Rasenmäher] ADV[gestern] wegnahm.
While (3.5)a above is the basic ordering of arguments in the Mittelfeld, all other constellations are grammatical but clearly marked. Moving arguments to the right within the Mittelfeld involves special emphasis (Engel 1996: 331). In other words, constituents that are in focus have a tendency to occur at the end of the Mittelfeld. The factors that influence constituent ordering in the Mittelfeld are complex, among them animacy, information structure and syntactic weight. How these factors interact is still not entirely clear (see Eisenberg 1999: 394ff. and Musan 2002: 209f. for discussion). Apart from topicalization and scrambling, German has other constructions which move constituents to the left or right sentence periphery such as left- and 41. The following abbreviations are used: S=subject; DO=direct object; IO=indirect object, ADV=adverbial. The example is adapted from Pittner and Berman (2004: 144). English translation: ‘He claims that ADV[yesterday] S[one of his colleagues] took away DO[the lawnmower] IO[from his wife]’. 42. This is also known as Subject Hopping, see Hawkins (1986: 37).
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68 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
right dislocation (Links- and Rechtsversetzung, Nachtrag, see Altmann 1981 and Engel 1996: 318ff.) which are, as in English, virtually restricted to spoken language (Pittner and Berman 2004: 90). As for the positioning of constituents in the Nachfeld, Eisenberg notes that “the occupation of the Nachfeld is often said to be due to a communicative-pragmatic function in that it is especially large, semantically heavy or rhematic sentence constituents that are moved there” (1999: 391, my translation). Engel claims that “a permutation into the Nachfeld less often causes highlighting, and if it does, then most often with very large elements” (1994: 201, my translation). From this we can conclude that topicalization is the preferred option for (non-) contrastive focus in German and that like in English, end-position strongly correlates with syntactic weight. Sentence types that move constituents into the Nachfeld are extraposition of clausal constituents and Ausklammerung (‘exbraciation’), that is the movement of non-clausal elements–usually adverbials and prepositional objects–into the Nachfeld (Altmann 1981, Pittner and Berman 2004: 88).
3.2.2 Inversion Similar to English locative inversion, German also has inversion in which a constituent, usually a participle or adjective phrase, is moved to the left into sentence-initial position with the subject occurring in end-focus position, see the underlined subjects in (3.8). Inversion is very common, even mandatory in focus topicalization, and by no means as restricted as in English. (3.8) Schon im vergangenen Jahr hatten mehrere Studien belegt, dass Amerika um die Gunst angehender Akademiker aus dem Ausland bangen muss. Besonders skeptisch gegenüber einem Sprung über den Teich zeigen sich dabei junge Deutsche, vor allem aus politischem Unwohlsein. [...] Nach wie vor eine große Anziehungskraft üben aber offenbar amerikanische Elitehochschulen wie Yale, Harvard, Princeton oder Stanford aus. (Spiegel Online, March 14, 2005)
Therefore, locative inversion with its presentative and topic-introducing function is a very useful option for introducing new referents, for example into a narrative. In fact, this is an aspect where the two languages show strong functional similarities and word order parallels (see also Hawkins 1986: 168, 173f.), exemplified in (3.9). (3.9) a. Next came some Kings and Queens. Then Alice saw the White Rabbit, and behind him, the Knave of Hearts. And last of all, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS. (BNC, FNS 399–403)
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
b. Darauf kamen die Gäste, meist Könige und Königinnen, und unter ihnen erkannte Alice das weiße Kaninchen; es unterhielt sich in etwas eiliger und aufgeregter Weise, lächelte bei Allem, was gesagt wurde und ging vorbei, ohne sie zu bemerken. Darauf folgte der Coeur-Bube, der die königliche Krone auf einem rothen Sammetkissen trug, und zuletzt in diesem großartigen Zuge kamen der Herzenskönig und die Herzenskönigin. (Project Gutenberg’s Alice’s Abenteuer im Wunderland, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19778/19778-h/19778-h.htm)
3.2.3 Clefts Clefts and cleft-like constructions are widespread in the languages of the world to mark focus,43 but with differences as to the range of constituents that are permitted in focus position (Sornicola 1994: 4638). For example, Dik (1980) claims that it-clefts and wh-clefts “occur[s] in different forms, but with the same fundamental pragmatic, semantic, and syntactic properties, in a great many languages of quite different types” (1980: 26). However, Pavey (2004) argues against a one-to-one crosslinguistic correspondence between function and form in it-cleft constructions and provides two types of evidence: – “some languages have various sub-types of it-cleft construction [sic], some of which do not have the stereotypical contrastive narrow focus pattern” and – “crosslinguistic comparisons highlight differences in the discourse use of the construction” (2004: 279f.). Lambrecht (2001) notes that the cleft is one of several devices that languages can use to express deviations from the unmarked focus realization. He follows Jespersen, who as early as 1937 offered the following typological explanation for the occurrence and use of cleft constructions across languages: In some, though not in all cases, this construction may be considered one of the means by which the disadvantages of having a comparatively rigid grammatical word-order (SVO) can be obviated. This explains why it is that similar constructions are not found, or are not used extensively, in languages in which the word order is considerably less rigid than in English, French, or the Scandinavian languages, thus German, Spanish and Slavic (1937: 85).
Similarly, Lambrecht suggests the following principle for the formal motivation of clefts: “the occurrence of cleft constructions in a language correlates with the 43. See Harries-Delisle (1978), Dik (1980), Lambrecht (2001), Pavey (2004, chapter 7) and Miller (2006) for comparative studies of cleft constructions.
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degree of positional freedom of prosodic accents and syntactic constituents in that language” (2001: 488). The diachronic development could indeed help to explain the often-cited differences in clefts between English and German. Miller’s (2006) typological study finds that “of the languages in the west of Europe, English is the most striking in having three cleft constructions which are not only described in grammars of English, but are in frequent use” (Miller 2006: 203f.). According to him, German “occupies a mid-point on the cline; German has clefts, which occur far less frequently than in English, but it has frequently-occurring particles” (Miller 2006: 204). In what follows, I will briefly outline the structural, distributional and, if applicable, functional differences between it-, wh- and rwh-clefts in English and their German counterparts, and try to account for the differences in terms of basic word order and information structure. German has two main types of cleft sentences.44 However, clefts as focus constructions in German differ significantly in structural, frequential and discoursefunctional terms from their English equivalents. For several reasons, they are a dispreferred option to convey focus in German.45 It has often been assumed that cleft constructions are considerably more frequent in English than in German (Altmann 1981: 7). Not only is the range of constituents that can be focused more restricted (but see Engel 1996: 298f.), German clefts also have a significant lower textual frequency in general (Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof 1999: 5f.). In this context, it has been argued that clefts have only peripheral status in German, because of the less restricted use of topicalization (Weinert 1995: 350). In principle, there are only little differences as to the grammatical features of clefts in the two languages. While the focusing of VPs in it-clefts is ungrammatical in both languages (Erdmann 1990b: 72 and Kiese 1993: 23f., 36), one important grammatical difference relates to subject-verb agreement in cases of NP focusing. In German, the finite form of the verb sein (‘be’) agrees with the focused constitu-
44. In keeping with the terminology used for English clefts, I will refer to German Spaltsätze as es-, (r)w-clefts and (r)d-clefts respectively. 45. Maybe this is one of the reasons why compared to English, clefts in German are not particularly well studied (Doherty 1999: 293). Generally speaking, it appears that from a discoursepragmatic point of view, focusing devices in German have neither been very well researched nor systematically or sufficiently treated in the standard grammars and handbooks (see Altmann 1981: 33ff. and Erdmann 1990b: 70).
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
ent (the logical subject), while in English the agreement pattern is determined by the grammatical subject it, see (3.10).46 (3.10) a. Es waren meine Brüder, die die ganze Arbeit machten. b. * It were my brothers who did all the work. c. It was my brothers who did all the work.
Similarly, the finite form of the verb sein agrees with the focused constituent (the logical subject) in German w-clefts, while in English wh-clefts both singular and plural forms are possible, the plural form being preferred (Kiese 1993: 2), see (3.11). (3.11) a. What amused us most was/were Tom’s incredible stories. b. Was uns am meisten amüsierte waren Toms unglaubliche Geschichten.
This is confirmed by Berg (1998), who investigated the strategies that native speakers of American English and German employ in resolving number conflicts in subject-verb agreement caused by the competition of syntactic and semantic principles. Among the structures he tested, using a sentence-completion task where verb forms had to be inserted, were cases of NP inversion (for example Another example ___ the conflicts or A case in point ___ the natural sciences) and clefts. His findings demonstrate that native speakers of English seem to follow a syntactic agreement principle in cases of NP inversion, it-clefts and to a lesser extent in wh-clefts. More than 70% of the informants used a singular verb form with complements as subjects (Another example is the conflicts), 100% used a singular verb form in it-clefts (in keeping with the grammatical subject), while wh-clefts yielded a majority of plural responses (80%). For native speakers of German, Berg observed almost exactly the reverse: they preferred a semantic agreement principle and provided a plural verb form in keeping with the logical subject (percentages ranging from 88% to 100%). Apart from agreement, there is also another highly important difference between it-clefts in the two languages. Based on an investigation of English-German translation corpora, Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof (1999) found that only a third of the German es-clefts in their corpora showed standard word order, whereas two thirds additionally topicalized the focused constituent, exemplified in (3.12)b. (3.12) a. Es waren meine Brüder, die die ganze Arbeit machten. b. Meine Brüder waren es, die die ganze Arbeit machten.
46. Constituents that are in agreement are italicized.
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Such ‘reversed es-/it-clefts’ are also possible in English as shown in (3.13), but appear to be extremely rare (Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof 1999: 5). (3.13) Hyypia it was who held the team together for 44 nervous minutes last night, his impeccable timing and faultless distribution the only aspect of Liverpool’s play that was going to plan at that time. (The Times web edition, April 10, 2002)
This demonstrates that even when an es-cleft is actually used in German, there is still a tendency to topicalize the focused constituent (see also Miller 2006: 181). A major difference between w-/wh-clefts can be observed in the range of w-/ wh-elements that occur. In standard English, the focusing of animate subject- and object NPs in it-clefts using who is of dubious acceptability. By contrast, this is perfectly possible in German (Dyhr 1978: 73 and Kiese 1993: 62, 64f.), see (3.14) and (3.15). (3.14) a. ??Who finally kissed Mary was Peter. b. Wer Mary küßte war Peter.
(animate subject NP)
(3.15) a. ??Who(m) Peter kissed was Mary. b. Wen Peter küßte war Mary.
(animate object NP)
In English, what is by far the most frequent wh-element, followed by where. Weinert (1995: 344f.) only finds what as wh-element in her English data, and neither Erdmann (1990b: 73) nor Kiese (1993: 64f.) find a single instance of who in their corpora. German, however, permits a much broader range of w-elements in clefts: not only was, wo, and wer, but also wessen, wem, wen, and worauf, worin, worum, worüber, wovon etc., see (3.16) – (3.20).47 (3.16) Was er nach Hause brachte, war seine Entlassung und die ShakespeareSonette. (3.17) Bückware war also nicht billig, sondern teuer, und wer sich bückte, war nicht der Kunde, sondern der Verkäufer. (3.18) Denn worauf es bei den “Cahiers” ankommt, ist der Prozeß einer Denker fahrung, den die während eines langen Lebens gemachten Aufzeichnungen nachzuvollziehen erlauben. (3.19) Worum es jetzt geht, ist diesen Werten neue Geltung zu verschaffen. (3.20) Worüber es zu streiten gilt, sind allerdings die Mittel und Wege, die echter Heilung den Weg bahnen. 47. The German examples were retrieved from the DWDS corpus, a large and balanced corpus of German texts of the 20th century accessible at http://www.dwdscorpus.de/.
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
Dyhr (1978) provides a contrastive investigation of cleft constructions in German and Danish. He observes that in German, es-clefts occur more than twice as often as w-clefts (1978: 178f.). Moreover, subject NPs are by far the most frequently highlighted constituent in es-clefts, followed by object NPs. Only rarely do adverbials appear in focus position. In w-clefts, however, the focusing of subject and object NPs is roughly equally distributed. These results are confirmed by two contrastive studies of clefts in English and German carried out by Erdmann (1990b) and Kiese (1993). Both studies are based on corpora consisting of original texts from both languages (mostly books and newspapers), and German translations of a number of English texts. While it- and es-clefts occur with similar frequencies in the two languages, it-clefts being slightly more frequent in English, wh-clefts clearly outnumber German w-clefts. This distribution is illustrated in Table 11 and 12. Table 11. Frequencies of cleft types in English and German (Erdmann 1990b/Kiese 1993) es-/it-cleft erdmann
kiese
w-/wh-cleft erdmann
kiese
German
161
496
38
155
English
161
617
138
507
Comparing the syntactic functions of the focused constituents in es-/it-clefts, both studies show that in English, subject and object NPs occur with similar frequencies (43:37 tokens in Erdmann 1990b, 105:152 in Kiese 1993). In German, however, the highlighting of subject NPs clearly predominates. The focusing of adverbials is very frequent in English, but rare in German. Table 12. Focused elements in es-/it-clefts in English and German (Erdmann 1990b/Kiese 1993)
subject np object np adverbial other total
german erdmann
kiese
english erdmann
kiese
134 (83.2%) 20 (12.4%) 7 (4.3%) 0 161 (100%)
386 (77.8%) 89 (17.9%) 17 (3.4%) 4 (0.9%) 496 (100%)
43 (26.7%) 37 (23%) 81 (50.3%) 0 161 (100%)
105 (17%) 152 (24.6%) 288 (46.7%) 72 (11.7%) 617 (100%)
Not only is the focusing of adverbials more common in English, it-clefts also show a broader range of focused adverbials than German es-clefts. In English
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it-clefts virtually the whole semantic range of adverbials can occur in focus position (Erdmann 1990b: 72 and Kiese 1993: 36ff.). In German, however, the focusing of adverbials is possible in es-clefts, but appears to be marginal (Dyhr 1978: 99f., 108ff.). If it does occur, it is only temporal, locative and frequency adverbials that are regularly found48 as in (3.21).49 (3.21) Ein Dokumentationszentrum am Brandenburger Tor wäre zweifellos die touristenfreundlichste Lösung. Doch Kritiker wehren sich gegen einen weiteren Gedenkort unmittelbar neben dem riesigen Holocaust-Mahnmal. Dem entgegnen die Antragsteller, dass es am Brandenburger Tor nun mal eine "Verdichtung deutscher Geschichte" gebe. „Hier war es, wo Ronald Reagan Michail Gorbatschow zugerufen hat: „ ‚Tear down this wall’ “, sagt Thiele. „Und hier war es, wo die Menschen 1989 auf der Mauer tanzten“. (Spiegel Online, January 12, 2005)
Further evidence for the difference between focusing devices in English and German is provided by a number of translation studies (Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof 1999; Doherty 1999, 2001a, and 2003; Schmid 1999). Examining parallel corpora of English-German texts, Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof (1999) found that only about a third of English it-clefts were translated with the German equivalent, the es-cleft. Other structures were preferred even when a German Spaltsatz was a grammatically possible translation. They noted an overall preference for monoclausal sentences in the German translations (1999: 13, 23). They further analyzed which structures were used in the German translations to emphasize the constituent which appeared in focus position in the English it-cleft. Their findings show that the discourse function of English itclefts may not only be translated into German by using a Spaltsatz, but can also be rendered appropriately, often even preferably, by using language-specific features such as topicalization, focus particles or a combination of both.50 ‘Topicalization’ here again means moving the focused element to the German 48. See Erdmann (1990a: 72), Kiese (1993: 24f.,41f.), Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof (1999: 6) and compare Dyhr (1978: 99f., 108ff.) and Thein (1994: 118ff.). 49. Note again the topicalization of the adverb and the reversed order of subject and verb in the cleft clause. 50. See also Miller (2006: 181f.). Doherty (2003) studied sentence beginnings in English texts and the corresponding German translations. She observed that the German sentence beginnings differ most significantly in that they more often exhibit topicalized arguments and adjuncts. Doherty (1999: 302) finds that in German translations, English clefts frequently occur as ‘declefted’ variants enriched by focus particles. In another paper, the same author (2001a: 289) argues that clefts, topicalization and focus particles are focusing devices which to some extent
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
Vorfeld, optionally supplemented by a focus particle, see (3.22), adapted from Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof (1999: 19). (3.22) a. It is these properties that make them attractive as anticancer agents. b. Es sind diese Eigenschaften, die sie als Wirkstoffe gegen Krebs vielver- sprechend erscheinen lassen. [es-cleft] c. Diese Eigenschaften sind es, die sie als Wirkstoffe gegen Krebs vielver- sprechend erscheinen lassen. [reverse es-cleft] d. Diese Eigenschaften lassen sie als Wirkstoffe gegen Krebs vielversprech- end erscheinen. [monoclausal sentence] e. Gerade diese Eigenschaften lassen sie als Wirkstoffe gegen Krebs viel- versprechend erscheinen. [monoclausal sentence + focus particle gerade (‘exactly’)]
Which option is actually chosen in the translation seems to depend on the syntactic function of the constituent to be focused. Generally, it appears that if languages use fronting/topicalization to highlight a constituent, this change in word order is often combined with the occurrence of a particle.51 Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof found that English it-clefts with a focused subject or object are more often translated with a German es-cleft than those with adverbials (1999: 12; see also Erdmann 1990b: 79). When the focused constituent is an object, the German cleft is not as often used. Erdmann claims that focused objects in it-clefts that are translated by using a monoclausal sentence in German will usually be topicalized (1990b: 79). Similarly, only rarely are es-clefts used to translate focused adverbials. These are more often rendered using a monoclausal sentence and appear either in topicalized position or in the Mittelfeld (Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof 1999: 16). The preference for topicalization and the somewhat peripheral status of clefts in German has also been observed in a comparison of the frequency and use of rw-/rwh-clefts in the two languages. Weinert (1995) compared wh- and rw-/rwh-clefts in English and German, contrasting their discourse functions with those of preposing/topicalization based on corpora that comprise two types of spontaneous spoken data: structured dialogue and conversation. Her results confirm yet again that w-/wh-clefts are more frequent in English than in German (1995: 344f., 362). More interesting, however, is the finding that in compete in German and that it may be due to processing factors which option is chosen in translation. 51. See Miller (2006: 128) for German and Russian. Crosslinguistically, the interaction and reinforcement of syntactic focus marking with morphological and/or prosodic coding devices is not an uncommon phenomenon (Drubig and Schaffar 2001: 1080).
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contrast to speakers of English, the Germans used only very few rw-clefts (cf. Miller 2006: 190). Weinert gives two main arguments to explain this significant difference. First, rw-clefts are extremely rare in German. They are structurally and functionally more restricted, often combine with focus (genau) or modal particles (ja, eben, doch) to supplement the focus, and thus create an even stronger focus than their English counterparts (Weinert 1995: 355). Second, topicalization in German is less restricted and not as strongly associated with contrastiveness as preposing in English. Hence, English uses rwh-clefts where German may use and prefers topicalization,52 compare examples (3.23) and (3.24). (3.23)
a. a’. b. b’.
Das meine ich. That I mean. Das ist was ich meine. That’s what I mean.
(3.24)
a. a’. b. b’.
Dort wohne ich. There I live. Dort ist wo ich wohne. That’s where I live.
The English rwh-clefts in (3.23)b’ and (3.24)b’ appear to be the more idiomatic, less restricted renderings of the topicalized German structures in (3.23)a and (3.24)a. Weinert summarizes: English and German are different in the way they front constituents, especially deictics. Whereas English is constrained by the nature of its demonstrative deictics and the function of Y-movement [Weinert’s term for preposing, MC] and can often only use RWH clefts, German regularly uses Y-movement. German also uses RWH clefts, but just as English Y-movement appears to have a more specialized function in English than in German, the converse is true in the case of clefts (1995: 353f.).
She argues that due to their deictic and attention-marking function and several other reasons, English rwh-clefts are effective where neither unclefted declarative sentences, preposed alternatives, nor it- or wh-clefts would work. In addition, she notes that only a small proportion of rwh-clefts indicate overt contrast, and that whereas preposing constructions regularly carry a contrastive interpretation, this is absent from rwh-clefts in the same context. Therefore, preposing would in many cases be ruled out in English due to an unwanted contrastive interpretation. 52. See also Miller (2006: 128). A similar finding is reported by Johansson (2001: 574) who states that Swedish fronted sentences are also commonly used to translate English rwh-clefts, since the two constructions share functional characteristics.
Chapter 3. Information structure and information highlighting
3.2.4 Lexico-grammatical means As far as lexico-grammatical focusing devices are concerned, German clearly uses focus particles more often than English. While particles in English mostly occur in spoken language, they are typical of both speaking and writing in German (Miller 2006: 128). Not only is German “a language with a particularly rich inventory of focus particles” (König 1991: 78), it also has a broader range of focus particles than English (Klein 1988: 376f., König 1982). As mentioned before, the discourse function of English it-clefts may not only be translated into German by using a Spaltsatz, but can also be rendered appropriately, if not preferably, by using language-specific features such as topicalization, focus particles or a combination of both (Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof 1999). König makes a similar observation and states that “cleft sentences in English are often used to translate sentences with gerade and eben in German” (1991: 129, note 1; cf. Miller 2006: 181f.). In a similar vein, translation studies often suggest adding lexical material, for example particles such as auch or schon when translating an English preposing construction with an equivalent German topicalized structure, since topicalization alone may not convey as strong an effect as does preposing in English (Kirkwood 1969: 97, Schmid 1999: 88, 118f.). German focus and/or modal particles are thus used in addition to topicalization to support the extra focus. Moreover, German shows a general preference for using (additional) lexical material to translate the intensifying and/or contrasting effects conveyed by English focus constructions. Especially illuminating in this respect is Schmid’s (1999) detailed study of marked word order patterns in English-German translation. By providing detailed examinations of translational alternatives of individual examples in context she demonstrates that the majority of structure-preserving German translations of the English sentences not only sound clumsy and awkward, but actually fail to render the (often implicit) meaning of the original (1999: 87–138).
3.2.5 Summary How can the above findings on the differences between focus constructions in English and German be explained? It appears reasonable to assume that the reasons for the distributional and functional differences can be traced back to the (in-)flexibility of the basic word order in the two languages. In German, information can easily be topicalized and focused by moving it into first position within a sentence. Clefts are used less often, and if they are used, then to highlight a subject, that is when focusing by topicalization is not possible (Erdmann 1990b: 75, Kiese 1993: 47, Engel 1996: 331, Doherty 2001a: 274). This is also confirmed by
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Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof (1999: 12) who found that English it-clefts with a focused subject or object are more often translated into German with a German es-cleft than those with adverbials. By contrast, preposing and inversion are contextually highly restricted in English, and clefting remains as an important focusing option (cf. Doherty 1999: 312, 2001b: 458). This may explain the overall higher textual frequency and the more balanced distribution of focused constituents in it-clefts in English. The consequences of basic word order for the ordering of information and the preferences for the use of focusing devices in the two languages can be summarized as follows. In German, changes in word order − topicalization and inversion − are preferred. They are inter-dependent, relatively unrestricted, and the focus they convey is not as narrow as the focus exhibited in English preposing. Generally speaking, it seems that monoclausal structures are preferred to more complex syntactic patterns such as clefts. Clefts do occur, but are used less often than in English. They are dispreferred, since their functions are often fulfilled by topicalization. If they are used, then to highlight a subject, that is when focusing by topicalization is not possible, and often in reversed order with the focused constituent appearing in sentence-initial position. Additionally, changes in word order and clefts are often supplemented and enforced by focus and modal particles. By contrast, English word order is rigid, with preposing and inversion being contextually highly restricted. Consequently, the manifold types of clefting are much more frequent and thus, preferred options.
chapter 4
Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
Although the highlighting of discourse elements using specific linguistic devices, particularly the use of focus constructions, is a potential learning problem even for advanced L2 learners, the interplay of pragmalinguistic knowledge and discourse organization is not well studied in SLA research. In this chapter, I first discuss the concept of pragmatics and pragmatic knowledge in SLA research. I will then address the interaction of syntax and pragmatics in language acquisition, and review previous studies on information structure and focusing devices. After briefly comparing the two major approaches that employ linguistic universals to explain SLA phenomena, I show how an integration of typological markedness and crosslinguistic influence can be applied to make predictions as to both the order and difficulty of linguistic features in the acquisition process. Finally, I propose several research hypotheses as a basis for the empirical study.
4.1
Pragmatics in SLA53
The interdisciplinary research domain of linguistic pragmatics has broadly been defined as the study of language from the point of view of the users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on the other participants in an act of communication (Crystal 1997: 301).
The notions of ‘language use’ and ‘social interaction’ are certainly at the core of this definition of pragmatics. Kasper and Rose (2002) in their discussion of pragmatic development in a second language set out to delimit what they consider pragmatics. They state that social interaction can be understood in a narrow and broad sense. While the focus of research in pragmatics has been on the narrow sense of social interaction, referring to “encounters in which at least two participants 53. Parts of this section have appeared in Callies (2007).
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are co-present and engaged in a joint activity” (2002: 3), they convincingly argue that, by taking an approach to pragmatics they call ‘pragmatics-as-perspective’, the meaning of social interaction can “usefully be extended to encompass all sorts of written and mixed forms of communication” (2002: 3). They conclude that “pragmatics-as-perspective has the advantage of being inclusive and open to study new research objects as pragmatics, without precluding them from being examined from a different angle as well” (2002: 5, emphasis in original). The research domain that investigates the interrelationship between discourse and grammar is also known as discourse pragmatics. Thus, it is feasible that this type of research falls within the scope of linguistic pragmatics. Pragmatics is usually seen as comprising two components: a sociopragmatic and a pragmalinguistic component. This is also reflected in the following definition of pragmalinguistics: the study of language from the viewpoint of a language’s structural resources; it contrasts with those pragmatic studies which examine the conditions on language use which derive from the social situation (sometimes referred to as sociopragmatics) (Crystal 1997: 301).
While the sociopragmatic component relates to the social setting of language use, including variables such as the cultural context, the social status or social distance of interlocutors, the pragmalinguistic component refers to, broadly speaking, the linguistic side of pragmatics, that is the range of structural linguistic resources from which speakers can choose when using language in a specific communicative situation. The study of pragmatics as a domain within SLA research is generally referred to as Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP). ILP has largely been modeled on cross-cultural pragmatics, adopting its research topics, theories and methodology (Kasper 1998: 1). ILP has predominantly been concerned with politeness phenomena by investigating non-native speaker comprehension and production of a small number of individual speech acts such as requests, apologies, refusals, complaints, compliments and compliment responses, and the use of internal and external modification to speech acts, as well as learners’ use of semantic formulas, such as discourse markers or lexical downgraders. The findings of these investigations have subsequently been compared with native speaker performance. ILP is commonly defined as “the study of nonnative speakers’ comprehension, production, and acquisition of linguistic action in L2” (Kasper 1995: 1) or “the study of nonnative speakers’ use and acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge” (Kasper and Rose 1999: 81). It is evident that in these definitions, the scope of ILP research is clearly not restricted to issues of politeness and the domain of speech acts. Furthermore, both definitions employ the notions of ‘linguistic action in L2’
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
and ‘L2 pragmatic knowledge’ respectively to refer to the general domain of inquiry. But what constitutes L2 pragmatic knowledge or competence?54 There are a number of models of language proficiency that aim to capture the ability of the L2 learner to use language in social interaction, all of which acknowledge to some degree the importance of pragmatic competence in L2 learning. The two most influential constructs, communicative competence and communicative language ability, will be discussed briefly in turn. In general terms, communicative competence can be defined as the fundamental concept of a pragmalinguistic model of linguistic communication: it refers to the repertoire of know-how that individuals must develop if they are to be able to communicate with one another appropriately in the changing situations and conditions (Bußmann 1996: 84).
In reaction to Chomsky’s dichotomy of competence and performance, in which the notion of linguistic competence only includes knowledge of abstract grammatical rules and sets aside contextual factors of language use, Hymes (1972) introduced the concept of communicative competence, containing both grammatical competence and knowledge of the sociocultural rules of appropriate language use. Canale (1983), building on Canale and Swain (1980), suggested a model of communicative competence that includes four major components: – grammatical competence (knowledge of the language code, that is vocabulary, the rules of phonology, spelling, morphology, and syntax needed to produce and understand well-formed sentences); – sociolinguistic competence (knowledge of appropriate use and understanding of language in different sociolinguistic contexts, with emphasis on appropriateness of both meanings and forms); – discourse competence (knowledge of how to combine and interpret grammatical forms and meanings to achieve unified texts in different modes by using cohesion devices and coherence rules); – strategic competence (knowledge of the verbal and non-verbal strategies used to compensate for breakdowns in communication and to enhance the rhetorical effect of utterances). Although these four components are described separately in Canale’s model, it should be made clear that the components interact with each other and also partly 54. The concept of (linguistic) competence as used in the present context refers to the learner’s (developing) state of knowledge of a specific component of the target language and is thus different from the use of the term in a Chomskian sense. The terms ‘pragmatic knowledge’ and ‘pragmatic competence’ are frequently used interchangeably in the ILP literature.
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overlap, but certainly do not stand alone. Pragmatic competence is not recognized as a separate module here, but implicitly included in the sociolinguistic component in a predominantly sociopragmatic, that is speech-act based sense. For the present study, the component of discourse competence seems to be particularly relevant. Although Canale sees discourse competence as bridging the gap between grammatical and sociolinguistic competence and includes it as a separate component, it is predominantly understood in a textlinguistic sense (hence the focus on coherence and cohesion), and does not take a pragmatic perspective on information structure adopted in the present study. A model of discourse competence which builds on Canale’s definition has been proposed by Archibald (1994: 59f.) and includes the following components: – cohesion: the knowledge of how the lexico-grammatical structures of a language may be used to produce connectedness in text; – coherence: the knowledge of the principles of relevance and cooperation and the illocutionary functions of language; – situationality: the knowledge of how a text is related to discourse context, and the role of background knowledge; – information structure: the knowledge of thematic structure, the ordering of given and new information. Though Archibald explicitly mentions information structure in his model, he also neglects the pragmatic component of IS and focuses on its textlinguistic properties. Building on the work of Hymes and Canale, Bachman (1990: 84) introduced the model of communicative language ability which is composed of three components: – language competence, “a set of specific knowledge components that are utilized in communication via language”; – strategic competence, “the mental capacity for implementing the components of language competence in contextualized communicative language use”, and – psychophysiological mechanisms, “the neurological and physiological processes involved in the actual execution of language as a physical phenomenon”. Particularly interesting here is the component of language competence which is further subdivided into
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
– organisational competence, which contains the modules of grammatical competence (the knowledge of vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and phonology), and textual competence, which “includes the knowledge of the conventions for joining utterances together to form a text, which is essentially a unit of language – spoken or written – consisting of two or more utterances or sentences that are structured according to rules of cohesion and rhetorical organisation” (1990: 88), and – pragmatic competence, which intends to capture the speaker’s or writer’s ability to achieve his or her communicative intentions through the use of language, subsumes illocutionary competence (knowledge of expressing and interpreting language functions and speech acts) and sociolinguistic competence, or “sensitivity to, or control of the conventions of language use that are determined by the features of the specific language use context” (1990: 94). In sum, an integration of Canale’s and Archibald’s construct of discourse competence, largely covering the pragma- and textlinguistic component of pragmatics, and Bachman’s definition of pragmatic competence, reflecting the sociopragmatic component, seems well-suited to account for the complex nature of L2 pragmatic knowledge/competence which is located at the syntax-pragmatics interface. More recently, L2 pragmatic competence has been defined as knowledge of the linguistic resources available in a given language for realizing particular illocutions, knowledge of the sequential aspects of speech acts and finally, knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of the particular languages’ linguistic resources (Barron 2003: 10).
Although this definition draws a useful distinction between pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge, it suffers from the fact that it centers around the notion of speech act, thus narrowing down the scope of pragmatic knowledge, reflecting the trend in ILP to almost exclusively focus on the domain of speech acts. Instead, I propose the following definition of pragmatic knowledge: L2 pragmatic knowledge is the knowledge of the linguistic resources available in a particular language for realizing communicative intentions, and the knowledge of the appropriate socio-contextual use of these resources.
More specifically, pragmalinguistic knowledge will be defined as a component of L2 pragmatic knowledge which relates to learners’ knowledge of the structural linguistic resources available in a given language for realizing particular communicative effects, and knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of these resources.
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Given the scope of both the definitions of ILP above and pragmatic knowledge, L2 pragmatic knowledge clearly includes more than the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities for understanding and performing speech acts. The principles of information organization in discourse and the use of sentences and utterances in specific communicative situations for conveying pragmatic functions such as intensification and contrast clearly relate to pragmatic knowledge in an L2. Just as the need to apologize or make an offer results in expressing these intentions by using the necessary pragmalinguistic resources, the communicative need to highlight information by intensifying or contrasting discourse elements results in using the necessary linguistic means to do so. Consequently, research that intends to examine L2 learners’ discourse-pragmatic abilities falls into the domain of ILP, since it aims to investigate learners’ knowledge of the linguistic resources available in an L2 for realizing particular communicative effects, and their knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of an L2’s linguistic resources. However, it is striking that, to my knowledge, there are hardly any studies that recognize the significance of L2 pragmatic knowledge beyond the domain of speech acts, let alone investigate this empirically in a systematic way. A notable exception is the increasing interest in the use of pragmatic markers by L2 learners. Therefore, the field of inquiry in ILP needs to be extended beyond the cross-cultural investigation of speech acts. Studying the use of lexico-grammatical and syntactic devices to highlight discourse elements in an L2 is also a rewarding enterprise with respect to the interrelationship of grammatical and pragmalinguistic abilities in SLA, an important issue in current ILP research. In the majority of studies that have been conducted in this framework, pragmatic competence is singled out as an individual component of communicative competence and thus, treated and investigated as an independent component of grammar (Kasper and Rose 2002: 159, 163). Some authors have identified a lack of research which explores the relationship between grammatical and pragmatic abilities in SLA (Bardovi-Harlig 1999, Kasper 2001, Kasper and Rose 2002). It is suggested that the development of pragmatic competence has to be seen as independent of the development of grammatical competence since “high levels of grammatical competence do not guarantee concomitant high levels of pragmatic competence” (Bardovi-Harlig 1999: 686). Kasper (2001: 506) and Kasper and Rose (2002, chapter 5) summarize the research findings on the relationship of interlanguage pragmatic and grammatical development which has lead to two scenarios: – Pragmatics precedes grammar: learners use L2 pragmatic functions before they acquire the L2 grammatical forms that are acceptable realizations of those functions;
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
– Grammar precedes pragmatics: learners acquire L2 grammatical forms before they acquire their pragmalinguistic functions. In support of the first scenario, Kasper and Rose draw on the “universal pragmatics principle” and functional approaches to SLA. A persistent belief in traditional foreign language teaching is the primacy-of-grammar view which claims that in order to successfully communicate in an L2 in terms of (socio)pragmatics, learners first need to have a solid knowledge of the target language grammar. However, the universal pragmatics principle states that unlike children in L1 acquisition, L2 learners are usually pragmatically competent in their L1, hence they bring a supposedly universal pragmatic knowledge to the task of L2 learning (Kasper and Rose 2002: 164). Moreover, functionally oriented research into the early stages of untutored SLA has found that learners move from a pragmatic mode through a process of syntacticization or acquisitional grammaticalization to a syntactic mode. The grammar-precedes-pragmatics scenario comes in three forms (see Kasper and Rose 2002: 174ff.): – Grammatical knowledge does not enable pragmalinguistic use (for example learners’ (non-)use of modal verbs in mitigating disagreement); – Grammatical knowledge enables non-target-like pragmalinguistic use (for example the overuse and pragmatic overextension of I think), and – Grammatical and pragmalinguistic knowledge enable non-target-like sociopragmatic use (for example learners’ use of information questions as indirect strategies in a number of speech act types and contexts in which more transparent strategies would be more effective). In sum, research findings suggest that there are differences as to the pragmalinguistic development of learners at different developmental stages in the L2 learning process. However, it still remains unclear how grammatical and pragmatic knowledge in an L2 exactly correlate.
4.1.1 The syntax-pragmatics interface in language acquisition In a study of the use of discourse-markers by native and non-native speakers of English, Romero Trillo (2002) argues that learners of a foreign language follow a binary track in their linguistic development: a formal and a pragmatic track. The formal track relates to the acquisition of the phonological, grammatical and semantic features of a given language, whereas the pragmatic track refers to the (social) use of language in different contexts and registers. While native speakers of a language develop both tracks simultaneously by means of naturalistic
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acquisition, learners of a foreign language, who mostly learn the language via formal instruction in a classroom setting, develop both the formal and the pragmatic track through formal instruction. Romero Trillo claims that the pragmatic track, linked to the cognitive, affective, and sociocultural meanings expressed by language forms, is difficult to implement in educational syllabi, and that the development of pragmatic competence demands a (pseudo-)natural foreign language context that is often impossible to create in classroom teaching. While native speakers follow what he calls a “function-to-form developmental process”, learners follow a “form-to-function process” (2002: 770). What lies behind Romero Trillo’s argumentation is essentially a model of linguistic knowledge, use and development that relates to the concept of modularity of the linguistic system. Thus, a speaker’s linguistic competence and performance is understood as consisting of several semi-autonomous modules such as phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, which have their individual structural and functional properties. Additionally, speakers have a pragmatic system at their disposal, and there are areas in which the modules of the grammar interact with each other and with the pragmatic system.55 Bos, Hollebrandse and Sleeman (2004) take a similar view for the process of language acquisition. They argue that language acquisition is not simply a question of acquiring the individual modules of the grammar and the lexicon, but also includes learning the interaction between these modules and their interaction with the pragmatic system. These interactional processes are known as interface relations. Of particular interest in the present context is the syntax-pragmatics interface, that is how the syntactic module interacts with the pragmatic system. According to Bos, Hollebrandse and Sleeman, the syntax-pragmatics interface can be constructed as comprising three components: 1. the module of pragmatics, which contains information about major concepts of information structure such as topic, comment, and focus, 2. the module of grammar, which contains phrase structure and movement rules, and 3. a set of mapping rules that determine how information from the pragmatic system is mapped onto the module of grammar and vice versa.
55. In contrast to the view that pragmatics exists as an autonomous system outside grammar, it has also been argued that it is in fact a separate submodule within the grammar (Harnish and Farmer 1984). See Meibauer (1999, chapters 5 and 9) for a useful discussion of (non-) modular approaches to pragmatics and its status within a modular linguistic system.
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
Furthermore, they claim that not all modules have equal status. While most of the pragmatic features may be universal, the syntactic and semantic means for expressing these features are to some extent language-specific. It can be assumed that in L1 acquisition the modules and their interaction are acquired more or less simultaneously due to the naturalistic environment and sufficient input. In L2 acquisition, however, the language specific modules and interface relations of the L2 develop next to those that have already been established in the L1. Hence, the question is how the interface between the L1 pragmatic system and the L2 syntactic module is acquired. In other words: the learner has to discover the particular form-function mappings that are typical of the L2. The mapping rules are considered to be language-specific, and the component of mapping rules is also the place where language variation is located. Bos, Hollebrandse and Sleeman illustrate this with examples (4.1) and (4.2) (2004: 102f.). (4.1) Ces Romains, ils sont fous. Those Romans, they are crazy.
(left dislocation)
(4.2) Ils sont fous, ces Romains. They are crazy, those Romans.
(right dislocation)
(4.3) Ces Romains sont fous.
In colloquial French, topics are placed in left- or right-dislocated position, but this is not the case in a more formal style of speech. Thus, there are two mapping rules for topics in colloquial French (mapping them to either the left- or right-dislocated position), but only one in formal French. Also important is the observation that mapping rules can differ with respect to the relative strength with which they apply. In both colloquial French and the formal variety, it is possible to map topics onto the canonical subject position as in (4.3). However, dislocation is clearly the preferred option in colloquial speech. Hence, the way in which languages or language varieties differ in terms of the pragmatics-syntax interface is dependent on a) differences in mapping rules from the pragmatic to the grammatical component, and b) the relative strength of one or the other mapping rule. The interface relations are further complicated by the fact that a discoursepragmatic notion such as focus can be expressed by using one syntactic construction in a language (one-to-one mapping), or by more than one syntactic construction (one-to-more mapping). As we have seen for English, focus can be achieved by using inverted and preposed constructions, but these options are highly constrained and dispreferred for several reasons. The mapping of focus onto it-, whand th-clefts is much more common and therefore, these constructions can be seen as preferred options. By contrast, one preferred option in German is topicalization.
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Although focus can also be achieved by using cleft constructions, these mappings have less relative strength, and are dispreferred options. In sum, learners of a foreign language have to find out a) which forms are used to realize which functions in the L2, and b) what relative strength individual forms have in the performance of specific functions. As for the acquisition of language-specific mapping rules, it can be assumed that L2 learners have to learn either entirely new one-to-one mapping rules that link information from the pragmatic component to L2 syntactic positions, or to reset the relative strengths of one-to-more mapping rules from their L1 to their L2. Sleeman (2004) has found that it seems to be easier for L2 learners to acquire a new and obligatory one-to-one mapping relation in the L2 than to reset the relative strengths of an optional one-to-more mapping rule. She compared the acquisition and use of French emphatic constructions (c’est-cleft, il y a-cleft and dislocation) by Dutch learners of French. Hence, her study considers syntax-pragmatics interface phenomena that map specific pragmatic functions (focus in cleft constructions and topic in dislocation) onto special syntactic constructions. In French, there are two types of clefts: the c’est-cleft, which carries contrastive or even exclusive value, and the il y a-cleft, which has presentational character. By contrast, clefts are only rarely used in Dutch. Hence, positive transfer is in principle possible, but quite unlikely. The contrastive/exclusive value of the French c’est-cleft is expressed by prosodic means in Dutch, while the il y a-cleft does not exist in Dutch. Additionally, French also frequently uses dislocations to mark topics. Mapping rules may differ with respect to the relative strength with which they apply. In both colloquial and formal French, it is possible to map topics onto the canonical subject position, dislocation clearly being the preferred option in colloquial speech. Although Dutch also has dislocation, hence enabling positive transfer, this mapping rule has less relative strength than in informal French. This brief contrastive sketch shows that Dutch learners of French have to cope with the following situation: – for the c’est-cleft, they need to acquire a new one-to-one mapping rule, namely that the pragmatic value of contrastiveness/exclusiveness is expressed by the c’est-cleft in French, which is rarely used in Dutch; – for the il y a-cleft, they also have to learn a new interface rule (the il y a-cleft does not exist in Dutch), and in addition, the relative strength of this mapping rule in relation to the canonical structure; – for dislocation, they need to discover a) a one-to-more interface rule which maps topics onto dislocations and canonical NP-VP sequences, and b) that this rule has more relative strength in both informal French and Dutch when compared with the canonical NP-VP construction.
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
Sleeman argues that obligatory one-to-one pragmatic-syntactic interface relations like the c’est-cleft are more easily acquired by learners than optional ones, that is one-to-more interface relations (dislocation and il y a-cleft ). Her findings suggest that as for the mapping of topics, Dutch learners appear to have greater difficulties in acquiring the dislocation construction instead of using a standard NP-VP sequence. Sleeman further argues that Dutch students learn the c’est-cleft through classroom instruction because it is compulsory and used in written language, but they do not learn dislocation in the same setting for it is optional and typical of spoken language. She claims that learners will have to be exposed to native spoken French in order to become aware of the relative strength of one-to-more interface rules in oral French. As for the early stages of L2 acquisition, it will be shown that in the basic variety, the sequencing of discourse elements is guided by universal principles of information structure which are subject to phrasal, pragmatic and semantic constraints that influence form-function mappings. Pragmatic constraints such as ‘topic first’ and ‘focus last’ organize information in connected discourse, namely that topics are mapped onto the initial subject NP and the focus onto the VP. Thus, this is a universal one-to-one mapping rule. The basic variety is also characterized by the fact that conflicts between constraints are avoided. However, it clearly has its limitations: there are discourse contexts and communicative situations in which the constraints conflict: semantic and pragmatic constraints like ‘controller first’ and ‘focus last’ may clash. It is these communicative limitations which push the learner to further acquisition beyond the basic stage and demand reorganization and extension. Klein and Perdue (1997) argue that at this stage, learners start relaxing either of the constraints and advance beyond the basic stage by using specific means and grammatical principles of IS in the target language such as focus markers, elementary clefts or passive constructions.
4.2 Information structure and focusing devices in SLA research 4.2.1 Information structure in early and advanced SLA The role of information structure and discourse organization has been addressed with increasing interest in SLA research with respect to both the early and advanced stages of acquisition, and there is evidence that information structure is an important factor for the dynamics of untutored language acquisition in particular (Dimroth and Starren 2003). Functional approaches to the understanding of the role of both syntax and information structure in discourse seem to be
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particularly relevant in early second language acquisition. Givón (1979b, 1984) adopts a functional-typological approach to SLA which is embedded in a unified theory of all kinds of language change. He proposes that speakers and linguistic systems go through a process of syntacticization and move from a pre-syntactic, discourse-based pragmatic mode of communication to a syntactic mode (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991: 267; Mitchell and Myles 2004: 137ff.). In the pre-syntactic mode, word order is mainly characterized by pragmatic principles like the information status of discourse elements (given before new) and the occurrence of topic-comment structures. In the syntactic mode, Givón assumes a process of syntactization that governs all language development. Several studies that have examined a number of features in the type of IL development proposed by Givón have yielded mixed results (Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991: 268f.), while other studies demonstrate the importance of basic pragmatic principles in L2 acquisition. The findings of the European Science Foundation Project Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants, a comparative analysis of untutored language acquisition from a crosslinguistic and longitudinal perspective, involving 40 case studies of learners of different backgrounds (Klein and Perdue 1992), suggest that information structure plays an important role in the linearization of learners’ utterances in a so-called ‘basic variety’ (Klein and Perdue 1997). It appears that in the early stages of untutored L2 acquisition in particular, the sequencing of discourse elements is guided by universal principles of information structure, which operate largely independently of the specifics of the L1s or L2s involved. In the basic variety, information structure precedes the acquisition of grammatical principles of linearization and is based on specific form-function mappings. Klein and Perdue have identified phrasal, pragmatic and semantic constraints that influence such form-function mappings. Phrasal constraints define patterns in which constituents may occur, and pragmatic constraints such as ‘topic first’ and ‘focus last’ organize information in connected discourse, namely that topics are mapped onto the initial subject NP and the focus onto the VP. Semantic constraints relate to the thematic roles of the participants and to the degree of control that one NP referent with a certain semantic role may have over another NP referent. According to what Klein and Perdue call the controller principle, “the NP with the highest degree of control comes first” (1992: 49). Broadly speaking, this means that NPs that have a higher degree of control over the other NP-referents in a sentence, consequently being more agent-like, appear in subject position and are acquired earlier. These findings suggest that in untutored settings, L2 learners do not need to acquire some basic semantic and pragmatic aspects of IS, since they are expressed from the earliest moments of L2 production. What is lacking in the early stages of
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interlanguage, however, are the phonological, lexico-grammatical and syntactic markers of IS. As for the advanced stages of SLA, a number of studies have clearly shown the relevance of L1 discourse structure for L2 acquisition by examining the two typological parameters relating to discourse organization: topic- vs. subjectprominence (Li and Thompson 1976) and pragmatic vs. grammatical word order (Thompson 1978). Research shows two contradictory claims on the role of the topic-/subject-prominence continuum in SLA (see Jung 2004): – Irrespective of the learners’ L1, the process of L2 acquisition is characterized by an early universal topic-prominent stage, and topic-/subject-prominence is not transferable (e.g. Givón 1979b, 1984); – The learners’ L1 does play a role in L2 acquisition, and as their L2 proficiency increases, native speakers of topic-prominent languages gradually increase the use of subject-prominent features in their L2 production. Schachter’s and Rutherford’s (1979) key study on the role of transfer examined compositions of Chinese and Japanese learners of English, students whose native languages can be characterized as topic-prominent. Errors in word order were found not to be grammatically motivated, but could be attributed to discourse factors. Schachter and Rutherford detected an overproduction of specific target language structures, namely it-extraposition (Japanese learners) and existential there-sentences (Chinese learners) which have no equivalents in the L1s. They hypothesized that overproduction was due to typological transfer from the learners’ first languages: the learners transferred L1 function, that is topic-prominent information structure, to L2 form (1979:10). Another important study that compared PWO and GWO languages in SLA is Rutherford (1983). He examined written production by Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Arabic learners of English and focused on the influence of the two typological parameters mentioned above. Rutherford found that the Mandarin, Japanese and Korean learners transferred discourse-related phenomena such as topic-prominence and pragmatic-word order from their L1s rather than sentence-level ordering phenomena that could be ascribed to the influence of their L1’s canonical word order like for example SOV (cf. also Rutherford 1989). He also noticed a gradual shift in the use of topic-prominence to target-like subjectprominence with the speakers’ growing L2 proficiency (1983: 362ff.). Hence, he hypothesized that it is typological principles of discourse, not syntax, which guide the development of an L2 (1983: 368). More recent studies have re-examined the influence of L1 topic-prominence on the L2 acquisition of a subject-prominent language. Green et al. (2000) investigated the use of topic-fronting devices (for and concerning), and logical
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connectors (besides, furthermore and moreover) by Chinese writers of academic texts in English. Using a contrastive corpus-based line of inquiry and data from a non-native speaker corpus of academic writing produced by Chinese subjects and three native-speaker corpora, they demonstrate that Chinese learners do have a greater tendency than native speakers to place the connectors under consideration in theme position, thereby introducing new information. However, the findings are less clear for the topic-fronting devices. This they explain by the fact that most of their subjects have passed through the interlanguage stage at which L2 output is largely influenced by syntactic and discourse characteristics of L1. They conclude that Chinese learners break the given-new progression too frequently and unintentionally by using theme position to introduce new information rather than to retain given-new sequencing of information, to introduce a new topical referent, or to present a contrast to what has gone before. The usurpation of theme position leads to the appearance of an uncommonly large number of marked themes which, in turn, gives rise to writing which is overly emphatic in tone at best and which, at worst, lacks the smooth logical development of theme which characterises coherent writing (2000: 110).
Han (2000) re-analyzed the occurrence of so-called pseudo-passive structures such as *New cars must keep inside in the interlanguage of Chinese learners of English. In line with earlier studies (for instance Rutherford and Schachter 1979), the pseudo-passive is seen as “a rendering of topic-comment structure with suppression of non-essential subject and deletion of co-referential/pronominal topic” (Han 2000: 84). She argues that the pseudo-passive is a direct reflex of the L1 topic-comment function as well as the syntactic structure. Han further claims that syntactically, the pseudo-passive represents the pre-attempt at an English passive and that the suppressed subject NP in pseudo-passives is subject to discourse constraints. Target-like passive structures are interpreted as indirect carry-overs of L1 topic-comment structure and function as underlying the pseudo-passives (2000: 83). Jung (2004) observes that most previous studies on topic-prominence in SLA have investigated interlanguage development from the direction of either topic-prominence to subject-prominence or subject-prominence to subjectprominence. She argues that to enable a better understanding of the role of language typology in L2 learning, the depth of research on the influence of topicor subject-prominence on L2 acquisition needs to be expanded by investigating interlanguage development from the direction of a subject-prominent L1 to a
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
topic-prominent L2. Therefore, her study examined English learners of Korean, a topic-prominent language. Jung notes a general shift in the use of subject-prominent to topic-prominent features in Korean L2 acquisition according to the learners’ proficiency levels. Learners with lower L2 proficiency tended to transfer subject-prominent features to their Korean interlanguage. But as their L2 proficiency developed, they showed a decrease in the use of subject-prominent features and an increase in the use of topic-prominent features such as the dropping of subjects and objects, the use of topic markers and double-nominative constructions. In sum, Jung’s results do not support the early universal stage of topic-prominence in L2 acquisition, but rather provide further evidence for the argument that learners transfer their L1 features in L2 learning and that with growing proficiency, they gradually become sensitive to the characteristics of the target language. A small number of studies provide evidence that information structure is a sensitive area for advanced learners and that they frequently experience problems to achieve a target-like IS. Plag (1994) examined information structuring in the interlanguage of advanced German EFL learners. On the basis of narratives produced by university students of English, he investigated how the learners encode brand-new information in L1 and L2 oral production, the differences between L1 and L2 production, and how these differences could be accounted for. His results show that the German learners exhibit an interlanguage-specific encoding of brand-new information. While they have a strong tendency to introduce new referents in comment position in their mother tongue, new referents are almost equally distributed among topic and comment position in their IL-narratives. Drawing on the findings of Kellerman (1979), Plag hypothesizes that the main reason of this IL-specific information sequencing is avoidance due to unexpected similarity between L1 and L2. He argues that although German and English show fundamentally different word order patterns, there is one functional domain with strong similarities: the introduction of new referents by using subject-verb inversion. While there is evidence that beginning and intermediate German EFL learners frequently produce incorrect inverted sentences such as *This watch has given you your elder brother in their IL (Jordens 1983: 346), evidence for the hypothesis that the IL-specific information sequencing is caused by avoidance comes from Plag’s observation that advanced German learners appear to have limited knowledge of presentative constructions56 and marked word order patterns, such as object preposing in English. He concludes that
56. Plag notes that only the most frequent English presentative constructions such as existential sentences (There is/was...) appear in the interlanguage texts.
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learners tend to avoid Verb 2nd/inversion structures typical of their native language when they introduce new referents to the discourse, and use the ‘safe’ SVO pattern with a prototypical, agentive subject (1994: 42).57
Bülow-Møller (1996) argues that information structure is particularly important in goal-related discourse types such as business negotiations, where clarity and argumentative power play a role. In a study of negotiation discourse between native speakers of American English and advanced Danish learners of English, all of which were business school graduates or postgraduates in their mid-twenties, she was interested in how well the negotiators were able to handle the process of back- and foregrounding information in discourse. Therefore, she analyzed how far discourse control and information packaging can be detected on the phrasal, clausal and sentential level. On the phrasal level, this involves the use of abstract, complex nominalizations with premodifications, on the clausal level principles such as given before new information, end-weight or syntactic features such as clefting, and on the sentential level the use of connectivity markers in marked-theme (that is topicalized) position such us preposed adverbials of time and place (so-called coherence bridges, see Givón 1995: 372) or topic markers such as with respect to. As for the packing of lexical information in the noun phrase, she found that the native speakers built up anaphoric chains so that a known item turns up later with premodifications, and that verbs will be turned into nominalizations, thereby allowing for greater density. By contrast, the non-native speakers used simple NPs with few modifications, and have difficulties in constructing premodifications and condensing information via abstraction (1996: 31). On the clausal level, Bülow-Møller restricts her analysis to prosodic marking of focus, but with respect to native and non-native use of the marked-theme position, she found that topic markers (on the other hand, as for) were almost exclusively used by the native speakers. Additionally, fronted adverbials were predominantly used by the native speakers, while both groups used only few fronted objects, none of which received contrastive stress. As does Plag (1994) for German learners of English, she hypothesizes that “the difference between native and non-native use of the marked-theme position is not so much a matter of mistakes as of significant under-use on the part of the non-natives, that is it is an option not taken” (1996: 37).
57. See Hannay and Mackenzie (1990) for a similar finding as to clause ordering in the writing of Dutch learners of English. They prefer the ‘safe’ SVOX order they know to be grammatical, beginning the clause with the grammatical subject.
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
In sum, her findings suggest that information structure management is an important but problematic part of the L2 knowledge of non-native speakers and that they have difficulties in condensing given information and grounding it with the building of anaphoric relations and the placing of focus. Leube (2000) investigated the use of the principles of information structure and the implications of IS for word order in spoken texts produced by 36 very advanced English learners of L2 German, 20 of which she classified as near-native. The oral data were collected in a pseudo-experimental setting in which the learners described the assembly of a toy and retold a children’s story from a picture book. Leube observed differences in the texts produced by L2-learners and native speakers of German and found that “none of the learners was observed to structure instructional texts in the manner that German native speakers do” (2000:181). A further important observation was that “while the non-target-like structure did not obscure communication, it led to texts with ‘style’ problems” (2000: 182). Finally, Carroll et al. (2000) present a crosslinguistic study that deals with the relevance of principles of information organization in advanced adult SLA, taking into account the close interaction between typological features of languages and information structure. They compared native speakers of English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and advanced English and Spanish learners of German. Both populations were asked to describe a picture. The study considered the linguistic features used to encode topic or focus by examining the means native and non-native speakers use for reference introduction (existential and locational constructions), reference maintenance (NPs, demonstrative pronouns and adverbials such as there), and word order. A further aim was to identify factors that determine the selection of the linguistic forms used. The analysis is anchored within the framework of a semantic model of information organization (Klein and von Stutterheim 1987) that assumes that information selection and packaging is determined by perspective-driven processes of information organization. The model proposes two options of perspective-taking that speakers select when organizing the flow of information in carrying out complex tasks, such as describing a scene: a spatial and an object-based perspective. In the first, speakers take a spatial orientation in describing selected entities as in Starting on the left-hand side there is an old castle or Further on toward the center there is a small square, whereas in the second, the perspective is object-based in that the focus of attention is on things or persons, for example in utterances like There are tall narrow buildings like you would see in a European city or There’s a canal running through it and there are lots of trees (2000: 445). One of the most significant findings is that English and German show language-specific preferences with respect to perspective-taking in information organization. Native speakers of English and the Romance languages take an
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object-based perspective, characterized by a clear preference for existential and presentational constructions in reference introduction, which correlates with a high rate of nominal forms (prepositions, with nouns, different types of pronouns) in reference maintenance. Existential and presentational constructions clearly serve to postpone unfamiliar information until the end of the clause. By contrast, native speakers of German adopt the spatial perspective and prefer locationals like Auf dem Platz ist ein Brunnen (‘On the square is a fountain’), correlating with a high rate of pro-adverbial forms such as daneben (‘next to’) (2000: 449f., 459). Carroll et al. assume that this difference in perspective has to do with a fundamental typological difference between the two languages. While in English topics are typically mapped onto the syntactic subject of a clause, in languages with overt case marking and relatively free word order such as German this function is marked by reserving a slot in sentence-initial position. They summarize their findings by stating that the interlanguages of the learners show a high degree of compatibility with German in formal syntactic terms and are near native in many respects, but the levels at which the IL and target language diverge can be linked to fundamental principles of organization underlying information structure. Although the stage of acquisition is advanced, the languages still retain core principles in information structure typical of those found for English and Romance languages (2000: 442).
4.2.2 Lexical intensifiers and focus particles Lorenz (1998, 1999) presents a detailed study of adjective intensification used in written texts by advanced German learners of English using material from the German subcorpus of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE, Granger et al. 2002) and a corpus of comparable native speaker writing, the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS). He adopts a functional perspective by “contrasting the ways in which native and non-native writers deal with the problem of ‘how to scale an adjectival quality’ “(1998: 55). For that purpose, he extracted from the corpus all those lexical items or phrases which were found to focus on an adjective and which had an intensifying effect.58 A major finding with respect to the overall intensifier counts in the corpora is that the learners use far more intensifiers than the native speakers. To uncover
58. Note, however, that Lorenz used the set of scalar intensifier categories proposed in Quirk et al. (1985) and included not only amplifiers, but also downtowners, which do not intensify, but rather scale down the effect of the modified adjective.
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
the reasons why German learners tend to overintensify, Lorenz considered three hypotheses: 1. Intensification has a different function for the two groups, 2. Cross-cultural differences: the Germans may be more likely to overstate an issue and thus, overuse emphatic devices, whereas the British may simply follow the cultural norm of understatement in their writing, 3. Lexical insufficiencies on the side of the learners: their inventory of adjectives may simply be too narrow so that they use intensifiers more often to boost the meaning of an adjective they felt to be too weak for their argumentative purposes in some contexts. However, none of his initial hypotheses turned out to be well-founded. An investigation of the kinds of adjectives that were most frequently intensified by the learners and native speakers revealed that seven out of the top ten intensified adjectives were the same (for example important, good, different, interesting, difficult), and that both populations used adjective intensification for the same functions: attracting and channeling the reader’s attention, and differentiating and enhancing the meaning of a very general adjective (1998: 56). Also, Lorenz found that the learners “overused all the individual scalar intensifier categories – even those which are more commonly associated with understatement” (1998: 57). Finally, the learners not only used a wider range of near-synonymous words (for example minute, enormous, tiny, gigantic, huge, massive or vast as variants of big and small), they also used affixation in order to scale the meaning of adjectives as in greyish, ultra-strong, super-cool or hyper-developed, a means the native speakers did not use at all. Considering what Lorenz identifies to be the main function of adjective intensification, namely “highlighting what is interesting, relevant and new to the reader”, he relates adjective intensification to the principles of information structure and thus, the presentation of given and new information (1998: 61). He observes that in the learner texts, subject NPs tend to be unnaturally heavy, and that the use of intensifiers contributes significantly to that effect. Intensifieradjective combinations, which in turn modify the subject NP, are not placed in rheme-position, but occur sentence-initially. Lorenz argues that “such ‘packed themes’ present the reader with more information and emphasis than the reader would normally anticipate” (1998: 63). On the basis of these observations, he concludes that advanced German learners have problems as to the structuring of information within the clause, and that the aforementioned violation of the principle of end-weight causes the observed unidiomatic style. In sum, Lorenz’ study, which from the outset was mainly concerned with specific lexical means to express intensification, has yielded important results with
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respect to the role of information structure in the L2 English of German learners. In view of this evidence, it may even be further hypothesized that advanced learners are not explicitly familiar with the syntactic principles of information structure and thus, lack the syntactic means to highlight discourse elements. One of the consequences may be that they overuse lexical means of intensification to compensate for a lack of knowledge or confidence to use syntactic means. Further support for such a line of argumentation is provided by Hinkel (2002). She provides a detailed analysis of L2 writers’ texts and identifies explicitly and quantifiably where their texts differs from those produced by native speakers of English. She carried out a large-scale, corpus-based study of placement essays written by university-level, non-native speakers of English from six different languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Arabic), and compared them with those produced by American college students enrolled in first-year composition courses. Her findings show that even after several years of ESL and composition training, L2 writers’ texts differ significantly from that of beginning NS writers. Focusing on common linguistic and rhetorical features of academic text, Hinkel investigated the frequencies of uses of numerous linguistic features in three categories: (a) syntactic and lexical, (b) clausal and (c) rhetorical. Among the features that her NNS informants used with significantly higher median frequency rates than the NSs were amplifying adjectives and emphatics. Hinkel found that all groups of NNS significantly overused amplifiers. She hypothesized that “NNS writers relied on restricted syntactic and lexical repertoires and, hence, employed other means of conveying their ideas and the degree of their conviction” (2002: 126). This hypothesis is further supported by the fact that the NNSs also overused emphatics such as a lot, surely, indeed, outright and such a + noun (2002: 157). Turning to focus particles and their role in IS, these have mostly been studied at the basic stages of untutored language acquisition, and from a crosslinguistic, functional-typological perspective.59 The research findings suggest that in the early stages of language acquisition, particles are used with narrow scope, placed adjacent to the affected discourse element, and only in the later stages, with the acquisition of finiteness, are the particles used with a larger scope, in more distant sentence position of the affected element(s). Thus, the development
59. See Dimroth and Klein (1996) for German nur, auch, sogar; Watorek and Perdue (1999) for French/Italian aussi/anche, encore/ancora; Dimroth and Watorek (2000) for also in French (aussi), German (auch), and Dutch (ook); Dimroth (2002) for the German additive scope particles auch, noch and temporal adverbials immer noch, wieder; and Hulk (2003) for aussi/ook in French and Dutch.
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of a syntactic domain for the particle reflects morphosyntactic development in utterance structure.
4.2.3 Pragmatic markers Most descriptive analyses of pragmatic markers are based on native speaker usage, and in the literature on SLA, as well as in EFL teaching, this topic is still largely neglected (Müller 2004: 1157f., Müller 2005). Lenk (1997) observes that little research has been done on the acquisition of pragmatic markers, both in L1 and L2 acquisition, and that their importance in foreign language learning has for a long time failed to attract the attention of dictionary publishers, which can be seen in the fact that many dictionaries include only scarce, even incorrect references to and descriptions of the functions of such markers in discourse. On the basis of informal observations, Lenk argues that discourse markers have a salient function in discourse organization, and thus may attract learners’ attention at an early stage, especially in naturalistic, untutored language acquisition. Cheng and Warren (2001) examined the use of the pragmatic marker actually in intercultural conversations on the basis of a corpus of naturally occurring conversations between native and non-native speakers of English in Hong Kong. Their findings suggest that Hong Kong Chinese speakers of English use actually far more frequently than native speakers of English, and that the patterns of usage are remarkably similar in certain respects. However, they also found differences in use and in the position actually occupies in utterances, which in turn can affect the way it functions. Müller (2004, 2005) studied the usage and functions of so, well, you know and like in native and non-native English discourse (American students and German EFL learners) on the basis of a parallel corpus of spoken language. She found that of the several functions of discourse markers found in the data, some are used more often by the learners than by the native speakers. For instance, the learners use well more frequently than native speakers in comparison to the discourse marker so, especially in comparable functions of the two markers. These findings are interpreted in terms of the respective frequencies of well and so in German textbooks of English, and an overuse of well by the German students to avoid the German-sounding so. Finally, Fuller (2003) analyzed the use of selected pragmatic markers by native and non-native speakers in two speech contexts, namely interviews and conversations. Her findings indicate that native speakers use oh and well more in the conversation data, a difference which is also found in the non-native speaker data. The native speakers use like and y’know more frequently in the interview data, but the
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non-native speakers do not show a difference in the use of these markers across contexts. Instead, non-native speaker discourse is characterized by formulaic use of some markers and an overall lower rate of occurrence of pragmatic markers.
4.2.4 Focus constructions Empirical research on marked word order and focus constructions in (English) L2 is sparse,60 and has predominantly been concerned with the grammatical features of focus structures. The few existing studies mostly used metalinguistic tasks such as grammaticality judgments as the principal means of data collection. Only rarely have these been supplemented and validated by other data collection methods. Studies adopting a functional approach, investigating the pragmalinguistic side of focus constructions in learner language, are virtually non-existent. In Klein’s (1988) contrastive study of focus phenomena in English and German, German university students were given English it- and wh-clefts along with potential German equivalents, including clefts but also left- and right-dislocations, as well as sentences with focus particles and typographical marking of the focused constituent. Participants were asked to rank the German sentences according to their semantic equivalence to the English cleft construction. The main result of the study is that learners ranked only German clefts as real syntactic equivalents. Zimmermann’s (2000) study of it- and wh-clefts in German-English interlanguage employed acceptability judgments only. The data show deficits as to the learners’ competence of the grammatical restrictions of it- and wh-clefts, especially with regard to agreement patterns and the type of constituent that is permitted in focus position. Boström Aronsson (2001a, 2003) examined the use of it- and wh-clefts in argumentative writing of Swedish advanced learners of English, based on material from the Swedish component of ICLE, and LOCNESS. She found an overrepresentation of these constructions in the learner data compared to the native speaker data. She argues that the overuse of clefts by Swedish learners can most likely be explained by the fact that clefts are even more common in Swedish than in English, and are thus easily transferable into Swedish-English interlanguage. Moreover, she found that learners often use it-clefts in contexts where there is no obvious need to emphasize or highlight specific sentence constituents. She hypothesized that it is possible that learners are not fully aware of the thematic 60. Two more theoretically oriented studies are Trévise (1986) and Sornicola (2003).
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meanings and contextual effects of cleft constructions when writing in English, since they sometimes appear to use these constructions without taking the textual consequences into account. Sleeman (2004) compared the acquisition and use of the c’est-cleft, the il y a-cleft and dislocation by advanced learners of French, in particular (Dutch) university students, to the acquisition and use of these constructions by (Dutch) secondary school pupils learning French in a purely institutional situation. Her findings show that while learners use appropriate syntactic constructions to emphasize topics or foci, they do not use these syntactic constructions quantitatively in a target-like fashion. Plag and Zimmermann (1998) investigated fronting and inversion in German-English interlanguage using acceptability judgments supplemented by error identification, correction of unacceptable sentences, and translation. They observed significant differences between learners and native speakers and found that advanced learners are not fully competent as to the grammatical restrictions of inversion and fronting. With regard to production data, learners tended to avoid marked structures: they did not use the respective structures productively, but rather relied on canonical SVO word order. If they actually used marked word order types, they tended to use fronting, not inversion. Park and Zhang (2002) tested whether learners of English from diverse L1 backgrounds (Korean, Japanese, Russian, Thai, and Chinese) were aware of the information status of sentence constituents (the given before new principle) in dative alternation, locative inversion and the passive. Given a prompt sentence, participants were asked to choose between two semantically equivalent sentences, one showing marked, the other canonical word order. Park and Zhang found that the native speakers’ intuition on the given-before-new principle was most clearly observable in locative inversion (85% agreement rate), where both the fronted constituent and the verb (other than be) have to represent evoked or inferable information and must not contribute discourse-new information. Thus, native speakers predominantly rejected sentences in which the fronted constituent contained brand-new information. Their intuition was less clear in cases of dative alternation and passive sentences (agreement rates of 52% and 45%). The learners’ agreement rates for sentences exhibiting marked word order was lower than those of the native speakers, and no consistent results could be retrieved. For both groups, the researchers hypothesized that animacy effects may have played a role in their judgments. Unfortunately, the discussion and presentation of the study’s results is rather general and left unspecified. Moreover, it seems that the methodology used is not particularly well-suited to obtain evidence as to knowledge of information structure.
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Boström Aronsson (2001b, 2002), again using learner corpus material from ICLE, investigated the use of extraposition in the writing of Swedish advanced learners of English. She found that extrapositions of clausal subjects are more common in advanced learner writing than in native speaker writing. Boström Aronsson hypothesizes that it is a conspiracy of several factors that contribute to the differences between learners’ and native speakers’ use of extraposition. For instance, the learners may see the structure It is X that…/It is X to… as a formulaic expression which is easy to use as a sentence opening. Moreover, since extraposition is a means by which objective modality can be expressed, the overrepresentation of extraposition may reflect differences as regards the expression of modality in learner and native speaker writing. Hewings and Hewings (2002) compared extraposition in two computerized corpora of text (published journal articles from the field of business studies vs. MBA student dissertations written by non-native speakers of English). The student writers made more frequent use of it-clauses (38% more) than published writers, especially the functional types that indicate attitude (28% more), emphasis (91% more), and attribution (113% more), while they made less use of it-clauses in hedging (17% less). Hewings and Hewings conclude that “student writers make a much greater and more overt effort to persuade readers of the truth of their statements than do the published writers” (2002: 380f.). In particular, the overrepresentation of the emphatic uses suggests that they “tend to state propositions more forcefully than is appropriate” (2002: 381). Palacios-Martinez and Martinez-Insua (2006) studied existential there-constructions in Spanish EFL learners using the Spanish component of ICLE and the Santiago University Learner of English Corpus, compared to NS data from LOCNESS and a subcorpus of the BNC. Their findings show that there-constructions are overrepresented in the written production of Spanish students due to three interacting reasons: these structures are introduced early in language teaching, they are learnt as prefabricated patterns or formulaic expressions, and their communicative functions are similar in the two languages, thus enabling positive transfer. Not surprisingly, NS have a wider repertoire of verbs that appear in there-sentences than NNs. Moreover, learners occasionally confused it and there as dummy subjects. Hinkel (2002), mentioned above, who in her large-scale, corpus-based analysis of second language writers’ texts investigated the frequencies of use of numerous linguistic features, among them clausal ones,61 claims that “in formal written 61. Hinkel apparently also studied the use of that- and wh-clauses in clause initial position (2002: 130), which is of course highly interesting in terms of the (non-)use of extraposition and students’ knowledge of the end-weight principle in English. Unfortunately, the discussion and
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text, highly advanced and trained NNSs employ the vast majority of language features in dramatically different rates than first-year NS students do” (2002: 74). While both native and non-native writers tend to use syntactically and lexically simple constructions, marked by features of informal speech typical of the conversational and spoken genre, the rates of use of these features in NNS academic essays greatly exceeded those found in NS texts. Hinkel concludes that “L2 writers’ accessible language base simply lacks the appropriate and varied syntactic and vocabulary arsenal available to NS students of similar academic standing” (2002: 74). Especially interesting for the present purposes are what Hinkel calls subject ‘slot fillers’: Non-referential it used in it-clefts and extraposition, as well as existential there. These dummy subjects are characteristic features of subject-prominent GWO languages. As for non-referential it, Hinkel found that NS writers used this feature significantly more often than writers of all other NNS groups. Interestingly though, the NSs used it-clefts with significantly lower median frequency rates than the NNSs (2002: 87). By contrast, no such differences could be found for existential there, except for native speakers of Arabic who underused this feature (2002: 89f). Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas (2005) examined the use of the passive, extraposition, inversion, pseudo- and it-clefts, and existential there by NS and NNS scientists in oral conference presentations and the resulting conference proceedings from the point of view of information structure. NS and NNS speakers/writers differ in their use of syntactic structures. While NSs use the passive and extraposition more in writing, they seem to prefer inversion,62 pseudo-clefts and existentials when speaking. By contrast, the NNSs appear to overuse the passive and extraposition in speaking, but use pseudo-clefts and existentials particularly less often in this mode. It-clefts are extremely rare in both groups. Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas argue that while the NSs differentiate strongly between the two modes, the NNSs do so to a lesser extent. They also find that NNSs show deficits
presentation of the results of this part of the study is rather general and left unspecified so that no detailed results could be retrieved for the present purposes. 62. Surprisingly, the authors’ findings suggest that inversion is a typical feature of the spoken mode. They even – erroneously – refer to Biber et al. (1999) for support (2005: 46). However, Biber et al. clearly state that full inversion is relatively rare and strongly conditioned by context. It is least common in conversation and virtually restricted to the written mode (1999: 926). All cases that Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas count as inversions contain fronted locative adverbials, the verb being a form of be. However, most of the fronted adverbials are here and there (54 out of 65 cases), with only ten cases being ‘true’ locative adverbials, for example out to the left or in the center. This may explain the divergent results.
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as to the functions of extraposition and pseudo-clefts in information-packaging, in particular when it comes to concepts such as syntactic weight and information highlighting (2005: 52ff.). In sum, these findings clearly indicate that while NS scientists manipulate information structure in a context- and genre-sensitive way, NNS scientists show much less grammatical adaptability to the information packaging requirements of the discourse genre, particularly in their oral presentations. Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas conclude that this may have a negative impact on the rhetorical appropriacy and persuasiveness of their discourse. Finally, Callies and Keller (2008) report on a study that examined a group of advanced German L2 learners’ awareness and use of English focusing devices. German university students of English were confronted with a literary text in which focus constructions abound, and then given several tasks to assess their awareness of and ability to (re-)produce them. The findings show that even advanced students have only a very general awareness of information highlighting by means of formal aspects and genre-specific devices, while their awareness of syntactic means is very low.
4.2.5 Summary The research findings on the role of information structure and focusing devices in L2 acquisition can be summarized as follows: – There is a close interaction between typological features of a language and its language-specific principles of information structure, as well as the linguistic means used to encode informational principles such as topic or focus. – Discourse structure and the pragmatic principles of information organization in the L1 may influence L2 acquisition in terms of transfer/overproduction (Schachter and Rutherford 1979, Rutherford 1983), or avoidance (Plag 1994). – Information structure management is an important but problematic part of the L2 knowledge of NNS, and they may have difficulties in condensing given information and grounding it with the building of anaphoric relations and the placing of focus (Bülow-Møller 1996). – Even at the advanced stages of L2 acquisition, in which ILs can be considered near-native in many respects, some core principles of information structure typical of those found in the native languages of the learners are retained, and divergences can be attributed to fundamental principles of organization underlying information structure (Carroll et al. 2000).
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Studies that have examined the frequency and use of individual focusing devices by (advanced) L2 learners have yielded the following results. These learners – have a limited awareness of the appropriate use of lexical and syntactic focusing devices in formal and informal registers in the spoken and written mode (Hinkel 2002, Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas 2005, Callies and Keller 2008). – tend to overuse lexical means of intensification such as intensifying adverbs and emphatics (Lorenz 1998, 1999 and Hinkel 2002), which may be due to restricted syntactic and lexical repertoires. – also tend to overuse sentence types headed by the dummy subjects it and there like extraposition (Boström Aronsson 2001b, 2002; Hewings and Hewings 2002), it-clefts (Boström Aronsson 2001a, 2003; Hinkel 2002), and existentials (Hinkel 2002; Palacios-Martinez and Martinez-Insua 2006), which are characteristic features of subject-prominent GWO languages such as English. – are not fully competent as to the contextual use and effects of specific syntactic devices (it-clefts, Boström Aronsson 2001a, 2003), and may see a certain structure as a formulaic expression (Boström Aronsson 2001b, 2002 on extraposition; Palacios-Martinez and Martinez-Insua 2006 on existentials). – show deficits with respect to the functions of extraposition and wh-clefts in information-packaging, in particular when it comes to concepts such as syntactic weight and information highlighting (Rowley-Jolivet and CarterThomas 2005). More specifically, it can be stated for German learners of English that they – appear to have limited knowledge of presentative constructions and marked word order patterns, such as inversion and preposing (Plag 1994). – are not fully competent as to the grammatical restrictions of inversion, preposing and it- and wh-clefts (Plag and Zimmermann 1998, Zimmermann 2000), and with regard to production data, they tend to avoid marked structures, but rather rely on canonical SVO word order. If they do use marked word order types, they tend to use fronting, not inversion (Plag and Zimmermann 1998). – have problems as to the structuring of information within the clause, and tend to violate the principle of end-weight, causing an unidiomatic style in their written English (Lorenz 1998).
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4.3 Language universals, markedness and crosslinguistic influence in SLA In this section, I will point out how the observations and generalizations made by language typologists can be applied to SLA theory by comparing the two major approaches that employ linguistic universals to explain SLA phenomena: Universal Grammar and the functional-typological approach. I will briefly review how markedness has been understood and used in SLA research and theory, focusing on how the concepts of typological markedness and crosslinguistic influence can be integrated and applied to make predictions as to both the order and difficulty of linguistic features in the acquisition process.
4.3.1 Language universals, language typology and SLA: Universal Grammar vs. the functional-typological approach Typological analyses contribute to SLA research in general, and to the study of language transfer in particular, in three ways: they provide a basis for estimating language distance, they encourage the study of transfer in terms of systemic influences, and they allow for a clearer understanding of relations between transfer and developmental sequences (Odlin 1989: 45). There are two distinct approaches that employ linguistic universals to explain phenomena in SLA: the Universal Grammar (UG) approach and the functional-typological approach.63 While both approaches assume that specific implicational language universals which can be found in primary languages will also hold for interlanguages (Eckman 1988: 419), they differ significantly in a number of aspects.64 The UG approach to SLA is based on an in-depth, deep structure analysis of single languages to uncover abstract principles of UG. Language universals are derived from the theory by introspective judgment. Consequently, the UG approach is relatively theory-dependent, and only a limited number of grammatical features have been studied within this framework, mostly specific syntactic phenomena. Hence, the domain of inquiry is comparatively narrow (Gregg 1994: 3726 and Odlin 2003: 461), and the usefulness of UG in both describing the knowledge involved in SLA and explaining the SLA process may be questioned, because “most of the knowledge and skills involved in SLA fall 63. See MacLaughlin (1987, chapter 4), Eckman (1988), Braidi (1999, chapters 3 and 4) and Gass and Selinker (2001, chapters 6 and 7) for discussion. 64. See also the recent controversy on universals and explanation in SLA between Eckman (2004a, 2004b) and White (2004) in a special issue of Studies in Language.
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outside the UG domain” (Jordan 2004: 255). With respect to the present investigation, which involves syntactic and lexico-grammatical phenomena that exhibit a complex interaction of semantic, pragmatic and syntactic properties, a UG-based approach seems unlikely to be fruitful, although an explanation in terms of parameter-resetting may in principle be possible. In contrast to UG-based perspectives to SLA, the functional-typological approach considers selected grammatical features from a wide range of different languages, universals being derived from a broad-base of crosslinguistic empirical data. Hence, it essentially draws on a Greenbergian approach to language universals in that these are determined on the basis of crosslinguistic comparisons in an empirical way. The functional-typological approach is concerned with a surface level of descriptive analysis, involving relatively few theoretical assumptions and investigating a wide range of linguistic phenomena, thereby integrating syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects. Similar to functionally and typologically based approaches to linguistic research outside the Chomskian framework, the functional-typological approach to SLA (for example Eckman 1977, 1996, 2004a) acknowledges the importance of communicative needs in the shaping of a language’s formal properties, and seeks to explain language structure in terms of language function (Giacalone Ramat 2003: 2). It is based on the assumption that the findings and generalizations made by language typologists can also be applied to language acquisition, and argues for the significance of universal (implicational) hierarchies for the prediction and explanation of (non-)transfer in SLA. The basic assumption is that interlanguages are natural languages. If typological language universals are universal to all natural human languages, then they should also hold for ILs, as captured by the Interlanguage Structural Conformity Hypothesis (SCH): “All universals that are true for primary languages are also true for interlanguages” (Eckman, Moravcsik and Wirth 1989: 195).65 Since many language universals can be expressed in terms of (implicational) hierarchical relations with respect to crosslinguistic/typological markedness, it is reasonable to assume that such hierarchical relations between linguistic phenomena should also be present in ILs. Consequently, it should be possible to predict the occurrence of selected linguistic features in ILs, depending on their position in the hierarchy and the relative degree of typological markedness. When used within the functional-typological approach, the notion of typological markedness is defined as an empirically motivated construct, “determined 65. Chronologically, the SCH succeeded the formulation of the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH, Eckman 1977), which will be discussed further below (see Eckman 1996 for an outline of the development from the MDH to the SCH).
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on the basis of crosslinguistic data” (Eckman 1996: 201f.). The significance of typological markedness for the prediction of the (non-)transferability of linguistic structures and their acquisition, and how this concept interacts with the notion of language transfer, will be discussed in the following section.
4.3.2 Typological markedness and its interplay with crosslinguistic influence The concept of markedness has been used in SLA research to predict both the occurrence of transfer, and the relative ease or difficulty in the acquisition of L2 phenomena (see Rutherford 1982, Hyltenstam 1987 and Larsen-Freeman and Long 1991: 101ff.). It is generally assumed that marked features, due to their greater structural and cognitive complexity, and comparative infrequency, are less readily transferable from L1 to L2, and are also more difficult to learn than unmarked features. Yet, markedness and its application to SLA theory has been criticized, be it for the fact that the notion displays a certain degree of vagueness and indeterminacy, depending on whether it is used and interpreted in a structural, psycholinguistic or typological sense (Schmid 1997: 335), or with respect to its usefulness as an explanatory concept in SLA (for example Ellis 1994: 335; Gregg 1994: 3722; White 2004: 705). Nevertheless, provided a precise definition and anchoring in a theoretical framework, markedness is a valuable research tool with significant explanatory, if not predictive power. In view of the large amount of diverse empirical evidence, it is widely accepted that L2 acquisition is to some extent influenced by the native language, and that this influence may affect all linguistic subsystems (Odlin 2003), including discourse and information structure. Thus, the question is not whether or not transfer exists, but when, what, how much and why specific mother-tongue phenomena are transferred, while others are not. I will use the term ‘language transfer’ in the sense of crosslinguistic influence, defined by Odlin as “the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired” (1989: 27), thereby incorporating positive transfer as well as interference, avoidance and overproduction. With regard to making predictions as to the acquisition of linguistic structures and their (non-)transferability from a learner’s native language, Kellerman (1979, 1983) initiated a re-evaluation of the notion of transfer. In his view, the learner is an active decision-maker on what linguistic structures may be transferable into the second language. Transfer is seen as a cognitive process subject to three constraints:
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1. the learner’s perception of the distance between the first and the second language (what Kellerman calls the learner’s ‘psychotypology’), 2. the learner’s perception of the degree of markedness of a potentially transferable item in the L1 (‘perceived transferability’), and 3. the nature of the learner’s knowledge of the target language. Kellerman argues that if a linguistic feature is perceived as infrequent, irregular, semantically or structurally opaque, or in any other way exceptional, what we could in other words call ‘psycholinguistically marked’, then its transferability will be inversely proportional to its degree of markedness (1983: 117).
It is important to note that Kellerman’s approach to transfer is subject to a psycholinguistic rather than linguistic understanding of markedness in terms of psychological and perceptual complexity, not structural complexity (Rutherford 1982: 92, Hyltenstam 1987: 66). Psychotypological aspects of the cognitive organization of a learner’s interlanguage, such as perceived transferability, are essentially based on subjective learner perception, a phenomenon hard to objectify and with limited predictive power for the researcher. Applying the concept of typological markedness seems a much more practicable solution, especially since it enables researchers to objectify language distance along typological properties. Eckman (1977) argued that on the basis of a contrastive analysis of the L1 and L2 and the inclusion of the concepts of typological markedness and crosslinguistic influence, it should be possible to predict areas of difficulty for an L2 learner. He introduced the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH), reproduced below. The areas of difficulty that a language learner will have can be predicted on the basis of a systematic comparison of the grammars of the native language, the target language and the markedness relations stated in universal grammar, such that, (a) Those areas of the target language which differ from the native language and are more marked than the native language will be difficult. (b) The relative degree of difficulty of the areas of the target language which are more marked than the native language will correspond to the relative degree of markedness; (c) Those areas of the target language which are different from the native language, but are not more marked than the native language will not be difficult (1977: 321).
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In a nutshell, the MDH claims that L1 structures that are different from L2 structures and typologically more marked will not be transferred, whereas L1 structures that are different from L2 structures and typologically less marked are more likely to be transferred.66 Additionally, predictions can be made to both the order and difficulty of linguistic features in the acquisition process: Less marked structures will be acquired first or without difficulty, more marked structures are expected to be acquired later or with greater difficulty. In sum, the MDH identifies potential difficulties in the L2 learning process not merely on the basis of similarities and differences derived from a contrastive analysis (CA) of two languages (as in traditional CA), but through a combination of the concepts of typological markedness and crosslinguistic influence (Braidi 1999: 87). Therefore, in contrast to the concept of perceived similarity, the functional-typological approach to SLA has significantly more explanatory, if not predictive power, because the application of the generalizations made by language typologists enable SLA researchers to predict difficulties in the L2 acquisition of selected linguistic features, depending on their position in a hierarchy and the relative degree of typological markedness. In view of the opportunities that the functional-typological approach offers for the study and explanation of SLA, it has not been utilized in research to date as much as it could. Moreover, despite the fact that a wide range of features has been examined in linguistic typology, only few typological universals have been addressed in SLA research,67 notably the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan and Comrie 1977; compare Braidi 1999: 83 and Song 2001: 297, 318–337).
66. Schmid (1997) proposes an alternative to the MDH, which integrates the theory of linguistic naturalness as used in Natural Phonology and Natural Morphology (Dressler et al. 1987), for the explanation of cross-linguistic influence in interlanguage phonology and morphology. However, Schmid’s Naturalness Differential Hypothesis is basically a re-formulation of the MDH, and involves a mere substitution of ‘more marked’ with ‘less natural’. Hence, its explanatory power does not go beyond Eckman’s original proposal. Moreover, the definition of markedness used in the present study integrates the notion of cognitive complexity (reminiscent of Naturalness Theory) by postulating a correlation between markedness and the cognitive-physiological complexity of linguistic units. 67. See Callies (2006) for a study which draws on the thematic role hierarchy in a functionaltypological approach to the mapping of semantic roles to syntactic functions in SLA, and Callies (2008a, b) for an examination of the frequency and contextual use of raising constructions in the written production of advanced German learners of English, employing a universal hierarchy of raising processes.
Chapter 4. Pragmatics and information highlighting in SLA research
4.4 Research hypotheses I propose a number of research hypotheses as a basis for the empirical study, drawing on the contrastive analysis of the characteristics of IS in English and German, and the comparison of the availability and preferred use of focusing devices in the two languages, as well as the review of previous studies on IS and focusing devices in SLA research. These hypotheses can be related to the present study’s central research questions and implications for SLA theory as follows.
What is the impact of the principles of information structure in L1 German on the acquisition of L2 English? Due to the close interaction between the typological features of a language, its principles of information structure, and its linguistic means to achieve focus, it can be expected that to some extent, the learners’ native language (German) influences their L2 acquisition of English in terms of crosslinguistic influence, possibly as to both overproduction and avoidance of specific structures.
What (pragma)linguistic resources do native speakers of English and German EFL learners use to highlight information? In general, I assume that with regard to production data, learners will not use marked structures to a significant extent, but will rather rely on the canonical SVO word order structure of English. Thus, they will generally use fewer marked syntactic focus constructions than the NSs. Despite the fact that German also has two main types of cleft sentences, clefts are a dispreferred option to convey focus and have only peripheral status in German, because of the less restricted use of topicalization and inversion. If clefts are used, then to highlight a subject, that is when focusing by topicalization is not possible. Consequently, it may be hypothesized that clefts will be underrepresented in the learner data. However, in view of previous research findings and the assumption that learners appear to rely on ‘safe’ subject-prominent SVO-structures in English, I suggest that they will in fact overuse sentences types headed by the dummy subjects it and there such as extraposition, it-clefts and existentials, which are typical structures of a GWO language like English. This assumption is supported by the comparatively low degree of structural markedness of clefts in relation to the other syntactic means.
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As for inversion and preposing, I assume that the learners will rather use preposing, not inversion. On the one hand, inversion is structurally and functionally the most marked structure because it involves the reversal of two core syntactic arguments since the subject is moved into sentence-final position. On the other hand, locative inversion shows the closest similarities to German word order, which should in principle enable positive transfer. However, previous studies have shown that inversion is in fact avoided, the most likely cause being unexpected similarity with the native language.
Do native speakers and learners differ in their preferences for the use of certain (syntactic) means that are available to highlight information? In view of the possibility of crosslinguistic influence due to discourse structure, I suggest that German learners will show a preference for sentence-initial focus position and, broadly speaking, use operations that topicalize or move the highlighted information to the beginning, also due to the fact that topicalization in German is not associated with contrastiveness as strongly as preposing in English. Moreover, despite its high degree of crosslinguistic structural markedness, preposing is less marked than inversion in English since the subject remains in preverbal position. As for the occurrence of lexico-grammatical means, it may be expected that German learners will also frequently use combinations of lexical, lexico-grammatical and syntactic focusing devices, possibly to compensate for a lack of knowledge or confidence to use syntactic means. This may be due to a restricted syntactic repertoire on the one hand, but also due to crosslinguistic influence on the other hand, since it was found that despite the more flexible word order, German also has a preference for lexico-grammatical focusing devices. Syntactic means such as topicalization or clefts are often supplemented and enforced by the use of lexical means, most notably focus and modal particles. Thus, assuming a mix of crosslinguistic influence and a lack of knowledge of the meaning and function of focus constructions in English, I conclude that if the learners do use syntactic means like clefts or preposing, they will additionally employ lexical means.
Do the learners have (explicit) knowledge of the syntactic focusing devices that exist in English, and do they have knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of these devices?
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I hypothesize that even advanced learners have only limited awareness and knowledge of the appropriate contextual use and functions of focus constructions in formal and informal registers in the spoken and written mode. More specifically, the data will evidence learner problems with the structuring of information, in particular with respect to the principle of end-weight.
chapter 5
Research design
This chapter presents the research design, the methods of data collection and the procedures of data analysis. The research design consists of an experimental study that is based on triangulated elicitation data, and a corpus-based analysis of argumentative essay writing by native speakers of English and advanced German EFL learners. Thus, experimental and corpus data serve as corroborating evidence.
5.1
Assessing L2 proficiency: Defining the advanced learner
There is still comparatively little research on very advanced L2 learners, and this could be one reason why there is no set of well-defined criteria to classify such learners as near-native. This has obvious implications for the selection and recruitment of participants for research purposes. Near-native subjects have occasionally been selected on the basis of recommendation or word of mouth recruiting without further testing (e.g. Coppieters 1987, Leube 2000). Thomas (1994) reviews the assessment of learners’ target language proficiency in SLA research and the techniques by which proficiency levels are established. She identifies four major conventions for the assessment of proficiency: impressionistic judgment, use of institutional status as a proxy for proficiency level, use of research-internal or in-house measures of proficiency, and standardized test scores. The most frequent technique employed in the studies she reviewed was the learners’ institutional status, defined as “their positions in some hierarchically-organized social structure, for example, as students in first-year versus third-year classes” (1994: 317). Thomas observes that overall, the effects of varying levels of proficiency among subjects have received too little attention in SLA research, and concludes that “L2 proficiency is sometimes inadequately assessed in current second language acquisition research. In certain cases, this compromises empirical claims; in many cases, it limits the generalizability of research results” (1994: 330). If the aim of cross-sectional studies of a specific group of L2 learners is to make research findings generalizable to a larger population of language learners who show very similar characteristics, it is vital to control learner variables in such a way as to make sure that the group of learners under study is as homogeneous as possible.
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For the present purposes, the aim was to establish learners’ global proficiency in their L2 English. For practical reasons, external criteria such as institutional status had to be applied. It is of course true that techniques that rely on external criteria for assessing a learner’s proficiency level tend to be rather crude, but as Thomas remarks “for this reason to avoid using them makes no contribution to their future refinement” (1994: 327). In the present study, German learners of English are considered to be advanced in terms of their institutional status if they are undergraduate students of English in their 2nd or 3rd year of university studies, usually enrolled in either a Magister (M.A.) or teacher training program.68 However, establishing proficiency on institutional status alone is highly problematic. Although English is usually the first foreign language taught in Germany, many students also start with French (mainly in the federal states bordering on France, for example Saarland and Baden-Württemberg) or Latin as their first foreign language.69 Moreover, due to the federal political structure of Germany, there are diverse educational systems within the federal states and different types of secondary schools. Although the Abitur, the Gymnasium’s school-leaving certificate of higher secondary education, is the predominant university entrance certificate, not all students take their Abitur in the Gymnasium, but rather in a comprehensive school (Gesamtschule).70 Students who take the Abitur have to study one foreign language (usually English) consistently. However, depending on their choice of special or subsidiary subjects (Leistungskurse and Grundkurse), they have had different degrees of practical language training. On the one hand, there are students who take English as one of their special subjects which usually involves five hours of instruction per week. Hence, provided that English is their first foreign language, these students have had 9 years of (intensive) formal instruction if they enter university. On the other hand, there are students who did not specialize in English at all and who did not take English in their last two years at school, but for various reasons may want to study English at university nonetheless. In sum, students who set out to study English at university level can by no means be considered a homogeneous group of learners, and not all English Departments in German universities hold entrance exams to ensure a comparable 68. The term ‘undergraduate’ is not directly applicable to the German university system. By undergraduate students I refer to students who are typically in their Grundstudium and who have not yet taken their intermediate exams, thus have not yet advanced to, broadly speaking, graduate level, i.e. the Hauptstudium. 69. See Lorenz (2002) for a concise overview of the status of English as a foreign language in Germany. 70. A German Gymnasium is approximately equivalent to grammar school / high school.
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global proficiency level, based on either in-house assessment or standardized tests. Thus, it would be careless to rely on institutional status as the sole criterion to assess proficiency. Consequently, learners’ institutional status needs to be supplemented by other external learner variables that are vital to determine whether they can be said to have a similar level of advanced proficiency. Two criteria are considered to be crucial in that respect: length of formal language instruction at school and amount of L2 exposure. Given the situation of EFL in Germany outlined above, it seems necessary to ensure that the informants’ first or second foreign language is English, and that they have had approximately the same amount of practical language training in school. Ideally, advanced learners have taken English through to the Abitur, either as special or subsidiary subject, thus had 7–9 years of English in school. Only those informants who had received at least 7 years of formal instruction before they entered university were considered to be advanced and thus included in the present study. Also important is the amount of L2 exposure, defined for the present purposes as the amount of time learners have spent in an English-speaking country. Given that the majority of students who learn a foreign language are at a certain stage involved in an exchange program, be it in a school, working or university context, there are still relatively few studies that have systematically investigated the influence of extended periods abroad and their potential benefits for the students.71 Although the research findings are not uncontroversial, and despite considerable individual variation, it seems reasonable to assume that an extended study-abroad period in the target culture affects L2 proficiency, and it is likely that it does lead to improvement of a student’s overall proficiency. Thus, it was considered to be necessary to control the variable of L2 exposure.
5.2
Research instruments
In view of the special importance and relevance of lexico-grammatical and syntactic means of information highlighting for writing, the present study investigates learners’ written production only. However, given that focusing devices, and syntactic means in particular, are not highly frequent in either written or spoken L1 English, let alone in learner language (Schachter 1988: 224), it was necessary to apply elicitation tasks, for it seemed unpredictable to what extent data collection methods of low explicitness, such as authentic spontaneous dis71. See Barron (2003: 57) for a review of research on the impact of ‘the year abroad’ on L2 proficiency with respect to specific aspects of both grammatical and pragmatic competence.
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course, (semi-)structured interviews or more general forms of student writing would provide data rich enough for the present purposes. Following a function-to-form line of inquiry, a variety of syntactic structures and lexico-grammatical devices will be analyzed. This is a fruitful approach to follow because concepts such as intensification and contrast are pragmatic functions that can be expressed by a variety of means, syntactic devices just being alternatives from a set of options. Thus, learners and native speakers alike may use an unpredictable variety of syntactic and lexico-grammatical means, and the experimental tasks may elicit structures that are strictly speaking not focusing devices proper, but which may nevertheless be used to realize the desired effects (see Sleeman 2004: 139). Obviously, obtaining certain structures in the field of syntax is much more difficult than in other subsystems of interlanguage (see Odlin 2003: 440, who explicitly refers to cleft sentences, and Schachter 1974: 212). Learners can more easily paraphrase syntactic patterns that are felt to be difficult. They may have some knowledge of the structures but lack confidence to use them, hence avoid them. It could also well be that the structures were just accidentally not used or are not present in a learner’s grammar at all. If used, a particular syntactic pattern could be part of an unanalyzed chunk and therefore not reflect the learner’s explicit knowledge (see Boström Aronsson 2001b, 2002). The first part of the research design uses two established elicitation techniques, namely discourse completion and pragmalinguistic judgments, both administered in the form of written questionnaires. These are supplemented by introspective data from retrospective interviews. The second part consists of a contrastive corpus-based analysis of argumentative essay writing based on material from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE, Granger et al. 2002) and comparable writing produced by US-American college students, the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS).
5.2.1 Experimental study Given the importance of discourse context for the present investigation, the basis of the elicitation tasks is a coherent narrative text. The text chosen is a story written by a native speaker of American English entitled “Family Reunion or How I Spent My Summer Vacation in Germany”. It deals with an American family coming to Germany to see their German relatives for a family reunion. The text was chosen for its content and setting which was believed to be of interest for NS and NNS informants alike. For the present purposes, the text was anonymized, considerably shortened, and then slightly modified in terms of
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contextual reference and coherence. Vocabulary items that were assumed to be unfamiliar to the learners were glossed.72 The advantages of this procedure are clear: Once the informants had read the story, both setting and discourse context were established, which is decisive to ensure full understanding for both elicitation tasks. All written instructions were provided in English, the language in which the narrative text, the situational descriptions and test items were given, thereby enhancing the elicited responses.73 The questionnaires also contained exemplary items for each task to familiarize the participants with the procedure. The German learners carried out the elicitation task twice: First in their L2, then in their L1.74 There were usually several days in between both data collection sessions. Given the fact that the second data collection was held not very long after the first one, it was considered unnecessary to have the students read a German translation of the narrative before working on the questionnaires in their mother tongue. Instead, the German questionnaires included a brief introductory sequence which aimed at refreshing the setting and discourse context. Instructions and test items were provided in German. The learner informants were chosen from among students at two German universities. Recruited were 30 participants altogether, but five students had to be excluded since they had either spent several months living or studying in an English-speaking country, or had grown up in a bilingual family. All informants were undergraduate students of English in their 2nd or 3rd year (English being their first foreign language), 24 years of age on average. They had an average of 8.4 years of training in English at secondary school level. 23 informants (92%) had taken English through to the Abitur, 16 (64%) of them as special subject (Leistungskurs), and eight (32%) as subsidiary subject (Grundkurs). None of the informants grew up or lived in a bilingual family, and none of them had an extended stay in an English-speaking country, or had been involved in a studyabroad program yet. The native speaker control group consisted of 20 native speakers of American English, three males and 17 females with 25 years of age on average. All were undergraduate students at a US-American university in the Mid-West. None of them was enrolled in an (applied) linguistics program. Most participants had no or very little knowledge of German.
72. See appendix 1 for the story used in the elicitation tasks. 73. See Barron (2003: 112) for a discussion of the benefits of this method. 74. Both questionnaires are reproduced in appendices 2 and 3.
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5.2.1.1 Production: Discourse completion The production questionnaire, including participant instructions, consists of two sections which are introduced by different situational descriptions designed to create communicative situations in which specific pieces of information need to be highlighted for reasons of intensification (situation 1) and contrast (situation 2). The method used is a free discourse completion task (DCT) with no rejoinder following the participants’ response to a stimulus or first pair part.75 Each item is contextualized by a short passage taken from the narrative text which the informants had read earlier. This text passage is followed by either an open response format (situation 1) or a constructed dialogue sequence (situation 2) which the participants were asked to complete. In section 1, participants were asked to provide an utterance focusing on a piece of information highlighted in the preceding text passage, see Figure 3. 1. Pre-Reunion
In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. Thomas planned, along with his wife Nora, for a two day meeting that would help us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. you tell your friend:
Figure 3. Example of discourse completion task in production questionnaire, situation 1
In section 2, the items involved obvious cases of misunderstanding between two interlocutors, the informant and a fictitious fellow student. The dialogues are initiated by a first pair part which requires a corrective or clarifying, thus contrastive response, as exemplified in Figure 4. 1. Pre-Reunion
When Thomas arrived in the US he informed us that he and his family would be planning the First World Wide Wagner Family Reunion for the following summer. In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. the student: I bet it was quite a job to plan and organize the whole reunion in Germany. Who was it again that did all this and deserves all the credit? Klaus? your response:
Figure 4. Example of discourse completion task in production questionnaire, situation 2 75. See Kasper (2000: 326ff.) for an overview and discussion of several DCT formats.
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The production questionnaire contained a total of 16 items, of which nine appeared in an intensifying, and seven in a contrastive context. Distractors were not included. Although their inclusion is in principle desirable, such items would have further lengthened the questionnaires and thus the data collection sessions. Also, since the instructions were highly specific and the communicative goal was explicitly stated, there was no need to conceal this by including distractors. In fact, it was crucial that the informants were fully aware of the task and what was expected of them. The sentence elements that were selected to be highlighted exhibit varying degrees of structural complexity and different syntactic functions. Table 13 and Table 14 list the items that appeared in the respective communicative situations. Table 13. Constituents to be highlighted for intensification (section 1) no. syntactic properties of constituent to be highlighted
text sequence
1.
subject NP, animate
2.
object NP, animate
3.
NP complement, inanimate
4.
temporal adverbial
5.
locative adverbial
Thomas planned, along with his wife Nora, for a two day meeting that would help us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. We would all get to know Michael very well over the next few days as he worked very hard to make us feel welcome and became our tour guide and interpreter. The specialty at the Chicken Farm was a rotisserie chicken which they slid off the skewer into your basket, cut in half with special scissors and put half into another basket. Everyone wanted to find themselves on the family tree and then it was a trick to follow your line back with someone else to see where the two of you connect to a common ancestor. We had the most opportunity to visit and ‘talk’ with our German family at this time . Eating and beer drinking in these outdoor beer gardens was one of the fun parts of our trip.
6.
subject NP, inanimate
7.
to-clause
8.
subject -ing clause
9.
clause
Neuschwanstein castle was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. Then, we decided to take a bus tour of the city. This turned out to be a fabulous idea since we would get a broad picture of the city from the bus. Knowing that the punishment is quite severe keeps people from cheating. The ride home was uneventful except for our dinner stop at a McDonalds. Generally the drinks come without ice in Germany and that is what we found at McD’s.
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Table 14. Constituents to be highlighted for contrast (section 2) no. syntactic properties of constituent to be highlighted
text sequence and first pair part
1.
object NP, animate
2.
locative adverbial
3.
subject NP, inanimate
4.
subject NP, animate
5.
object NP, inanimate
6.
VP
7.
clause
In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. I bet it was quite a job to plan and organize the whole reunion in Germany. Who was it again that did all this and deserves all the credit? Klaus? We were met at the Frankfurt airport by Thomas and Nora. Our new family took us to Steinfels where we met Monika Wagner, the proprietor of Deutsches Haus, a neighborhood pub. We were to stay at her home in Steinfels. Where did you stay during your time in Germany? At a hotel? Heidelberg Castle, a major city attraction, was on top of a hill overlooking the city. We parked the car in the parking garage and walked up to the castle. Klaus arranged for an English-speaking tour. Actually, one of our lecturers is from Germany. He has told us about the old university at Heidelberg. I guess you saw it, didn’t you? Of course his presentation was in German, but Michael gave us a commentary translation. I remember you telling me about all the presentations by your German family at the Reunion. How did you understand all of this? Was there a professional interpreter? She referred to a small book, an Ahnenpass she held to verify her remarks. I heard that many Germans are very much into this genealogy research. Weren’t they even required to prove their heritage under the Nazi regime? I wonder how they were supposed to do this. Did they have to take some kind of test to prove that? By this time I had decided that I liked German beer. The German beer is supposed to be very good, isn’t it? But you’re not much of a beer drinker anyway, so I guess you didn’t care much about it. We checked in and then went shopping. The time traveling to the airport and the waiting time there went reasonably fast, although the Germans don’t know how to wait in lines very well. What was it again that really annoyed you about the Germans at the airport on your flight back home? Were they unfriendly?
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The aim of this instrument was to find out which (pragma)linguistic resources NSs and German EFL learners use to express intensification and contrast in the specific communicative situations provided. The major advantage of the DCT is that the context and situational descriptions clearly constrain the response so that specific linguistic structures can be elicited. Furthermore, despite its oral setting, this format is more likely to elicit written than authentic spoken language.76 While the open response format in section 1 enables the researcher to see what NSs and learners actually do when they need to intensify a certain piece of information, the constructed dialogue sequences that require corrective responses were believed to be well-suited to trigger some specific syntactic constructions. It has been argued that clefts are “a more natural response for correcting a mistaken assumption” (Carston 1998: 984), and the view that it-clefts in particular often carry a contrastive meaning has been discussed earlier. Additionally, two of the diverse discourse-management functions of wh-clefts identified by Kim (1995) are disagreement and repair (What I said was... / What I meant was...). Similarly, preposing has a contrastive pragmatic effect not only in English, but also crosslinguistically. To summarize, contrastiveness is a relevant feature in cases of preposing and it-clefting, given an appropriate communicative situation. Preposing constructions, as well as it- and wh-clefts appear to be natural options to clarify or correct cases of misunderstanding. Thus, it may be hypothesized that native speakers use these options naturally and prefer them in adequate communicative settings.
5.2.1.2 Metapragmatic assessment: Pragmalinguistic judgments Metapragmatic assessment can be understood as a way of “examining how learners assess strategies of communicative action and their linguistic realizations in terms of appropriateness, politeness, or other attributes” (Kasper and Rose 2002: 100). The most common method for obtaining such information is eliciting scaled category responses, usually by means of rating scales (Kasper 2000: 333f.). Since the focus of interest here is on learners’ pragmalinguistic knowledge as a component of pragmatic knowledge, scaled category responses were elicited by using pragmalinguistic judgments.77
76. See Kasper (2000: 328ff.), Kasper and Rose (2002: 90ff.) and Barron (2003: 83ff.) for discussions of the (dis-)advantages of this data collection technique. 77. See Chaudron (1983), Ellis (1991), Gass (1994), and Sorace (1996) for discussions of the reliability, validity and other shortcomings, but also the advantages of the use of metalinguistic judgments in SLA research.
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Pragmalinguistic judgments are “judgments about the appropriateness of linguistic strategies and phrases in given contexts” (Kasper 1998: 86, see also Barron 2003: 105), and are used in the present study to find out if NSs and learners show different preferences for the use of specific syntactic devices in the given communicative situations. Also, it was hoped that the ratings would provide evidence as to whether the German learners have knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of the syntactic devices. For example, since inversion is considered highly restricted by context and a dispreferred option in conversation and colloquial speech, high acceptance rates of the learners for this option may evidence a lack of knowledge in terms of contextual appropriateness. The assessment questionnaire, which the participants were asked to fill in after their completion of the production questionnaire, also consists of two sections, using exactly the same situational descriptions and test items that appeared in elicited production. Below each text passage, the participants were given a set of possible responses that could be used in the specific context provided. They were asked to indicate to what degree the given possibilities were suitable in the given context. To do this, their task was to rate all the alternatives by assigning them grades from 1-5 on a five-point rating-scale, grade 5 for a very good option, grade 1 for an unsuitable option, see Figure 5. 1. Pre-Reunion
In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. Thomas planned, along with his wife Nora, for a two day meeting that would help us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. you tell your friend: 1 2 3 4 5 a. It was Thomas who planned the meeting. b. The one who planned the meeting was Thomas. c. Thomas was the one who planned the meeting. d. Planning the meeting was Thomas. e. Thomas we have to thank for planning the meeting. f. Own suggestion: _______________________________________________
Figure 5. Example of judgment task in assessment questionnaire, situation 1
Additionally, the participants were given the possibility to make their own suggestion in case they felt that none of the options provided was suitable. However, this option was used very rarely by both native speakers and German learners, and did not yield any significant results. Among the options provided were the
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different types of clefts discussed earlier (including their reversed counterparts) as well as inversion and preposing. The German assessment questionnaire included equivalent structures (es-clefts,78 w-clefts, reverse d-clefts, and instances of topicalization).79 In section 2 of the assessment questionnaire, the contrast is made explicit in the response options provided, either by adding lexical material that negate the wrong assumption made by the interlocutor (No, ...), or by mentioning and contrasting the possible alternatives (No, not X ..., but Y...), see Figure 6 for an example. 3. Heidelberg
Heidelberg is south of Frankfurt, and after about a two hour drive on the Autobahn, we arrived in the old city. Heidelberg Castle, a major city attraction, was on top of a hill overlooking the city. We parked the car in the parking garage and walked up to the castle. Klaus arranged for an English-speaking tour. the student: Actually, one of our lecturers is from Germany. He has told us about the old university at Heidelberg. I guess you saw it, didn’t you? your response: 1 2 3 4 5 a. No, what we saw was the castle, not the university. b. No, we didn’t see the university, but we did see the castle. c. No, it was the castle we saw, not the university. d. No, we didn’t see the university, but the castle we saw. e. Own suggestion: _____________________________________________
Figure 6. Explicit contrast in response options in assessment questionnaire, situation 2
78. In view of the research findings that in German reverse es-clefts may be preferred to canonical es-clefts, this alternative was also provided in the response options. However, no significant results were obtained. 79. For the focusing of longer, especially clausal constituents, there were also cases of (non-) extraposition included. However, due to the limited scope and time of the data collection sessions, extraposition could not be investigated in detail in the experimental part of the study. The use of extraposition was, however, examined closely in the corpus analysis. In the case of highlighting a VP such as liked the German beer, additional lexico-syntactic means of focusing, such as emphatic do or the lexical intensifier really were provided. However, due to the focus on the syntactic devices and the limited number of cases, these were not included in the analysis.
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5.2.1.3 Introspection: Retrospective interviews Retrospective interviews were used to obtain additional metapragmatic reasoning for the participants’ performance in the written tasks. Verbal reports are considered a useful means of investigating learners’ explicit knowledge of grammatical and pragmatic features in the L2 (Ellis 2004: 262ff.). Ellis defines explicit knowledge as the declarative and often anomalous knowledge of the phonological, lexical, grammatical, pragmatic, and sociocritical features of an L2 together with the metalanguage for labeling this knowledge. It is held consciously and is learnable and verbalizable. It is typically accessed through controlled processing when L2 learners experience some kind of linguistic difficulty in the use of the L2. Learners vary in the breadth and depth of their L2 explicit knowledge (2004: 244f.).
Ellis also reviews research on L2 explicit knowledge and discusses some of the instruments that have been employed to measure it. He observes that research to date has focused almost exclusively on knowledge of grammar, investigating explicit knowledge as conscious awareness, learners’ knowledge of metalanguage and their ability to verbalize rules (2004: 245ff.). The interviews for the present study were conducted and recorded with several native speaker and learner informants immediately after their completion of the questionnaires. The learners were free to choose the language in which the interview was to be conducted, either in their L1 or L2.80 Although it seemed unpredictable to what extent the informants would be able to remember and verbalize additional metapragmatic reasoning for their production and judgments, the method was believed be useful to supplement the other data collection techniques (see Faerch and Kasper 1987, Gass and Mackey 2000). The following questions were asked in the course of the interviews.
Questionnaire 1, production task – – – –
How did you decide what to say/write, given the effect that was to be achieved? Why did you decide to say/write it this way? Did you consider alternatives to what you said/wrote? Why/how do you think the way you said/wrote it expresses the desired effect?
Questionnaire 2, rating task – Why do you prefer/rate this one as the best option? – Why do you think this option expresses the desired effect best? – Why do you disprefer the other options (grammar, meaning, style, effect)? 80. See Kasper (2000: 338f.) for a discussion of (dis-)advantages.
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It is often argued that successful second language acquisition research needs to gather “as much information as possible about this complex piece of human behavior” (Tarone 1994: 335). However, only rarely is this maxim put into practice. The research design used for the present study combines different data collection techniques, arguing for the triangulation of various data collection instruments to obtain data of a higher quality, thereby gaining more valid research findings. The proposed combination of different research instruments allows to approach the research questions from different perspectives (Kasper 1998: 104f.). Method- and/or observer-inherent bias is counterbalanced (Kasper 2000: 340), and the data gained are potentially more objective, leading to more reliable and valid results. The proposed research design thus enables withinmethod and between-methods triangulation (Seliger and Shohamy 1989: 123, Mackey and Gass 2005: 181), as illustrated in Figure 7.
production
→ discourse completion
pragmalinguistic knowledge: focusing devices production
comprehension
metapragmatic assessment
introspection
→ pragmalinguistic judgements
→ retrospective interviews
Figure 7. Triangulation of research instruments (experimental study)
5.2.2 Learner-corpus study The material for the corpus-based investigation of learner writing was taken from the ICLE (Granger et al. 2002). It is a raw, that is unannotated corpus, which consists of mostly argumentative essays produced by university students of English
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with different native languages. The corpus was compiled on the basis of rather strict design criteria.81 All of the informants that contributed essays to the corpus share the following characteristics: they are all university undergraduates in their twenties, have learned English in an EFL context involving classroom instruction, and are usually in their third or fourth year of studies. Thus, their English proficiency level ranges from higher intermediate to advanced, proficiency being assessed on external criteria, namely institutional status (Granger et al. 2002: 14). There are also a number of variable features, the most important one of course being the learner’s native language, but also variables such as knowledge of other foreign languages or L2 exposure. The German subcorpus consists of 235,190 words and includes 439 essays produced by students from several universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The average age of the participants is 23.4 years, 78% of the students are female. 97% of the essays are argumentative, the average essay length being 536 words. Given that the proficiency level of students who contributed to the corpus is almost exclusively based on institutional status, it was necessary to compile a subcorpus for the present study which included only writing by German learners who matched the criteria applied to those who took part in the experimental study. The ICLE is distributed on a CD-ROM which is organized in database format. It includes a software interface which allows the compilation of a corpus of learner writing based on selected learner variables (Granger et al. 2002: 47). Using this interface, learner variables were set to match those of the experimental part. Hence, the subcorpus compiled for this study consists of 85,188 words and includes 172 mostly argumentative essays produced by German native speakers who studied at universities in Germany or Austria, had a minimum of 7 years of instruction in English at school and a maximum of 3 years of English at university, and who had spent no time at all or less than 4 months in an English speaking country. Because of the special language situation in Switzerland, essays produced by Swiss learners were excluded. It is essential that the information retrieved from the learner corpus can be compared to a corpus of similar writing produced by English NSs. The LOCNESS served as a control corpus, consisting of a total of 300,000 words of mostly argumentative essay writing by British university students and grammar school students taking their A-levels, as well as US-American college students (Granger et al. 2002: 41). The major advantage of this corpus is that it is comparable to the learner corpus both in terms of text type (argumentative essays) and, broadly speaking, participant age and educational background (graduating high-school
81. On the ICLE design criteria see Granger et al. (2002: 12ff).
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and undergraduate university students). For the present study, I compiled a subcorpus on the basis of LOCNESS, consisting of 85,198 words of argumentative essay writing produced by US-American college students.82
5.3
Procedures of data analysis
For the production questionnaires and the corpus data, quantitative and qualitative procedures were employed, while the assessment questionnaires and the retrospective interviews were subject to a quantitative and qualitative analysis, respectively. However, due to the characteristics of the production data, it was not always possible to submit the results of the production questionnaires to rigorous quantitative procedures. For the quantitative analysis, the software used was the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, version 11.5.1. Where possible and feasible, I employed descriptive and inferential statistics such as significance tests. Due to the nature of the elicitation data, non-parametric tests of statistical significance were employed throughout the study.83
5.3.1 Experimental data For the analysis of the data obtained from the production questionnaires, two main parameters were applied: First, the use of specific lexico-grammatical and syntactic focusing devices, and combinations of these, and second, the position of the highlighted information within the utterance (clause-initial or clausefinal). This correlates with the respective type of focus construction and is particularly relevant for those instances in which no special syntactic marking was used. Misunderstood or incomplete responses, for example those that did not represent an appropriate response to the task, or did not highlight or even refer 82. The native speaker essays are longer on average than the learner essays. The NS corpus consists of 117 essays, the learner corpus of 172 essays. 83. The following characteristics hold for the data and call for the application of non-parametric tests: 1. the variables, including the dependent variable (the device used in the production task and the rating of sentence types in the judgment task) are measured on a nominal/ordinal scale; 2. the dependent variables violate the normality assumption, that is both the use of devices in the production task and the ratings in the judgment task are not normally distributed. While the rating scores tend to cluster at both ends of the rating scale, the distribution of the devices used in the production task was skewed in that a large number of native speakers and/or learners did not use the entire set of structures.
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to the constituent marked in the stimulus sequence of the DCT scenario, such as the one in (5.1), were treated as missing values.84 (5.1) You never want to break the rules in Germany, believe me. (NS2) [Target: knowing that the punishment is quite severe]
Syntactic and lexico-grammatical means that were already given in the stimulus and were merely ‘recycled’ in the informants’ responses like in (5.2) were not considered in the analysis. (5.2) Eating and beer drinking there was one of the fun parts. (L10) [Stimulus: Eating and beer drinking in these outdoor beer gardens was one of the fun parts of our trip.]
As for the use of specific focusing devices, the following categories were established. 1. No syntactic device used (SVO canonical word order) 2. It-/es-cleft (including instances of so-called truncated it-clefts in which the relative clause has been omitted because it is recoverable from the preceding discourse, see Ward, Birner and Huddleston 2002: 1417). 3. Reverse es-cleft (in L1 German only) 4. Wh-/w-cleft 5. Rwh-/rw-cleft 6. Th-/d-cleft 7. Rth-/rd-cleft 8. Inversion (including cases of NP inversion) 9. Preposing (only those instances in which the constituent to be focused was preposed, including non-subcategorized arguments such as fronted adverbials and adverbial clauses,85 were counted as preposing constructions) 10. Topicalization (in L1 German only) 11. (Non-)Extraposition 12. Existential
84. Examples are taken from the production questionnaires. These are the original, uncorrected tokens as provided by the informants. Constituents that were supposed to be highlighted are underlined. The code in brackets refers to the respective native speaker (NS) or German learner (L) informant. 85. It is important to note here that although descriptive analyses of preposing are usually restricted to the fronting of obligatory, subcategorized constituents that are lexically governed by the verb, the analysis also includes the preposing of optional adjuncts/adverbials, since I am interested in the informational structuring of discourse.
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In addition to these syntactic structures, the analysis also includes the passive. It is sometimes argued that “the passive construction diverges from the active in two important respects: a) the patient is foregrounded in being presented as subject, b) the actor/agent is backgrounded, appearing in a prepositional phrase” (Foley 1994: 1684). However, I will adopt the following view of the function of the passive (see Biber et al. 1999: 940ff.). Both cases, the short and the long passive may be used to highlight information. In the long passive, the agent is realized and emphasized, while in the agentless, impersonal passive, which has a patient/theme-topicalizing function, the agent is deleted, hence backgrounded, see examples (5.3) and (5.4). (5.3) a. Well, no, he [Klaus, MC] did some things, too, but most of the work was done by Thomas. (L2) b. Alle Referate, die auf Deutsch gehalten wurden, wurden von Michael übersetzt. (L6) (5.4) a. No, instead of a test, a book called Ahnenpass was used. (NS18) b. Das Grillhähnchen wurde am Tisch direkt vom Spieß serviert. (L30)
Moreover, questions were also taken into account as it emerged that these represent an additional type of highlighting device for some learners (but only few native speakers). (5.5) a. Have you ever had a rotisserie chicken? You should see the way they serve them at the Chicken Farm! (NS 16) b. Can you imagine that the drinks come without ice in Germany? (L12)
Finally, the category ‘other syntactic marking’ includes syntactic patterns which are typical of spoken language such as sentences with a hanging topic in (5.6), or instances of left dislocation like in (5.7). (5.6) a. And the chicken. My God! It was like tasting a feast from heaven. (NS2) b. You know, Thomas from Germany! He and his wife helped us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. (L27) c. Kein Eis in den Getränken bei McDonalds in Deutschland! Ist das nicht unglaublich? (L14) (5.7) a. And Michael, oh I really wish I will someday have a son like him! (L3) b. Oh, and the beer gardens, they were really awesome. (L24) c. Aber das Schloss, das haben wir gesehen. (L4)
The analysis of lexico-grammatical means included emphatic do, focus particles, modal particles (in L1 German only), pragmatic markers, and other lexical marking (mainly intensifying adjectives like great and adverbs such as really).
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Frequently, focus was marked by more than one syntactic or lexical device as in (5.8) and (5.9), or by a combination of syntactic and lexical means as exemplified in (5.10). All these were subject to an extra analysis. (5.8) a. When we all looked at the family tree was the time when we all connected; it was during this time we were able to visably see our connection. (NS1) [reverse th-cleft + it-cleft] b. All the great work and research was done by Thomas. He is the one who made the reunion meeting possible at all. (L19) [passive + reverse th-cleft] (5.9) a. In fact, I really started liking German beer. (NS7) [pragmatic marker in fact + intensifier really] b. But, actually, I came to like it [the beer] very much, it’s so different from our American beer. (L4) [pragmatic marker actually + intensifier very much] (5.10) a. It was actually Thomas who did most of the planning & research. (NS14) [it-cleft + pragmatic marker actually] b. What we did see was the Heidelberg Castle which nevertheless was a great experience. (L7) [wh-cleft + emphatic do]
The production data were analyzed and assigned into the above categories, then processed and cross-tabulated in contingency tables using SPSS. The variables ‘native language’ and ‘device used’ were cross-tabulated to compare the use of focusing devices of both groups of participants.86 For each category of the variable ‘device used’, two counts were calculated: the number of observed cases and the number of expected cases. The observed cases are the actual frequencies, while the expected cases are those that would be expected if the two variables were unrelated (that is if they were independent). Substantial differences in the observed and expected counts for each device suggest a significant over- or underuse. The chi-square test of independence was employed to examine the statistical significance of the relationship between the variables. This statistic is used to test whether the expected counts (the values expected by chance) and the observed counts are truly different from each other. Both Pearson’s chi-square and Likelihood Ratio chi-square were considered. A chi-square probability of 0.05 or less is commonly interpreted as justification for rejecting the null hypothesis. However, the test provides a probability score for the whole contingency table. To assess the contribution of each cell to a significant chi-square–in our case in how far the over- or underuse of a specific device contributes to the chi-square probability–it is essential to examine and interpret the residuals for each cell. Residuals are based
86. To compare the learners’ performance in their L1 and L2, the variables ‘target language’ and ‘device used’ were cross-tabulated.
Chapter 5. Research design 133
on the difference between the observed and the expected counts. Standardized residuals are calculated for each cell in the table. If there are standardized residuals greater than 2 or less than -2, those cells are not being fitted very well by the model of independence. Thus, the respective cell can be considered to be a major contributor to the overall chi-square probability (Bühl and Zöfel 1999: 223). For the assessment questionnaires, nonparametric statistical comparisons of both the native speaker and learner ratings were employed because the rating scores represent ordinal variables, and the majority of the scores are not normally distributed.87 The Mann-Whitney U test (the non-parametric equivalent of an independent samples t-test) was selected as a conservative measure of differences between the native speaker and learner judgments. It compares the mean rank (or median) between the two groups under study on the dependent variable. The retrospective interviews were transcribed in broad orthographic transcription. Only those sequences that yielded some relevant extra information for the present purposes have been considered.
5.3.2
Corpus data
The relevant linguistic structures were retrieved from the learner and native speaker corpora by means of the software package WordSmith Tools 3.0 (Scott 1999). For practical reasons, the corpus analysis had to be restricted to the syntactic devices (preposing, inversion, clefting, extraposition and existentials/presentationals) and emphatic do. Other lexical means such as focus particles and lexical intensifiers were not considered in detail. However, learners’ use of selected focus particles and intensifiers was calculated, compared to that of the native speakers, and taken into consideration as additional evidence when feasible. Since neither the learner nor the native speaker corpus is annotated, the structures under study had to be detected by extracting lexical patterns, keywords and triggering elements (for example the types of verbs in inversion, the dummy subjects it and there for it-clefts, extraposition and existentials, as well as number of wh-words for the (reversed) wh-clefts). These were automatically retrieved from the corpora, the hits checked for relevant matches and then analyzed manually. It is clear that this is a limited procedure which may not capture all instances in the corpora, but due to the lack of carefully edited parsed corpora, it is not yet possible to retrieve the target structures fully automatically. Thus, one has to make do with looking for lexical co-occurrence patterns or simply a great deal of manual labor.88 87. This was tested using the Komolgorov-Smirnov test for normal distribution. 88. See Gilquin (2002) and Esser (2002: 133) for discussion.
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The analysis of the corpus data involved both quantitative and qualitative procedures. Frequencies of occurrence of the syntactic and lexico-grammatical devices were compared for learners and native speakers, with all examples being subject to a qualitative textlinguistic analysis. Frequencies of occurrence were compared using a log-likelihood calculator.89
89. This tool is provided by Paul Rayson at Lancaster University, available at http://lingo.lancs. ac.uk/llwizard.html. Similar to chi-square, the log-likelihood (G2) is calculated by constructing a contingency table and comparing the number of observed and expected cases for a specific device in each corpus.
chapter 6
Experimental study
This chapter discusses the findings of the experimental study. First, I will analyze the native speakers’ and L2 learners’ performance in English. Then, I will compare the learners’ responses in their L1 and L2. The following sections will first present quantitative findings, providing frequency counts of the focusing devices used, followed by a discussion of the qualitative findings, namely how the respective devices were used, i.e. for what pragmatic effect and with what type of focused constituent they were employed.
6.1
Elicited production
6.1.1 Native speakers vs. learners A first quantitative analysis of the overall use of focusing devices by the two groups as presented in Table 15 shows that the learners use significantly more it-clefts, preposing, existentials, and questions, while the native speakers show higher frequency rates for the use of emphatic do and pragmatic markers. For the purpose of statistical accuracy, categories with very small expected frequencies were combined into larger, similar categories on linguistic grounds (see for example Butler 1985: 117 and Woods et al. 1986: 144). The following structures were collapsed into larger categories: – Wh-and th-clefts; these can be considered variants and also present the highlighted constituent in final position; – Reverse clefts; this category includes both rwh- and rth-clefts because they present the focused information in sentence-initial position; – Other syntactic marking; includes structures that were used only very rarely such as hanging topic, left dislocation, the passive, and non-extraposed subject-clauses; – Double marking; includes double lexical marking, syntactic and lexical marking and double syntactic marking.
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A chi-square test for this distribution confirms that the observed differences are statistically significant (p = 0.000).90 The cells which show the differences in the use of it-clefts, preposing, existentials, emphatic do, and pragmatic markers contribute most to the chi-square probability.91 Table 15. Overall use of focusing devices by native speakers and learners device used
native language english
german
no specific device
145 (47.2%)
187 (47.2%)
it-cleft
5 (1.6%)
28 (7.1%)
wh/th-cleft
4 (1.3%)
9 (2.3%)
reverse cleft
7 (2.3%) 4 (1.3%) 6 (2.0%)
7 (1.8%) 8 (2.0%) 23 (5.8%)
extraposition
4 (1.3%)
4 (1.0%)
existential
3 (1.0%)
12 (3.0%)
question
4 (1.3%)
12 (3.0%)
other syntactic marking
13 (4.2%)
16 (4.0%)
emphatic do focus particle pragmatic marker
10 (3.3%) 11 (3.6%) 20 (6.5%)
3 (0.8%) 8 (2.0%) 10 (2.5%)
other lexical marking
49 (16.0%)
41 (10.4%)
double marking
22 (7.2%) 307 (100%)
28 (7.1%) 396 (100%)
inversion preposing
total
Comparing the distribution of selected devices across both groups, it becomes clear that the distribution is skewed in that not all participants used all devices investigated here.92 Highly interesting and significant differences emerge as to the use of it-clefts, preposing, and questions in both groups. While only few native speakers used either device, many more learners used both it-clefts and preposing, see Figure 8 and Figure 9.
90. A probability level of p ≤ 0.05 is commonly interpreted as justification for rejecting the null hypothesis (see Butler 1985: 71). However, I will always report precise numerical significance levels. 91. The contingency table with observed and expected frequency counts can be found in Appendix 4.1. 92. See the individual native speaker and learner profiles in Appendix 5.
Figure 8. Use of it-clefts by native speaker and learners
Figure 9. Use of preposing by native speakers and learners
Chapter 6. Experimental study 137
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Also interesting is the fact that many learners made use of questions as a type of response to the given task. While there was only one native speaker who used a question as much as four times, which may be considered an individual preference by this informant, Figure 10 shows that many more learners used this structure to highlight the respective information. This may tentatively be interpreted as a learner strategy to tackle this task and will be discussed in more detail later.
Figure 10. Use of questions by native speakers and learners
Considering the use of focusing devices by both groups separately for intensification and contrast, that is the devices used in the respective scenarios (Table 16 and Table 17), the differences observed for the overall use need to be refined. It-clefts are rarely used by the native speakers, but are almost equally distributed for intensification and contrast, while inverted and preposed structures are used for intensification only. The same holds for the use of wh/th-clefts, extraposition, various types of syntactic marking (subsumed as ‘other syntactic marking’) and lexical markers such as intensifiers which will be analyzed in detail further below. On the contrary, emphatic do, focus particles and pragmatic markers are almost exclusively used for contrast.
Chapter 6. Experimental study 139
Table 16. Native speakers’ use of focusing devices for intensification and contrast device used (L1 = english)
pragmatic effect intensification contrast
total
no specific device
80 (55.2%)
65 (44.8%)
145
it-cleft
2 (40%)
3 (60%)
5
wh/th-cleft
4 (100%)
0 (0%)
4
reverse cleft
3 (42.9%)
4 (57.1%)
7
inversion
4 (100%)
0 (0%)
4
preposing
6 (100%)
0 (0%)
6
extraposition
4 (100%)
0 (0%)
4
existential
1 (33.3%)
2 (66.7%)
3
question
4 (100%)
0 (0%)
4
other syntactic marking
12 (92.3%)
1 (7.7%)
13
emphatic do
1 (10%)
9 (90%)
10
focus particle
1 (9.1%)
10 (90.9%)
11
pragmatic marker
0 (0%)
20 (100%)
20
other lexical marking
43 (87.8%)
6 (12.2%)
49
double marking
5 (22.7%) 170 (55.4%)
17 (77.3%) 137 (44.6%)
22 307 (100%)
total
By contrast, it-clefts occur much more often in the learner responses in both situations, particularly in the contrastive scenarios. Similar to the native speakers, the learners use inverted and preposed sentences for intensification only, but obviously to a significantly higher degree. Questions and other types of syntactic marking are also used for intensification only, as well as lexical intensifiers (‘other lexical marking’). Pragmatic markers and focus particles are almost exclusively used for contrast, while emphatic do is hardly used at all. Table 17. Learners’ use of focusing devices for intensification and contrast device used (L1 = german)
pragmatic effect intensification contrast
total
no specific device
93 (49.7%)
94 (50.3%)
187 28
it-cleft
9 (32.1%)
19 (67.9%)
wh/th-cleft
6 (66.7%)
3 (33.3%)
9
reverse cleft
6 (85.7%)
1 (14.3%)
7
inversion
8 (100%)
0 (0%)
8
preposing
22 (95.7%)
1 (4.3%)
23
extraposition
4 (100%)
0 (0%)
4
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Table 17 (continued). Learners’ use of focusing devices for intensification and contrast device used (L1 = german)
pragmatic effect
total
intensification
contrast
existential
8 (66.7%)
4 (33.3%)
12
question
12 (100%)
0 (0%)
12
other syntactic marking
14 (87.5%)
2 (12.5%)
16
emphatic do
2 (66.7%)
1 (33.3%)
3
focus particle
1 (12.5%)
7 (87.5%)
8
pragmatic marker
0 (0%)
10 (100%)
10
other lexical marking
27 (65.9%)
14 (34.1%)
41
double marking
11 (39.3%) 223 (56.3%)
17 (60.7%) 173 (43.7%)
28 396 (100%)
total
These frequency counts also show that in about half of the responses given to the stimuli provided in the questionnaires, informants from both groups did not use either a specific syntactic or lexico-grammatical device to highlight the information marked in the respective text sequence. Thus, the assumption that the learners may use fewer focusing devices than the native speakers can be discarded. In fact, both groups show very similar frequency distributions for the non-use of focusing devices for both intensification and contrast. These instances were submitted to a separate analysis as to the position of the key information within the responses given. This analysis was carried out for all those responses subsumed in the category ‘no specific device used’. Table 18 shows that in such responses end-position is the preferred option. While the positioning of information for intensification is rather balanced for the native speakers (46.2 vs. 53.8 %), end-focus position is clearly preferred for contrast (25.4 vs. 74.6%). This is most certainly a consequence of the fact that all responses in this section of the production questionnaire are cases of explicit contrast in which the mistaken/ erroneous reference was rejected first with the correct referent mentioned later. Table 18. Position of key information in responses without specific focusing device position of information pragmatic effect intensification contrast
initial
final
total
native speakers
36 (46.2%)
42 (53.8%)
78 (100%)
learners
27 (29.0%)
66 (71.0%)
93 (100%)
native speakers
16 (25.4%) 20 (21.3%)
47 (74.6%) 74 (78.7%)
63 (100%) 94 (100%)
learners
Chapter 6. Experimental study 141
For the learners, the preference for end-position is even more characteristic, also in cases of intensification. From this it can be concluded that if they do use a syntactic focusing device, they prefer sentence-initial position as indicated by the large number of it-clefts and preposed structures. If they do not use a specific syntactic construction, they tend to place the important information in end-position.
6.1.1.1 Syntactic means Clefts. The high occurrence of it-clefts in the learner responses is most apparent in the contrastive scenarios. Moreover, a closer look at the responses that included combinations of syntactic and lexical means, as well as combinations of syntactic devices (category ‘double marking’) reveals that these mostly consist of clefts used in combination with lexical intensifiers (really, very), focus particles (just), or pragmatic markers (actually), and that different cleft types were also combined (Table 19). Examples are given in (6.1) and (6.2). Table 19. Syntactic and lexical devices used in combination pragmatic marker + cleft focus particle + cleft intensifier + cleft intensifier + other syntactic device other combination combination of clefts other total
native speakers
learners
5 3 2 1 1 2 0 14
6 2 5 4 2 3 1 23
(6.1) a. Thomas was actually the one who planned this reunion and put all the work into getting us all there to learn about our heritage. (NS11) b. The Germans weren’t unfriendly, it’s just that they didn’t know how to wait in lines very well. (NS14) c. Well, actually it was Thomas who did most of the work. (L1) d. What I really loved about our trip to Germany was eating and drinking in the outdoor beer gardens. (L4) (6.2) a. When we all looked at the family tree was the time when we all connected; it was during this time we were able to visably see our connection. (NS1) b. No, it was Thomas. He is the one who organised the whole thing. (L8)
In addition to that, learners and native speakers alike used a fair amount of truncated it-clefts (Table 20).
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Table 20. Overall use of truncated and full it-clefts native speakers
learners
full truncated
5 (45.5%) 7 (63.6%)
28 (70%) 12 (30%)
total
11 (100%)
40 (100%)
Thus, summarizing the overall use of the different types of cleft sentences by both groups, including truncated it-clefts and those that were used in combination with other devices, the overrepresentation of cleft constructions, and it-clefts in particular, in the learner responses becomes even more significant (28 vs. 62 instances, see Table 21 and Table 22). Table 21. Native speakers’ overall use of clefts used in combination with cleft type
used alone
lexical device
other syntactic device
total
it wh
5 0
6 0
0 0
11 0
reverse wh
2
0
0
2
th reverse th total
4 5 16 (57.15%)
0 4 10 (35.7%)
0 2 2 (7.15%)
4 11 28 (100%)
Table 22. Learners’ overall use of clefts used in combination with cleft type
used alone
lexical device
other syntactic device
total
it wh
28 5
9 3
3 0
40 8
reverse wh
1
0
0
1
th reverse th total
4 6 44 (71%)
2 0 14 (22.6%)
0 1 4 (6.4%)
6 7 62 (100%)
Looking at the syntactic functions of the highlighted constituents in clefts in Table 23 and Table 24, both groups mainly use them to highlight short subject NPs, while adverbials (ADV) and complements (COMPL) are only rarely focused. Interestingly, both groups also make use of it-clefts to highlight full clauses, which is rather untypical. A major difference between the two groups is that the learners also highlight object NPs, whereas the native speakers do not (0 vs. 11 instances).
Chapter 6. Experimental study 143
Table 23. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in clefts (native speakers)93 cleft type s-np
o-np
adv
compl
clause
total
it reverse wh
6 2
0 0
1 0
0 0
4 0
11 2
th reverse th total
0 10 18 (64.3%)
0 0 0
0 0 1 (3.6%)
1 0 1 (3.6%)
3 1 8 (28.6%)
4 11 28 (100%)
Table 24. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in clefts (learners) cleft type s-np
o-np
adv
compl
clause
total
it wh
31 0
3 3
3 0
0 1
3 4
40 8
reverse wh
1
0
0
0
0
1
th reverse th total
0 5 37 (59.7%)
3 2 11 (17.7%)
0 0 3 (4.8%)
1 0 2 (3.2%)
2 0 9 (14.5%)
6 7 62 (100%)
Preposing. Surprisingly, all instances of preposing that occurred were used for intensification. No core arguments such as direct objects were preposed. Table 25 shows that there are striking differences between native speakers and learners with respect to both quantitative and qualitative aspects of fronted constituents. While the learners use both fronted, often heavy adverbial clauses as well as simple adverbials to present the important information in sentence initial position, the native speaker responses include fronted simple adverbials only, e.g. on the bus tour, during this time, or at Neuschwanstein Castle. Table 25. Fronted constituents in preposed structures fronted constituent
native speakers
learners
adverbial adverbial clause total
6 (100%) 0 6 (100%)
8 (34.8%) 15 (65.2%) 23 (100%)
Out of the fifteen adverbial clauses used by the learners, eleven represent temporal clauses introduced by when or while, see example (6.3), three are causal with because and since. 93. This and the following table includes clefts used in combination with a lexical or other syntactic device.
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(6.3) When everyone was busy studying the family tree and finding out about the relations we were best able to communicate with our German family. (L7)
This distribution is interesting with respect to information structure and syntactic weight. Initial adverbial clauses may be considered marked, because they tend to be heavy (Biber et al. 1999: 833ff.). Clearly, the native speakers prefer to place such clauses in end-position, as (6.4) shows. (6.4) a. We felt most connected to our German family members when we were tracing our ancestry lines on the family tree. (NS4, NS7) b. We had a great opportunity to talk with our German family while everyone was looking at the family tree. (NS19, NS25)
Such final adverbial clauses were used only twice by the learners in this context. These findings suggest that the learners may not be fully aware of the concept of syntactic weight and the principle of end-focus. Inversion. All of the instances that were included in this category (four were used by the native speakers, eight by the learners) are cases of NP inversion in which the initial complement is introduced by the most, one, a, or another as exemplified in (6.5). (6.5) a. Another highlight of the trip was our visit to Neuschwanstein Castle, one of the most beautiful and decorative places in Germany. (NS4) b. The most memorable entrée at the Chicken Farm was a delicious rotisserie chicken, baked to perfection. (NS14) c. One of the most beautiful highlights of the trip was our visit to Neuschwanstein Castle. (L17)
Moreover, the majority of instances − two out of four for the native speakers, five out of eight for the learners − involve a mere word order re-arrangement of subject and complement on the basis of the text sequence provided as stimulus (the visit of Neuschwanstein Castle). Hence, it seems justifiable to conclude that inversion was used productively neither by the native speakers nor the learners. In fact, inversion can be considered a marginal phenomenon in this (pseudo-oral) setting, which is not surprising in view of the register distribution and the formally and contextually highly restricted character of this construction. The learners’ responses include one instance that illustrates a major difficulty that German learners encounter when using inverted sentences in English. (6.6) is an example of negative word order transfer from German which also violates the discourse condition on the felicitous occurrence of inversion. (6.6) Do you know this? At the Chicken Farm was a rotisserie chicken! (L27)
Chapter 6. Experimental study 145
(Non-)Extraposed subject clauses. Native speakers and learners also differ in their use of (non-)extraposed sentential subjects. Table 26 shows that while the native speakers frequently use non-extraposed clauses (all of which are -ing-clauses), the learners do not use them as often and seem to prefer the use of initial dummy subjects. Table 26. Types of (non-)extraposed subject clauses used type of subject that-clause wh-clause to-clause -ing-clause total
extraposed
non-extraposed
native speakers learners
native speakers learners
2 1 1 0 4 (33.3%)
0 0 0 8 8 (66.6%)
3 1 3 0 7 (70%)
0 0 1 2 3 (30%)
(6.7) may thus be interpreted as an example in which non-extraposition is in fact avoided, though it would be well-formed in the given context. The learner appears to be uncertain about the status of the wh-clause as a subject, possibly due to the similarity to an equivalent structure in German, and inserts a ‘safe’, but unnecessary dummy subject it, which results in the fronting of a heavy adverbial clause. (6.7) When we looked at the family tree with all the others it was the best possibility to get to know each other. (L16) [Cf. German Als wir zusammen mit all den anderen den Familienstammbaum anschauten war die beste Möglichkeit, sich kennenzulernen.]
6.1.1.2 Lexico-grammatical means Focus particles. Both groups use focus particles almost exclusively for contrastive focus, with just being more frequently used by the native speakers (Table 27).94 Table 27. Use of focus particles particle
native speakers
learners
just only
13 1
7 3
alone
1
0
even
0
1
total
15
11
94. This count includes both focus particles used on their own and in combination with other lexical or syntactic means (category ‘double marking’).
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Emphatic do. A clear difference emerges as to the use of emphatic do. Table 28 shows that while the native speakers almost exclusively use emphatic do for contrastive correction, also indicated by the co-occurrence of lexical items such as but and (even) though, it is underrepresented in the learner responses.95 Table 28. Use of emphatic do effect
native speakers
learners
intensification contrast
1 (10%) 9 (90%)
2 (66.6%) 3 (33.3%)
total
10 (100%)
5 (100%)
Pragmatic markers. It has been noted earlier that both native speakers and learners use pragmatic markers only in cases of contrast and disagreement in the production task. This reflects the politeness function that pragmatic markers fulfill. They are interactional devices that serve as softeners, and have both a mitigating function for the speaker and a face-saving function for the hearer. They decrease the force of the objection and make a correction less offensive. Table 29 and Table 30 show that the native speakers use pragmatic markers more frequently. Both groups use actually and well most often, also in combination with other lexical or syntactic devices. Table 29. Native speakers’ use of pragmatic markers
actually in fact well total
used alone
used with other lexical device
used with syntactic device
total
16 0 4 20 (60.6%)
5 1 2 8 (24.2%)
5 0 0 5 (15.2%)
26 (78.8%) 1 (3%) 6 (18.2%) 33 (100%)
Table 30. Learners’ use of pragmatic markers
actually in fact well not really total
used alone
used with other lexical device
used with syntactic device
total
5 1 2 2 10 (45.6%)
1 1 3 0 5 (22.7%)
6 0 1 0 7 (31.8%)
12 (54.5%) 2 (9.1%) 6 (27.3%) 2 (9.1%) 22 (100%)
95. The count for the learners includes two instances in which emphatic do was used in combination with a lexical and a syntactic device.
Chapter 6. Experimental study 147
In fact, if we take a look at the instances of double lexical marking, we see that this category mainly consists of combinations of a pragmatic marker with a lexical intensifier (Table 31). (6.8) shows some typical examples. Table 31. Pragmatic markers used in combination with other lexical devices native speakers
learners
pragmatic marker + intensifier (really, very much, a lot) pragmatic marker + focus particle (just)
7
3
1
0
other
0
2
total
8
5
(6.8) a. Actually, I really liked German beer. (NS9) b. Well not unfriendly they just don’t seem to have the patients [sic!] to wait in line. (NS10) c. But, actually, I came to like it [the beer] very much, it’s so different from our American beer. (L4) d. Well, in fact, I began to like it. (L8)
Apart from the quantitative aspects mentioned above, it can be observed that some learners strongly reject the fictitious interlocutor’s mistaken assumption given in the stimulus. The examples in (6.9) illustrate that these learners correct without employing mitigating devices such as actually or well. Such direct, if not offensive corrections, are not present in the native speaker responses. (6.9)
a. That’s wrong. (L12) b. No, you are wrong! (L12, L18) c. You’re wrong. (L22) d. No, I didn’t. Don’t you remember anything? (L24)
6.1.2 Learners’ L1 vs. L2 Table 32 shows the learners’ overall use of focusing devices in their L1 and L2 (variable ‘task language’). Compared to their performance in their mother tongue, it-clefts are overrepresented in the L2 (28 vs. 11 instances). Also overrepresented is the use of questions and pragmatic markers, while focus and modal particles are predominantly used in the L1. It has been pointed out above that the learners’ responses show high frequency rates of preposing in English, and the nearequivalent structure in German, topicalization, is used to a very similar extent (23 vs. 25 instances). Other types of lexical and double marking occur with similar frequencies in both L1 and L2.
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Table 32. Learners’ overall use of focusing device in L1 and L296 device used
task language
total
german (L1)
english (L2)
no specific device
134 (42.8%)
187 (47.2%)
321 (45.3%)
it-/es-cleft
11 (3.5%)
28 (7.1%)
39 (5.5%)
w(h)-/th-/d-cleft
7 (2.2%)
9 (2.3%)
16 (2.3%)
reverse cleft
7 (2.2%)
7 (1.8%)
14 (2.0%)
inversion
11 (3.5%)
8 (2.0%)
19 (2.7%)
23 (5.8%)
23 (3.2%)
preposing topicalization
25 (8.0%)
25 (3.5%)
extraposition
9 (2.9%)
4 (1.0%)
13 (1.8%)
existential
12 (3.8%)
12 (3.0%)
24 (3.4%)
question
6 (1.9%)
12 (3.0%)
18 (2.5%)
other syntactic marking
7 (2.2%)
16 (4.0%)
23 (3.2%)
3 (0.8%)
3 (0.4%)
focus/modal particle
19 (6.1%)
8 (2.0%)
27 (3.8%)
pragmatic marker
2 (0.6%)
10 (2.5%)
12 (1.7%)
other lexical marking
33 (10.5%)
41 (10.4%)
74 (10.4%)
double marking
30 (9.6%)
28 (7.1%)
58 (8.2%)
total
313 (100%)
396 (100%)
709 (100%)
emphatic do
The variables ‘task language’ and ‘device used’ were cross-tabulated, and the chisquare test of independence was carried out on the variable ‘task language’. Categories with very small expected frequencies were combined into larger, similar categories on linguistic grounds. The test shows that the learners’ performances in L1 and L2 are significantly different (p = 0.015). Considering the standardized residuals for each cell, the overrepresentation of it-clefts in the L2 and focus/modal particles in the L1, as well as the underrepresentation of pragmatic markers in the L1 contribute most to the chi-square probability.97
96. Empty cells indicate that a device was not used in the respective language: Topicalization and modal particles occurred in L1 German only, preposing and emphatic do in L2 English only. 97. The contingency table can be found in Appendix 4.2.
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Table 33 and Table 34 show the frequencies of the learners’ use of focusing devices for intensification and contrast, respectively, in their L1 and L2. Several interesting similarities and differences emerge. Both topicalization (in L1) and preposing (in L2) are used predominantly for intensification. Similarly, the devices that are used to highlight heavy constituents (e.g. extraposition) are employed for intensification only. Interestingly, questions are used in the L1 as well, but not as often as in the L2 (6 vs. 12 instances). Also similar is the distribution of the use of pragmatic markers: In both languages they are used for contrast only, but to a lesser degree in the L1 than in the L2. Table 33. Learners’ use of focusing devices for intensification in L1 and L2 device used
task language
total (100%)
german (L1)
english (L2)
no specific device
55 (37.2%)
93 (62.8%)
148
it-/es-cleft
4 (30.8%)
9 (69.2%)
13
w(h)-/th-/d-cleft
4 (40%)
6 (60%)
10
reverse cleft
7 (53.8%)
6 (46.2%)
13
inversion
7 (46.7%)
8 (53.3%)
15
22 (100%)
22
preposing topicalization
23 (100%)
extraposition
9 (69.2%)
23 4 (30.8%)
13
6 (42.9%)
8 (57.1%)
14
6 (33.3%)
12 (66.7%)
18
14 (73.7%)
19
2 (100%)
2
existential question other syntactic marking
5 (26.3%)
emphatic do focus / modal particle
9 (90%)
1 (10%)
10
other lexical marking
21 (43.8%)
27 (56.3%)
48
double marking
18 (62.1%)
11 (37.9%)
29
total
174 (43.8%)
223 (56.2%)
397 (100%)
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Table 34. Learners’ use of focusing devices for contrast in L1 and L2 device used
task language
total (100%)
german (L1)
english (L2)
no specific device
79 (45.7%)
94 (54.3%)
173
it-/es-cleft
7 (26.9%)
19 (73.1%)
26
w(h)-/th-/d-cleft
3 (50%)
3 (50%)
reverse cleft
0 (0%)
1 (100%)
1
inversion
4 (100%)
0 (0%)
4
1 (100%)
1
preposing
6
topicalization
2 (100%)
existential
6 (60%)
4 (40%)
10
other syntactic marking
2 (50%)
2 (50%)
4
1 (100%)
1
emphatic do
2
focus / modal particle
10 (58.8%)
7 (41.2%)
17
pragmatic marker
2 (16.7%)
10 (83.3%)
12
other lexical marking
12 (46.2%)
14 (53.8%)
26
double marking
12 (41.4%)
17 (58.6%)
29
total
139 (44.6%)
173 (55.4%)
312 (100%)
There are obvious differences which may have been expected in view of the findings of the contrastive analysis of focusing devices in English and German. In German, the use of inversion is less restricted, and the inventory of focus and modal particles is larger, hence both of these features occur more often and for both effects in the L1. Other differences, however, are subject to a more detailed explanation. Reversed and canonical es-clefts are equally distributed across intensification and contrast in the L1, and compared to this distribution, the overrepresentation of it-clefts in the learners’ L2 becomes even more obvious. In sum, these findings suggest that the learners use similar focusing devices in L1 and L2 for intensification and that the learners’ performance in their L2 resembles that of their L1, apart from the marked overuse of it-clefts in the L2 and the underuse of pragmatic markers in the L1. I reported earlier that the learners do not differ from the native speakers as to the amount of responses which lack a specific syntactic or lexico-grammatical focusing device. A comparison of the learners’ responses in L1 and L2 also show similar frequency distributions for the category ‘no device used’ across
Chapter 6. Experimental study 151
both intensification and contrast. Unsurprisingly, the percentage is lower for intensification in the L1 (due to the availability of a broad range of lexical means in German, e.g. particles and intensifiers), but interestingly, generally higher in both L1 and L2 for contrast (Table 35). Table 35. Learners’ responses without specific focusing device in L1 and L2 task language
intensification
contrast
total
L1 L2
31.6% 41.7%
56.8% 54.3%
42.8% 47.2%
Again, these instances were submitted to a separate analysis as to the position of the key information within the response. Table 36 confirms the observation made in the comparison of native speakers and learners. When there is no explicit focusing device used, the learners show a clear preference for end-position in both L1 and L2. Table 36. Position of key information in learner responses without specific focusing device in L1 and L2 position of information pragmatic effect
initial
final
total 55 (100%)
intensification
L1
14 (25.5%)
41 (74.5%)
L2
27 (29.0%)
66 (71.0%)
93 (100%)
contrast
L1
21 (26.6%)
58 (73.4%)
79 (100%)
L2
20 (21.3%)
74 (78.7%)
94 (100%)
This comparison hence supports the hypothesis that if the learners do not use a specific focusing device, they tend to place the important information in endposition, but if they do use one, they seem to prefer the focused information to appear early in the utterance.
6.1.2.1 Syntactic means Clefts. Comparing the overall use of clefts in L1 and L2 shown in Table 37, it is obvious that the overrepresentation of clefts in L2 English is due to the larger number of it- and th-clefts the learners use (40 vs. 13 and 6 vs. 2 instances, respectively), whereas they use only slightly more w- and reverse d-clefts in German.
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Table 37. Overall use of clefts in L1 and L2 in combination with cleft type used alone it es reverse es
28 11 3
wh w reverse wh reverse w th d reverse th reverse d total L2 total L1
5 5 1 0 4 2 6 4 44 (71.0%) 25 (67.6%)
lexical device 9 2 0 3 6 0 0 2 0 0 3 14 (22.6%) 11 (29.7%)
other syntactic device
total
3 0 0
40 (64.5%) 13 (35.1%) 3 (8.1%)
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 (6.4%) 1 (2.7%)
8 (12.0%) 11 (29.7%) 1 (1.6%) 0 6 (9.7%) 2 (5.4%) 7 (11.2%) 8 (21.6%) 62 (100%) 37 (100%)
Table 38 and Table 39 indicate that clefts are the preferred means of highlighting a short subject or object NP, and that this preference is even stronger in the L1. Table 38. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in learners’ English clefts98 cleft type
s-np
adv
compl
clause
total
it wh
31 0
3 3
3 0
0 1
3 4
40 8
1
0
0
0
0
1
0 0 3 (4.8%)
1 0 2 (3.2%)
2 0 9 (14.5%)
reverse wh th reverse th total
0 5 37 (59.7%)
o-np
3 2 11 (17.7%)
6 7 62 (100%)
Table 39. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in learners’ German clefts cleft type es reverse es w d reverse d total
s-np
o-np
adv.
clause
total
12 2
0 1
1 0
0 0
13 3
7
2
0
2
11
1 0 4 (10.8%)
0 0 1 (2.7%)
0 0 2 (5.4%)
2 8 37 (100%)
1 8 30 (81.1%)
98. Including clefts used in combination with a lexical or other syntactic device.
Chapter 6. Experimental study 153
The finding that the learners’ overuse of clefts in English is particularly strong for contrast receives further support. Whereas clefts are more often used for contrast in the L2 (58.1% vs. 41.9%), the reverse holds for the use of clefts in German (32.4% vs. 67.6%), see Table 40. Table 40. Learners’ use of clefts in L1 and L2 for intensification and contrast cleft type
intensification L2
it/es reverse es wh/w reverse wh/w th/d reverse th/d total
contrast L1
10 (25%) – 4
L2
5 (38.5%) 3 8
1
4
0
6 5 26 (41.9%)
30 (75%) – 0
1 8 25 (67.6%)
0 2 36 (58.1%)
L1 8 (61.5%) 0 3 0 1 0 12 (32.4%)
Preposing/Topicalization. In contrast to the learners’ use of preposed structures in the L2, where they only fronted adverbials, they also topicalized object NPs in the L1. Still, preposed adverbials and adverbial clauses (temporal and causal) are the largest group of topicalized constituents. The percentage of preposed clauses is even higher in the L2 (Table 41). Table 41. Preposed/topicalized constituents in L1 and L2 object NP adverbial adverbial clause total
L1
L2
6 (22.2%) 14 (51.9%) 7 (25.9%) 27* (100%)
0 8 (34.8%) 15 (65.2%) 23 (100%)
* Including two instances of topicalization combined with a lexical intensifier.
Inversion. In contrast to the marginal use of inverted structures in the L2 (all of which were NP inversions), Table 42 illustrates the learners’ use of inversion in their native language.
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Table 42. Type of preposed constituents in inversion in L1 type of constituent NP PP AdjP total
1 (6.6%) 5 (33.3%) 9 (60%) 15* (100%)
* Including four instances of inversion combined with a lexical intensifier or an intensifier-adjective combination.
Particularly important here is the high percentage of AdjP inversions used, the type that shows the closest similarities to English inversion. Typical examples of the learners’ responses are given in (6.10). (6.10) a. Am beeindruckensten war das Heidelberger Schloss, nicht die Universität. (L5) b. Besonders interessant war ein Grillhähnchen, das wir am Tisch direkt vom Spieß serviert bekamen. (L6) c. Viel interessanter war das Schloß mit seiner tollen Aussicht. (L28)
(Non-)Extraposed subject clauses. There are no significant differences in the use of (non-)extraposed clauses. Similar to English L2, there are five and four extraposed dass- and infinitive clauses in German respectively, and only one non-extraposed sentential subject, a dass-clause (Table 43). Table 43. Types of (non-)extraposed subject clause used in L1 and L2 type of subject
extraposed
non-extraposed
that-clause dass-clause wh-clause w-clause to-clause zu-clause -ing-clause
3 4 1 0 3 5 0 – 7 (70%) 9 (90%)
0 1 0 0 1 0 2 – 3 (30%) 1 (10%)
total L2 total L1
total 3 5 1 4 0 2 – 10 (100%) 10 (100%)
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Combinations of syntactic and lexical focus marking. The responses that were included in the category ‘double marking’ (Table 44) show that similar to the findings for their L2 English, the learners also use various types of combinations of focusing devices in German, e.g. clefts in combination with intensifiers and focus particles like in (6.11). Table 44. Syntactic and lexical devices used in combination pragmatic marker + cleft focus particle / focusing adverb + cleft intensifier + cleft intensifier + topicalization / inversion intensifier + other syntactic device other combination total
L1
L2
0 7 4 6 0 3 20
6 2 5 0 4 2 19
(6.11) a. Vor allem Michael lernten wir in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennen. (L7) [topicalization + intensifier vor allem ‘above all’] b. Was auch wirklich eine tolle Sache war, war die Stadtrundfahrt mit dem Doppeldeckerbus. (L4) [w-cleft + intensifier wirklich ‘really’] c. Also es war eindeutig Thomas der das ganze organisiert hat. (L1) [escleft + focusing adverb eindeutig ‘clearly’] d. Es war genau in dem Moment, als wir unsere Namen auf dem Stammbaum gesucht haben, dass wir uns besser kennenlernten. (L5) [es-cleft + focus particle genau ‘exactly’]
However, two important differences can be observed. First, there are no combinations of pragmatic markers and syntactic devices used in German, which contributes to the overall lower frequency of use of pragmatic politeness markers in German. Instead, the prototypical means to supplement and enforce a syntactic device are focus particles and focusing adverbs, as well as intensifiers. Second, these lexical means are not only used in combination with clefts, but also with topicalization and inversion. Both these findings confirm the descriptive accounts of German: Syntactic focusing devices are often supplemented and enforced by the use of lexical means, such as intensifiers and focus/modal particles. Intensifiers are more often used for intensification, not contrast, and due to the larger inventory of focus particles in German, these not only occur in the contrastive scenarios but also in intensification.
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6.1.2.2 Lexico-grammatical means Focus and modal particles. One of the characteristics of German is the comparatively large inventory of focus particles, and the use of modal particles such as einfach, halt (‘just’), doch ‘but’, and eigentlich ‘actually’, which have an illocutionary and interpersonal, rather than propositional function. In very general terms, modal particles indicate the speaker’s attitude towards the utterance as well as the intended perception on the part of the hearer. Modal particles may point to the interlocutors’ common knowledge, to the speaker’s or listener’s suppositions and expectations, and they may create cohesion with previous utterances or mark the speaker’s evaluation of the importance of an utterance. The function and meaning of modal particles is highly context-dependent, and their unambiguous identification and classification is difficult. They often overlap with focus particles, adverbs of degree, conjunctions, and pragmatic markers. In fact, double class-membership is one of the characteristics of particles. For the present analysis, the classification and description of German particles and adverbs and their English near-equivalents was carried out along the lines of König, Stark and Requardt (1990) and Weydt and Hentschel (1983). Table 45 lists the modal particles that were used by the learners in their L1. Table 45. Learners’ use of modal particles in German particle einfach (‘just’) erst (‘at all’) halt (‘just’) doch (‘after all’) schon (‘certainly’) total
used alone 3 1 0 1 0 5
used in combination with other lexical device 1 0 1 0 1 3
total 4 1 1 1 1 8
Evidence for the fact that German is comparatively rich in particles and that these functional classes overlap can also be found in the learner data. Table 46 shows their responses featuring lexical means that were included in the category ‘double marking’. (6.12) gives typical examples in which two, sometimes even four lexical means are used in one and the same stretch of discourse. Table 46. Learners’ use of combinations of lexical means in German pragmatic marker + intensifier pragmatic marker + focus / modal particle focus / modal particle + intensifier more than two total
3 2 2 2 9
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(6.12) a. Nicht direkt unfreundlich – sie können halt nur überhaupt nicht in einer Schlange anstehen, [...] (L4) [pragmatic marker nicht direkt ‘not directly’ + modal particle halt ‘just’ + focus particle nur ‘only’ + focusing adverb überhaupt ‘at all’] b. Ach, nach ein paar Tagen fand ich es eigentlich sogar ganz gut. (L2) [pragmatic marker eigentlich ‘actually’ + focus particle sogar ‘even’]
Not surprisingly, the set of focus particles used by the learners in their L1 is comparatively broad (Table 47). By comparison, in L2 English only three different types of focus particles occur (just, only, even) and are used eleven times. Table 47. Learners’ use of focus particles in German particle auch ‘also’ einzig ‘only’ genau ‘exactly’ gerade ‘particularly’ noch ‘more or less’ nur ‘merely’, ‘only’ nichts mehr ... als ‘nothing more than’ sogar ‘even’ selbst ‘even’ total
used alone
used with other lexical device
used with syntactic device
total
2 0 0 1 1 5
0 0 0 0 0 2
0 1 3 0 0 0
2 1 3 1 1 7
1 3 1 14
0 2 0 4
0 0 0 4
1 5 1 22
Pragmatic Markers. Comparing the learners’ use of pragmatic markers in German (Table 48), it emerges that these are only rarely used, and if so, then in combination with an intensifier or a focus/modal particle. Additionally, as noted earlier, there are no combinations of pragmatic markers and syntactic devices, a fact which contributes to the overall lower frequency of use of pragmatic politeness markers in German. Table 48. Learners’ use of pragmatic markers in German
Eigentlich ‘actually’ * nicht direkt ‘not directly’ nicht gerade ‘not exactly’ total
used alone used with other lexical device
used with syntactic device
total
1 1 0 2
1 0 0 1
6 3 1 10
4 2 1 7
* Since the function and meaning of eigentlich in the given context is very similar to that of actually in English (König, Stark and Requardt 1990: 77f.), it has been classified as a pragmatic marker here.
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Table 49. Learners’ use of pragmatic markers in English used alone
used with other lexical device
used with syntactic device
total
actually in fact
5 1
1 1
6 0
12 2
well
2
3
1
6
2 10
0 5
0 7
2 22
not really total
While the learners’ use of pragmatic markers is significantly higher in their L2 English (p≤0.05), these are still significantly underrepresented when compared with the native speakers (p=0.01). Although some of the German modal particles that have a contrastive meaning (doch, schon) fulfill the function of emphatic do in English (König, Stark and Requardt 1990: 59, 206), and also carry the politeness features such as mitigating face-threat, these particles were only used twice by the learners.
6.2 Metapragmatic assessment Inversion. For three out of five inverted sentences presented in the rating task (repeated in (6.13), p value given after each sentence), the learners show significantly better ratings than the native speakers.99 (6.13)
Inversion: Intensification 1d. Planning the meeting was Thomas. (p=0.428) 3d. Really special was their rotisserie chicken. (p=0.000) 6a. One of the highlights was certainly Neuschwanstein Castle. (p=0.536) 9d. Really surprising was that the drinks come without ice. (p=0.039)
Inversion: Contrast 7d. No, annoying was that they don’t know how to wait in lines. (p=0.000)
All of the three inverted sentences which the learners rated significantly better are cases of inversion around be with a preposed adjective phrase, therefore a structure similar to German inversion. In view of these findings and those obtained from the production task, two explanations can be proposed. First, although the 99. No extra comparison was made for the use of inversion for intensification and contrast. In view of the fact that inversion mainly has a presentational function and is usually not used for contrast, only one instance (item 7d) had been included in the contrastive scenarios.
Chapter 6. Experimental study 159
learners in fact show good acceptability ratings for inverted sentences, they do not use this sentence type productively. In cases of AdjP inversion, in which there are great similarities between the two languages, the most plausible explanation for this learner behaviour is avoidance due to unexpected similarity between their L1 and L2. Thus, these results support the hypothesis that learners tend to avoid V2-structures typical of their L1. The corpus study will provide further evidence for this. Second, and generally speaking, in the light of the descriptive accounts of English inversion outlined earlier, namely that this construction is highly restricted by context and a dispreferred option in conversation and colloquial speech, it is a dispreferred option by the native speakers and receives comparatively low acceptability ratings (the only exception being sentence 6a, an NP inversion). The significantly higher acceptance rates of the learners for this option may evidence a lack of knowledge in terms of contextual appropriateness. Preposing. Native speakers and learners also show clear differences in their ratings of preposed structures as illustrated in Figure 11. The difference is highly significant for the contrastive scenarios (p<0.01), while there is no such difference for intensification (p=0.854). In sum, in five out of six sentences in the contrastive scenarios listed in (6.14), the learners rated preposing significantly better than the native speakers.
Figure 11. Medians for the rating of preposing by native speakers and learners
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Preposing: Contrast 1c. No, not Klaus, Thomas we need to thank. (p=0.009) 2c. No, not at a hotel, at Monika’s we were staying. (p=0.000) 3d. No, we didn’t see the university, but the castle we saw. (p=0.050) 4b. No, there was no interpreter, but Michael we could usually ask for a translation. (p=0.055) 5c. No, not a test, a small book called Ahnenpass they used to prove it. (p=0.045) 6d. No, I was surprised myself but I actually liked it, and like it I really did! (p=0.024)
(6.14)
Moreover, fronted adverbials such as at this time (test item 4c, intensification) or in the beer gardens (5a, intensification) receive higher ratings than core arguments such as direct objects, for example Thomas (1e/1c) and Michael (2a/4b). Similarly to what was said about inversion above, the preposing of core verbal arguments such as objects receive comparatively good ratings, but are not used productively by the learners. Only optional, mobile constituents such as adverbials and adverbial clauses were fronted in the production task. Since topicalized object NPs did in fact occur in the L1, avoidance seems again a likely explanation. Comparing the standard deviation scores for inversion and preposing, it can be observed that for preposing, both groups show more variation and thus diverging views as to the appropriateness and/or grammaticality of preposed structures. For the learners, this is also supported by verbal reports obtained through the retrospective interviews. But how can the comparatively low acceptability rates for preposing by the native speakers, and their non-use of preposing with core arguments in the production task be explained? Hock and Joseph (1996) observe that Modern English increasingly appears to disfavour topicalized structures and that even this relic of topicalization [that is preposing of the direct object, MC] is beginning to fade, and many speakers of English, especially in the American Midwest, are quite uncomfortable with such structures (1996: 210).100
Instead, speakers of that region seem to prefer alternative devices, for example the passive, it-clefting and topic markers such as As for... Further support for this hypothesis may be a piece of anecdotal evidence obtained while conducting the experiment. One of the American participants stated that although she considered the preposing constructions to be grammatical, she found that they sounded like
100. I should like to thank Christian Uffmann for bringing this reference to my attention.
Chapter 6. Experimental study 161
“Yoda-speak”, referring to one of the characters in the Star Wars movies who uses an unusual ordering of words in his speech. Such a view may have been shared by other native speaker informants, and this may explain the comparatively low acceptability of preposing structures. Future research has to establish whether there really is a marked difference between speakers of British and American English as to the use and acceptability of preposing. Despite the large amount of research that was reviewed, no further evidence apart from the note in Hock and Joseph (1996) could be found. Clefting. Generally speaking, both groups show high acceptability rates for itclefts. Significant differences were found in the ratings of it-clefts for contrast (significantly higher ratings by the learners, p=0.020), but not for intensification (p=0.174). What also holds for both groups is that the focusing of short, animate subject and object NPs, such as Thomas and Michael, receives higher ratings than the focusing of clauses as in It was that the drinks come without ice that really surprised us or It was that they don’t know how to wait in lines that annoyed me. No significant differences for the rating of wh-clefts were found either for intensification (p=0.540) or contrast (p=0.961). Both groups show comparatively high rates and clearly consider those wh-clefts best that focus heavy constituents such as clauses or NPs with modifiers in sentence-final position, underlined in the examples in (6.15). (6.15) Intensification 8b. I think what keeps people from cheating is knowing that the punishment is quite severe. 9a. What really surprised us was that the drinks come without ice.
Contrast 5a. No, what they used to prove it was a small book called Ahnenpass. 6b. No, what surprised me was that I actually liked it. 7a. No, what was annoying was that they don’t know how to wait in lines.
That there is indeed a marked difference as to how both groups rate inversion and preposing on the one hand, and it- and wh-clefts on the other hand can also be seen by considering the confidence intervals for the rating scores (Figure 12 and Figure 13). While the spans are clearly distant from each other for inversion and preposing (contrast), there is significant overlap for it- and wh-clefts. The confidence intervals also illustrate that while the native speakers show highly significant differences with regard to their ratings of inversion and preposing for intensification and contrast (in both cases p=0.000), both receiving higher
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Figure 12. Confidence intervals for the average ratings of inversion and preposing
Figure 13. Confidence intervals for the average ratings of it- and wh-clefts
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ratings for intensification, no such marked differences emerge for the learners (p=0.160 and p=0.885 respectively). Graphic illustrations and median acceptability scores for the options provided in each test item in the English assessment questionnaire are given in Appendix 6. There appears to be no clear difference as to a preferred positioning of the key information in the two communicative settings, in that for example early mentioning of the key information would be a preferred option in the contrastive setting, but not for intensification. However, differences do emerge with respect to the ratings of sentence type and the type of constituent to be highlighted. For short subject and object NPs such as Thomas and Michael, both native speakers and learners consider the two types of cleft constructions that focus the key information early in the sentence the best options: the rth-cleft and the it-cleft. Similar tendencies show if we look at how the learners rated the options provided in their L1 German. Topicalization was rated as the best option in five out of nine items for the focusing of short constituents, the reverse d-cleft twice. For longer constituents, the w-cleft and extraposition were rated as best once each. In the contrastive scenarios, the different type of clefts in German were the preferred options: the es-cleft four times, the reverse es-cleft, reverse d-cleft and topicalization two times each. For the heavy constituents, the w-cleft was considered the best option twice. Moreover, there is an interesting difference as to the learners’ ratings for preposing and topicalization respectively. While they clearly rate preposing better in the contrastive settings in their L2, it is the best option for intensification in German. This seems to confirm that topicalization in German is not as strongly associated with contrastiveness than preposing in English. Finally, the following differences between the ratings of sentence types in L1 and L2 were found. Not surprisingly, topicalization in German receives better ratings than preposing in English, the difference is highly significant for intensification (p<0.000) and significant for contrast (p=0.019). It-clefts receive significantly higher ratings in English than es-clefts in German (p=0.001 for intensification and 0.042 for contrast).101 For wh-/w-clefts, there is no significant difference for intensification (p = 0.504), but for contrast (p=0.019, higher ratings for English wh-clefts. No significant differences were found for inversion (p=0.757).102 101. No significant difference between the ratings for es- and reverse es-clefts in German were found (p=0.152, Wilcoxon test). Thus, the findings by Ahlemeyer and Kohlhof (1999) that only a third of the German es-clefts in their corpora showed standard word order, which suggest that reverse es-clefts may be preferable in German could not be supported in this experiment. 102. There were no inverted structures included in the contrastive scenarios in the German language questionnaire.
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6.3 Introspection The retrospective interviews were conducted after the completion of the English questionnaire and then transcribed in broad orthographic transcription.103 They reveal some interesting additional information that supports the findings obtained from the analyses of both the production and assessment data. First of all, the learners’ verbal reports exhibit their conflicting views as to the positioning of the key information for emphasis. One learner, despite some doubts, explicitly mentioned end-position as “the most common way to emphasize” information, see the interview sequence in (6.16). (6.16) R: Uh, ca-, can you actually remember, uh, uh, what, what kind of strategies you were using, uh, making sure that you were actually getting the effect that was desired across to the re-, recipient? L1: Well, I actually just looked at the text at the beginning RL: Mhm. L1: and then I tried to imagine if I’m telling that a friend, what I could say about that, and tried to remember what stands in the text. So, uhm, I just REPEATED the stuff which was given at first. R: Mhm. Was it that you just repeated it or were you following some kind of – you know, uh – I don’t know, I mean, there must have been something in, in the way you wrote it that you were – now, that you wanted to make sure that it really got, that this piece of information really got emphasized and got, you know, across to the reader as being very important. L1: Well, I think the most common way to emphasize it is that I put the, the major part of the sentence or what I wanted to tell at the END of the sentence R: Aha.
103. The following transcription conventions are used:
L R (...) - [ ] //…// THOMAS “…” (laughs) (unintelligible)
learner informant researcher longer pause or silence cut-off or self-interruption overlap between speakers English translation of German interview sequence stress or emphasis, either by increased loudness or higher pitch examples cited from the questionnaires non-verbal speaker comment researcher’s comment
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L1: and I’m using some phrases which I learned, so like well or actually and perhaps maybe. R: Okay, right. So, you would, you would say by, by putting this, this MARKED piece of information at the end of the sentence, at the end of the clause, you would get special emphasis? L1: Yes. R: Okay. L1: I’m not quite sure if I did that all the time, but, uhm R: Oh well, [I don’t know, I mean, I’m just asking.] L1: [(unintelligible) I’m using], I’m using usually.
Another learner explicitly referred to syntactic re-arrangement as a means of highlighting information. He was unsure, however, which sentence position was the most appropriate one for emphasis in general, stating that he did not follow sentence-final position for emphasis as “a general rule of thumb”. (6.17) R: Were there any, uh, strategies or any, you know, means you were using or you were following in terms of making sure that the desired effect, that was in situation one emphasizing some piece of information, and in situation two resolving this contrast or correcting a mistaken assumption, that you, uh, you know, wanted to make sure that you get this across? Were there any strategies you were using in what you wrote? L2: Uhm, I think, I, I took the sentence and, uh, looked at it f-, uh, looked at it from, from different perspectives or different angles, and, uh, well tried to find out what was the CORE that, that was of interest in this sentence, and R: Mhm. L2: I think I did that by applying different SYNTACTIC, uhm (...) orders R: Mhm. L2: and, and by, or, or trying to find word substitutions. R: Would you say that, that some kind of s-, specific position within the sentence would be more, more, you know, suited to, to make sure that a specific piece would be emphasized, or not? L2: Uhm, I was unsure about that because sometimes I had the feeling that, uh, the information that came LAST R: Mhm. L2: uhm, would carry the main emphasis, but then sometimes, there were, were some cases where it sounded strange and, and, well, unidiomatic R: Mhm. L2: and, uhm, I, I sometimes even put it to the front. So, uh, it was, I couldn’t follow it as a general rule of thumb.
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Two other learners said that they tried to move the important information into sentence-initial position, hence preferred topicalizing it. (6.18) R: Wie sind Sie da (beim Ausfüllen der Fragebögen) vorgegangen? Haben Sie da gewisse Strategien irgendwie gehabt, oder wie Sie - ? //How did you go about this (filling in the questionnaires)? Did you use certain strategies in a way, or how did you - ?// L4: Ich hab’ versucht, das, äh, was unterstrichen war, möglichst an den Anfang zu stellen. //I’ve tried to place, the, uh, the bit that was underlined, at the beginning, if possible.// R: Mhm. //affirmative interjection// L4: Und dann die weitere Information danach kommen zu lassen. //And then have the other information come after that.// (6.19) R: Wie sind Sie vorgegangen, wie haben Sie entschieden, also, ich sag’ das jetzt so und so, um eben das, das besonders hervorzuheben, oder diesen Effekt eben zu erreichen? //How did you go about this, how did you decide, well, I’ll put it that way, just to highlight this, or to actually achieve this effect?// L7: Mm, also, ich glaub’, ich hab’ das meistens an den Satzanfang dann gestellt. //Mm, well, I think I moved it to the beginning of the sentence then, in most cases.//
The large majority of the German learners who were interviewed had neither explicit knowledge of specific syntactic patterns they used or could be used to achieve emphasis, nor the knowledge of the metalanguage to refer to such structures. However, several informants had vague intuitive knowledge about focusing devices, especially about clefts. The following two interview sequences show that some learners found the two main types of clefting useful and were aware of the fact that they convey some kind of emphasis. (6.20) is a comment on the rating task, (6.21) a reflection on the production data provided by informant L7. (6.20) R: I mean, obviously, you, you will, you will have realized that some of these structures, they were given time and time again. So “What was...” and “It was...”, and so on. L1: Mhm. R: Anything that, you know, that you find interesting or something that, that, you know, made, made you think about it? L1: Well, I think the “What was, uhm, most amazing” hm, hm, hm, hm, I think, I liked that sentence, uhm, the most because it’s, it’s kind of this
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emphasis thing and it puts the, the major part of the sentence or what I wanted to say at the end of the sentence. R: Right. L1: And it sounds good to me. (6.21) R: Also, Sie haben häufig, wie, wie ich sehe jetzt hier, also, Sie haben am Anfang schonmal was, was mit “It was...”, ne? Diese Konstruktion hier. (...) Oder hier zum Beispiel auch wieder, ne? “What we did see was...”, oder “It was Michael who...”, und so weiter, ne? //Well, you often have, as I see here now, well, you have at the beginning something like “It was...”, haven’t you? This construction here. (...) Or here for example, again, right? “What we did see was...”, or “It was Michael who...”, and so on, right?// L7: Mhm. //affirmative interjection// R: Haben Sie das bewusst gemacht oder, äh, ist das einfach was, was Sie so intuitiv - ? //Did you do that intentionally or, uh, is that just something that, that you intuitively - ?// L7: Ja, also, ich find’ halt vom Gefühl her, wenn man das so ausdrückt, dann betont es das halt (laughs). //Yes, well, I just feel that, if you express it like this, then it just emphasizes it.//
Only one interviewee (informant L2) had explicit knowledge of the cleft construction, and he also knew the term. He was able to verbalize some “attentiongrabbing function” of the it-cleft but was uncertain about its idiomaticity. This informant was also the one with the largest inventory of linguistic metalanguage, most likely due to his strong background in linguistics. (6.22) R: For example in, in questionnaire one, situation one, sentence one, where, where, you know, this guy Thomas, [who did all] the planning. L2: [Yeah.] R: He’s supposed to be emphasized and you used “It was Thomas who did all the planning” and so on. L2: Yeah, that R: So, so what is it in this, in this sentence you wrote that, that emphasizes it, what is it that you think, you know, gets it across, the special emphasis? L2: Well (laughs). It’s a, it’s a good question, because I R: Uh. L2: It was just the first thing that popped up in my mind.
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R: I mean, you, you could have, you could have written Thomas did all the planning. L2: No, that, that’s not it. R: Yeah. L2: I wanted to give a special emphasis to it, so, with, someti- I think it’s somehow reduplicated because the IT somehow refers to Thomas as well R: Mhm. L2: and, uh, it’s, well, it’s an empty it here in the front, but the - Maybe it gets the attention of the reader or listener, that IT, and then he starts to think Well, what IS IT? and then is it solved when I said “It was THOMAS”, and then he thinks Ah, okay, Thomas, and then R: Right. L2: Uhm. R: So is that, that you, that you heard this construction, used, having been used by native speakers often, that you remembered it, that it’s useful or is it that you have some explicit knowledge about what kind of construction this is and [what functions it has?] L2: [Uhm], I think both. R: Yeah. L2: Uh, but I think I came across it, uh, yah, quite often in my studies, but, uh, uh, I think I’ve heard it as well, uh. I’m not, not quite sure if I really, if it’s really idiomatic, so I can’t really say, point to a certain event when a native speaker used it. R: So, do you know actually, actually what it’s called, this construction? L2: Uh, is it the empty-it, the dummy-it function? R: Yeah, not really. I mean this, this syntactic device “It was L2: Uh, R: this and that who...” L2: the clefting? R: Cleft, yah.
In contrast to the syntactic options for highlighting information, some learners provided comments that illustrate their knowledge of the intensifying effect of additional lexical material such as intensifying adjectives. (6.23) R: Gab’s noch andere Strategien, also, dass man meinetwegen irgendwas hinzufügt? Also, [jetzt nicht, nicht,] dass man nur das, was vorgegeben ist irgendwie umstellt, sondern einfach noch – //Were there some other strategies, well, that you, let’s say, added something? Well, now not that, not that you only re-arrange the information that is given, but in addition simply -//
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L4: (laughs) L4: Ja, da, ich hab’ versucht, die Sachen in, in anderen Worten, halt, zu erklären //Yes, I’ve tried to explain the things, just in other words.// R: Mhm. //affirmative interjection// L4: die vielleicht noch’n bißchen stärker sind als das, was im Text war. //that are perhaps even a bit stronger than what was in the text.// (...) R: Mhm. (...) Hier haben Sie mal really, really dazugefügt, ne? //affirmative interjection (...) Here, you have added really, haven’t you?// L4: Ach so, solche //Oh, okay, such -// R: So was [zum Beispiel, ne?] // Something like this, for example, right? // L4: [Verstärker auch noch], ja genau. //intensifiers also, yes exactly.// (6.24) R: Was denken Sie so generell was es für Möglichkeiten gibt, wenn man einfach jetzt sprachlich die Aufgabe hat, etwas besonders in den Vordergrund zu rücken, sprachlich, zu betonen, hervorzuheben? //What do you think in general, what possibilities are there if you now just have this language task, to foreground something, to emphasize, highlight it verbally?// L9: Äh, indem ich es mit bestimmten Adjektiven versehe, oder besonders herausstelle. Zum Beispiel, eh, wie ich das hier gemacht habe (refers to questionnaire one, situation one, item one) “It was Thomas, but not”, oder so, oder. //Uh, in the way that I add certain adjectives to it, or highlight it in a special way. For example, uh, like I did here “It was Thomas, but not”, or something, or.//
Finally, there is an interesting interview sequence in which one learner explains how he ‘acquires’ and uses certain intensifying expressions, among others. The informant reports how he notices, remembers and copies phrases employed by native speakers, and how he uses them almost like formulaic ‘chunks’. (6.25) R: I was, I was just looking at the kind of the linguistic material you were using to emphasize this. So for example you used “so amazing” or “really impressed” and so on. L1: Yeah, that’s what I said with probably, maybe, or so amazing, things I heard from when I was in, in another country.
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R: Mhm. So, say, especially these words as, as you said before, these, you called them phrases, or these small words like actually, really, they would L1: Yes, I, I call them phrases, so, uh. R: they would be very useful in order to emphasize something? L1: Yeah, if you, if I used to hear to native speakers, I’m trying to collect these words, and I think they use them very often. R: Mhm. L1: So, I repeat them (laughs).
Some comments also indicate several learners’ knowledge of the existence and functions of particles and pragmatic markers such as well or actually. (6.26) R: Yeah, for example if, if you look at what you wrote, you had, you, you used these kind of, uh, initial particles a lot. L2: Yeah. R: “Well, no...”, “Well, [actually...”] L2: [Actually], yah. R: And again, “No, well...”, uh, “Not quite...”, and so on. So, do you think they are specifically useful in this context because this is some kind of - ? L2: Well, I think R: Yah. L2: they have some hedging functions. (6.27) R: Können Sie sich da erinnern, ob bestimmte Füllwörter, wie Sie, wie Sie sagen, oder andere Sachen Sie besonders nützlich fanden da, jetzt mal abgesehen von dem no, um das gleich zu verneinen. Andere Sachen noch? //Can you remember whether certain fillers, as you, as you say, or other things you found particularly useful there, apart from using no to negate this right away. Any other things?// L9: Ja, zum Beispiel sowas wie das actually ist natürlich, also, äh, überall zu finden. //Yes, for example something like this actually, that’s of course, uh, to be found all over the place.// R: Mhm. //affirmative interjection// L9: Also, ich hab’ das jetzt vermieden, aber das könnte man überall einbauen. Oder, ähm (...), ähm (...) //Well, I’ve avoided using that now, but you could put that in everywhere. Or, uhm (...), uhm (...)// R: Ja, [aus welchem Grund?] //Yes, for what reason?// L9: [tam, tam] - tam, tam not, oder so. //interjection - interjection not, or so.//
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L9: Ähm. //Uhm.// R: Weil Sie gerade das actually schon ansprechen, explizit. //Since you’re mentioning this actually, explicitly.// (...) L9: Weil das so ‘ne, so ‘ne Art, äh, Wende oder Betonung, je nachdem, wie man’s verwendet, einleiten könnte, und es wird ja sehr gern gebraucht. //Because it could introduce some kind of, uh, turn or emphasis, depending on how you use it, and people like to use it very much.// R: Mhm. //affirmative interjection// L9: Also, was ich -, sind halt so meine Erfahrungen. //Well, what I -, that’s just my experience.//
The following comment shows that at least for some learners, the issue of politeness did play a role in their responses to the misunderstanding created by the scenarios in situation two of the questionnaires. (6.28) R: Also ich seh’ Sie haben meistens no vorangestellt, ja, um das dann gleich von vornherein, irgendwie zu korrigieren? //Well, I see that in most cases you’ve used no initially, yes, in order to correct that somehow right away?// L4: Ja, da hab’ ich auch überlegt wie man das andere, anders machen könnte, aber ich dachte, zuerst muß man ja schonmal nein sagen, dass es [anders ist.] //Yes, I also thought about how I could put that differently, but I thought that first you have to say NO anyhow, that it’s different.// R: [Mhm.] //affirmative interjection// L4: Aber dann hab’ ich schon versucht, zu variieren, dann nicht immer actually oder in fact, oder so (...) [zu nehmen.] //But then I did try to vary this a bit, not to use actually or in fact, or so, all the time// R: [Ja.] //Yes.// (...) L4: Und auch noch höflich dabei zu bleiben. Nicht so – //And to be polite at the same time. Not like -// R: Mhm. //affirmative interjection// L4: Mm, Haben Sie das vergessen, oder, (laughs) //Mm, Did you forget that, or,//
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R: Ja (laughs). //Yes.// L4: was ich da erzählt habe? //what I told there?// R: So, actually, in fact, das, das, da würden Sie sagen, die würden sich dazu eignen? //So, actually, in fact, that, that, you’d say that these are useful for that purpose?// L4: Ja. //Yes.//
As for the rating task, some interviewees clearly stated that they had preferences as to which structural alternatives they liked best. However, only rarely were they able to explain and verbalize the reason(s) why one or the other option was not considered appropriate. (6.29) R: So, i-, it wasn’t that you were just looking for grammar, or for style, or meaning, or anything L1: Hm. R: in reading the sentences, or - ? L1: No, not at all. R: No. L1: Well, okay. Sometimes just sounds weird. And I already know Oh, it’s weird because it’s wrong grammar, for example. R: Mhm. L1: But it’s just sounds weird to me. (6.30) R: Also manche haben Sie nicht so als geeignet angesehn’, demnach? //Well, some of them you didn’t consider being appropriate then?// L4: Ja. //Yes.// R: Ja. //Yes.// L4: Aber ich hätte jetzt auch keine, äh, grammatische Erklärung jetzt dafür, warum ich das jetzt – //But, now I wouldn’t have any, uh, grammatical explanation now, for why I -//
In the following sequence, it appears that the learner rejected an it-cleft because of an It was that-sequence, as he states. However, it seems reasonable to assume that the weight principle played a role in the learner’s decision: Heavy elements such as that-clauses are typically not focused in it-clefts. It appears that the learner was aware of the fact that an it-cleft is a dispreferred option for focusing a that-clause,
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but he was neither able to pin this down nor to verbalize it. Thus, explicit knowledge as to the end-weight principle in English seems to be absent. (6.31) R: Anything else that affected your judgment? L2: Then, uh, yes, again this, this question where the information was put in the sentence. R: Mhm. L2: So at the beginning or towards the end. But I think I, I varied that, too, sometimes judging sentences giving the information, uh, very late to be adequate, and sometimes judging, uhm, the best possibility to be one that gave the information quite at the beginning. R: Okay. So, let’s take a look at sentence, sentence nine in situation one, questionnaire two, where you rated the, the what-cleft “What really surprised us was” this and that, as best, and in contrast to that, the it-cleft “It was that the drinks come without ice that really surprised us” as the, uh, the worst. L2: Yah. R: Why’s that? L2: (Sighs). I think it’s, it’s just this, uh, formula “It was that” that, uh, put me off a bit. R: Mhm. L2: So, uhm, uh, I think I simply found “What really surprised us” to, to sound more natural. R: Mhm. Okay. But you couldn’t say for what reason this, this, you would kind of reject it, b), instead of saying it doesn’t sound right? L2: Uhm, no. R: No? Okay. L2: No grammatical reason, it was not, it wasn’t ungrammatical or something. Simply, yeah, it sounded, sounded strange to me.
Additionally, the verbal reports contain evidence that mode also played a role in the learners’ decisions in the assessment questionnaire. Although they are obviously aware of the fact that there is an interrelationship between the use of certain devices and spoken and written language, their characterization is not always well-founded. This is evident in two comments on the use of itand wh-clefts. (6.32) R: Right. So, you, would you actually use these, this construction yourself, “What was...”? L1: If I’m speaking, yes. R: Okay. L1: But not, uhm, if I’m writing.
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R: Yeah. So you wouldn’t use it in, in written language? L1: No. R: Right. L1: I don’t think so, no. R: Okay. Why not, I mean, do you, do you think it’s more informal or what’s the reason for that, why you wouldn’t use it in writing? L1: Well, it s-, it sounds for me like an, uhm, a sentence which you just can speak, it’s, uh, like the German sentence - no, no-one writes, uhm Was am erstaunlichsten war, war hm, hm, hm, hm. R: Mhm, mhm. L1: That’s typically to speak, not to write. R: Okay. Right. L1: That’s what I guessed (laughs).
(6.33) R: So, and in the second one there were these different alternatives given you were supposed to evaluate. Anything, uhm, that, you know, s-, sticks in your mind about this? L2: Uhm, yes, I read all the alternatives given R: Mhm. L2: to, to myself, and, uhm, tried to imagine what, what sounded most natural, or, uhm, yah, what, what would sound most like a spoken, like, given in a spoken conversation, and not in a textbook. There were some things, uh, the, uhm, “It was...” hm, hm, hm R: Mhm. L2: this clefting, uh, thing that seemed not idiomatic, we-, uh, not idiom-, unidiomatic, but not, uhm, not like part of a spoken conversation R: Mhm. L2: not, not orally. R: Okay.
The interviews also demonstrate that the learners have contradicting views on the grammaticality and contextual appropriateness of preposing constructions. While some learners consider such constructions grammatically incorrect (for example informant L1), others clearly state that these are grammatically correct, but stylistically questionable (for example informant L9). (6.34) R: So, what is it in, in these four alternatives, why do you think the first two are best in this context here (refers to questionnaire two, situation 2, item 3)? Or what, what within the sentence makes it L1: Well, I think number c) “No, it was the castle we saw, not the university”, well, it sounds good, too, but I didn’t know. R: Mhm.
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L1: But, I don’t know, it just sounds not so good to me, so. And the other one “No, we didn’t see the university, but the castle we saw”, I think it’s just wrong. R: Why’s that? L1: Uh, number d). R: Yeah, why, why would it be wrong? L1: Well, I, I think it sounds totally wrong to me because of the “but the castle we saw”. R: Right. L1: And R: So, so the position of this word, [the castle], then, yeah? L1: [Yeah.] R: Okay. (6.35) R: Haben Sie da Präferenzen entwickelt, dass Sie fanden, na, diese Konstruktion, wirklich, äh, [halt ich für am besten?] //Did you have preferences in that you found, well, this construction, really, uh, I consider the best?// L9: [Ja, diese,] dieses “It was”, das kam oft, ja, das fand’ ich glaub’ ich immer ganz gut. Ehm, andere Sachen, kann ich mich jetzt nicht so konkret erinnern. Also, ähm. Was fand ich denn nicht gut? Zum Beispiel da oben (refers to questionnaire 2, situation 1, item 2, option a) “Michael we’d get to know very well”. Ja, das fand ich’n bißchen – //Yes, these, this “It was...”, that appeared often, yes, I always found that quite good, I think. Uhm, other things, I can’t remember very well now. Well, uhm. What was it I didn’t like? For example up there “Michael we’d get to know very well”. Yes, that I found a bit -// R: Ja? //Yes?// L9: Ehm, ich mein’, das ist, könn-, also, es is’ ja, es is’ ja auch korrekt, aber, ehm, fand ich nicht so besonders toll, stilistisch. //Uhm, I mean, that is, cou-, well, it’s also, it’s also correct, but, uhm, but I didn’t like it too much, stylistically.//
Moreover, the interview sequence in (6.36) illustrates that psychotypological aspects also influenced the learners’ assessment of the given alternatives, which may be the underlying cause for crosslinguistic influence, surfacing in rejection/avoidance due to unexpected similarity between L1 and L2. Informant L4 mentions that some structures sounded “odd” or “quite German”.
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(6.36) R: Und im zweiten Teil, ähm, da war’n ja so’n paar Sachen vorgegeben, ähm, die, ja, die Sie dann so mehr oder weniger bewerten sollten. Ist Ihnen da irgendwas aufgefallen oder wie sind Sie da vorgegangen? Was war da das Kriterium zu sagen, okay, die und die Alternative gefällt mir am besten, oder die hört sich nicht so gut an? //And in the second part, uhm, there were a few things given, right?, uhm, that, yes, which you were supposed to evaluate, more or less. Was there anything that struck you, or how did you go about this? What was the criterion there to say, okay, this and that alternative I like best, or this one doesn’t sound too good?// (...) L4: Das war jetzt auch weniger //Again, this was less// R: Mhm. //affirmative interjection// L4: theoretisch, sondern mehr intuitiv. //theoretical, but more intuitive// R: Ja. //Yes.// L4: Dass ich gedacht hab’, das, das hört sich einfach gut an. Und manche, äh, haben sich ziemlich schief angehört, fand ich. //In the way that I thought, this, this sounds just fine. And some others, uh, sounded quite odd, I thought.// R: Mhm, mhm. //affirmative interjections// L4: Oder ziemlich deutsch. //Or quite German.//
Finally, the verbal reports also yielded some highly interesting comments with respect to both the methodology used and the learners’ abilities to tackle the tasks provided in the questionnaires. It appears that the learners were more comfortable with the contrastive dialogue sequences in which a stimulus was provided to which they were asked to respond. (6.37) R: Was there any, was there any difference in terms of how you tackled, this, this task? L1: Well, I think that part is more, it’s not, uh, it’s more narrative language, uhm, than written language. R: Mhm. L1: You know, because, s-, somebody is asking me something, and then I have these flow, and, uhm, I’m using these “Well,..” or “Oh no, it’s” hm, hm, hm.
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R: Mhm. L1: I think that part was easier. R: Mhm. Because, they, this, you know, this, this dialogue was already given and you were [supposed to respond?] L1: [Yes, yes,] you have a point to start. R: Okay. (6.38) L7: Mm, also, ich fand’ die zweite Aufgabe eigentlich leichter als die erste. Ähm, ja, weil man einfach da schon so’n vorgegebenes Schema hat, bei der Verneinung. //Mm, well, I think the second task was actually easier than the first. Uhm, yes, simply because there you are already given some kind of schema, in negating it.//
Finally, there is one interview sequence which illustrates a learner’s difficulties with the communicative task of emphasizing or highlighting a specific piece of information without being given a stimulus. (6.39) L7: Also, teilweise hab’ ich das ja einfach nur anders geschrieben //Well, sometimes I simply wrote it differently// R: Mhm, mhm. //affirmative interjections// L7: weil ich da nicht so genau wußte, wie ich das machen sollte (laughs). //because I didn’t know exactly how I should do it// R: Also umgestellt, im Prinzip, so, den, den Satz //so, re-arranged, in principle, like, the sentence// L7: Mhm. //interjection//
6.4 Summary Comparing the findings from the experimental study on the basis of triangulated elicitation data, it emerges that the different data types have largely produced converging evidence as to the learners’ (non-)use of focusing devices in L1 and L2. First of all, the assumption that the learners may use fewer focusing devices than the native speakers can be rejected since both groups show very similar frequency distributions for the non-use of focusing devices across both intensification and contrast. Also, the comparison of the learners’ responses in their L1 and L2 shows similar frequency distributions for the category ‘no specific device used’. Generally speaking, it seems that the learners show a clear preference for information highlighting in sentence final position in both L1 and L2: in cases where they do
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not use a specific focusing device, they tend to place the important information towards the end. Compared to the native speaker responses in elicited production, cleft constructions are significantly overrepresented in the learner data, it-clefts in particular, with both groups using them mostly in the contrastive scenarios to highlight short subject NPs. In addition, the learners frequently use clefts in combination with lexical devices such as lexical intensifiers, focus particles or pragmatic markers, and combinations of cleft types, reflecting typical co-occurrence patterns of German. The overrepresentation of it-clefts in the L2 is even more striking when considering their comparatively infrequent occurrence in L1 German (11 vs. 28 instances). Both groups show high acceptability rates for it-clefts in the assessment task. The learners’ preference for structure-preserving, semantically empty subject placeholders is also supported by the significantly higher occurrence of existentials and extraposed subject clauses in elicited production. Native speakers and learners differ with respect to both quantitative and qualitative aspects of preposing. Sentence-initial, intensifying uses of either heavy adverbial clauses or simple adverbials are overrepresented in the learners’ L2, whereas the native speakers mostly front simple adverbials and use initial adverbial clauses only very rarely. This suggests that the learners may not be fully aware of the concept of syntactic weight and the principle of end-focus. In contrast to the German production data, where topicalization is used also very frequently (25 instances of topicalization in German vs. 23 instances of preposing in English), obligatory arguments such as direct objects are not preposed once in the L2. Only optional, mobile constituents such as adverbials and adverbial clauses are fronted. The assessment task provides acceptability ratings for preposing structures that are in opposition to the production data. Although the learners do not use preposing productively − despite similarities to the L1 which should enable positive transfer − they provide high acceptability ratings. In the contrastive scenarios, the learners rate preposing structures even significantly better than the native speakers, including the preposing of core verbal arguments such as direct objects. Inversion is used productively neither by native speakers nor learners. In view of its register distribution, formally and contextually highly restricted character, it can be considered a marginal phenomenon in the (pseudo-oral) task setting. Inversion is less restricted in German, and thus, the learners use this device much more often in their L1. Particularly important here is the high percentage of AdjP inversions, the type that shows the closest similarities to English inversion and should thus enable positive transfer. In view of this fact, the most plausible explanation for the absence of such sentence types in the L2 is avoidance due to unexpected similarity between L1 and L2. By contrast, the learners rate
Chapter 6. Experimental study 179
such cases of inversion around be higher than the native speakers. In the light of the descriptive accounts of English inversion, namely that this construction is highly restricted by context and rare in conversation and colloquial speech, it is a marked and dispreferred option and may have received comparatively low acceptability ratings by the native speakers for this reason. The significantly higher ratings of the learners here could evidence a lack of knowledge in terms of contextual appropriateness and register awareness. Turning to the lexico-grammatical devices, the main finding is that emphatic do for contrastive correction, and pragmatic markers are significantly underrepresented in the learner responses. Both native speakers and learners use pragmatic markers almost exclusively in cases of contrast and disagreement, which reflects their politeness function, with the native speakers using pragmatic markers significantly more frequently in general. Some learners strongly reject the fictitious interlocutor’s mistaken assumption given in the stimulus without employing mitigating devices which often leads to direct and offensive corrections. Finally, the retrospective interviews have provided further evidence with respect to the question whether the learners have explicit knowledge of functional principles of discourse as well as syntactic or other focusing devices. It can be concluded that they have different views as to their general preference for the positioning of the key information for emphasis (sentence initial vs. sentence-final position). Most of the interviewees have neither explicit knowledge of specific syntactic patterns they are using or could use to achieve emphasis, nor the knowledge of the metalanguage to refer to such devices. However, several informants show implicit and intuitive knowledge about clefts, and feel that they convey some kind of emphasis. The learners much more readily and spontaneously mention lexical means to highlight information. This can be considered further evidence for the assumption that the use of syntactic devices is not a conscious process, and that the learners’ knowledge of the intensifying effect of additional lexical material such as intensifying adjectives is clearly explicit. Some comments also indicate several learners’ knowledge of the functions of particles and pragmatic markers such as well or actually, and that at least for some informants, the issue of politeness did play a role in their responses in the contrastive settings. As for the rating task, some interviewees clearly state that they have preferences as to which structural alternatives they like best, but only rarely are they able to explain and verbalize the reason(s) why one or the other option is considered (in-)appropriate. Although a number of comments suggest that they appear to be aware of the interrelationship between certain devices and their use in either spoken or written language, this characterization is not always well-founded, which again points to a lack of register awareness.
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Conflicting views emerge with respect to the grammaticality and contextual appropriateness of preposing constructions, ranging from grammatically incorrect (informant L1) to grammatically correct, but stylistically questionable (informant L9). The interviews also provide evidence that psychotypological aspects influenced learner assessment of the given alternatives, which may be the underlying cause for crosslinguistic influence. Finally, there are interesting comments with respect to both the methodology used and the learners’ abilities to tackle the tasks provided in the questionnaires. The majority of participants seemed to be more comfortable with the contrastive dialogue sequences in which a stimulus is given, while some learners report difficulties with the communicative task of emphasizing or highlighting a specific piece of information without being given a starting point.
chapter 7
Learner-corpus study
7.1
Syntactic means
7.1.1 Clefts Similar to elicited production, it-clefts are overrepresented in the learner corpus, which is, however, statistically only marginally significant (G2=+2.01, which equals p>0.05), while there are similar frequencies for all other cleft types, except for an underrepresentation of rwh-clefts and the marginal occurrence of all-clefts in the learner corpus (Table 50). Table 50. Overall use of clefts by native speakers and learners in the corpora cleft type
native speakers
learners
it wh reversed wh th reversed th all reversed all total
30 (25.6%) 21 (17.9%) 27 (23.1%) 19 (16.2%) 13 (11.1%) 6 (5.1%) 1 (0.9%) 117 (100%)
39 (35.1%) 17 (15.3%) 19 (17.1%) 21 (18.9%) 14 (12.6%) 1 (0.9%) 0 111 (100%)
The relevant statistical measures are shown in Table 51.104
104. Frequencies of occurrence were compared using the log-likelihood statistic which is similar to chi-square in that it constructs a contingency table and compares the number of observed and expected cases for a specific device in each corpus. For the present purposes, it is recommended that the number of sentences in each corpus is retrieved and then normalized for average sentence length beforehand (Paul Rayson, personal communication). The higher the G2 value, the more significant is the difference between two frequency scores. A G2 of 3.8 or higher is significant at the level of p<0.05, and a G2 of 6.6 or higher is significant at p<0.01. The plus or minus symbol before the log-likelihood value indicates overuse or underuse respectively in corpus 1 relative to corpus 2.
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Table 51. Log-likelihood and significance rates for the use of clefts in the corpora105 corpus
w
s
it
wh/rwh
th/rth
all
ICLE LOCNESS
85,145 85,396
3503 3795
39 30 G2
36 48 G2
35 32 G2
1 7 G2
ICLE vs. LOCNESS
p
+2.01 > 0.05
p
p
-0.89 > 0.05 +0.48 > 0.05
p
-4.59 < 0.05
In the following, I will discuss the different types of clefts in turn. Table 52 gives an overview of the highlighted elements and their syntactic functions that occur in it-clefts in the two corpora. Both groups predominantly highlight subject NPs, and less frequently, adverbials. Table 52. Syntactic function of highlighted elements in it-clefts in the corpora function
native speakers
learners
subject NP object NP adverbial clause total
18 (60%) 3 (10%) 9 (30%) 0 30 (100%)
30 (76.9%) 3 (7.7%) 4 (10.3%) 2 (5.1%) 39 (100%)
The fact that it is mostly short NPs and adverbials that are highlighted is also reflected in the average number of words of the focused element, which is in accordance with the findings by Prince (1978) and Kim (1995) reported earlier. The average word length is almost identical for both groups: 4.5 for the native speakers and 4.4 for the learners. Table 53 provides percentage rates for the type of focus conveyed through the use of it-clefts by both native speakers and learners. There is an almost balanced distribution between contrastive and intensifying uses of it-clefts for both informant groups, with the learners showing a tendency towards the non-contrastive, intensifying use of it-clefts.
105. The following abbreviations are used: W= number of words, S= number of sentences, G2= log-likelihood, p= significance level.
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 183
Table 53. Type of focus conveyed in it-clefts in the corpora type of focus
native speakers
learners
explicit contrast/opposition implicit contrast intensification/identification total
10 (33.3%) 7 (23.3%) 13 (43.3%) 30 (100%)
10 (25.6%) 7 (17.9%) 22 (56.4%) 39 (100%)
Typical uses of it-clefts either for explicit opposition or intensification are given in (7.1) and (7.2) respectively. (7.1) a. Instead of solving the problems of racism on campus, the separation technique of forming separate black organizations only falls back on segregation. In the end, no problem is solved. It is in integration and not segregation that white racism, black discrimination and the “politics of difference” can be erased. (LOCNESS) b. Every weekday when people are on their way to work, car drivers can be seen to cast glances of pity at those persons who go there by bike or by foot. It is high time for cyclists and pedestrians to start returning these glances, for it is the motorists, and not them, who are to be pitied. (ICLE) (7.2) a. We make most of these decisions based on our values and beliefs. One’s values and beliefs tend to stem from their religious background or the morals and ethics on which they were raised. It is these ethics that contribute to the majority of our decision making tactics. (LOCNESS) b. When he sings “I don’t believe in love” the logic of this thought is absolutely clear to you, when he cries “There’s a revolution calling” you want to march out on the streets with him. It is this hypnotic quality that attracts so many different people to him and his fellow musicians. (ICLE)
The respective contrastive and intensifying uses of it-clefts are further indicated and supported by the use of additional lexical means, which can be classified according to the extent to which they influence the type of focus. The frequency of use of such devices in the corpora is shown in Table 54.
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Table 54. Additional lexical devices occurring in it-clefts in the corpora influence on focus
native speakers
learners
restricting focus (exclusion) expanding focus (inclusion) assertion of identity (emphatic identification) total
7 (not, only, just) 1 (not solely) 4 (this, these)
4 (only, still not, not) 5 (not only, even, also, as well) 3 (these, this, himself)
12
12
As for the contextual use of it-clefts, a mixed picture emerges. The data show large individual differences within the learner group. There are instances in which the use of an it-cleft appears unmotivated as in (7.3)a and b,106 or is grammatically wrong as in (7.3)c. (7.3) a. If you’re a future teacher, it’ll be your task to transform those kids who are not used to community, into tolerant and open-minded members of society. School has replaced the family as far as education is concerned, because it is often that even the mothers have to work full-time. (ICLE) b. All meals are cheap and besides very delicious. When you are used to eat that food every day, you’ll surely feed yourself healthyly and you’ll soon lose weight. It’s even the TV commercials that invite you to step into the cosy restaurant. (ICLE) c. Since then wine-pressing has been regarded as an art. Beer has also existed for a long time and during the Middle Ages it were even especially the monks who brewed it. Today alcohol and tobacco belong to any ‘good’ party and they are a sign of a good life style. (ICLE)
Moreover, and despite the fact that both groups favour the highlighting of short NPs in it-clefts, (7.4) gives two instances from the learner corpus that highlight a clause and a complex NP with modifiers. These show that some students may nevertheless experience problems with the positioning of new information and the end-weight principle (compare the improved re-writings in parentheses). (7.4) a. I am not quite sure if it is only because I am influenced by too much “male-dominated” science fiction, e.g. Star Trek, that for me the notion of a CYBORG is not at all positive. (ICLE) (I am not quite sure if the only reason why the notion of a CYBORG is not at all positive for me is because I am influenced by too much “maledominated” science fiction, e.g. Star Trek.) 106. See Boström Aronsson (2003: 204ff.) for similar findings on the use of clefts by advanced Swedish learners of English.
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 185
b. And indeed, there are many parallels in the lives of Lucius of Madaura and Lucius Apuleius. It is also the author’s first hand knowledge about magic and the initiation to the mysteries of I & S whose priest he actually was, that contributes to the entertaining flow of the narrative. (ICLE) (What also contributes to the entertaining flow of the narrative is the author’s first hand knowledge about magic and the initiation to the mysteries of I & S whose priest he actually was.)
On the other hand, there are also examples in which learners use combinations of different cleft types very effectively like in (7.5). (7.5) a. Couldn’t there be other solutions like that she simply didn’t fulfill the high expectations of the trainer and even more important, of her sponsors ? In my opinion it is not competitive sport that should be banned, what in fact should be banned from sport is its enormous commercialisation. (ICLE) b. The purpose of what I am writing to you here should be very clear and unmistakable: I want you to give me my money back! What I was looking for was a young lady of about 25–30 years old and not a girl who is deeply in her teens and who behaves exactly like that. Furthermore, the last thing I’ve been looking for was a freak with dyed red hair and a disgusting nose ring. (ICLE)
The analysis of all the wh- and rwh-clefts in the corpora shows that what is by far the most commonly used wh-word in both basic and reversed wh-clefts (Table 55). Other wh-items than what are used in rwh-clefts only, why being the most frequent one. The native speakers use both types slightly more often (the difference is not statistically significant, though), and also employ a broader range of wh-elements, while how, where, and when are completely absent from the learner data. Table 55. Wh-elements in wh-clefts in the corpora native speakers basic what who why how where when total
reversed
learners total
21 13 34 0 0 0 0 8 8 0 2 2 0 1 1 0 3 3 21 (43.75%) 27 (56.25%) 48 (100%)
basic
reversed
total
17 0 0 0 0 0 17 (47.2%)
10 0 9 0 0 0 19 (52.7%)
27 0 9 0 0 0 36 (100%)
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Turning to the types of focused constituents in wh-clefts, both groups use this sentence type to highlight clauses and NPs. Table 56 illustrates that in the native speaker corpus, focused clauses are more frequent than in the learner corpus, while subject- and object NPs occur more often in the learner data. Table 56. Highlighted elements in basic and reversed what-clefts in the corpora native speakers subject NP object NP complement NP adverbial VP clause total
learners
basic
reversed
basic
reversed
1 (4.8%) 5 (23.8%) 1 (4.8%) 0 1 (4.8%) 13 (61.9%) 21 (100%)
4 (30.8%) 8 (61.5%) 0 0 0 1 (7.7%) 13 (100%)
4 (18.75%) 6 (37.5%) 0 0 0 7 (43.75%) 17 (100%)
1 (10%) 9 (90%) 0 0 0 0 10 (100%)
Consequently, this is also reflected in the average word length of the highlighted elements (Table 57), again in line with the findings by Prince (1978) and Kim (1995) that the majority of focused elements in wh-clefts are heavy constituents such as NPs with modifiers, VPs and mostly (that-) clauses. Table 57. Average number of words of highlighted element in what-clefts in the corpora cleft type
native speakers
learners
basic reversed
284:21 = 13.5 32:13 = 2.5
206:17 = 12.1 10:10= 1.0
(7.6) and (7.7) are characteristic examples of wh-clefts in the corpora. (7.6) a. The problem is that these feminists have not looked at all women. Some women were happy with old traditions, some wanted a bit more in their lives, some wanted a lot more in their lives. What happens is that all women have to go along with these feminists rules. (LOCNESS) b. Even the government is not used to humanity any longer as shows the new asylum law. They think they have solved their problems in German, e.g. increasing rassism by restricting asylum permission. But what they have not realized is that the problem is a world-wide one and that they once could come to the point where they need asylum in another country and then they are foreigners, too. (ICLE)
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 187
(7.7) a. In 1980 IBM Corporation started a revolution that today continues full force to dominate our everyday lives; the invention of the personal computer. What the PC (personal computer) meant for society was an affordable tool that would help one sort out, save, delete or add and receive information in one’s own home. (LOCNESS) b. If one looks in music shops, one sees thousands of others who have flooded the marked with their productions. Comments a teacher of music at the Ausgburg Waldorf-School: “What the youths of today want to hear is music that is so simple that you don’t have to listen to understand it.” (ICLE)
By contrast, the highlighted element in rwh-clefts is typically a light subject or object NP. Table 58 shows that it is in most cases a simple deictic marker such as this or that, or a deictic marker followed by a noun. Table 58. Initial elements in reversed wh-clefts in the corpora initial element this this + noun that which non-deictic element total
native speakers
learners
rev. what-clefts
other rwh-clefts rev. what-clefts
other rwh-clefts
3 3 2 0 5 13
8 0 3 1 2 14
2 0 7 0 0 9
2 0 8 0 0 10
This is in line with research findings that the vast majority of rwh-clefts have the deictic demonstratives that or this as initial elements. Generally speaking, it can be observed that rwh-clefts are predominantly used non-contrastively by both native speakers and learners due to their discourse-deictic functions, that is summing up previous discourse or making reference to what has been mentioned before, see the examples in (7.8) and (7.9). (7.8) a. [...] by not allowing the television station KQED to televise an execution publicly, the rights of their station to present information is being hindered. They also feel as if their First Amendment right is being infringed upon. This point is what their whole case is being based on and their argument does not go into any greater detail on this particular angle. (LOCNESS)
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b. When a child who is accustomed to being in a school setting where he or she is part of the majority suddenly becomes part of a minority as a transfer student he or she can experience a great deal of emotional trauma which can cause a hinderance in academic performance. This is when teachers, administrators, and parents must take care not to impose any negative attitudes on to the children. (LOCNESS) c. Blatant overpricing of many important drugs has drastically declined the quality of health care among many Americans, especially the elderly and people with fixed incomes. This is why federal intervention is necessary with the establishment of a price regulation review board to stop the skyrocketing of already outrageous prices. (LOCNESS) (7.9) a. “We cannot do without it” seems to be the outcry of an either resignated or blind or irresponsible idiot who does not want to recognize that with the help of present-day tourism, you also destroy the basis of tourism, and, what is more important, the basis of life for the teens and twens of 1993. And it is the only opportunity for young people born there to find work near their home town. That’s what 22-year-old Franz Grieser told me about his situation. (ICLE) b. Very often you can see eager drivers pressing their car in the tiniest parking-whole, turning their wheel left and right, driving a slight piece forward and back again, becoming red faces of the exhausting work, and finally you can hear his car grating at another one as he nevertheless couldn’t manage to wedge in. That’s why weekend traffic should be banned in the city centre. (ICLE)
Interestingly, the learners show little variation in the use of initial elements in rwh-clefts, see again Table 58. They strongly prefer that as a deictic marker and use it almost exclusively in its contracted form that’s, which may indicate that it is understood and used as a formulaic expression. This assumption is also supported by the fact that non-deictic elements in rwh-clefts are exclusively used by native speakers as shown in (7.10). (7.10) a. AIDS is spreading at an enormously fast rate among Americans. It is an especially large concern for the young adults of today. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, . The sheer size of this problem is what prompted Chancellor Joseph Fernandez to develop a plan to combat this horrible epidemic. (LOCNESS) b. The grass will not affect your Chemistry class or make Biology any easier, it will just look nice. If you read the motto earlier in the school year, Marquette life was referred to as the . Being downtown is why many students choose Marquette. (LOCNESS)
`
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 189
c. Just like Solomon, many others see the death penalty as immoral, and therefore feel that it is unneeded. Although, some still believe that “an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” is how our justice system should work. (LOCNESS)
In addition to these differences, (7.11) is an instance of an untypical use of a rwhcleft in the learner data, which shows cataphoric instead of anaphoric deixis. (7.11) Today this word can be seen on nearly every single article in the supermarket and it either means that the package is recycleable, or, still more typically that it doesn’t hurt our environment. And this is what people nowadays really try to recreate - a clean, sober, rubbish-free environment with clear air and healthy rivers, forests and lakes. (ICLE)
Turning to the pragmatic functions of wh-clefts now, I have outlined earlier that wh-clefts differ from it-clefts in that they serve various functions relating to discourse-management, for example repair, summing up previous discourse, or taking up a stance. The initial wh-clause typically contains informationally light verbs such as do, happen, say, mean, think or need (Biber et al. 1999: 963, Hopper 2001: 117), which downgrade the wh-clause in its information content, but increase its function as an attention marker. Kim (1995) found that the majority of verbs that appear in the initial wh-clause can be grouped into four categories which are characteristic of the textual functions this sentence type fulfills. These four verb types are listed and exemplified in Table 59. Table 59. Types of verbs typically used in the initial wh-clause of wh-clefts (Kim 1995) type of verb
examples
verbs marking a speaker internal state
realize, want, feel, think, know, hesitate, enjoy, see, object to, bother, etc. mean, say, etc. do happen
verbs marking a metalinguistic dimension verbs marking meta-actions verbs marking meta-events
The contextual analysis of the use of basic wh-clefts found in the corpora reveals that despite small differences, both native speakers and learners mostly use them for non-contrastive, intensifying purposes.
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Table 60. Functions of basic wh-clefts in the corpora function
native speakers
learners
contrast/opposition intensification a) gist-marking b) affect display c) others subtotal total
6 (28.6%)
6 (35.3%)
9 (42.9%) 3 (14.3%) 3 (14.3%) 15 (71.4%) 21 (100%)
0 8 (47.1%) 3 (17.6%) 11 (64.7%) 17 (100%)
Table 60 also demonstrates that two of the main functions of wh-clefts mentioned by Kim can be observed in the corpus data: 1) gist marking or summarizing previous discourse, often rephrasing it by using verbs of the metalinguistic dimension as exemplified in (7.12), and 2) affect display, that is expressing the writer’s affective stance or position in discourse, characterized by the use of internal state verbs, shown in (7.13). (7.12) a. The first part of this quote deals with abortion which obviously has many ethical consequences considering the debates currently going on. The second part requires more explanation though, which should be presented in ones argument. What Maddox is saying is that by eliminating potentially harmful genes, the benefits of those genes may be eliminated also. (LOCNESS) b. Since 1980 there have been many advances in the technology that was first made available because of this machine. They got faster, more sophisticated, more programs were made available, and they soon became more compatible with other technologies. What this meant was that you now had a faster tool that could do more, receive more, and analyze more information than ever before. (LOCNESS) (7.13) a. This might be an illusion, because on the other hand the death penalty develops violence and is incompatible with the basic laws of humanity. What else will be the answer to violence but violence again? What I think is that nobody can sentence a person to death without proving his or her guilt before. (ICLE) b. What I like most of my cuddly dog is that he will always have time for me when I need him. And even more than that: He is always happy if you take a stroll with him. (ICLE)
Important to note here is the predominant use of wh-clefts for gist-marking by the native speakers, while the learners mostly use them for affect-display. This is also supported by the analysis of the verbs that are employed. Comparing the
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 191
types of verbs that occur in the native speaker and learner wh-clefts (Table 61), it can be seen that the learners more often use verbs of the internal state category. This contributes to a more subjective style of writing, which is further strengthened by the use of personal pronouns such as I/me or we (used only twice by the native speakers, but eight times by the learners). By contrast, the metalinguistic predicates such as say and mean, typical of the gist-marking function, as well as do and happen, are underrepresented in the learner wh-clefts.107 Table 61. Verb types in the initial wh-clause of basic wh-clefts in the corpora type of verb
native speakers
internal state desire, need, realize, get
4 (19%)
metalinguistic predicate mean, say, stress do happen be others total
8 (38.1%) 1 (4.8%) 2 (9.5%) 1 (4.8%) 5 (23.8%) 21 (100%)
type of verb
learners
internal state want, think, find, enjoy, like, realize, look for metalinguistic predicate mention, imply do happen be others total
8 (47.1%) 2 (11.8%) 0 0 2 (11.8%) 5 (29.4%) 17 (100%)
Finally, the primarily intensifying, non-contrastive function of wh-clefts is also supported by the addition of further lexico-grammatical means of emphasis. Table 62 shows that there is again an interesting difference between native speakers and learners. The learners use wh-clefts more often for intensification and appear to ‘bolster up’ the wh-clause by using comparative forms and lexical intensifiers. (7.13)b and (7.14) are typical examples. Table 62. Additional lexical devices in intensifying uses of wh-clefts in the corpora native speakers
learners
basic
reversed
basic
V + more/most
1
0
2
reversed 0
be + (even/much) more + ADJ
0
0
2
0
lexical intensifiers total
1 2
5 5
2 6
0 0
107. See also Callies (2009) for a detailed contrastive learner-corpus study on the use of whatclefts in advanced German and Polish L2 writing. This study also confirms that advanced L2 writing exhibits a higher degree of writer visibility and affective, personal involvement in the text, which ultimately leads to a more subjective style of writing.
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(7.14) a. And not to forget the problems that with no doubt arise when you are the proud owner of a dog: You will have to clean the kitchen floor when your dog has been too lazy to do his “important task” outside, you’re responsible for his education and you have to show him that the postman isn’t always the enemy that it means to bark (or bite!) away. And what is even more important than all the rest is the conversation. (ICLE) b. Consequently many women show their husbands what they are able to do and so they start a promising carrier. What I also find very frustrating is when a woman has a good job but the men in their firms consider them as a fair game. (ICLE)
By contrast, lexical intensifiers (for example exactly, primarily, really) are used by the native speakers predominantly in rwh-clefts, possibly to enforce their summarizing function, see (7.15). (7.15) a. To compare between the two, they classified those who had consumed five or more alcoholic beverages in the past two weeks to those who had not consumed any alcohol in that time. Also, they only chose those out of the surveyed that were under the age of twenty-one. This extensive explanation of how the study was conducted is exactly what the readers of JAMA expect. (LOCNESS) b. ATM machines appear in all areas of the World. In the United States for example you can find machines in stores, movie theatres, parking lots at shopping malls, and at banks. In many situations I have either forgotten my wallet or not had enough money at the grocery store. This is when I really appreciate my ATM card. (LOCNESS)
Not surprisingly, the findings obtained from the analysis of the th- and rth-clefts in the corpora are similar to those that have been reported above for wh- and rwhclefts. Table 63 illustrates that thing, one and reason are the most frequent general head nouns, others are rare in both corpora. Table 63. Basic and reversed th-clefts in the corpora native speakers The thing The one(s) The person The reason The way The place The time total
learners
basic
reversed
total
basic
reversed
total
7 0 0 9 2 0 1 19 (59.4%)
1 6 0 1 1 2 2 13 (40.6%)
8 (25%) 6 (18.8%) 0 10 (31.3%) 3 (9.4%) 2 (6.3%) 3 (9.4%) 32 (100%)
14 2 1 3 0 0 1 21 (60%)
1 4 1 6 0 2 0 14 (40%)
15 (42.9%) 6 (17.1%) 2 (5.7%) 9 (25.7%) 0 2 (5.7%) 1 (2.9%) 35 (100%)
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 193
Turning to the types of focused constituents in basic th-clefts, both native speakers and learners use this sentence type to highlight clauses and NPs, with focused clauses again being slightly more frequent in the native speaker than in the learner corpus. Subject- and object NPs occur more often in the learner data, see Table 64. Table 64. Highlighted elements in basic th-clefts in the corpora subject NP object NP complement NP adverbial clause total
native speakers
learners
1 (5.3%) 4 (21.1%) 0 4 (21.1%) 10 (52.6%) 19 (100%)
5 (23.8%) 7 (33.3%) 1 (4.8%) 0 8 (38.1%) 21 (100%)
Table 65 shows that similar to rwh-clefts, the highlighted element in rth-clefts is a light subject or object NP, in most cases a deictic marker or personal pronoun. Table 65. Initial elements in reversed th-clefts in the corpora native speakers deictic element (this, that , these) deictic element + noun personal pronoun (he, I, they) non-deictic element, full NP total
learners
3 1
5 2
2 7 13 (100%)
4 4 14 (100%)
The findings for the average word length of the highlighted elements (Table 66) confirm this analysis. Table 66. Average number of words of highlighted element in th-clefts in the corpora basic reversed
native speakers
learners
222:19 = 11.7 30:13 = 2.3
233:21 = 11.1 33:14 = 2.4
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7.1.2 Preposing Similar to what has been observed in the elicitation data, Table 67 illustrates that preposing is used very rarely indeed in both corpora, the few examples are given in (7.16) and (7.17).108 However, due to the methodological constraints on the semi-automatic extraction of preposing constructions from electronic text corpora mentioned earlier, these findings have to be interpreted with caution, since it is possible that some instances have not been recalled. Table 67. Preposed constituents in preposing structures object NP/clause particle total
native speakers
learners
1 0 1
3 1 4
(7.16) a. Since the beginning of the 20th century the sutiation of women has understood considerable changes. The most important changes we can find in the fields of education and occupation. (ICLE) b. He didn’t need much to be happy and confident – no car, no villa, no cloths, no money, just some “dogy – cookies”, a warm sleeping-place near my bed, long visits in the countryside and my company. He had no intension to make career or be successfull, except he had to search the little piece of wood I threw away again and again and this he did with his whole heart. (ICLE) c. How do things differ from that today? In many cases, especially in those of the minor offences people can use a charm that is the main solution of most of the problems nowadays: money. IF people are rich enough they do not have to go to prison for a single day, they sign a cheque and off they are. (ICLE) d. Sweating housewives, carrying a dozen bloated shopping bags and three bragging little children on each hand, have enough to do with keeping their offspring away from the road to pay much attention to relatively peaceful and harmless cyclists. But these impedements one can make out from far away so that it’s possible to slow down and to brake, if necessary. (ICLE)
108. Thanks to Gregory Ward for evaluating the learner sentences in terms of their acceptability and contextual appropriateness.
(7.17)
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He decided to get rich quick and he did. His family way very proud of him, although they did not know much about what he was doing. All they knew was that he was involved in real-estate. His whole family was very happy, because they finally had all the things they wanted. All the things they did not have enough money to buy before, they could have now. (LOCNESS)
In view of these very few instances, it appears to be impossible to draw any substantial conclusions apart from the fact that yet again, this focus construction is used very rarely indeed by both groups. Again, it is striking that the native speakers do not use preposing frequently in writing.
7.1.3 Inversion Table 68 shows that the most frequent verb used in inversions in the corpora is be, followed by only a small number of non-be verbs that have been found to typically occur in English inversion. Come is by far the most frequent one of these, used seven times by the native speakers, and twice by the learners. Table 68. Verbs occurring in inversions in the corpora native speakers
learners
be come stand
40 (83.3%) 7 1
35 (83.3%) 2 0
lie
0
2
appear live all non-be total
0 0 8 (16.6%) 48 (100%)
1 2 7 (16.6%) 42 (100%)
Table 69 outlines the different types of inversion used by native speakers and learners. The log-likelihood calculation does not yield a statistically significant difference in terms of the frequency of use (G2=-0.06, which equals a significance level of p>0.05).
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Table 69. Types of preposed constituents in inversions depending on verb type be NP VP AdjP PP total
native speakers
learners
33 (82.5%) 4 (10%) 2 (5%) 1 (2.5%) 40 (100%)
32 (91.4%) 0 3 (8.6%) 0 35 (100%)
0 0 0 8 (100%) 8 (100%)
0 0 0 7 (100%) 7 (100%)
non-be NP VP AdjP PP total
Looking at the actual use of inversion, however, interesting differences between native speakers and learners can be observed. First of all, with inversions around be, the only type of inversion (except for NP inversion) that the learners use sporadically is again AdjP inversion, the one similar to German inversion. Out of the three instances that do occur, given in (7.18), only the first two are acceptable, while the third one has been judged as being “very odd” by a native speaker.109 (7.18) a. Some people even want to reintroduce it. Imagine, in France, f.e., the death penalty was abolished in 1981! The death penalty poses a range of problems. Most important is the fact that a hasty judgement cannot be withdrawn when the criminal has already been killed. (ICLE) b. Some years ago I simply used to laugh at those people who feel joy in training their body until they almost aren’t able to walk with muscles and strength. Worst of all are the little ones; sometimes I get the impression that they’re even much wider than tall. (ICLE) c. So, these people seem to be for the death penalty, but what are their reasons? I think very important for their opinion is the propaganda by politicians. (ICLE)
By contrast, the native speakers use all four types of inversion, among NP inversion the following ones.
109. Fronted constituents are italicized. Thanks to Betty Birner for evaluating the learner sentences in terms of their acceptability and contextual appropriateness.
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(7.19) a. Grady Webb-Wood of Jacksonville, Florida, was taught in his seventh grade class last year that birth control is inadequate for preventing teen pregnancy and condoms are useless in preventing the spread of disease. Also taught in his curriculum was that women who have abortions are more “prone to suicide” and up to 10 percent of them will never again conceive. (VP, LOCNESS) b. Downtown Kalamazoo was once a thriving and successful district. Near the train station were the larger industries, and other essential specialized stores for everyday supplies. (PP, LOCNESS) c. Society has become aware of its mortality, and in some cases, has banded together to try to find a cure for AIDS. Right now, more important than a cure, is the acceptance of AIDS victims & the education of the public. (AdjP, LOCNESS)
As for the use of inversion with non-be main verbs, seven out of the eight instances of PP inversion employed by the native speakers are occurrences of the verb come with a preposed PP headed by with like those in (7.20). (7.20) a. Although his theory [his and his wife’s] was basically scientific in nature, it can and has been applied to all areas of human existence. The theory I’m speaking of is relativity. With this theory also came the area of quantum mechanics. (LOCNESS) b. Each year the field of sports becomes more and more competitive. With this competitiveness comes the desire to stand out from the crowd and be the best athlete in the world. (LOCNESS)
The only exception is (7.21). (7.21)
Nothing could have been further from the truth. So there stood Mark Woodley, a martyr to the AIDS community, ousted by corporate America, in its ongoing quest to promote image above real people. (LOCNESS)
Out of the seven instances of PP inversion used by the learners, the four examples given in (7.22) are fully acceptable, while the remaining three in (7.23) have been judged as either unacceptable or odd by a native speaker.110
110. Although examples (7.22) a. and b. may be considered cases of AdvP inversion, I will, in keeping with Birner’s classification (1996: 45), list them in the category of PP inversion. Again, thanks to Betty Birner for evaluating the learner sentences in terms of their acceptability and contextual appropriateness.
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(7.22) a. I do not belong to it any more. I have got used to this restricted outlook from this cell. Slowly I walk to my wardrobe, take out the old suitcase. Very careful I put everything in it: trowsers first, next come the shirts, socks and my tooth-brush. (ICLE) b. In the cities even 50 percent of all couples are divorced. Frankfurt takes a leading position in this sad competition. As a consequence children are brought up without a father. Next door to me lives a typical representative of this kind. (ICLE) c. A cool feeling creeps down my chest, arrives in the stomach which rebells against it, wanting some lunch. I ignore the nasty feeling and look out the window. It opens to the west. Behind the wall lies the “rest of the world.” (ICLE) d. I personally think, that a multicultural population is of a great value for the country. In Germany live not only Turks, but also Greeks, Italians, Indians, Blacks [...] (ICLE) (7.23) a. That is because a dieter becomes obsessed with food. The conclusion from all this could be: Society should accept that there is nothing wrong with being overweight. Here appears the question: Fat or happy? (ICLE) b. [...] the nervous family father, who has worked hard all the week wants to make a relaxing shopping tour now and so he’s getting furious seeing this invasion of cars - what remains than staying on the sirene to show the others: here come I! (ICLE) c. For some people this statement may sound strange at first sight because they have a quite materialistic view of life and believe in a god called “money”. In my opinion, however, in this short but nevertheless very expressive phrase lies without doubt some eternal truth. (ICLE)
7.1.4 Extraposition Table 70 and Table 71 list the frequencies of use of (non-)extraposed subject clauses in the corpora. The distribution in the native speaker corpus closely resembles the general pattern for (non-)extraposed subject clauses in English namely that that-, to- and for...to-clauses are generally extraposed, while -ingclauses typically appear as clausal subjects. The native speakers also use whclauses more often as subjects, but the overall tendency to non-extrapose is not as strong as with -ing-clauses.
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Table 70. (Non-)extraposed subject clauses in LOCNESS type of clause
extraposed
non-extraposed
% extraposed
that-clause to-clause for/to-clause -ing-clause wh-clause total
82 (44.8%) 73 (39.9%) 24 (13.1%) 2 (1.1%) 2 (1.1%) 183 (100%)
0 7 (7.4%) 0 77 (81.1%) 11 (11.6%) 95 (100%)
100 96.1 100 2.5 15.4 65.8
The learner data show a very similar distribution, but there are two major differences: First, the significantly higher frequency of use of extraposition (log-likelihood G2=+30.85, p<0.01) due to the large number of extraposed to-clauses (73 in the native speaker corpus vs. 174 in the learner corpus), and second, the difference in the use of (non-)extraposed wh-clauses (two vs. eleven for the native speakers and ten vs. four for the learners). Table 71. (Non-)extraposed subject clauses in ICLE type of clause
extraposed
non-extraposed
% extraposed
that-clause to-clause for/to-clause -ing-clause wh-clause total
74 (26.1%) 174 (61.3%) 22 (7.7%) 4 (1.4%) 10 (3.5%) 284 (100%)
0 9 (9.7%) 0 80 (86%) 4 (4.3%) 93 (100%)
100 95.1 100 4.8 71.4 75.3
The qualitative analysis of the use of non-extraposed to-clauses yields another highly interesting difference between the two groups. Although the corpus data do not include many instances, among these are striking examples which again provide evidence for the assumption that some learners do experience problems with information distribution and the end-weight principle. Table 72 and the examples in (7.24) from the learner corpus show that a number of non-extraposed infinitival clauses are unusually heavy and mostly contain new information. Table 72. Average number of words and information status of non-extraposed to-clauses and remaining part of the sentence number of words in to-clause rest (excluding the verb/verbal complex) to-clauses containing new information to-clauses containing given information
native speakers
learners
46:7 = 6.6 47:7 = 6.7 0 7 (100%)
90:9 = 10 55:9 = 6.1 6 (66.6%) 3 (33.3%)
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(7.24) a. Anyway, I’ll keep my hands off astrology. The lucky numbershoroscopes are a joke, and the serious ones are dangerous in my mind. To know everything beforehand and to shrug one’s shoulders and give up the struggle of life is all too easy. (ICLE) b. Certainly, every individual has the right – which should be invulnerable – to refuse to carry a weapon. But it is often these ideologists of peace who denounce all the others that do not share their beliefs. In a sense that everyone who touches a weapon reduces himself to an animal. But this is - rubbish. To stand aside watching your brothers and sisters get nailed on a cross and not kicking the brains out of the torturers head – if there is no other solution – would mean a crime against humanity. (ICLE)
By contrast, the non-extraposed to-clauses used by the native speakers all contain given information, are shorter, and the distribution between subject clause and the remainder of the sentence is either much more balanced or heavier towards the end, see (7.25). (7.25) a. Travel times have been significantly shorten; for example, to drive from Michigan to California takes about 30–35 hours, but to fly the same distance takes about 3 hours. (LOCNESS) b. Richard has, at this point, learned to love and be loved. He has by now established strong bonds with his parents. To take him away now would be ripping him away from the only family he’s known, the only family he’s loved. (LOCNESS)
In sum, the learners’ use of non-extraposed to-clauses is against the unmarked norm in English, namely that non-extraposed subject clauses predominantly represent discourse-old or background information, hence retrievable information, and often provide anaphoric links to the preceding discourse. No such differences are found for the use of non-extraposed wh-clauses, but there are even fewer instances of these in the corpora which make any generalizable finding virtually impossible. However, looking in detail at the use of non-extraposed -ing-clauses, it emerges that there is one aspect that distinguishes the two groups. The learner data contain 80 instances in total, 27 of which (33.75%) are -ing-clauses that take the following form: Being + adjective + verb (mostly a form of be, can or mean) as illustrated in (7.26). (7.26) a. What does airpolution concern us? We need only oxygen to breath. It is obvious that we do not need our environment. Therefore there is no point in being ecology-concious. Being ecology-conscious is pure madness.
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 201
b. To my mind the phrase “healthy of fat” leaves out only two possibilities, – either your are healthy and thin or you are ill and fat. In my opinion this is an absolutely senseless allegation. Being corpulent doesn’t automatically mean being unhealthy.
By contrast, the native speaker corpus (77 items in total) contains only three such instances (3.9%). This striking difference may again be explained in terms of the learners’ use of a formulaic expression, similar to their predominant use of that in its contracted form that’s as a deictic marker in rwh-clefts reported earlier.
7.1.5 There-sentences: Existentials and presentationals There-constructions were initially not included in the set of focusing structures chosen for the present study. However, in view of the fact that the learners used them much more often than the native speakers in the elicitation production task (twelve vs. three instances), I decided to examine their occurrence in the corpus as well. It emerges that the corpus data help to explain previous findings and in fact provide support for some conclusions drawn from elicited production. Table 73 shows the frequencies of use of the two major types of there-sentences in English, existentials and presentationals. In line with the distinction made in Ward, Birner, and Huddleston (2002: 1390), existentials are considered those that consist of there and a form of be, while presentationals have some other verb, for example exist or remain. Table 73. Use of existentials and presentationals by the native speakers and learners in the corpora type
native speakers
learners
existential presentational total
244 2 246
303 19 322
The observed difference is highly significant (G2=+17.19, p<0.01). Again, similar to the learners’ overuse of it-clefts and extraposition, they use a sentence type introduced by a dummy subject, in this case there, significantly more often than the native speakers.
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7.2
Lexico-grammatical means
In this section, I will discuss the corpus findings for emphatic do, and − only very briefly − focus particles, lexical intensifiers and emphatic reflexives. All instances of emphatic do found in the two corpora were analyzed contextually and differentiated according to the following uses (frequencies of use are given in Table 74): – an intensifying, non-contrastive use as an emphatic positive to indicate the strength of one’s beliefs or feelings – three different contrastive uses:
– explicit opposition (both referents are explicitly mentioned and contrasted) – implicit contrast (the contrasted referent is not explicitly mentioned but implied and contextually salient) – counterexpectancy, doubt.
Interesting differences between the use of emphatic do by the native speakers and learners emerge. First, the learners use this device significantly less often than the native speakers. This difference is very significant (log-likelihood G2=-4.14, p<0.05). Second, the native speakers use emphatic do considerably more often for contrast, which is also supported by the fact that a larger set of contrastive connectives such as but, however, and although, and lexical intensifiers appear in combination with emphatic do in LOCNESS, see Table 75. Thus, emphatic do is not only underrepresented in the learner corpus, the learners also differ as to the contextual use of this lexico-grammatical device. (7.27) illustrates the apparently unmotivated if not erroneous use of emphatic do in learner writing.111 The use is infelicitous since in the first two examples, the proposition already carries a negative polarity, indicated by nobody and neither... nor respectively. In the third example, there is neither a contrast in the line of argumentation, nor is do used as an emphatic positive. In fact, a syntactic device such as a cleft would have been more appropriate, compare the improved version in parentheses. (7.27) a. He left the crying girl sitting on the asphalt without a word of comfort. When I helped her and gave her a hanky, there were a lot of people staring at me and I could read in their faces that they wondered if I was totally crazy to talk with a Turkish girl. Some of them looked away, others hurried on, but nobody did help. (ICLE) 111. Relevant sections are underlined. I thank Betty Birner and Steph Heinemann for sharing their native speaker intuitions about these sentences.
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 203
Table 74. Type of focus conveyed in emphatic do usage
native speakers learners
explicit opposition implicit contrast counterexpectancy, doubt total contrast
18 (46.2%) 11 (28.2%) 3 (7.7%) 32 (82.1%)
7 (30.4%) 3 (13%) 4 (17.4%) 14 (60.9%)
intensification (emphatic positive) total
7 (17.9%) 39 (100%)
9 (39.1%) 23 (100%)
Table 75. Lexical devices occurring in contrastive and non-contrastive uses of emphatic do in the corpora native speakers
learners but (4x)
doubt, counterexpectancy
but (3x) however (2x) although (2x) in fact (4x) in contrast definitely definitely, in fact, however, indeed, really if (indeed) (3x)
intensification
indeed, truly, really
explicit opposition
implicit contrast
(not quite sure / even) if (4x) really
b. To my mind Amnesty International is right. Nobody should have the right to kill anybody. This means that all the responsibilita to improve things lies with all the sentences except for capital punishment. In my opinion neither financial nor corporal punishment which includes tormenting and hard labour do point into the right direction. This is simply because they (ICLE) force the most dangerous thing: the deadening of the mind. c. Envy, isolation, unemployment, poverty, illness and war are some very well known reasons which can be made responsible for all the suffering in this world, but there remains still a very important event which determines the luck of an individual and his attitude to the world - it’s his own birth and childhood. Every child is very well prepared for his birth. High gammaglobulin does protect him from infections and his powers of vision are restricted to reduce the natural shock of birth to a minimum. (ICLE) (It is high gammaglobulin that protects him from infections, ... What protects him from infections is high gammaglobulin, ...)
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As far as other lexico-grammatical means of information highlighting are concerned, Lorenz (1999), who examined adjective intensification in particular, used material that is partially identical with that used for the present investigation. He found that with respect to the overall intensifier counts in the corpora, the learners used far more intensifiers than the native speakers. He also found that the learners “overused all the individual scalar intensifier categories – even those which are more commonly associated with understatement” (1998:57). Table 76 lists the most frequent focus particles, lexical intensifiers and emphatic reflexives in the two subcorpora used in the present study. All words are significantly overused by the learners (in all cases, p<0.01). Table 76. Frequency of use of focus particles and lexical intensifiers by the native speakers and learners in the corpora only even so very really especially totally absolutely himself yourself oneself
7.3
native speakers
learners
p (log-likelihood)
215 123 148 132 46 21 2 2 6 5 0
280 186 281 209 114 54 21 20 25 20 11
0.003541 0.000287 0.000000 0.000024 0.000000 0.000100 0.000018 0.000034 0.000391 0.001858 0.000092
Summary
The analysis of the corpus data show that similar to the findings for elicited production, structure-preserving sentence types with a subject placeholder are overrepresented in the learner corpus. It-clefts occur more frequently in the learner corpus, the same holds for the two major types of there-sentences in English, existentials and presentationals, which are significantly overrepresented. In both corpora there is an almost balanced distribution between contrastive and intensifying uses of it-clefts which are predominantly used to highlight subject NPs. However, the learners’ contextual use of it-clefts shows large individual differences: There are instances in which the use of an it-cleft is unmotivated, untypical or even grammatically wrong, but there are also examples in which learners use combinations of different cleft types very effectively.
Chapter 7. Learner-corpus study 205
(Non-)Extraposed subject clauses show very similar distributional patterns in both corpora. That-, to- and for...to-clauses are generally extraposed, while -ing-clauses typically appear as clausal subjects. However, the learners use extraposition significantly more often in general and also use fewer (non-)extraposed wh-clauses. The data also show that the learners use initial -ing-clauses of the type Being + adjective + verb (mostly a form of be, can or mean) significantly more often than the native speakers which may be considered as the use of a formulaic expression. The analysis of the wh- and rwh-clefts shows that what is by far the most commonly used wh-word in both basic and reversed wh-clefts with other whitems being used in rwh-clefts only. The native speakers use both types slightly more often, and also employ a broader range of wh-elements, while how, where, and when are absent from the learner data. In both corpora, wh-clefts are employed to highlight clauses and heavy NPs, mostly for non-contrastive, intensifying purposes. However, the native speakers use them predominantly for gist-marking, the learners mostly for affect-display, which is reflected in the occurrence of corresponding verbs in the initial wh-clause: The learners more often use verbs of the internal state category, which contributes to a more subjective style of writing, while metalinguistic predicates such as say and mean, typical of the gist-marking function, as well as do and happen, are underrepresented. The primarily intensifying, non-contrastive function of wh-clefts is also supported by the addition of further lexico-grammatical means of emphasis. There is again an interesting difference between native speakers and learners. The learners use wh-clefts more often for intensification and appear to ‘bolster up’ the wh-clause by using comparative forms and lexical intensifiers. The highlighted element in rwh-clefts is typically a light subject or object NP, in most cases a simple deictic marker such as this or that, or a deictic marker followed by a noun. They are predominantly used in non-contrastive function by both native speakers and learners due to their discourse-deictic functions of summing up previous discourse or making reference to what has been mentioned before. These functions are enforced by the use of lexical intensifiers in the native speaker rwh-clefts, but not in the learners’. Interestingly, the learners strongly prefer that as a deictic marker and use it almost exclusively in its contracted form that’s, which may again suggest the use of a formulaic expression. This assumption is supported by the fact that non-deictic elements in rwh-clefts exclusively occur in native speaker writing. By contrast, again in line with the elicitation data, preposed structures are used very rarely in both corpora, subject to the methodological constraints on the semi-automatic extraction of preposing constructions from electronic text corpora. While at first sight the mere frequencies of occurrence of inversion in both
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corpora do not indicate huge differences, these emerge when looking at their actual contextual use. With inversions around be, the only type of inversion (except for NP inversion) that the learners use sporadically is AdjP inversion, while the native speakers use all four types of inversion (NP, VP, AdjP and PP inversion). Many of the inverted sentences used by the learners that are not NP inversions are contextually only marginally acceptable. Finally, turning to the lexico-grammatical focusing devices that were examined in the corpora, two major differences in the use of emphatic do by the native speakers and learners were discovered. First, the learners use this device significantly less often than the native speakers, and second, the native speakers use it considerably more often for contrast. Thus, emphatic do is not only underrepresented in the learner corpus, the learners also differ as to its contextual use, including several unmotivated if not erroneous uses of emphatic do. With respect to a distributional analysis of the most frequent lexical intensifiers, focus particles and emphatic reflexives in the two corpora, it was found that all of these are significantly overused by the learners (e.g. really as an adjective intensifier).
chapter 8
Discussion and conclusion
8.1
Interpretation of findings
This section provides a summary and interpretation of the main findings in the light of the central research questions and hypotheses. Both the experimental and the corpus study have produced converging evidence that there are significant differences between advanced German learners and native speakers of English as to both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the use of a number of lexico-grammatical and syntactic focusing devices. These differences will be explained by three interacting factors: Crosslinguistic influence, learner strategies and lack of knowledge.
Research question 1: What (pragma-)linguistic resources do native speakers and learners use to highlight information? One of the initial hypotheses, namely that with regard to production data, learners would not use several (marked) structures to a significant extent, and would generally use fewer syntactic focus constructions than the native speakers, must be rejected in the light of the research findings. In elicited production, the percentages for the non-use of focusing devices were almost equal for both participant groups with a clear overrepresentation of subject-prominent structures such as itclefts and existentials, and an underrepresentation of emphatic do and pragmatic markers in the learner data. Similar results were obtained from the corpus data: There is an overrepresentation of it-clefts, and a significant overuse of extraposition, existentials, presentationals and several lexico-grammatical devices, as well as an underrepresentation of emphatic do. With respect to the two competing hypotheses that were formulated (underrepresentation of clefts in the learner data due to dispreference and comparative infrequency in German vs. overuse of sentences types headed by the dummy subjects due to reliance on ‘safe’ subject-prominent SVO structures), the data clearly support the second hypothesis and show that it-clefts and similar structures are in fact overrepresented in the L2 of advanced German learners of English. In contrast to similar studies which explain the overrepresentation of clefts in Swedish learner writing in terms of positive transfer due to the higher frequency of use of
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clefts in the L1112 (Boström Aronsson 2001a, 2003), the overproduction in German learner writing cannot be ascribed to crosslinguistic influence due to positive transfer. This is supported by the learners’ low frequency of use of es-clefts in the German (L1) part of the production task, and by the fact that in elicited L2 production, they used it-clefts not only for subject focusing (the typical function of clefts in their mother tongue), but also for object focusing, while the native speakers did not. These observations suggest an explanation in terms of a typological parameter, namely subject-prominence, and not crosslinguistic influence. It appears that subject-prominence is a heavy constraint on productive output for the learners as they experience a need to place the subject in canonical position. In addition, the overproduction of subject-prominent structures may also be enforced by the avoidance of marked structures (see below) and transfer of training. Moreover, the learners’ frequent use of it-clefts can also be explained in accordance with the markedness assumptions and subsequent hypotheses discussed earlier. In relation to the other syntactic focusing means, clefts show a comparatively low degree of structural markedness since SVO/SVC word order is retained. As for the use of preposing and inversion, it was hypothesized that the learners may rather use preposing, not inversion, preposing being less marked than inversion in English because the subject remains in preverbal position. The learners would not use inversion, as it is structurally and functionally the most marked structure due to the reversal of two core syntactic arguments with the subject being moved into sentence-final position. The data show that both types were not used productively by the learners (or used very rarely), although inversion, cases of locative inversion in particular, and the preposing of core verbal arguments such as objects received comparatively good acceptability ratings. In fact, preposing was used even less frequently than inversion. While the learners are competent as to the flexible positioning of mobile constituents such as adverbials and adverbial clauses, which are often fronted in elicited production, they are very reluctant to move obligatory constituents such as objects and subjects. Thus, sentence types without a canonical sentenceinitial subject are rarely used. This can be explained by an interplay of the typological universal of subject-prominence and crosslinguistic influence in terms of avoidance due to unexpected similarity with the L1. Despite the close structural and functional similarities between locative inversion in English and inversion in German, positive transfer is blocked, and therefore does not facilitate productive use. 112. Compared to English, clefts are not only more frequent in Swedish, but also in other Scandinavian languages such as Norwegian (see Johansson 2001 and Gundel 2002).
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Learner strategies are manifested in the learners’ use of questions in elicited production and formulaic expressions in argumentative writing. The use of questions was tentatively explained as a strategy used by the learners to tackle the specific communicative task of highlighting a piece of information for emphasis. The significance of the use of questions as a strategy becomes clearer by taking two facts into consideration. First, questions were only used in the intensifying scenarios, and second, some learners clearly stated in the subsequent interviews that the contrastive tasks were easier to complete because there was a starting point. Apparently, they had more difficulties with the first set of dialogues in which no first turn was provided. Thus, given a broad definition of learner strategy as “a plan of action to accomplish a communication goal”, and a method “to manage potentially difficult discourse situations” (Dörnyei and Scott 1997: 179f.), which may not necessarily involve deliberate planning and consciousness (Dörnyei and Scott 1997: 184), the frequent use of questions may well be interpreted as a learner strategy to accomplish the desired effect. Strategies also emerge in the learners’ use of (quasi-)formulaic expressions: The restricted use of that’s as a deictic marker in rwh-clefts, and their (over-)use of initial -ing-clauses of the type Being + adjective + verb. Further support for such an interpretation and for the fact that formulaic expressions play a role in L2 acquisition and performance comes from the interviews, in which one learner reported that he noticed, remembered and then used highly frequent phrases used by native speakers. As for the use of lexico-grammatical focusing devices, it was assumed that the learners would frequently use combinations of lexical, lexico-grammatical and syntactic focusing devices a) to compensate for a lack of knowledge or confidence to use syntactic means due to a restricted syntactic repertoire, and b) due to crosslinguistic influence (despite the more flexible word order, German also has a preference for lexico-grammatical focusing devices). The results largely confirm the hypothesis. In both elicited production and corpus data, the learners used it- and wh-clefts in particular more often than the native speakers in combination with other syntactic and lexical devices such as lexical intensifiers, focus particles, or pragmatic markers. Moreover, they significantly overuse the most frequent lexical intensifiers, focus particles and emphatic reflexives in argumentative writing, which confirms previous findings that non-native speakers tend to overuse such lexical means of intensification, and that even advanced learner-writing rather resembles native-speaker speech than writing. It is important to note that except for the evident overrepresentation of itclefts and other subject-prominent structures, as well as the underuse of emphatic do in both the experimental and corpus data, it is often not mere quantitative aspects in terms of frequency of use that reveal differences between native speakers
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and learners, but rather the subtleties such as inventories/range of use of certain constructions, their contextual use, lexical co-occurrence patterns, and the influence of information-structural concepts such as syntactic weight. These lead to stylistic differences in texts produced by native and non-native speakers which show most clearly in the degree of the writers’ involvement in the text and their interaction with the readers,113 and can be observed in the following findings from the corpus data: – Although the learners hardly use emphatic do as a focusing device, the data reveal that if it is used, then more frequently as an emphatic positive, which contributes to a more subjective style of writing and greater writer involvement. – The learners use wh-clefts more often for affect-display than for gist-marking as shown by the occurrence of verbs marking a speaker internal state in wh-clefts. This again results in a greater interpersonal involvement in the text, and adds to a more subjective style of writing.
Research question 2: Do native speakers and learners differ in their preferences for the use of certain (syntactic) means that are available to highlight information? It was assumed that German learners would show a preference for sentence-initial focus position and, broadly speaking, use operations that topicalize or move the highlighted information to the beginning, also due to the fact that topicalization in German is not associated with contrastiveness as strongly as preposing in English. First of all, it can be stated that the overrepresentation of subject-prominent structures in both elicited production and argumentative writing suggests that learners prefer sentence types that enable the clear identification of a ‘canonical’ subject, while other syntactic options are underrepresented. This is supported by the assessment and introspective data. However, the acceptability ratings reveal that they show significantly higher acceptability rates than the native speakers for both inversion (locative inversion in particular) and preposing, where fronted adverbials receive higher ratings than core arguments such as direct objects. This suggests that the initial focus position which is predominant in German may have an influence here. A comparison of the ratings in L1 and L2 show that topicalization in German received better ratings than preposing in English, while it-clefts received significantly higher ratings in English 113. Cf. Granger (2004: 135), and see Boström Aronsson (2005) for similar findings on advanced Swedish EFL learners.
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than es-clefts in German. Moreover, there is an interesting difference as to the learners’ ratings for preposing and topicalization, respectively. While they clearly rate preposing better in the contrastive settings in their L2, it is the best option for intensification in German. This seems to confirm that topicalization in German is not as strongly associated with contrastiveness as preposing in English. While there is no clear difference as to a preferred positioning of the key information for either intensification or contrast, preferences did emerge with respect to sentence type and length of constituent to be highlighted. For short subject and object NPs, the preferred options for both groups of participants were the rth-cleft and the it-cleft, both of which focus the key information early in the sentence. Moreover, the focusing of short, animate subject and object NPs in it-clefts received higher ratings than the focusing of clauses. By contrast, those wh-clefts that focus heavy constituents such as clauses or NPs with modifiers in sentence-final position were rated best. Similar findings were obtained for the learners’ ratings in their mother tongue. Topicalization was most often rated as the best option for the focusing of short constituents, followed by the different types of clefts in German. For longer constituents, the w-cleft and extraposition were considered the best options. In sum, these results suggest that the learners do have implicit knowledge of the weight-principle and that it is operative in the different types of clefts in particular: The analysis of it- and wh-clefts in both corpora has shown that there are no significant differences between learners and native speakers with respect to the average number of words of the highlighted constituent. However, leaving clefts aside, the elicited production and corpus data also evidence that the learners find it difficult to put this implicit, metalinguistic knowledge to practice, because the end-weight principle is frequently violated.
Research question 3: Do the learners have (explicit) knowledge of the syntactic focusing devices that exist in English, and do they have knowledge of the appropriate contextual use of these devices? Advanced learners as defined in the present study were assumed to have only limited awareness and knowledge of the appropriate contextual use and functions of focusing devices in formal and informal registers, in the spoken and written mode. All data types evidence learner problems with the contextual use of a number of devices as well as the structuring of information, in particular with respect to the principle of end-weight. The introspective interviews confirm this hypothesis, as most of the interviewees showed neither explicit knowledge of specific syntactic patterns that they used or could use to achieve emphasis,
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nor the knowledge of the metalanguage to refer to such devices. However, several informants had implicit and intuitive knowledge about clefts, and felt that they convey some kind of emphasis. By contrast, the learners much more readily and spontaneously mentioned lexical means to add emphasis to and highlight information. Although a number of comments suggest that the learners appear to be aware of the fact that there is an interrelationship between certain devices and their use in spoken and written language, this characterization is not always well-founded, which again points to a lack of register awareness. With respect to the learners’ knowledge about the appropriate contextual use of focusing devices, a number of findings indicate that the learners do have problems in that respect as well. In the light of the descriptive accounts of English inversion outlined earlier, namely that this construction is highly restricted by context and a dispreferred option in conversation and colloquial speech, it receives comparatively low acceptability rates by the native speakers in the rating task, most probably due to its informal, (pseudo-)oral setting. The learners’ significantly higher acceptance rates may evidence a lack of knowledge in terms of contextual appropriateness. Several unmotivated, contextually awkward, if not erroneous instances of the syntactic and lexico-grammatical focusing devices suggest that some learners are either unfamiliar with or unsure about their contextual effect, and thus, use them ineffectively. In addition, the significant overrepresentation of a number of lexical intensifiers, focus particles and emphatic reflexives in the learner corpus suggests that the learners tend to overintensify, despite the fact that the use of emphatics/amplifiers in general is undesirable in competent argumentative writing. Hence, even very advanced students have difficulties with respect to register awareness and clearly distinguishing between spoken vs. written mode, or formal vs. informal speech. Finally, it was stated in the introduction that the results of this study may also have implications for SLA theory with respect to a) the interrelationship of grammatical and pragmalinguistic abilities in an L2 in terms of the interplay of the principles of information structure and (pragma-)linguistic means in an L2, and b) the impact of the principles of information structure in L1 German on the acquisition of L2 English. As for the first point, recent programmatic studies in interlanguage pragmatics have suggested that the development of pragmatic competence has to be seen as independent of the development of grammatical competence since “high levels of grammatical competence do not guarantee concomitant high levels of pragmatic competence” (Bardovi-Harlig 1999: 686). As far as the relationship of interlanguage pragmatic and grammatical development is concerned, the findings of this study support the second scenario depicted by Kasper and Rose (2002): Grammar precedes pragmatics, because learners acquire certain L2 grammati-
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cal forms before they acquire their pragmalinguistic functions. In particular, the findings provide evidence for two of the three shades of the “grammar precedes pragmatics” scenario (Kasper and Rose 2002: 174ff.): – Grammatical knowledge does not enable pragmalinguistic use, evidenced by the learners’ non- and underuse of pragmatic markers in mitigating disagreement; – Grammatical knowledge enables non-target-like pragmalinguistic use, which can be seen in several learners’ unmotivated and partly erroneous over- and underuse, respectively, of inversion, it-clefts, wh-clefts, and emphatic do in the corpus data in particular, and the tendency to overintensify by using lexical intensifiers in argumentative writing. With respect to the second point, previous research findings have shown that due to the close interaction between the typological features of a language, its principles of information structure, and its linguistic means to achieve focus, a learner’s native language is likely to influence L2 acquisition in terms of crosslinguistic influence as to both overproduction and avoidance of specific structures. This assumption can be supported by the results of this study, with respect to both crosslinguistic influence and typological universals. While L1 information structure seems to play a role in terms of the high acceptance of both inversion and preposing, it is an interplay of subject-prominence and crosslinguistic influence that explains their avoidance in production. Subject-prominence was also shown to be responsible for the significant overrepresentation of it-clefts, extraposition and existentials. In sum, L1 discourse structure does play a role in L2 acquisition. While beginning and intermediate German EFL learners frequently produce incorrect verb second sentences, these are virtually absent in the advanced stages. Instead, the learners gradually increase the use of subject-prominent features in their L2 production.
8.2 Methodological problems and limitations of the study One of the consequences of the focus on advanced learners and thus the rather high degree of control of variables was that it became more difficult to create a large and truly representative group of L2 learners. However, ensuring that the learner group was as homogeneous as possible was considered to be essential if the research findings were to be generalizable to a larger population, even if this resulted in narrowing the data to be included in the analysis. Despite the efforts to build a learner group as homogeneous as possible by controlling external
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variables, there still emerge clear individual differences as to both the felicitous grammatical and contextual use of focus constructions. Similar findings were obtained during the interviews, in particular in relation to the learners’ perceptions of preposed structures that ranged from ‘totally wrong’ to ‘correct, but stylistically awkward’. In sum, despite a comparatively high degree of control on external learner variables, considerable variation and individual learner differences remain a problem for learner corpus and SLA research in general. All in all, the experimental techniques developed and used for the present study can be considered a successful means to elicit the desired focusing devices. Having said that, it must be pointed out that one needs to be extremely cautious to infer general conclusions solely from the elicited production data as they are limited due to the comparatively small number of participants and low frequency counts. However, one of the strengths of the research design is that experimental and corpus data were combined and in fact produced converging and corroborating evidence. The tendencies observed in elicited production were confirmed not only in the other experimental tasks, but also in the corpus data. Still, several minor shortcomings that can be improved on will be mentioned in the following. To begin with, it was seen as essential to provide sufficient context for the discourse completion task, and thus sections from the narrative reappeared in the questionnaires. However, perhaps at times too much lexical material was provided as stimulus, creating the undesired side effect of mere paraphrasing on the side of the participants. In providing the different options in the assessment task, it was considered necessary that the responses were varied lexically to some extent in order to provide a suitable co-text for the responses, in particular in the contrastive scenarios. However, this may have affected the participants’ ratings in terms of lexical choices. With respect to the corpus-based approach, it is necessary to take into account that learner-corpus-based research still suffers from the fact that, compared to large reference corpora of English or other languages, learner corpora are still fairly small and most often restricted to L2 English. Moreover, in view of the fact that it was necessary to compile a subcorpus for the present study which included only writing by learners who matched the criteria applied to those who took part in the experimental study, the two subcorpora used here both consist of around 85,000 words and are thus comparatively small. Finally, another aspect relates to the difficulties of corpus methodology. Since neither the learner nor the native speaker corpus is parsed, the structures under study had to be detected by extracting lexical patterns, keywords and triggering elements. These were automatically retrieved from the corpora, the hits checked for relevant matches and then analyzed manually. It is clear that this is a limited procedure which was particularly problematic for the detection of inversion and
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preposing. However, due to the lack of carefully annotated learner corpora, it is not yet possible to retrieve specific syntactic structures fully automatically.
8.3 Pedagogical implications The findings of this study have shown that a number of the principles of information structure and the forms and functions of several focusing devices in English are problematic even for advanced German learners. In view of the comparatively low discourse frequency of these constructions, input alone is unlikely to constitute a sufficient basis for a target-like competence. Most publications in the field of (applied) linguistics and SLA that discuss focusing devices predominantly deal with their linguistic characteristics and mention their relevance to language teaching only in passing. There are very few articles which explicitly address pedagogical and teaching aspects of functional principles of language use, let alone special focus constructions (e.g. PalaciosMartínez and Martínez-Insua 2006). The papers by Katz (2000), Blyth (2000), Kerr (2002) and Callies and Keller (2008) are notable exceptions. These authors agree that variant word order constructions are best taught in terms of their functions in discourse, and at the intermediate or advanced level. The paper by Blyth is especially useful in that it not only acknowledges the importance of the teaching of pragmatically-conditioned word-order constructions within a discourse-oriented approach to grammar (or in other words, discourse grammar), but also discusses various techniques for teaching these constructions. These techniques draw on findings and methods from three different fields: 1) Focus on Form methodology, a pedagogical approach which seeks to focus learners’ attention on forms within a meaningful context, 2) discourse analysis, and 3) corpus linguistics. Blyth outlines that Focus on Form activities attempt to create the ideal conditions for grammar learning, the ‘teachable moment’ as it were, when the student has a communicative need that can be fulfilled only by a particular linguistic form, in other words, the moment when a form becomes communicatively salient (2000: 192).
Among others, he proposes a communicative task based on contradicting misinformation that serves to elicit cleft constructions which is similar to the one used in the present study (2000: 204f.).114 Techniques from discourse analysis may include using pragmatically odd written texts (2000: 207ff.).
114. See Katz (2000: 259) and Sammon (2002: 24) for a similar exercise.
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Callies and Keller (2008) suggest that literary texts appear to be a suitable stimulus to engage students in the use of ‘riskier’ sentence types, and that learners have at least anecdotal or intuitive knowledge of selected means of information highlighting which may serve as a valuable starting point. They also argue for a discourse grammar approach to the teaching of focus constructions, proposing a teaching unit on information highlighting in a larger unit dealing with text linguistics (style, register, text types, coherence, cohesion, focusing), including various exercises based on different text types (poems, short stories, letters, newspapers) which are designed to raise students’ awareness for the fundamentals of information structure. In general, however, as far as teaching materials are concerned, it has been observed that functional concepts of language use that relate to information structure tend to be underrepresented in materials for (advanced) language learners. Gass states that textbooks generally deal with sentences and arrangements of elements within the sentence and only infrequently deal with such concepts as emphasis and topic. This may contribute to the learner’s awareness of the former concepts, but not the latter (1984: 123).
Similar observations have been made by Klein (1988: 373) who claims that English focus constructions and their communicative functions are underrepresented in more traditional English grammars, and that teaching materials for German EFL learners exhibit great deficits. Luckily, the situation has changed for the better with the publication of the recent corpus-based (student) grammars of English (Biber et al. 1999; Biber, Conrad and Leech 2002; Huddleston and Pullum 2002, 2005), all of which contain individual chapters that describe both the fundamental principles of information organization, as well as the structures and functions of the most important focusing devices. A thorough analysis of more recent learner grammars and textbooks (for German learners in particular) is beyond the scope of this book and is still needed. The one textbook series for German learners of English that I examined is English G 2000, which is very popular and frequently used in German high schools. In volumes five and six (Schwarz 2001a, 2002), the notion of emphasis and the linguistic means to express emphasis are mentioned only very briefly. The devices that are introduced are emphatic do and emphatic reflexives such as myself, yourself, it- and wh-clefts in volume five (Schwarz 2001a: 117, 135), and inversion in volume six (Schwarz 2002: 109), the discussion of which, however, is restricted to subject-auxiliary inversion after negative adverbials, and thus takes a formand rule-based approach. The student workbook that accompanies volume five
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(Schwarz 2001b) does not contain any further exercises on the use of the emphatic devices introduced in the textbook. In view of these shortcomings, I argue for a functional approach to advanced foreign language teaching in particular, which should be designed − in line with the pedagogical movement of language awareness − to encourage learners to reflect on the characteristics and use of certain linguistic structures, and especially on their pragmatic functions in discourse. Consequently, an important didactic implication of the findings of this study is the need for awareness raising as to both the basic functional characteristics of discourse and information structure, such as the information principle, the principles of end-focus and end-weight in English, as well as the specific linguistic means of information highlighting in spoken and written English. Similar proposals have been made elsewhere. Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas argue that “it would also seem necessary to adopt a more discoursal approach to the teaching of syntax in ESP” (2005: 61). They suggest that more attention should be paid, in second-language teaching of English for academic and/or specific purposes, to acquiring the pragmatic competence needed to manipulate information structure in genre-specific ways. An important first step is one of consciousness-raising and would involve heightening learners’ awareness [...] (2005: 60).
Teaching at the advanced level should adopt a function-to-form line of presentation, sharpening students’ awareness of the fundamentals of information structure, and introducing students to and familiarizing them with the various phonological, lexico-grammatical, and syntactic means that can be used to highlight information. This could involve a contrastive perspective and address some formal and functional characteristics that German (or the native languages of other EFL/ESL learners) and English share, and those in which they differ.115 Ideally, such an approach to teaching would result in an improved situation in which the students − given the appropriate contextual setting − would no longer perceive such ‘deviant’ word order constructions as odd, stylistically awkward or even ill-formed. From a language-in-use or pragmatic point of view, students need to understand that the focusing devices that are available and used in English texts are employed with a discourse-pragmatic intention. In other words: Their use is pragmatically motivated because they serve to express a certain pragmatic function. Native speakers do not use these means randomly or for reasons of mere 115. Cf. Katz (2000: 259f.) for a similar proposal with respect to the teaching of the French c’est-cleft.
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(lexical) variation, but choose from among several options to serve their communicative needs. However, issues of idiomaticity and stylistics also play a role here. Ward, Birner and Huddleston note that the choice of one of the non-canonical constructions may be motivated by stylistic considerations, by the need for variety: a discourse consisting of clauses all of which follow the default pattern would likely be perceived as tiresome and repetitive (2002: 1372).
From the large amount of teaching materials that were reviewed for the present study, the following are considered to be especially useful since they explicitly take up the concepts of information structure, emphasis and focus, and deal in-depth with the lexico-grammatical and syntactic focusing devices of English. Moreover, they adopt a function-to-form approach to the teaching of focusing devices that I advocate. First of all, I would like to mention the textbook series Grammar Dimensions, which takes a communicative approach to grammar, focusing on the meaning and function of grammatical forms. To my knowledge, it was designed for the USAmerican market and is used in ESL classes in many US-American universities. Volume four of the series (Frodesen and Eyring 2000) contains an outstanding coverage of the structural and functional properties of focusing devices, relating them to the expression of focus for both emphasis and contrast. The book has separate units on ‘Emphatic Structures’ (emphatic do), ‘Fronting Structures for Emphasis and Focus’ (preposing and inversion), ‘Focusing and Emphasizing Structures’ (it- and wh-clefts), including detailed explanations, examples and numerous exercises. As far as teachers’ resources are concerned, The Grammar Book (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 1999) is perhaps the standard reference for ESL/EFL teachers in the US. It has a chapter entitled ‘Focus and Emphasis’, dealing with the different ways how focus can be realized. The chapter discusses intonation and lexical devices (emphatic do and emphatic reflexives), and especially the syntactic means for expressing focus and emphasis, namely marked word order (fronting and inversion) and special focus constructions (clefts). The text outlines the meaning and use of these devices and presents teaching suggestions, exercises and recommends further reading. For the European market, Advanced Grammar in Use (Hewings 1999) is particularly useful. It is designed as a self-study, reference and practice book for advanced learners of English.116 Although not as comprehensive as Grammar 116. Hall and Foley (2003) is similar in terms of design, content and intended readership. However, it came to my attention too late to be reviewed here.
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Dimensions, it has a whole chapter on ‘Organising Information’ which adopts a function-to-form approach and features separate units on presentational constructions such as existentials, extraposition, it- and wh-clefts, and inversion. All units consist of brief explanations and examples, followed by a set of exercises. As far as publications that discuss the significance of the teaching of focus constructions to German EFL learners are concerned, there are only very few teaching or rather self-study materials.117 These are directed at advanced German-speaking learners of English at university-level, and teachers of English as a foreign language in Germany (Esser 1995; Kortmann 2005, chapter V.2.2; Sammon 2002, chapter I). These texts primarily discuss the linguistic features of focus constructions such as inversion, fronting and clefts, and they are useful in that they take a comparative and historical perspective on German and English word order, and discuss the grammatical and functional differences between the two languages, which motivate the existence and use of focus constructions. While Sammon briefly discusses the information-highlighting and emphatic functions of inversion, clefts and fronting, including exercises (2002: 16–25), Kortmann’s presentation is restricted to clefts, the passive, the functional expansion of subjects and objects, and raising (2005: 168ff.), but has the advantage that he introduces and motivates functional concepts such as discourse-pragmatics, grammatical vs. pragmatic word order, and topic and comment (2005: 165f.).
8.4 Suggestions for further research I have outlined earlier that there are two contradictory claims on the role of topic-/subject-prominence in SLA. First, L2 acquisition is characterized by an early universal topic-prominent stage, and topic-/subject-prominence is not transferable, and second, the learners’ L1 does play a role in L2 acquisition, and as their L2 proficiency increases, native speakers of topic-prominent languages gradually increase the use of subject-prominent features in their L2 production. The results of this study provide evidence for the second claim. To achieve a better understanding of the role of language typology in L2 learning it seems fruitful to follow Jung’s (2004) proposal to expand the depth of research on the influence of topic- or subject-prominence on L2 acquisition, for example by investigating interlanguage development from the direction of a subject-prominent/GWO L1 to a topic-prominent/PWO L2. The availability of the ICLE, which contains writing produced by EFL learners with different native 117. I would like to thank Holger Becker from the Information Center for Foreign Language Research at the University of Marburg for his help in searching relevant publications.
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languages who share the most important external variables, makes it possible to investigate the use of focusing devices and GWO-typical structures such as existentials, it-clefts and extraposition by learners of English with a subject-prominent/GWO L1, for example Italian or French. This study has presented substantial evidence for the view that advanced German EFL learners are neither sufficiently aware of nor have knowledge about the existence and significance of the end-weight principle in English. Still, more strictly controlled, experimental studies of advanced learners’ knowledge of the weight principle are needed to verify these findings. Such investigations should examine, apart from the syntactic patterns studied here, other weight-sensitive structures such as heavy NP shift, verb-particle movement or the dative alternation (see Callies and Szczesniak 2008 for some first corpus-based results). Another offspring from this study may be research that focuses more exclusively on the issue of politeness and looks into learners’ awareness of the politeness functions of selected pragmatic markers such as actually or well, and their use as mitigating devices. Although the interviews indicate that at least for some learners politeness issues did play a role, the production data show that the native speakers used pragmatic markers more frequently, while the learners strongly rejected the fictitious interlocutor’s mistaken assumption given in the stimulus, and corrected it without employing mitigating devices such as actually or well. Having said that, this effect may be due to the communicative setting being a casual conversation among friends. However, such direct, if not offensive corrections, were not present in the native speaker responses. Following the traditional speech-act-based line of inquiry in Interlanguage Pragmatics, it would be interesting to find out whether there are differences between English native speakers and German learners in the use of linguistic means to contradict someone by correcting a mistaken assumption, resolving a conflict, or repairing a communicative breakdown. One would have to see whether such differences, if any, correspond with or diverge from those obtained from studies of refusals of offers and requests, for example. Finally, apart from the suggestions made that relate to SLA research, there is another research gap that relates to descriptive English linguistics: To find out whether there is a marked difference in the use and acceptance of preposing structures between British and American English. Results from such an enterprise would also help to explain the comparatively low acceptability rates for preposing by the native speakers, and the fact that they did not prepose core arguments such as direct objects at all in the production task. Despite the large amount of research that was reviewed for this study, no substantial descriptive or experimental studies apart from anecdotal evidence could be found.
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Appendices Appendix 1. Story used for the elicitation tasks118 Family Reunion or How I Spent My Summer Vacation in Germany Introduction I, John M. Wagner, Jr., am telling this story. I am the oldest son of John Michael Wagner, grandson of Henry Nicholas Wagner and great grandson of Johann Peter Wagner. Johann Peter, known in America as Peter, was born in Steinfels, Germany on April 13, 1843. He married Maria Schuster and together they traveled to New York aboard the S. S. Neckar, a steamship of the North German Lloyd Line, arriving on August 21, 1880. Their first child and only son was Henry Nicholas Wagner, born in New York City on July 17, 1884. Finding a Wagner in Germany has long been the goal of many descendants of Henry Nicholas Wagner. Finding the entire line of Wagners all the way back to the 1600’s was beyond any expectations. But, that is exactly what has happened and I would like to tell you about the First World Wide Wagner Family Reunion in Germany. We had been planning this trip for many months and as the days for our departure came upon us we grew more and more excited and perhaps a little apprehensive. My wife Liz and I were the only ones to have met personally any of our German relations. Yet we were going to be provided a place to stay in their homes for our entire visit. Surely they were equally apprehensive about welcoming strangers into their homes but as you will learn, the Steinfels Wagners welcomed us as though we were family they had known all our lives. The trip was a great experience that we will never forget and one that we wish could have lasted longer. A short version of the beginning of this story is that I first made contact in Germany around Christmas 1995 through the wonderful medium of email. One of the people I got in touch with was Thomas Wagner, a young father of 2 boys in his mid 30’s. Thomas lost his father in 1990 and at that point began to search for his past. He had even learned to read the old script used in the church records. He had accomplished a great deal but had run out of steam on the project. When he 118. Vocabulary items that were assumed to be unfamiliar to the learners were glossed.
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learned that there were family members in America that were also interested, the intensity of his efforts significantly increased. By Spring of 1996, Thomas began sending me information and finally came the data that identified Johann Peter and that lead to the S. S. Neckar. During that Summer, the Olympics were being held in Atlanta and Thomas was planning a trip to America to see some events related to the Olympic activities. He sent an email that said he was coming to America and could be in Philadelphia. Since the dates he was considering were close to our own reunion, I suggested that if he could make it to Philadelphia by Sunday, we would pick him up and take him to the reunion with us to meet all of our family. He was unable to get to the US by Sunday, but the idea of a reunion seemed like a good one to him. When he arrived on Tuesday he informed us that he and his family would be planning the First World Wide Wagner Family Reunion for the following summer. In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. Thomas planned, along with his wife Nora, for a two day meeting that would help us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. The actual meeting would be held in the Lindenhof, a pub, hotel, and restaurant in Steinfels.
Arrival The days of the actual reunion form only a small part of the 10 days that we experienced family in Germany. The trip to Germany usually leaves the States in the evening and brings you to Germany in the late morning or afternoon, thus you have either slept on the plane or you have been awake all night. We were met at the Frankfurt airport by Thomas and Nora. Our new family took us to Steinfels where we met Monika Wagner, the proprietor of Deutsches Haus, a neighborhood pub. We were to stay at her home in Steinfels. Deutsches Haus had been built by her grandfather and was now operated by Monika with the name ‘M. Wagner’ over the door. After coffee and cake with Monika, we took a short nap. That evening we were all treated to a cook-out at Thomas’s where we also met Klaus and Elvira Wagner of Steinfels, their son Michael and some additional family and friends. We would all get to know Michael very well over the next few days as he worked very hard to make us feel welcome and became our tour guide and interpreter. We quickly learned about the beer, apple wine, cola, cola beer, lemonade, and all the drinks that seemed to be so different than what we have. No one seemed to drink the water any where we went. Also, no ice. The cookout included numerous types of sausages as well as pork and veal steaks. However, there was hardly any beef due to Mad Cow Disease.
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Although few were willing to say they spoke the others language, we can say that many of our German family members spoke much better English than we spoke German. Thomas was accomplished with English, although he did have a few funny translations that he only learned about toward the end of our visit. Michael was also very good and looking forward to our time together to improve. Klaus did fairly well and Nora, who tried to tell us she didn’t speak English, did well too. Monika did not speak English and did not have the advantage of spending as much time with us as the others did, but our ability to communicate improved as the time went on. I think she understood more than we realized. Our German improved a little and her English did too. We learned to use hand motions and also used that little dictionary quite often.
Heidelberg Friday was our first day all together in Germany. As would become our standard procedure, in the morning we all met at Deutsches Haus to begin our first tour. Klaus, Elvira and Michael took us to Heidelberg. Heidelberg is south of Frankfurt, and after about a two hour drive on the Autobahn, we arrived in the old city. Heidelberg Castle, a major city attraction, was on top of a hill overlooking the city. We parked the car in the parking garage and walked up to the castle. Klaus arranged for an English-speaking tour. Somewhere along the way we learned that a Burg was a fortified castle and a Schloss was a residential castle. The castle at Heidelberg was certainly a fortified castle. It overlooked the city, the university and the river Neckar. The castle was partially a ruin and partially restored. It had been constructed over a long period of time and was a good example of a variety of architecture. After the castle tour we took the inclined plane train ride down into the city and caught a bus ride to another part of the city where we were to catch a tour bus for a city tour. Time was tight so we grabbed what we could for lunch, a lot of take out Chinese went with us to the bus for the tour. We got to see the old city, the river, the market place and the old bridge and then back up to the castle where we had an additional tour of the outside areas that we had not seen on the first tour. Then it was off to Steinfels where a special dinner was planned. We met again at Deutsches Haus and headed off into the country side. Keeping in mind that Steinfels is a fairly small village, it didn’t take much to get out into the country. We headed up a fairly long narrow lane. We later learned that our destination closed in the winter since there was no assurances you could get in or out in the snow. That destination was known as the “Chicken Farm”. The specialty at the inclined plane train, n. = ‘Bergbahn’
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Chicken Farm was a rotisserie chicken which they slid off the skewer** into your basket, cut in half with special scissors and put half into another basket. Then in what seemed to be a single motion the waitress cut each half into pieces. The French fries and apple sauce were served family style. Of course there were other things to eat but this was the specialty of the house. It was a wonderful evening.
The Reunion – Day 1 Saturday was the day we had all been waiting for. Although we had met many Wagners already, we were to meet many more over these next two days. This reunion was not like the American Wagner Reunion. It was not a picnic but rather more like a business meeting. The room was a banquet room in the Lindenhof hotel and restaurant. The tables were set up in the shape of an E and the transparency projector was ready to go. It seemed as though Thomas had brought along 4 or 5 boxes of books, papers and other reference materials. He had set up a disc jockey station for playing music and he was ready to go. He would wait on putting up the very long printed family tree till later in the day. Thomas started the day with a discussion of genealogy*** and how he got started in searching for the family history after his father died in 1990. He discussed how names were first determined, and noted that the Church records only go back to the 1600's. Of course his presentation was in German, but Michael gave us a commentary translation. It would have been much nicer if we had been able to understand the German but I think we got the gist of most of the presentations. After lunch, we had a presentation by Stefan Wagner, a 25 year old college student and soccer player. He talked about where the Wagners came from. After that, Klaus presented a talk about the general history of Europe and Germany during the time we were interested in. He also discussed the coat-of-arms**** and passed around a color print. He would later make copies available to anyone who wanted one. Next on our agenda was a walking tour of Steinfels. Although Liz and I had been in Steinfels for 3 days, we had not really had much time to get to know the city. Steinfels is the home of approximately 11,000 people. Thus, it is much like a small town or village. In addition to its castle and its church it has numerous small streets and passageways and many lovely half-timber houses***** and other equally old structures. ** *** **** *****
rotisserie chicken, n. = ‘Grillhähnchen’ skewer, n. = ‘Bratspieß’ genealogy, n. = ‘Genealogie, Ahnenforschung’ coat-of-arms, n. = ‘Wappen’ half-timber houses, n. = ‘Fachwerkhäuser’
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Tour of Steinfels Around 3:00 p.m. we set out for a tour of the town. This was especially interesting since the tour was directed at places of interest to Wagners. We started our tour with a walk down the street in front of the Lindenhof and into the old city. We turned right and walked through a narrow alley and through a passage way that looked like we were going into someone’s private yard. We came out in a nicely landscaped public space between the inner and outer walls of the city. As we looked at the walls, they looked as though they had been preserved from the day our ancestors first built them. We soon learned that they had only recently been restored by a team of volunteers organized and lead by Elvira Wagner. So, you see that the Wagners have been working on those stone walls for a very long time! We turned back and returned to the street we had come from, then crossed the street and went down another narrow street, past the home of Klaus and Elvira and along the wall to one of the city gates. It was in one of the houses in this area that the city executioner once lived. (He was not a Wagner.) We continued on past one of the walls towers and on to Earl Reinhard's Church. From here we traveled up to the market place and town center. Here we saw the Rathaus (Town Hall), St. Katharine’s Church, and the Castle which was built between 1528 and 1555. After some time for picture taking in the market place we walked past numerous houses, that at some time had been occupied by our ancestors, up some steps to the outside of the wall. From here we could see the modern school building and we walked past the Witches’ Tower. In the times of witch-hunting, mainly between the 15th and the 17th century, women said to use magic power for evil purposes were often imprisoned in this tower. We crossed the Kinzig River (it was a very small stream) and walked back to the meeting room. Having walked around this beautiful ancient city, we were reminded that something like every second house was build by a Wagner. That is some impact on our family home. What was left of the afternoon was filled with more information about the family and general genealogy research. When we returned from our walk, Thomas put up the printed version of the family tree that he had prepared. All of the data is in a computer data base which he has worked on extensively. Of course it includes the data on the American Wagners that we have provided. The printed chart took up two walls of the meeting room. Everyone wanted to find themselves on the tree and then it was a trick to follow your line back with someone else to see where the two of you connect to a common ancestor. We had the most opportunity to visit and ‘talk’ with our German family at this time. We shared the photographs that we had brought and talked with many of the family. We particularly enjoyed ancestor, n. = ‘Vorfahr, Urahn’
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our talk with Frau Irmgard Reichel (born a Wagner). Throughout the earlier part of the meeting, she had often made comments to Thomas as he talked about the family. She referred to a small book, an Ahnenpass she held to verify her remarks. This book was the record of her ancestors that was required by the Nazi government, to prove that there was a pure heritage line. These books can prove to be quite useful today but they are also known to contain many errors. They were so very important to ones life safety that many officials are known to have accepted bribes** to authenticate the information they contained. After the afternoon activities, we returned to Deutsches Haus. Our intent was to relax for a few hours and then head to sleep. However, Monika thought we should have something to eat and, as usual, it was quite enjoyable. I didn’t have any trouble understanding when it was time to eat, no matter what language. So we sat down in a booth*** in the pub and had some potato salad and sausages. Of course there was beer and cola to drink. By this time I had decided that I liked German beer. We enjoyed our late meal, visited for a while and went to bed.
The Reunion – Day 2 Sunday was another day of talks on the family. I was scheduled to talk about what research I had completed. I didn’t go on till after lunch. I opened with a brief statement in German saying how happy we all were to be there and then talked about what had lead to this reunion. I explained that it was my contact with Thomas by email that had initiated the whole event and that the real success was all due to his research. I discussed a little bit about our family and information I could find in the census records. I also mentioned the ship passenger lists where I was able to find Johann Peter and Maria and then the picture of the ship I was able to find. Since most everyone needed my talk in German, Michael provided the translation. The remainder of the afternoon was more visiting time at the hotel. Of course we had cakes and coffee and other snacks as was usual for the afternoon. Liz and I said our good bye’s to those still at the meeting and walked up the hill to Deutsches Haus. Monika and her friends were sitting outside enjoying each others company and a beer or two. They invited us to join them which we did. The Deutsches Haus pub seemed like a most friendly gathering place for these friends. We managed to talk a good bit for folks who said they didn’t understand each others language. So the end of the reunion meeting had come. We had met many family members
heritage, n. = ‘Herkunft’ ** bribe, n. = ‘Bestechungsgeld’ *** booth, n. = ‘Separee’
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though we would undoubtedly not remember them all. They each had made an impact on us that will never leave us. But, Monday was another day in Germany and we would not let that pass without making the most of it.
Neuschwanstein This would be the beginning of our only overnight trip while in Germany. Stefan had volunteered to take us south to Munich and Castle Neuschwanstein if we were interested, but it was too far to make the in a single day. So, with Michael and Stefan as our guides off we went from the parking lot near Deutsches Haus. We drove south along the Autobahn toward the town of Füssen in Bavaria, near the Austrian boarder and in the beginnings of the Alps. We stopped to walk around this tourist filled town, and had lunch in a beer garden, tucked within one of the buildings along the pedestrian way. Eating and beer drinking in these outdoor beer gardens was one of the fun parts of our trip. As it turned out, our Bavarian waitress was actually from Ireland! We again savored the local meals and headed back to the car, stopping to try to get the Automatic Teller Machine to give us some money before the next leg of our trip to the Royal Castle Neuschwanstein, the Cinderella Castle, or the Castle of Crazy King Ludwig. The castle was magnificent and the views easily exceeded the magnificence of the castle. It had very modern conveniences for the day. The building exhibited beautiful woodwork and outstanding mosaic tile work but perhaps the most outstanding aspect of the entire castle were the paintings. Music and art held a special place in the heart of King Ludwig and this was the place to show off their beauty. Neuschwanstein castle was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. From here we drove north, through the edge of Munich and on to Moosburg. This town is on the river Isar and is over 1200 years old. It is said to be one of the finest examples of an ancient Bavarian town in existence. We stayed at the Huber Gasthof und Metzgerei, a hotel and butcher shop. The hotel was a very nice place to spend the night. The beds were comfortable and the facilities were modern, although a little different than what we are used to. The next morning, a continental breakfast was provided and we all enjoyed ourselves before we started on the days excursion.
Munich This was Tuesday and we were to visit Munich itself. We started by driving back toward Munich and stopped at a train station where we were able to park and buy an all day pass which not only allowed us to get into the city and back again
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but allowed us to take the train within the city if we desired. We got off the train in the center of the city and came up out of the station into a large pedestrian market place. There on our right was the Rathaus with its tower and the famous Glockenspiel. The figures of the Glockenspiel would begin to move at 11:05 and we had some time to walk around on our own before that. At the appointed time we all stood watching the figures move around high above our heads, dancing and playing music. Many pictures were taken of this famous site. Then, we decided to take a bus tour of the city. This turned out to be a great idea since we would get a broad picture of the city from the bus. It was a doubledecker bus which Liz and I took advantage of by sitting on top. The trip around the city went by some places we had walked by and didn’t know anything about. There were so many special places to see that I cant even remember them. It was a hot day and the top of the bus was hot at times but the breeze felt good and we got the fullest view of the city. The bus tour ended and we found our way back to the market for a brief snack, then onto the train for the trip to the car. At no time did anyone ask for our train tickets. We could have done the entire thing without them and no one would have known. Knowing that the punishment is quite severe keeps people from cheating. The ride home was uneventful except for our dinner stop at a McDonald’s. Generally the drinks come without ice in Germany and that is what we found at McD’s. We also found that the ketchup is not free, the clerk said “you’re not in America”. When we arrived in Steinfels, we stopped off at Thomas’. We sat and had some refreshment and talked about the agenda for the next day, our last full day in Germany. Thomas, Nora and Klaus had planned to take us on a boat trip on the Rhine on Wednesday. We were fairly tired from our two day outing and were not sure if we should continue with the plans or take a day off. After a little discussion and a phone call to Elvira and Klaus we decided that we should go on the Rhine. So, as usual we all met at Deutsches Haus the next day and headed off west to Rüdesheim where we boarded the boat for the ride north.
The Rhine It was a beautiful, warm sun shiny day. The boat had two levels and multiple types of seating arrangements. We found a nice table with white tablecloth along the east side windows and took up our position. As we rode up the Rhine we were treated with spectacular views of the shore line. Along the way were numerous castles, some restored for use and some in ruins. About ten kilometers along our way we passed by the famous Loreley, with no incidents of trouble. In fact, we had
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a hard time understanding how this area could be a treacherous portion of the Rhine to travel based on what we were experiencing. Five more kilometers and we reached our destination for today, the town of St. Goar. We left the boat to visit the town and its castle, Burg Rheinfels. The many castles built along the Rhine were designed for control of river traffic and the collection of tolls. It was easy to see how the various monarchs were able to control their sections of the river from these massive fortifications. After walking through the ruins and the restored sections we walked back down to the town. Along the way we departed from the main street and found our way through the small back streets where we met some people who we had seen at Neuschwanstein on Monday when we were there. We talked a bit and found that one of them was also from the US. The trip back was just as fascinating as the original part. We again spent the time talking about the country, the family and the wonderful time we had had. The castles, towns, church towers and vineyards all formed a lasting impression of this part of Germany and a desire to return to the Rhine. The car ride home went smoothly and we arrived at Deutsches Haus in plenty of time to prepare for the special evening meal we were about to have.
The Concluding Dinner There was a large dining room in the back of Deutsches Haus. Monika was planning a big meal for us and many of our German family. There were more than 23 of us around the big table. Just like a real family reunion, eating. The meal was wonderful, as expected. The Sauerbraten was great, the red cabbage was wonderful, but what I liked most was the Knödel. This was a dumpling with a surprise inside. They were made from potatoes, had a small piece of meat in the center, and were boiled. I could have eaten them all evening, I think I did. Again we sat around talking and thinking of the hospitality shown by our newly found family. It was hard to imagine that just a short week earlier we had just met them and just a short year or so before and we didn’t even know they existed. Now we are eating with them and wishing our time together was not coming to an end. We had brought thank you gifts for our host families and distributed them here. Perhaps the most special gifts, however, were the ones brought for each of us by Nora. Our special gift was a small framed photograph of Steinfels castle, which sits on our mantel to remind us of our heritage, and our family which we can now call friends. treacherous, adj. = ‘tückisch’
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Departure Thursday was to be our departure day. Liz and I were to leave at 2:30 p.m. so we did not have to rush. We suggested to take the train. Klaus decided that was not the way it should be and volunteered Michael to take us. Michael thought we could all go by train but again Klaus thought by car would be best, so by car it was to be. We awoke at our usual time on Thursday and sat down to the usual special breakfast that Monika always prepared for us. Again the thought of this all coming to an end was saddening. After breakfast and making sure that we were all packed, we took our last walk down into the town, past the many buildings that had been identified as belonging to our history. We stopped at a flower shop to see about one final thank you for Monika. As the lady of the store took care of other customers, we looked around trying to decide what would be a good choice. We picked out some flowers and, when it was our turn we made our desires known. The lady asked how much we wanted to spend and I made a guess, based on the prices on the already prepared flowers we saw. She said that was a good choice and proceeded to put together a very fine bouquet for us to take. With what little German I was able to remember added to that which I learned while in Germany, I was able to make our purchase. We walked up the hill to Deutsches Haus and were met by Monika and Nora, who had come from work to say goodbye. They had been having coffee so we joined them and waited the short time for Michael to arrive. This was it, the end of a week to remember and to tell you all about. It had come too soon for Liz and me. We said our good-byes and left for the airport. Michael was planning on talking to the travel folks at the airport about cheap airfares for their upcoming vacation so he parked at the terminal and came in with us. We checked in and then went shopping. The time traveling to the airport and the waiting time there went reasonably fast, although I don’t think the Germans know how to wait in lines very well. We said goodbye to Michael and went to get ready to board our plane home. The flight was fine and, as with the flight to Germany, we stopped in Iceland. The wait wasn’t too long and we managed to get going without any trouble. As we made our way to Philadelphia we passed over Greenland. We could see the glaciers below us and the icebergs floating in the ocean. It was a wondrous thing to see. All in all a most memorable trip.
glacier, n. = ‘Gletscher’
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Appendix 2. Elicitation questionnaire – English version Part I Now, let’s imagine that you were the person that had made the reunion-trip to Germany and that it was you who has experienced all the things you’ve just read about.
Situation 1 You’ve just returned from Germany and you meet your best friend the very next day. Of course, you want to tell her/him all about your exciting trip. There is often more than one way of saying the same thing. How we say it depends on several factors, e.g. the emphasis we want to give to different parts of the message and what we think is the most important piece of information. This may be because something was a very interesting or special experience or maybe it was something we found very peculiar. In the following, you will be given some text passages taken from the story you have read. In each passage, a particular piece of information is given in underlined bold print. You really want to highlight this particular piece of information and you want to make clear to your friend that this deserves special attention. Please write down in one or two sentences what you would tell your friend. Example: On the way back from Munich The ride home was uneventful except for our dinner stop at a McDonald’s. Generally the drinks come without ice in Germany and that is what we found at McD’s. We also found that the ketchup is not free, the clerk said “you’re not in America”.
you tell your friend: You know, a funny thing was that the ketchup wasn’t free at McDonald’s in Germany, the clerk even said to us “you’re not in America”!
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1. Pre-Reunion In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. Thomas planned, along with his wife Nora, for a two day meeting that would help us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. you tell your friend:
2. Arrival: The cookout That evening we were all treated to a cook-out at Thomas’s where we also met Klaus and Elvira Wagner of Steinfels, their son Michael and some additional family and friends. We would all get to know Michael very well over the next few days as he worked very hard to make us feel welcome and became our tour guide and interpreter. you tell your friend:
3. The Chicken Farm The specialty at the Chicken Farm was a rotisserie chicken which they slid off the skewer into your basket, cut in half with special scissors and put half into another basket. you tell your friend:
4. Reunion Day 1 Everyone wanted to find themselves on the family tree and then it was a trick to follow your line back with someone else to see where the two of you connect to a common ancestor. We had the most opportunity to visit and ‘talk’ with our German family at this time. you tell your friend:
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5. On the way to Neuschwanstein Castle We stopped to walk around the tourist filled town of Füssen, and had lunch in a beer garden, tucked within one of the buildings along the pedestrian way. Eating and beer drinking in these outdoor beer gardens was one of the fun parts of our trip. you tell your friend:
6. Neuschwanstein Castle The castle was magnificent and the views easily exceeded the magnificence of the castle. The building exhibited beautiful woodwork and outstanding mosaic tile work but perhaps the most outstanding aspect of the entire castle were the paintings. Music and art held a special place in the heart of King Ludwig and this was the place to show off their beauty. Neuschwanstein castle was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. you tell your friend:
7. Munich Then, we decided to take a bus tour of the city. This turned out to be a fabulous idea since we would get a broad picture of the city from the bus. you tell your friend:
8. Munich At no time did anyone ask for our train tickets. We could have done the entire thing without them and no one would have known. Knowing that the punishment is quite severe keeps people from cheating. you tell your friend:
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9. Stop at McDonald’s The ride home was uneventful except for our dinner stop at a McDonalds. Generally the drinks come without ice in Germany and that is what we found at McD’s. you tell your friend:
Situation 2 A couple of months after your trip, a fellow college-student who has just begun studying German is about to go on a tour of Germany. Of course she/he knows that you have already been there, since you have talked about your trip earlier. However, she/he doesn’t remember all the details, and because she/he is very excited about the upcoming trip she/he has come to see you and talk to you about your experiences again. It turns out that she/he has mixed up quite a lot of things which you may need to clarify or correct. Again, you will be given some text passages taken from the story. In each passage, a particular piece of information is given in underlined bold print. Your fellow student will make a wrong assumption or ask you a question related to this information. Please write down in one or two sentences how you would respond. Example: Pre-Reunion During that Summer, the Olympics were being held in Atlanta and Thomas was planning a trip to America to see some events related to the Olympic activities. the student: Well, wasn’t it great that it worked with your family reunion so quickly. Didn’t you say that Thomas came to the US especially to arrange the event? your response: No, actually, the reason why he came to the US was that he wanted to see some events at the Olympics in Atlanta.
1. Pre-Reunion When Thomas arrived in the US he informed us that he and his family would be planning the First World Wide Wagner Family Reunion for the following summer. In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. the student: I bet it was quite a job to plan and organize the whole reunion in Germany. Who was it again that did all this and deserves all the credit? Klaus?
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your response:
2. Arrival We were met at the Frankfurt airport by Thomas and Nora. Our new family took us to Steinfels where we met Monika Wagner, the proprietor of Deutsches Haus, a neighborhood pub. We were to stay at her home in Steinfels. the student: Where did you stay during your time in Germany? At a hotel? your response:
3. Heidelberg Heidelberg is south of Frankfurt, and after about a two hour drive on the Autobahn, we arrived in the old city. Heidelberg Castle, a major city attraction, was on top of a hill overlooking the city. We parked the car in the parking garage and walked up to the castle. Klaus arranged for an English-speaking tour. the student: Actually, one of our lecturers is from Germany. He has told us about the old university at Heidelberg. I guess you saw it, didn’t you? your response:
4. Reunion day1 Thomas started the day with a discussion of genealogy and how he got started in searching for the family history after his father had died. He discussed how names were first determined, and noted that the Church records only go back to the 1600’s. Of course his presentation was in German, but Michael gave us a commentary translation. the student: I remember you telling me about all the presentations by your German family at the Reunion. How did you understand all of this? Was there a professional interpreter? your response:
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5. The Reunion We particularly enjoyed our talk with Frau Irmgard Reichel (born a Wagner). Throughout the earlier part of the meeting, she had often made comments to Thomas as he talked about the family. She referred to a small book, an Ahnenpass she held to verify her remarks. This book was the record of her ancestors that was required by the Nazi government, to prove that there was a pure heritage line. the student: I heard that many Germans are very much into this genealogy research. Weren’t they even required to prove their heritage under the Nazi regime? I wonder how they were supposed to do this. Did they have to take some kind of test to prove that? your response:
6. Reunion day 1 – In the evening I didn’t have any trouble understanding when it was time to eat, no matter what language. So we sat down in a booth in the pub and had some potato salad and sausages. Of course there was beer and cola to drink. By this time I had decided that I liked the German beer. the student: The German beer is supposed to be very good, isn’t it? But you’re not much of a beer drinker anyway, so I guess you didn’t care much about it. your response:
7. Departure The time traveling to the airport and the waiting time there went reasonably fast, although the Germans don’t know how to wait in lines very well. the student: What was it again that really annoyed you about the Germans at the airport on your flight back home? Were they unfriendly? your response:
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Part II In the following, you will be given some text passages taken from the story. They may be familiar because they have already appeared in the first questionnaire. Also, you will recognize the scenarios, i.e. telling your best friend about the trip and answering a fellow student. What is different in this section, however, is that you will be given a set of possible responses which you are asked to evaluate. Situation 1 In this situation, you’ve just returned from Germany and meet your best friend who you want to tell all about your trip. In each passage, a particular piece of information is given in underlined bold print. You really want to highlight this particular piece of information and you want to make clear to your friend that this deserves special attention. Below each text passage you find a set of alternatives that could be used for that purpose. Please indicate to what degree you think the given possibilities are fitting in the given context. To do this, please rate the alternatives by assigning them grades on a scale from 1-5. If you think a sentence is a very good option, mark box 5. If you think a sentence is not a good option at all, mark box 1. Do this for every sentence provided. There are no right or wrong answers, just follow your intuition. If you think that none of the options given really fits – and only if this is the case – feel free to make your own suggestion on the line provided. Example: Pre-Reunion One of the people I got in touch with was Thomas Wagner, a young father of two boys in his mid 30’s. Thomas lost his father in 1990 and at that point began to search for his past. 1 a. Thomas lost his father and began to search for his past in 1990 b. When Thomas lost his father and began to search for his past was in 1990. c. The time when Thomas lost his father and began to search for his past was in 1990. d. In 1990 Thomas lost his father and began to search for his past. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
2
3
4
5
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1. Pre-Reunion In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. Thomas planned, along with his wife Nora, for a two day meeting that would help us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. you tell your friend:
1
2
3
4
5
a. It was Thomas who planned the meeting. b. The one who planned the meeting was Thomas. c. Thomas was the one who planned the meeting. d. Planning the meeting was Thomas. e. Thomas we have to thank for planning the meeting. f. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
2. Arrival: The cook-out We would all get to know Michael very well over the next few days as he worked very hard to make us feel welcome and became our tour guide and interpreter. you tell your friend:
1
2
3
4
5
a. Michael we’d get to know very well. b. It was Michael (who) we'd get to know very well. c. The one (who) we'd get to know very well was Michael. d. Michael was the one (who) we’d get to know very well. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
3. The Chicken Farm The specialty at the Chicken Farm was a rotisserie chicken which they slid off the skewer into your basket, cut in half with special scissors and put half into another basket. you tell your friend: a. It was their rotisserie chicken that was really special. b. What was really special was their rotisserie chicken. c. Their rotisserie chicken was the thing that was really special. d. Really special was their rotisserie chicken. e. Their rotisserie chicken they really served in a special way. f. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
1
2
3
4
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4. Reunion Day 1 Everyone wanted to find themselves on the family tree and then it was a trick to follow your line back with someone else to see where the two of you connect to a common ancestor. We had the most opportunity to visit and ‘talk’ with our German family at this time. you tell your friend: a. It was at this time that we had the most opportunity to ‘talk’ to our German family. b. The most opportunity to 'talk' to our German family we had at this time. c. At this time we had the most opportunity to 'talk' to our German family. d. The point we had the most opportunity to 'talk' to our German family was at this time. e. Own suggestion:
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5. On the way to Neuschwanstein Castle We stopped to walk around the tourist filled town of Füssen, and had lunch in a beer garden, tucked within one of the buildings along the pedestrian way. Eating and beer drinking in these outdoor beer gardens was one of the fun parts of our trip. you tell your friend:
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a. In the beer gardens we enjoyed eating and beer drinking a lot. b. The places where we enjoyed eating and beer drinking a lot were the beer gardens. c. It was in the beer gardens where we enjoyed eating and beer drinking a lot. d. Eating and beer drinking we enjoyed a lot in the beer gardens. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
6. Neuschwanstein Castle The castle was magnificent and the views easily exceeded the magnificence of the castle. The building exhibited beautiful woodwork and outstanding mosaic tile work but perhaps the most outstanding aspect of the entire castle were the paintings. Music and art held a special place in the heart of King Ludwig and this was the place to show off their beauty. Neuschwanstein castle was certainly one of the highlights of the trip.
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you tell your friend:
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a. One of the highlights was certainly Neuschwanstein Castle. b. It was Neuschwanstein Castle that was certainly one of the highlights. c. Neuschwanstein Castle we’ll certainly remember as one of the highlights. d. What was certainly a highlight was Neuschwanstein Castle. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
7. Munich Then, we decided to take a bus tour of the city. This turned out to be a great idea since we would get a broad picture of the city from the bus. you tell your friend:
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a. Taking a bus tour of Munich was a great idea. b. It was a great idea to take a bus tour of Munich. c. What we did in Munich was take a bus tour. d. Take a bus tour was what we did in Munich. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
8. Munich At no time did anyone ask for our train tickets. We could have done the entire thing without them and no one would have known. Knowing that the punishment is quite severe keeps people from cheating. you tell your friend: a. I think knowing that the punishment is quite severe is what keeps people from cheating. b. I think what keeps people from cheating is knowing that the punishment is quite severe. c. I think it's knowing that the punishment is quite severe that keeps people from cheating. d. I think people are kept from cheating by knowing that the punishment is quite severe. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
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9. Stop at McDonald’s The ride home was uneventful except for our dinner stop at a McDonalds. Generally the drinks come without ice in Germany and that is what we found at McD’s. you tell your friend:
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a. What really surprised us was that the drinks come without ice. b. It was that the drinks come without ice that really surprised us. c. It really surprised us that the drinks come without ice. d. Really surprising was that the drinks come without ice. e. That the drinks come without ice really surprised us. f. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
Situation 2 In this situation, assume that you are talking to a fellow college-student who is about to go on a tour of Germany. She/he doesn’t remember all the details of your trip, and because she/he is very excited about the upcoming trip has come to see you to talk again. It turns out that she/he has mixed up quite a lot of things which you may need to clarify or correct. In each text passage, a particular piece of information is given in underlined bold print. Your fellow student will make a wrong assumption or ask you a question related to this information. Below each text passage you find a set of alternatives that could be used. Please indicate to what degree you think the given possibilities are fitting in the given context. To do this, please rate the alternatives by assigning them grades on a scale from 1–5. If you think a sentence is a very good option, mark box 5. If you think a sentence is not a good option at all, mark box 1. Do this for every sentence provided. There are no right or wrong answers, just follow your intuition. If you think that none of the options given really fits – and only if this is the case – feel free to make your own suggestion on the line provided.
1. Pre-Reunion When Thomas arrived in the US he informed us that he and his family would be planning the First World Wide Wagner Family Reunion for the following summer. In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work.
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the student: I bet it was quite a job to plan and organize the whole reunion in Germany. Who was it again that did all this and deserves all the credit? Klaus? your response:
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a. No, it’s Thomas we need to thank. b. No, the one we need to thank is Thomas. c. No, not Klaus, Thomas we need to thank. d. No, Thomas is the one we need to thank. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
2. Arrival We were met at the Frankfurt airport by Thomas and Nora. Our new family took us to Steinfels where we met Monika Wagner, the proprietor of Deutsches Haus, a neighborhood pub. We were to stay at her home in Steinfels. the student: Where did you stay during your time in Germany? At a hotel? your response:
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a. No, it was at Monika’s where we were staying. b. No, we were staying at Monika's, not at a hotel. c. No, not at a hotel, at Monika's we were staying. d. No, where we were staying was at Monika's. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
3. Heidelberg Heidelberg is south of Frankfurt, and after about a two hour drive on the Autobahn, we arrived in the old city. Heidelberg Castle, a major city attraction, was on top of a hill overlooking the city. We parked the car in the parking garage and walked up to the castle. Klaus arranged for an English-speaking tour. the student: Actually, one of our lecturers is from Germany. He has told us about the old university at Heidelberg. I guess you saw it, didn’t you? your response: a. No, what we saw was the castle, not the university. b. No, we didn't see the university, but we did see the castle. c. No, it was the castle we saw, not the university. d. No, we didn't see the university, but the castle we saw. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
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4. Reunion day1 Thomas started the day with a discussion of genealogy and how he got started in searching for the family history after his father had died. He discussed how names were first determined, and noted that the Church records only go back to the 1600’s. Of course his presentation was in German, but Michael gave us a commentary translation. the student: I remember you telling me about all the presentations by your German family at the Reunion. How did you understand all of this? Was there a professional interpreter? your response:
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a. No, it was Michael who translated for us. b. No, there was no interpreter, but Michael we could usually ask for a translation. c. No, Michael was the one who translated for us. d. No, there was no interpreter, the one who translated for us was Michael. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
5. The Reunion We particularly enjoyed our talk with Frau Irmgard Reichel (born a Wagner). Throughout the earlier part of the meeting, she had often made comments to Thomas as he talked about the family. She referred to a small book, an Ahnenpass she held to verify her remarks. This book was the record of her ancestors that was required by the Nazi government, to prove that there was a pure heritage line. the student: I heard that many Germans are very much into this genealogy research. Weren’t they even required to prove their heritage under the Nazi regime? I wonder how they were supposed to do this. Did they have to take some kind of test to prove that? your response: a. No, what they used to prove it was a small book called Ahnenpass. b. No, it was a small book called Ahnenpass they used to prove it. c. No, not a test, a small book called Ahnenpass they used to prove it. d. No, a small book called Ahnenpass was what they used to prove it. e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
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6. Reunion day 1 – In the evening I didn’t have any trouble understanding when it was time to eat, no matter what language. So we sat down in a booth in the pub and had some potato salad and sausages. Of course there was beer and cola to drink. By this time I had decided that I liked the German beer. the student: The German beer is supposed to be very good, isn’t it? But you’re not much of a beer drinker anyway, so I guess you didn’t care much about it. your response:
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a. No, I was surprised myself but I actually did like it. b. No, what surprised me was that I actually liked it. c. No, I was surprised myself but I really liked it. d. No, I was surprised myself but I actually liked it, and like it I really did! e. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
7. Departure The time traveling to the airport and the waiting time there went reasonably fast, although the Germans don’t know how to wait in lines very well. the student: What was it again that annoyed you about the Germans at the airport on your flight back home? Were they unfriendly? your response: a. No, what was annoying was that they don’t know how to wait in lines. b. No, it was that they don’t know how to wait in lines that annoyed me. c. No, it annoyed me that they don't know how to wait in lines. d. No, annoying was that they don't know how to wait in lines. e. No, that they don't know how to wait in lines annoyed me. f. Own suggestion: ______________________________________________
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Appendix 3. Elicitation questionnaire – German version Sicher erinnern Sie sich noch an den Text „Family Reunion or How I Spent My Summer Vacation in Germany“, den Sie zu Beginn der ersten Datenerhebungssitzung gelesen haben. Der Text handelte von einer amerikanischen Familie, die anläßlich eines Familientreffens nach Deutschland fliegt, um dort ihre Verwandten zu treffen, und um einige «typisch deutsche» Sehenswürdigkeiten und Städte zu besuchen. Da das Lesen des Textes ja noch nicht allzu lange her ist, werden Sie sich sicher noch an den Inhalt der Geschichte und den Ablauf der Ereignisse erinnern. Der Inhalt der Geschichte ist die Grundlage für die nun folgenden beiden Fragebögen, die ähnlich strukturiert sind, wie die, die Sie schon aus der ersten Sitzung kennen, die Sie nun aber bitte in deutscher Sprache bearbeiten sollen. Ihnen wird zu Beginn jeder Aufgabe noch einmal eine Textpassage aus der Geschichte vorgegeben — diesmal in deutscher Übersetzung — um den inhaltlichen Zusammenhang aufzufrischen.
Teil I Stellen Sie sich nun vor, dass Sie die Person sind, die die Reise zum Familientreffen nach Deutschland gemacht hat, und dass Sie all die Dinge erlebt haben, die in der Geschichte geschildert wurden.
Situation 1 Sie sind gerade aus Deutschland zurückgekehrt und treffen gleich am nächsten Tag Ihren besten Freund bzw. Ihre beste Freundin. Natürlich möchten Sie ihm/ ihr alles über die ereignisreiche Reise erzählen. Oftmals gibt es mehrere Möglichkeiten, ein und denselben Sachverhalt sprachlich auszudrücken. Wie wir etwas sagen, hängt von verschiedenen Faktoren ab, so z.B. ob wir einen Teil einer Äußerung besonders hervorheben wollen, oder welche Information wir für besonders wichtig halten. Dies kann daran liegen, dass eine Erfahrung oder ein Erlebnis sehr interessant, ganz besonders oder aber eigentümlich und ungewöhnlich war. Im folgenden werden Ihnen nun einige Textpassagen aus der Geschichte vorgegeben – diesmal in deutscher Übersetzung – um den inhaltlichen Zusammenhang aufzufrischen. In jeder Passage erscheint eine bestimmte Information in unterstrichenem Fettdruck. Diese Information möchten Sie besonders hervorheben und Sie möchten Ihrem Freund / Ihrer Freundin klarmachen, dass diese Information besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdient. Bitte schreiben Sie in 1-2 Sätzen auf, was Sie Ihrem Freund / Ihrer Freundin sagen würden.
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Beispiel: Auf der Rückfahrt von München Die Heimfahrt verlief relativ unspektakulär, abgesehen von unserem Abstecher zu McDonalds. Die Getränke werden in Deutschland im allgemeinen ohne Eis serviert, auch bei McDonalds. Wir bemerkten auch, dass das Ketchup nicht umsonst ist, ein Angestellter sagte zu uns: “Sie sind hier nicht in Amerika”. sie sagen: Weißt Du, eine witzige Sache war, dass das Ketchup bei McDonalds in Deutschland nicht umsonst ist. Ein Angestellter sagte sogar zu uns: “Sie sind hier nicht in Amerika”!
1. Vorbereitungen zum Familientreffen Doch bis dahin gab es noch eine Menge an Nachforschungen und Planungen zu erledigen, und wir alle können Thomas dafür danken. Thomas plante zusammen mit seiner Frau Nora eine zweitägige Zusammenkunft, bei der wir alle mehr über unsere Familiengeschichte und Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse erfahren sollten. sie sagen:
2. Abendessen am Ankunftstag An diesem Abend waren wir zum Essen bei Thomas eingeladen, wo wir auch auf Klaus und Elvira Wagner, ihren Sohn Michael, sowie einige andere Familienmitglieder und Freunde trafen. Wir sollten Michael in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennen lernen, da er sich sehr bemühte, uns unseren Aufenthalt angenehm zu gestalten und zudem unser Reiseführer und Dolmetscher wurde. sie sagen:
3. Die Hähnchenfarm Die Spezialität der Hähnchenfarm war ein Grillhähnchen, das man am Tisch direkt vom Spieß serviert bekam. sie sagen:
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4. Familientreffen – Erster Tag Jeder wollte seinen Namen auf dem Stammbaum finden, um dann mit jemand anderem jeweils die eigene Linie zurückzuverfolgen, um zu sehen, wie man miteinander verwandt war. Wir hatten während dieser Zeit am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten zu ‚unterhalten‘. sie sagen:
5. Auf dem Weg nach Neuschwanstein In Füssen, einer recht lebhaften Touristenstadt, hielten wir dann an, sahen uns ein wenig um und aßen in einem Biergarten, der versteckt zwischen zwei Gebäuden in der Fußgängerzone lag, zu Mittag. Das Essen und Biertrinken in diesen Freiluftbiergärten hat uns während unserer Reise mit am meisten Spaß gemacht. sie sagen:
6. Schloß Neuschwanstein Die Gebäude beeindruckten durch wunderschöne Holzarbeiten und einmalige Fliesenmosaiken, aber vielleicht der herausragendste Aspekt des gesamten Schlosses waren die Gemälde. Musik und Kunst lagen König Ludwig besonders am Herzen und dies war der Ort, um ihre Schönheit zu zeigen. Schloß Neuschwanstein war sicherlich einer der Höhepunkte unserer Reise. sie sagen:
7. München Anschließend beschlossen wir, eine Stadtrundfahrt zu machen. Dies stellte sich als eine großartige Idee heraus, da wir vom Bus aus einen Gesamteindruck von der Stadt bekamen. sie sagen:
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8. München Zu keiner Zeit hat uns jemand nach den Fahrkarten gefragt. Wir hätten das Ganze auch ohne Fahrscheine machen können und niemand hätte es gemerkt. Das Wissen um die recht harte Bestrafung hält die Leute wohl vom Schwarzfahren ab. sie sagen:
9. Abstecher zu Mc Donalds Die Heimfahrt verlief relativ unspektakulär, abgesehen von unserem Abstecher zu Mc Donalds. Die Getränke werden in Deutschland im allgemeinen ohne Eis serviert, auch bei Mc Donalds. sie sagen:
Situation 2 Einige Monate nach Ihrer Reise möchte ein Studienkollege bzw. eine Studienkollegin von Ihnen, der/die gerade angefangen hat, Deutsch zu lernen, eine Reise nach Deutschland machen. Natürlich weiß er/sie aus früheren Erzählungen, dass Sie schon einmal in Deutschland gewesen sind. Allerdings kann er/sie sich nicht mehr an alle Einzelheiten erinnern, und weil er/sie aufgrund der bevorstehenden Reise immer aufgeregter wird, kommt er/sie bei Ihnen vorbei, um sich noch einmal über Ihre Erfahrungen zu unterhalten. Dabei stellt sich heraus, dass er/sie einige Dinge durcheinander gebracht hat, die Sie nun klarstellen bzw. berichtigen müssen. Im folgenden werden Ihnen wieder einige Textpassagen aus der Geschichte vorgegeben. In jeder Passage erscheint wieder eine bestimmte Information in unterstrichenem Fettdruck. Ihr Studienkollege bzw. Ihre Studienkollegin macht eine falsche Annahme bzw. stellt eine Frage in Bezug auf diese Information. Bitte schreiben Sie in 1-2 Sätzen auf, wie Sie antworten würden. Beispiel: Vor dem Familientreffen Im Sommer 1996 fanden auch die olympischen Spiele in Atlanta statt und Thomas plante einen Trip in die USA, um sich einige Wettkämpfe anzuschauen. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): War doch echt toll, dass es so schnell mit dem Familientreffen geklappt hat, oder? Hast Du nicht erzählt, dass Thomas extra in die USA kam, um die ganze Sache zu organisieren?
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sie antworten: Nein, eigentlich kam er in die USA, weil er sich einige Wettkämpfe bei den olympischen Spielen in Atlanta anschauen wollte.
1. Vor dem Familientreffen Als Thomas dann schließlich einige Tage später hier eintraf, teilte er uns mit, dass er und seine Familie das erste weltweite Familientreffen der Wagners im kommenden Sommer in Deutschland ausrichten wollten. Doch bis dahin gab es noch eine Menge an Nachforschungen und Planungen zu erledigen, und wir alle können Thomas dafür danken. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Ich wette, es war eine ziemliche Arbeit, das ganze Treffen in Deutschland zu planen und zu organisieren. Wer war es noch gleich, der das alles gemacht hat und dem das Lob gebührt? Klaus? sie antworten:
2. Ankunft in Deutschland Am Frankfurter Flughafen wurden wir von Thomas und Nora willkommen geheißen. Sie brachten uns in ihren Heimatort Steinfels, wo wir dann Monika Wagner kennenlernten, die Besitzerin einer lokalen Gaststätte mit dem Namen “Deutsches Haus”. Wir sollten während unseres Aufenthalts in ihrem Haus in Steinfels wohnen. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Wo habt ihr eigentlich während eures Aufenthalts in Deutschland übernachtet? In einem Hotel? sie antworten:
3. Heidelberg Heidelberg liegt südlich von Frankfurt, und nach einer gut zweistündigen Fahrt auf der Autobahn kamen wir in dieser traditionsreichen Stadt an. Das Heidelberger Schloß, eine der Hauptsehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt, lag vor uns auf einem Berg und überblickte die Stadt. Wir parkten den Wagen in einem Parkhaus und liefen den Berg hinauf zum Schloß. Klaus kümmerte sich um eine Führung in englischer Sprache.
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ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Da fällt mir ein, einer unserer Dozenten stammt aus Deutschland. Er hat uns von der alten Universität in Heidelberg erzählt. Die habt ihr doch bestimmt gesehen, oder? sie antworten:
4. Familientreffen – Erster Tag Thomas eröffnete das Treffen mit einem Referat über Genealogie und erzählte davon, wie er angefangen hatte, Nachforschungen über die Familiengeschichte anzustellen, nachdem sein Vater 1990 verstorben war. Er berichtete, welche Möglichkeiten es gab, Familiennamen zu ermitteln, und wies darauf hin, dass die Kirchenbücher nur bis ins 17. Jahrhundert zurückgehen. Natürlich war sein Referat auf Deutsch, aber Michael lieferte uns eine ungefähre Übersetzung. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Du hast mir doch von den vielen Referaten von Deinen deutschen Verwandten bei dem Treffen erzählt. Wie hast Du das eigentlich alles verstanden? Gab es da einen professionellen Dolmetscher? sie antworten:
5. Familientreffen – Erster Tag Besonders freuten wir uns über unser Gespräch mit Frau Irmgard Reichel, geborene Wagner. Im Laufe des Vormittags hatte sie schon einige Anmerkungen zu Thomas’ Vortrag über die Familiengeschichte gemacht. Sie verwies dabei immer wieder auf ein kleines Büchlein, einen “Ahnenpass”, den sie bei sich trug, wie um ihre Aussagen auch bestätigen zu können. Dieses Büchlein diente ihrer Familie als Herkunftsnachweis, der von der Naziregierung verlangt wurde, und sollte beweisen, dass es innerhalb der Familie eine ‘reine’ Vererbungslinie gab. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Ich hab’ gehört, dass sich viele Deutsche mit Ahnenforschung beschäftigen. Mussten sie nicht sogar in der Nazizeit ihre Familienabstammung nachweisen? Ich frage mich, wie sie das gemacht haben. Mussten sie vielleicht eine Art Test bestehen, um das zu beweisen? sie antworten:
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6. Familientreffen – Erster Tag, abends Ich hatte keine Verständnisprobleme, wenn es ums Essen ging, egal in welcher Sprache. Wir setzten uns also in eine gemütliche Ecke in der Gaststätte und aßen Kartoffelsalat und Würstchen. Natürlich gab es auch Bier und Cola zu trinken. Inzwischen hatte ich mich entschieden: ich mochte deutsches Bier. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Das deutsche Bier soll sehr gut sein, nicht wahr? Aber Du bist ja sowieso kein großer Biertrinker, von daher wird es Dir wohl egal gewesen sein. sie antworten:
7. Abreise Die Fahrt zum Flughafen und auch die Wartezeit dort verging relativ schnell, allerdings finde ich, dass die Deutschen nicht richtig in der Schlange anstehen können. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Was war es noch mal, das Dich so an den Deutschen genervt hat, als ihr am Flughafen auf den Rückflug gewartet habt? Waren sie unfreundlich? sie antworten:
Teil II Im folgenden werden Ihnen wieder einige Textpassagen aus der Geschichte vorgegeben. Sie werden Ihnen bekannt vorkommen, da sie auch schon im ersten Fragebogen enthalten waren. Auch die jeweiligen Situationen werden Ihnen vertraut sein: Sie erzählen Ihrem Freund bzw. ihrer Freundin von der Reise nach Deutschland bzw. beantworten Fragen eines Studienkollegen / einer Studienkollegin. Der Unterschied zum ersten Teil der Befragung ist nun, dass Ihnen nun zusätzlich einige Antwortmöglichkeiten vorgeben werden, die Sie bewerten sollen.
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Situation 1 Sie sind gerade aus Deutschland zurückgekehrt und treffen gleich am nächsten Tag Ihren besten Freund bzw. Ihre beste Freundin und möchten ihm/ihr alles über die ereignisreiche Reise erzählen. Im folgenden werden Ihnen jeweils einige Textpassagen aus der Geschichte vorgegeben. In jeder Passage erscheint eine bestimmte Information in unterstrichenem Fettdruck. Diese Information möchten Sie besonders hervorheben, und Sie möchten Ihrem Freund / Ihrer Freundin klarmachen, dass diese Information besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdient. Unter jeder Textpassage finden Sie nun eine Auswahl an Antwortmöglichkeiten, die in der gegebenen Situation möglich wären. Ihre Aufgabe ist es nun, zu entscheiden, für wie passend Sie die Alternativen im gegebenen Kontext halten. Dazu bewerten Sie bitte die verschiedenen Möglichkeiten, indem Sie ihnen Punkte auf einer Skala von 1-5 zuweisen. Wenn Sie der Ansicht sind, eine Antwortmöglichkeit ist eine sehr gute Alternative im gegebenen Kontext, geben Sie ihr bitte 5 Punkte und kreuzen das entsprechende Kästchen an. Wenn Sie jedoch der Meinung sind, dass eine Antwortmöglichkeit überhaupt keine gute Option ist, geben Sie ihr nur 1 Punkt und markieren das entsprechende Kästchen. Bitte tun Sie dies für jede der vorgegebenen Antwortmöglichkeiten. Es gibt dabei keine richtigen oder falschen Antworten, folgen Sie einfach Ihrer muttersprachlichen Intuition. Falls Sie der Ansicht sind, dass keine der vorgegebenen Möglichkeiten so richtig passt – und nur dann, wenn dies wirklich der Fall ist – können Sie auf der dafür vorgesehenen Zeile einen eigenen Vorschlag aufschreiben. Beispiel: Vor dem Familientreffen Eine der Personen, mit denen ich Kontakt trat, war Thomas Wagner, Mitte 30 und Vater von zwei Söhnen. Thomas verlor seinen Vater im Jahr 1990 und begann damals, sich für seine Familiengeschichte zu interessieren. sie sagen: a. Thomas verlor seinen Vater und begann im Jahr 1990, sich für seine Familiengeschichte zu interessieren b. Es war im Jahr 1990, als Thomas seinen Vater verlor und begann, sich für seine Familiengeschichte zu interessieren. c. Im Jahr 1990 verlor Thomas seinen Vater und begann, sich für seine Familiengeschichte zu interessieren.
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d. Im Jahr 1990 war es, als Thomas seinen Vater verlor und begann, sich für seine Familiengeschichte zu interessieren. e. Eigener Vorschlag: _____________________________________________
1. Vor dem Familientreffen Doch bis dahin gab es noch eine Menge an Nachforschungen und Planungen zu erledigen, und wir alle können Thomas dafür danken. Thomas plante zusammen mit seiner Frau Nora eine zweitägige Zusammenkunft, bei der wir alle mehr über unsere Familiengeschichte und Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse erfahren sollten. sie sagen:
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a. Es war Thomas, der das Treffen geplant hat. b. Wer das Treffen geplant hat, war Thomas. c. Thomas war derjenige, der das Treffen geplant hat. . d. Geplant hat das Treffen Thomas. e. Thomas war es, der das Treffen geplant hat. f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
2. Abendessen am Ankunftstag An diesem Abend waren wir zum Essen bei Thomas eingeladen, wo wir auch auf Klaus und Elvira Wagner und ihren Sohn Michael trafen. Wir sollten Michael in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennenlernen, da er sich sehr bemühte, uns unseren Aufenthalt angenehm zu gestalten und zudem unser Reiseführer und Dolmetscher wurde. sie sagen: a. Michael sollten wir in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennenlernen. b. Es war Michael, den wir in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennenlernen sollten. c. Michael war derjenige, den wir in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennenlernen sollten.. d. Wen wir in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennenlernen sollten, war Michael. e. Michael war es, den wir in den nächsten Tagen sehr gut kennenlernen sollten. f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
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3. Die Hähnchenfarm Die Spezialität der Hähnchenfarm war ein Grillhähnchen, das man am Tisch direkt vom Spieß serviert bekam. sie sagen:
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a. Es war das Grillhähnchen, das dort wirklich ganz besonders war. b. Was dort wirklich ganz besonders war, war das Grillhähnchen. c. Das Grillhähnchen war es, das dort wirklich ganz besonders war. d. Wirklich ganz besonders dort war das Grillhähnchen. e. Das Grillhähnchen servierten sie dort wirklich auf eine ganz besondere Art. f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
4. Familientreffen – Erster Tag Jeder wollte seinen Namen auf dem Stammbaum finden, um dann mit jemand anderem jeweils die eigene Linie zurückzuverfolgen, um zu sehen, wie man miteinander verwandt war. Wir hatten während dieser Zeit am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten zu ‘unterhalten’. sie sagen: a. Es war während dieser Zeit, als wir am meisten Gelegenheit hatten, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten zu ‘unterhalten’. b. Während dieser Zeit hatten wir am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten zu 'unterhalten'. c. Am meisten Gelegenheit, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten zu 'unterhalten', hatten wir während dieser Zeit. d. Während dieser Zeit war es, als wir am meisten Gelegenheit hatten, uns mit unseren deutschen Verwandten zu 'unterhalten'.
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5. Auf dem Weg nach Neuschwanstein In Füssen hielten wir dann an und aßen in einem Biergarten zu Mittag. Das Essen und Biertrinken in diesen Freiluftbiergärten hat uns während unserer Reise mit am meisten Spaß gemacht.
Appendices 271
sie sagen: a. In den Biergärten war es, wo uns das Essen und Biertrinken großen Spaß gemacht hat. b. Wo uns das Essen und Biertrinken großen Spaß gemacht hat, war in den Biergärten. c. Es war in den Biergärten, wo uns das Essen und Biertrinken großen Spaß gemacht hat. d. In den Biergärten hat uns das Essen und Biertrinken großen Spaß gemacht. e. In den Biergärten hat uns das Essen und Biertrinken großen Spaß gemacht.
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f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
6. Schloß Neuschwanstein Musik und Kunst lagen König Ludwig besonders am Herzen und dies war der Ort, um ihre Schönheit zu zeigen. Schloß Neuschwanstein war sicherlich einer der Höhepunkte unserer Reise. sie sagen: a. Einer der Höhepunkte der Reise war Schloß Neuschwanstein. b. Es ist Schloß Neuschwanstein, das uns als einer der Höhepunkte der Reise in Erinnerung bleiben wird. c. Schloß Neuschwanstein werden wir als einen der Höhepunkte der Reise in Erinnerung behalten. d. Was uns als einer der Höhepunkte der Reise in Erinnerung bleiben wird, ist Schloß Neuschwanstein. e. Schloß Neuschwanstein ist es, das uns als einer der Höhepunkte der Reise in Erinnerung bleiben wird. f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
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7. München Anschließend beschlossen wir, eine Stadtrundfahrt zu machen. Dies stellte sich als eine großartige Idee heraus, da wir vom Bus aus einen Gesamteindruck von der Stadt bekamen. sie sagen: a. Eine Stadtrundfahrt durch München zu machen haben wir dann beschlossen. b. Es war eine Stadtrundfahrt durch München zu machen, was sich als eine großartige Idee herausstellte. c. Was sich als eine großartige Idee herausstellte war, eine Stadtrundfahrt durch München zu machen. d. Eine Stadtrundfahrt durch München zu machen war, was sich als eine großartige Idee herausstellte.
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8. München Zu keiner Zeit hat uns jemand nach den Fahrkarten gefragt. Wir hätten das Ganze auch ohne Fahrscheine machen können, und niemand hätte es gemerkt. Das Wissen um die recht harte Bestrafung hält die Leute wohl vom Schwarzfahren ab. sie sagen: a. Ich glaube, das Wissen um die recht harte Bestrafung ist es, was die Leute vom Schwarzfahren abhält. b. Ich glaube, was die Leute vom Schwarzfahren abhält, ist das Wissen um die recht harte Bestrafung. c. Ich glaube, es ist das Wissen um die recht harte Bestrafung, was die Leute vom Schwarzfahren abhält. d. Ich glaube, die Leute werden durch das Wissen um die recht harte Bestrafung vom Schwarzfahren abgehalten.
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9. Abstecher zu Mc Donalds Die Heimfahrt aus München verlief relativ unspektakulär, abgesehen von unserem Abstecher zu Mc Donalds. Die Getränke werden in Deutschland im allgemeinen ohne Eis serviert, auch bei Mc Donalds.
Appendices 273
sie sagen: a. Was uns überrascht hat war, dass die Getränke dort ohne Eis serviert werden. b. Dass die Getränke dort ohne Eis serviert werden war, was uns überrascht hat. c. Es hat uns überrascht, dass die Getränke dort ohne Eis serviert werden. d. Überrascht hat uns, dass die Getränke dort ohne Eis serviert werden. e. Dass die Getränke dort ohne Eis serviert werden hat uns überrascht.
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Situation 2 Stellen Sie sich in dieser Situation bitte vor, dass Sie sich mit einem Studienkollege bzw. einer Studienkollegin unterhalten, der/die eine Reise nach Deutschland machen möchte. Er /Sie kann sich nicht mehr an alle Einzelheiten erinnern, und weil er/sie aufgrund der bevorstehenden Reise immer aufgeregter wird, kommt er/sie bei Ihnen vorbei, um sich noch einmal über Ihre Erfahrungen zu unterhalten. Dabei stellt sich heraus, dass er/sie einige Dinge durcheinander gebracht hat, die Sie nun klarstellen bzw. berichtigen müssen. In jeder Passage erscheint wieder eine bestimmte Information in unterstrichenem Fettdruck. Ihr Studienkollege bzw. Ihre Studienkollegin macht eine falsche Annahme bzw. stellt eine Frage in Bezug auf diese Information. Unter jeder Textpassage finden Sie nun eine Auswahl an Antwortmöglichkeiten, die in der gegebenen Situation möglich wären. Ihre Aufgabe ist es nun, zu entscheiden, für wie passend Sie die Alternativen im vorgegebenen Kontext halten. Dazu bewerten Sie bitte die verschiedenen Möglichkeiten, indem Sie ihnen Punkte auf einer Skala von 1-5 zuweisen. Wenn Sie der Ansicht sind, eine Antwortmöglichkeit ist eine sehr gute Alternative im gegebenen Kontext, geben Sie ihr 5 Punkte und kreuzen das entsprechende Kästchen an. Wenn Sie jedoch der Meinung sind, dass eine Antwortmöglichkeit überhaupt keine gute Option ist, geben Sie ihr nur 1 Punkt und markieren Sie das entsprechende Kästchen. Bitte tun Sie dies für jede der vorgegebenen Antwortmöglichkeiten. Es gibt dabei keine richtigen oder falschen Antworten, folgen Sie einfach Ihrer muttersprachlichen Intuition. Falls Sie der Ansicht sind, dass keine der vorgegebenen Antwortmöglichkeiten so richtig passt – und nur dann, wenn dies wirklich der Fall ist – können Sie auf der dafür vorgesehenen Zeile einen eigenen Vorschlag aufschreiben.
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1. Vor dem Familientreffen Als Thomas dann schließlich einige Tage später hier eintraf, teilte er uns mit, dass er und seine Familie das erste weltweite Familientreffen der Wagners im kommenden Sommer in Deutschland ausrichten wollten. Doch bis dahin gab es noch eine Menge an Nachforschungen und Planungen zu erledigen, und wir alle können Thomas dafür danken. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Ich wette, es war eine ziemliche Arbeit, das ganze Treffen in Deutschland zu planen und zu organisieren. Wer war es noch gleich, der das alles gemacht hat und dem das Lob gebührt? Klaus? sie antworten:
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a. Nein, es ist Thomas, dem wir dafür zu danken haben. b. Nein, wem wir dafür zu danken haben, ist Thomas. c. Nein, Thomas ist derjenige, dem wir dafür zu danken haben. d. Nein, nicht Klaus, Thomas haben wir dafür zu danken. e. Nein, Thomas ist es, dem wir dafür zu danken haben. f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
2. Ankunft Thomas und Nora brachten uns in ihren Heimatort Steinfels, wo wir dann Monika Wagner kennen lernten, die Besitzerin einer lokalen Gaststätte mit dem Namen “Deutsches Haus”. Wir sollten während unseres Aufenthalts in ihrem Haus in Steinfels wohnen. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Wo habt ihr eigentlich während eures Aufenthalts in Deutschland übernachtet? In einem Hotel? sie antworten: a. Nein, es war bei Monika, wo wir übernachtet haben.. b. Nein, nicht in einem Hotel, bei Monika haben wir übernachtet. c. Nein, wo wir übernachtet haben war bei Monika. d. Nein, bei Monika war es, wo wir übernachtet haben. e. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
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Appendices 275
3. Heidelberg Das Heidelberger Schloß, eine der Hauptsehenswürdigkeiten der Stadt, lag vor uns auf einem Berg und überblickte die Stadt. Wir parkten den Wagen in einem Parkhaus und liefen den Berg hinauf zum Schloß. Klaus kümmerte sich um eine Führung in englischer Sprache. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Da fällt mir ein, einer unserer Dozenten stammt aus Deutschland. Er hat uns von der alten Universität in Heidelberg erzählt. Die habt ihr doch bestimmt gesehen, oder? sie antworten:
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a. Nein, was wir besichtigt haben, war das Schloß, nicht die alte Uni. b. Nein, es war das Schloß, das wir besichtigt haben, nicht die alte Uni. c. Nein, das Schloß haben wir besichtigt, nicht die alte Uni. d. Nein, das Schloß war es, das wir besichtigt haben, nicht die alte Uni. e. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
4. Familientreffen – Erster Tag Thomas eröffnete das Treffen mit einem Referat über Genealogie. Natürlich war sein Referat auf Deutsch, aber Michael lieferte uns eine ungefähre Übersetzung. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Du hast mir doch von den vielen Referaten von Deinen deutschen Verwandten auf dem Treffen erzählt. Wie hast Du das eigentlich alles verstanden? Gab es da einen professionellen Dolmetscher? sie antworten: a. Nein, es war Michael, der für uns übersetzt hat. b. Nein, es gab keinen Dolmetscher, Michael haben wir gebeten, für uns zu übersetzen. c. Nein, Michael war es, der für uns übersetzt hat. d. Nein, es gab keinen Dolmetscher, wer für uns übersetzt hat, war Michael. e. Nein, Michael war derjenige, der für uns übersetzt hat. f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
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5. Familientreffen – Erster Tag Irmgard Reichel verwies immer wieder auf ein kleines Büchlein, einen “Ahnenpass”, den sie bei sich trug, wie um ihre Aussagen auch bestätigen zu können. Dieses Büchlein diente ihrer Familie als Herkunftsnachweis, der von der Naziregierung verlangt wurde, und sollte beweisen, dass es innerhalb der Familie eine ‘reine’ Vererbungslinie gab. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Ich hab’ gehört, dass sich viele Deutsche mit Ahnenforschung beschäftigen. Mussten sie nicht sogar in der Nazizeit ihre Familienabstammung nachweisen? Ich frage mich, wie sie das gemacht haben. Mussten sie vielleicht eine Art Test bestehen, um das zu beweisen? sie antworten: a. Nein, was sie als Nachweis vorlegen mussten, war ein kleines Büchlein, einen “Ahnenpass”. b. Nein, es war ein kleines Büchlein, einen "Ahnenpass", das sie als Nachweis vorlegen mussten. c. Nein, keinen Test, ein kleines Büchlein, einen "Ahnenpass", mussten sie als Nachweis vorlegen. d. Nein, ein kleines Büchlein, einen "Ahnenpass", war, was sie als Nachweis vorlegen mussten.
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6. Familientreffen – Erster Tag, abends Ich hatte keine Verständnisprobleme, wenn es ums Essen ging, egal in welcher Sprache. Wir setzten uns also in eine gemütliche Ecke in der Gaststätte und aßen Kartoffelsalat und Würstchen. Natürlich gab es auch Bier und Cola zu trinken. Inzwischen hatte ich mich entschieden: ich mochte deutsches Bier. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Das deutsche Bier soll sehr gut sein, nicht wahr? Aber Du bist ja sowieso kein großer Biertrinker, von daher wird es Dir wohl egal gewesen sein. sie antworten: a. Nein, eigentlich mochte ich das deutsche Bier gern. b. Was mich erstaunt hat war, dass ich das deutsche Bier wirklich mochte. c. Im Gegenteil, ich mochte das deutsche Bier wirklich!
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Appendices 277
d. Nein, ich mochte das deutsche Bier, und wie! e. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
7. Abreise Die Fahrt zum Flughafen und auch die Wartezeit dort verging relativ schnell, allerdings finde ich, dass die Deutschen nicht richtig in der Schlange anstehen können. ihr(e) studienkollege(in): Was war es noch mal, dass Dich so an den Deutschen genervt hat, als ihr am Flughafen auf den Rückflug gewartet habt? Waren sie unfreundlich? sie antworten: a. Nein, was mich genervt hat war, dass sie nicht richtig schlangestehen können. b. Nein, es war, dass sie nicht richtig schlangestehen können, was mich genervt hat. c. Nein, es hat mich genervt, dass sie nicht richtig schlangestehen können. d. Nein, dass sie nicht richtig schlangestehen können war es, was mich genervt hat. e. Nein, dass sie nicht richtig schlangestehen können hat mich genervt.. f. Eigener Vorschlag: ______________________________________________
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Appendix 4. Contingency tables Appendix 4.1 Observed and expected frequency counts for the overall use of focusing devices by native speakers and learners native language english
german
total
no device used
observed count expected count standardized residuals
145 145.0 .0
187 187.0 .0
332 332.0
it-cleft
observed count expected count standardized residuals
5 14.4 -2.5
28 18.6 2.2
33 33.0
wh/th-cleft
observed count expected count standardized residuals
4 5.7 -.7
9 7.3 .6
13 13.0
reverse-cleft
observed count expected count standardized residuals
7 6.1 .4
7 7.9 -.3
14 14.0
inversion
observed count expected count standardized residuals
4 5.2 -.5
8 6.8 .5
12 12.0
preposing
observed count expected count standardized residuals
6 12.7 -1.9
23 16.3 1.6
29 29.0
extraposition
observed count expected count standardized residuals
4 3.5 .3
4 4.5 -.2
8 8.0
existential
observed count expected count standardized residuals
3 6.6 -1.4
12 8.4 1.2
15 15.0
question
observed count expected count standardized residuals
4 7.0 -1.1
12 9.0 1.0
16 16.0
other syntactic marking
observed count expected count standardized residuals
13 12.7 .1
16 16.3 -.1
29 29.0
emphatic do
observed count expected count standardized residuals
10 5.7 1.8
3 7.3 -1.6
13 13.0
focus particle
observed count expected count standardized residuals
11 8.3 .9
8 10.7 -.8
19 19.0
Appendices 279
Appendix 4.1 (continued) native language english
german
total
pragmatic marker
observed count expected count standardized residuals
20 13.1 1.9
10 16.9 -1.7
30 30.0
other lexical marking
observed count expected count standardized residuals
49 39.3 1.5
41 50.7 -1.4
90 90.0
double marking
observed count expected count standardized residuals
22 21.8 .0
28 28.2 .0
50 50.0
total
observed count expected count
307 307.0
396 396.0
703 703.0
Pearson chi-square Likelihood ratio N of valid cases
value
df
asymp. significance (2-sided)
42.700* 45.235 703
14 14
.000 .000
* 2 cells (6,7%) have an expected count lower than 5. The minimum expected count is 3,49.
Appendix 4.2 Observed and expected frequency counts for the overall use of focusing devices by the learners in L1 (German) and L2 (English) task language german (l1) english (l2)
total
no device used
observed count expected count standardized residuals
134 141.7 -.6
187 179.3 .6
321 321.0
it-cleft
observed count expected count standardized residuals
11 17.2 -1.5
28 21.8 1.3
39 39.0
wh/th-cleft
observed count expected count standardized residuals
7 7.1 .0
9 8.9 .0
16 16.0
reverse-cleft
observed count expected count standardized residuals
7 6.2 .3
7 7.8 -.3
14 14.0
inversion
observed count expected count standardized residuals
11 8.4 .9
8 10.6 -.8
19 19.0
280 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
Appendix 4.2 (continued) task language german (l1) english (l2)
total
preposing
observed count expected count standardized residuals
25 21.2 .8
23 26.8 -.7
48 48.0
extraposition
observed count expected count standardized residuals
9 5.7 1.4
4 7.3 -1.2
13 13.0
existential
observed count expected count standardized residuals
12 10.6 .4
12 13.4 -.4
24 24.0
question
observed count expected count standardized residuals
6 7.9 -.7
12 10.1 .6
18 18.0
other syntactic marking
observed count expected count standardized residuals
7 10.2 -1.0
16 12.8 .9
23 23.0
emphatic do
observed count expected count standardized residuals
0 1.3 -1.2
3 1.7 1.0
3 3.0
focus particle
observed count expected count standardized residuals
19 11.9 2.1
8 15.1 -1.8
27 27.0
pragmatic marker
observed count expected count standardized residuals
2 5.3 -1.4
10 6.7 1.3
12 12.0
other lexical marking
observed count expected count standardized residuals
33 32.7 .1
41 41.3 -.1
74 74.0
double marking
observed count expected count standardized residuals
30 25.6 .9
28 32.4 -.8
58 58.0
total
observed count expected count
313 313.0
396 396.0
709 709.0
Pearson chi-square Likelihood ratio N of valid cases
value
df
asymp. significance (2-sided)
28.840* 30.688 709
14 14
.011 .006
* 2 cells (6,7%) have an expected count lower than 5. The minimum expected count is 1,32.
1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 5
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 4
1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 7
1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 9 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 6
3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
it-cleft wh-/th- rwh-/ inversion preposing extracleft rth-cleft position
NS = native speaker
NS01 4 NS02 4 NS03 11 NS04 9 NS05 6 NS06 7 NS07 4 NS08 11 NS09 10 NS10 7 NS11 12 NS12 3 NS13 6 NS14 4 NS15 7 NS16 2 NS17 6 NS18 9 NS19 12 NS25 11 total 145
none 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 3
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 4
existential question 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 2 3 0 1 9
0 0 1 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 10
1 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 12
other syn. emphatic focus marking do particle 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 0 1 1 4 2 2 1 0 0 1 2 20
1 2 2 2 2 3 7 1 1 4 1 4 3 1 1 4 4 3 2 1 49
2 2 0 0 2 1 2 0 1 1 0 1 0 2 2 1 2 1 1 0 21
pragmatic other lex. double marker marking marking
Appendix 5. Individual use of focusing devices by native speakers and learners (experimental study)
Appendices 281
10 6 5 3 9 5 8 7 7 10 8 9 8 7 6 6 10 10 10 11 6 5 7 6 8 187
0 1 1 0 0 0 2 2 1 1 1 3 0 1 3 1 0 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 28
0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 1 0 9
0 1 1 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 7
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 8
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 23
0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 4
it-cleft wh-/th- rwh-/ inversion preposing extracleft rth-cleft position
L = German learner
L01 L02 L03 L04 L05 L06 L07 L08 L09 L10 L11 L12 L16 L17 L18 L19 L20 L21 L22 L23 L24 L26 L27 L28 L30 total
none 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 1 0 12
0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 2 0 2 12
existential question 0 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 3 1 1 15
0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 3
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 8
other syn. emphatic focus marking do particle 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 10
2 1 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 3 1 3 1 0 0 2 0 0 3 1 3 1 41
3 2 2 4 2 1 1 2 1 0 2 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 2 0 28
pragmatic other lex. double marker marking marking
282 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
Appendices 283
Appendix 6. Rankings for individual test items, native speakers vs. learners (assessment questionnaire, English version) Situation 1: Intensification (5 = very good option, 1 = not a good option) Item 1 Thomas planned, along with his wife Nora, for a two day meeting that would help us all to learn about the family and how we were connected. Planning the meeting was Thomas. It was Thomas who planned the meeting. Thomas we have to thank for planning the meeting. Thomas was the one who planned the meeting. The one who planned the meeting was Thomas.
Item 2 We would all get to know Michael very well over the next few days as he worked very hard to make us feel welcome and became our tour guide and interpreter. It was Michael (who) we’d get to know very well. Michael we’d get to know very well. Michael was the one (who) we’d get to know very well. The one (who) we’d get to know very well was Michael.
The piece of information to be highlighted is underlined.
284 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
Item 3 The specialty at the Chicken Farm was a rotisserie chicken which they slid off the skewer into your basket, cut in half with special scissors and put half into another basket. Really special was their rotisserie chicken. It was their rotisserie chicken that was really special. Their rotisserie chicken they really served in a special way. Their rotisserie chicken was the thing that was really special. What was really special was their rotisserie chicken.
Item 4 We had the most opportunity to visit and ‘talk’ with our German family at this time. It was at this time that we had the most opportunity to ‘talk’ to our German family. At this time we had the most opportunity to ‘talk’ to our German family. The point we had the most opportunity to ‘talk’ to our German family was at this time.
Item 5 Eating and beer drinking in these outdoor beer gardens was one of the fun parts of our trip. It was in the beer gardens where we enjoyed eating and beer drinking a lot. In the beer gardens we enjoyed eating and beer drinking a lot. The places where we enjoyed eating and beer drinking a lot were the beer gardens.
Appendices 285
Item 6 Neuschwanstein castle was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. One of the highlights was certainly Neuschwanstein Castle. It was Neuschwanstein Castle that was certainly one of the highlights. Neuschwanstein Castle we’ll certainly remember as one of the highlights. What was certainly a highlight was Neuschwanstein Castle.
Item 7 Then, we decided to take a bus tour of the city. This turned out to be a great idea since we would get a broad picture of the city from the bus. It was a great idea to take a bus tour of Munich. Taking a bus tour of Munich was a great idea. Take a bus tour was what we did in Munich. What we did in Munich was take a bus tour.
Item 8 Knowing that the punishment is quite severe keeps people from cheating. I think it’s knowing that the punishment is quite severe that keeps people from cheating. I think people are kept from cheating by knowing that the punishment is quite severe. I think knowing that the punishment is quite severe is what keeps people from cheating. I think what keeps people from cheating is knowing that the punishment is quite severe.
286 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
Item 9 Generally the drinks come without ice in Germany and that is what we found at McD’s. It really surprised us that the drinks come without ice. Really surprising was that the drinks come without ice. It was that the drinks come without ice that really surprised us. That the drinks come without ice really surprised us. What really surprised us was that the drinks come without ice.
Situation 2: Contrast (5=very good option, 1=not a good option) Item 1 In the meantime there was a lot of research and planning to be done and we can all thank Thomas for that work. The student: I bet it was quite a job to plan and organize the whole reunion in Germany. Who was it again that did all this and deserves all the credit? Klaus? No, it’s Thomas we need to thank. No, not Klaus, Thomas we need to thank. No, Thomas is the one we need to thank. No, the one we need to thank is Thomas.
Appendices 287
Item 2 We were to stay at her home in Steinfels. The student: Where did you stay during your time in Germany? At a hotel? No, it was at Monika’s where we were staying. No, not at a hotel, at Monika’s we were staying. No, we were staying at Monika’s, not at a hotel. No, where we were staying was at Monika’s.
Item 3 Heidelberg Castle, a major city attraction, was on top of a hill overlooking the city. The student: Actually, one of our lecturers is from Germany. He has told us about the old university at Heidelberg. I guess you saw it, didn’t you? No, we didn’t see the university, but we did see the castle. No, it was the castle we saw, not the university. No, we didn’t see the university, but the castle we saw. No, what we saw was the castle, not the university.
288 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
Item 4 Of course his presentation was in German, but Michael gave us a commentary translation. The student: I remember you telling me about all the presentations by your German family at the Reunion. How did you understand all of this? Was there a professional interpreter? No, it was Michael who translated for us. No, there was no interpreter, but Michael we could usually ask for a translation. No, Michael was the one who translated for us. No, there was no interpreter, the one who translated for us was Michael.
Item 5 She referred to a small book, an Ahnenpass she held to verify her remarks. The student: I heard that many Germans are very much into this genealogy research. Weren’t they even required to prove their heritage under the Nazi regime? I wonder how they were supposed to do this. Did they have to take some kind of test to prove that? No, it was a small book called Ahnenpass they used to prove it. No, not a test, a small book called Ahnenpass they used to prove it. No, a small book called Ahnenpass was what they used to prove it. No, what they used to prove it was a small book called Ahnenpass.
Appendices 289
Item 6 By this time I had decided that I liked the German beer. The student: The German beer is supposed to be very good, isn’t it? But you’re not much of a beer drinker anyway, so I guess you didn’t care much about it. No, I was surprised myself but I actually did like it. No, I was surprised myself but I actually liked it, and like it I really did! No, I was surprised myself but I really liked it. No, what surprised me was that I actually liked it.
Item 7 The time traveling to the airport and the waiting time there went reasonably fast, although the Germans don’t know how to wait in lines very well. The student: What was it again that annoyed you about the Germans at the airport on your flight back home? Were they unfriendly? No, it annoyed me that they don’t know how to wait in lines. No, annoying was that they don’t know how to wait in lines. No, it was that they don’t know how to wait in lines that annoyed me. No, that they don’t know how to wait in lines annoyed me. No, what was annoying was that they don’t know how to wait in lines.
Index
A activation 16 actually 26, 30–31, 99, 141, 146–147, 156–158, 165, 170–172, 179, 220 advanced learner (variety) 1–2, 115–117 see also near-native / nativelike adverbial 32–34, 37, 40, 67–68, 73–75, 94–96, 103, 130, 142, 153, 160, 178, 182, 208, 210 clause 130, 143–145, 153, 160, 178, 208 agent 59, 64, 90, 94, 131 avoidance 93–94, 99, 101, 104–105, 108, 111–112, 118, 145, 159–160, 175, 178, 208, 213 awareness (of language) 2, 104–105, 113, 126, 211–212, 217, 220 of register 179, 212 raising 216–217 C cleft(ing) 4, 12, 17, 19, 27, 31, 40–47, 51–52, 55–57, 64, 69–78, 87–89, 100–105, 111–112, 118, 123, 125, 130, 132, 133, 135–140, 141–143, 147–150, 151–153, 155, 161–163, 166–168, 178–179, 181–193, 201, 204– 205, 207–213 comment 13–14, 20, 60, 86, 90, 92, 93, 219 communicative competence 81–84 complexity cognitive 53–54, 108–110 structural/grammatical 13, 17, 50, 53–54, 56, 108–110, 121
contrast 4, 9, 20–24, 39–40, 45–47, 55–57, 76, 88, 138–140, 149–151, 179, 202–203 explicit vs. implicit 23–24 contrastive analysis 7, 59, 109–110, 150 contrastive implicature 13, 46, 55, 57 counter-expectation/expectancy 16, 26, 30, 31, 36, 54–55, 202–203 crosslinguistic influence 7, 79, 106, 108–110, 111–112, 175, 180, 207–209, 213 D dative alternation (DA) 17, 201, 220 discourse completion (task) 7, 118, 120–123, 127, 214 definition of 10 grammar 215–216 marker see pragmatic marker organization/managment 10, 31, 47, 51, 89, 91, 99, 123, 189 pragmatics 12, 80 dislocation 39, 48, 60, 68, 87–89, 100, 131, 135 dummy subject 40, 60–61, 102–103, 105, 111, 133, 145, 168, 201, 207 E elicitation (of data) 7, 117–119, 123, 129, 214 emphasis 4, 9, 21–23, 25, 36, 38–39, 57, 67, 102, 164–168,
179, 191, 205, 209, 211–212, 216, 218 emphatic do 3, 5, 24–26, 125, 131–133, 216, 218 underuse/-representation of 136, 138–140, 146, 148–150, 179, 202–203, 206, 207, 209, 210, 213 emphatic positive 25, 202–203, 210 reflexive 3, 202, 204, 206, 209, 212, 216, 218 end-focus (principle of) 14, 19, 21, 51, 54, 57, 65, 66, 68, 140, 144, 178, 217 end-weight see weight principle exclusiveness implicature see contrastive implicature existential 5, 64, 91, 93, 95, 96, 102, 103, 105, 111, 130, 133, 135, 136, 139, 140, 148–150, 178, 201, 204, 207, 213, 219, 220 see also there-construction/ sentence extraposition 5, 17, 19, 31, 32, 47–51, 52–53, 56–57, 68, 91, 102–103, 105, 111, 125, 133, 136, 138–139, 145, 148–149, 163, 198–201, 205, 207, 211, 213, 219, 220 F face-saving 30–31, 146, 158 familiarity 15–16, 19, 39, 50 focus 19–24 definition of 20–21 particle 3, 5, 11, 26–28, 74–75, 77, 99–100, 131, 133, 136, 138–141, 145, 147, 155–157, 178, 202, 204, 206, 209, 212 types of 21–23
292 Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English
focus construction 31–53 contrastive vs. presentational 32 definition of 31 in language teaching (material) 215–219 in SLA research 100–104 markedness of see markedness of focus construction focus(ing) adverb(ial) see focus particle Focus on Form 215 foreign language teaching 1–2, 7, 85, 86, 99, 102, 215–219 formulaic expression 102, 105, 169, 188, 201, 205, 209 fronting see preposing function-to-form line of enquiry 5, 24, 118 approach to teaching 217–219 functional-typological approach 90, 106–107, 110
intensification 4, 9, 21–23, 24, 36, 84, 96–98, 105, 118, 120, 123, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 149, 150, 151, 183, 191, interface 6, 83, 85–89 Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP) 6, 80, 83–84, 212, 220 Interlanguage Structural Conformity Hypothesis (SCH) 107 International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) 96, 100, 102, 118, 127–128, 219 introspection see retrospective interview inversion 4, 19, 31, 32–36, 39, 51, 56, 66, 68–69, 78, 93–94, 101, 103, 105, 111, 112, 133, 136, 139, 144, 148, 149, 150, 153–154, 155, 158–159, 161–162, 178–179, 195–198, 205–206, 208, 210, 212, 213, 214, 216, 218, 219 involvement of writer 2, 191, 210
G given/new distinction 14–16
K knowledge explicit 118, 126, 166–168, 173, 179, 211 lack of 98, 112, 124, 159, 179, 207, 209, 212 pragmatic/pragmalinguistic 6, 79, 80–85, 123, 127
H heaviness see weight, syntactic hierarchy 107, 110 I identifiability 16 information packaging 10–11, 15, 32, 37, 94, 104, 105 principle 14, 21, 36, 51, 54, 56–57, 217 status 2, 9, 13–16, 19, 20, 21, 32, 47, 50, 56, 60–61, 90, 101, 199 information structure 2, 4, 6, 9, 10–12, 54, 82, 86, 144 and basic word order in English and German 59–65, 77–78 dimensions of 13–24 in language teaching (material) 215–219 in SLA research 89–96, 97–98, 104–105, 212
L language awareness see awareness (of language) learner corpus (research) 1, 5, 102, 127–129, 181–206, 214 variable 115, 117, 128, 213–214 lexical intensifier 3, 5, 24, 26, 96–98, 125, 133, 138, 139, 141, 147, 151, 155, 178, 191, 192, 202, 204, 205, 206, 209, 212, 213 locative inversion see inversion Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS) 96, 100, 102, 118, 128–129
M markedness in SLA 108–110 of focus construction 53–57, 63 pragmatic/structural 54–57, 111–112, 208 psycholinguistic 109 typological 79, 106, 107–110 Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) 107, 109–110 metapragmatic assessment see pragmalinguistic judgment modal particle 76–78, 85, 112, 131, 147–150, 155, 156–158 N near-native / native-like 1, 95–96, 104, 115 see also advanced learner (variety) O overproduction/-use 2, 85, 91, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 104, 105, 108, 111, 150, 153, 181, 201, 204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 213 overrepresentation 100, 102, 142, 147–148, 150, 151, 178, 181, 204, 207, 209, 210, 212, 213 P parsing see processing passive 12, 60, 64, 92, 101, 103, 131, 135, 160, 219 politeness 6, 80, 123, 146, 155, 157–158, 171, 179, 220 pragmalinguistics 6, 80, 81, 83–85, 100, 212–213 pragmalinguistic judgment 123–125, 127, 133, 158–163 pragmatic competence/knowledge see knowledge, pragmatic effect/function 4–5, 11, 13, 23–24, 39, 44, 84, 88, 118, 123, 189, 217 marker 24, 26, 29–31, 84, 99–100, 131–132, 135–136, 138–141, 146–150, 155–158,
170, 178, 179, 207, 209, 213, 220 particle see pragmatic marker word order see word order, pragmatic preposing 31, 36–40, 47, 51–52, 56, 64, 75–76, 77–78, 93, 105, 112, 123, 125, 130, 133, 136–137, 139, 143, 147–150, 153–154, 159–163, 174, 178, 180, 194–195, 205, 208, 210–211, 213, 215, 218 in British vs. American English 160–161, 220 vs. topicalization 66–68 see also topicalization presentational 32, 96, 133, 201, 204, 207, 219 see also there-construction/ sentence processing/processability 17–18, 27, 47, 50, 51, 53, 57, 63, 65 proficiency 1, 6, 81, 91, 93, 115–117, 128, 219 prosody 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 21, 25, 26, 39, 55, 75, 94 psychotypology 109, 175, 180 R raising construction 2, 60, 64–65, 110, 219 register 2, 26, 50, 85, 105, 113, 144, 178, 211, 216 variation 51–53 awareness see awareness of register retrospective interview 118, 126–127, 129, 133, 160, 164–177, 179, 210, 211 rheme 13, 14, 20, 97
Index 293
S sentence position 11, 13–14, 19, 21, 47, 165 sociopragmatics 6, 80, 82, 83, 84 speech act 6, 80, 82–84, 220 strategy 81–82, 123–124, 138, 207, 209 study abroad 117 style 1–2, 95, 97, 105, 174–175, 180, 191, 205, 210, 214, 216, 217, 218 subject placeholder see dummy subject prominence 60–61, 91–93, 103, 105, 111, 207–208, 209, 210, 213, 219–220 T theme 13–14, 19, 20, 38, 92, 94, 97, 131 there-construction/sentence 32, 91, 102, 201, 204 see also existential see also presentational topic 9–10, 11, 13–14, 19–20, 39, 54, 63–64, 86–89, 219 marker 93, 94, 160 prominence 60, 91–93, 219 topicalization 38–39, 66–68, 70, 74–78, 87, 111–112, 125, 147, 148–150, 153–154, 155, 163, 178, 210–211 see also preposing topological field model 61–62 transfer see crosslinguistic influence of training 208 positive 88, 102, 108, 112, 178, 207–208
transferability 108–110 triangulation 115, 127, 177 U underrepresentation 5, 111, 146, 148, 158, 179, 181, 191, 202, 205, 206, 207, 210 underuse 103, 132, 150, 181, 209, 213 universal, linguistic / typological 17, 63, 106–107, 110, 208, 213 Universal Grammar (UG) 6, 106–107 W weight principle 17, 47, 51, 54, 57, 61, 63, 65, 97, 102, 105, 113, 172–173, 184, 199, 211, 217, 220 sensitive 17–18, 32, 220 syntactic 17–19, 47, 50, 67, 68, 104, 105, 144, 178, 210 well 31, 99, 146–147, 158, 165, 170, 179, 220 word order basic 56, 59–65, 70, 77–78 canonical 3, 12, 19, 49, 53, 55–57, 101, 105, 111 grammatical/pragmatic 60–61, 69, 91, 103, 105, 111, 219–220
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 188 Giltrow, Janet and Dieter Stein (eds.): Genres in the Internet. Issues in the theory of genre. Forthcoming 187 Jucker, Andreas H. (ed.): Early Modern English News Discourse. Newspapers, pamphlets and scientific news discourse. vii, 221 pp. + index. Expected June 2009 186 Callies, Marcus: Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English. The syntax–pragmatics interface in second language acquisition. 2009. xviii, 293 pp. 185 Mazzon, Gabriella: Interactive Dialogue Sequences in Middle English Drama. 2009. ix, 226 pp. 184 Stenström, Anna-Brita and Annette Myre Jørgensen (eds.): Youngspeak in a Multilingual Perspective. vi, 204 pp. + index. Expected May 2009 183 Nurmi, Arja, Minna Nevala and Minna Palander-Collin (eds.): The Language of Daily Life in England (1400–1800). vii, 302 pp. + index. Expected April 2009 182 Lee, Seung-Hee: Requests and Responses in Calls for Service. Expected Forthcoming 181 Maschler, Yael: Metalanguage in Interaction. Hebrew discourse markers. xiv, 248 pp. + index. Expected June 2009 180 Jones, Kimberly and Tsuyoshi Ono (eds.): Style Shifting in Japanese. 2008. vii, 335 pp. 179 Simões Lucas Freitas, Elsa: Taboo in Advertising. 2008. xix, 214 pp. 178 Schneider, Klaus P. and Anne Barron (eds.): Variational Pragmatics. A focus on regional varieties in pluricentric languages. 2008. vii, 371 pp. 177 Rue, Yong-Ju and Grace Zhang: Request Strategies. A comparative study in Mandarin Chinese and Korean. 2008. xv, 320 pp. 176 Jucker, Andreas H. and Irma Taavitsainen (eds.): Speech Acts in the History of English. 2008. viii, 318 pp. 175 Gómez González, María de los Ángeles, J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Elsa M. González Álvarez (eds.): Languages and Cultures in Contrast and Comparison. 2008. xxii, 364 pp. 174 Heyd, Theresa: Email Hoaxes. Form, function, genre ecology. 2008. vii, 239 pp. 173 Zanotto, Mara Sophia, Lynne Cameron and Marilda C. Cavalcanti (eds.): Confronting Metaphor in Use. An applied linguistic approach. 2008. vii, 315 pp. 172 Benz, Anton and Peter Kühnlein (eds.): Constraints in Discourse. 2008. vii, 292 pp. 171 Félix-Brasdefer, J. César: Politeness in Mexico and the United States. A contrastive study of the realization and perception of refusals. 2008. xiv, 195 pp. 170 Oakley, Todd and Anders Hougaard (eds.): Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction. 2008. vi, 262 pp. 169 Connor, Ulla, Ed Nagelhout and William Rozycki (eds.): Contrastive Rhetoric. Reaching to intercultural rhetoric. 2008. viii, 324 pp. 168 Proost, Kristel: Conceptual Structure in Lexical Items. The lexicalisation of communication concepts in English, German and Dutch. 2007. xii, 304 pp. 167 Bousfield, Derek: Impoliteness in Interaction. 2008. xiii, 281 pp. 166 Nakane, Ikuko: Silence in Intercultural Communication. Perceptions and performance. 2007. xii, 240 pp. 165 Bublitz, Wolfram and Axel Hübler (eds.): Metapragmatics in Use. 2007. viii, 301 pp. 164 Englebretson, Robert (ed.): Stancetaking in Discourse. Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction. 2007. viii, 323 pp. 163 Lytra, Vally: Play Frames and Social Identities. Contact encounters in a Greek primary school. 2007. xii, 300 pp. 162 Fetzer, Anita (ed.): Context and Appropriateness. Micro meets macro. 2007. vi, 265 pp. 161 Celle, Agnès and Ruth Huart (eds.): Connectives as Discourse Landmarks. 2007. viii, 212 pp. 160 Fetzer, Anita and Gerda Eva Lauerbach (eds.): Political Discourse in the Media. Cross-cultural perspectives. 2007. viii, 379 pp. 159 Maynard, Senko K.: Linguistic Creativity in Japanese Discourse. Exploring the multiplicity of self, perspective, and voice. 2007. xvi, 356 pp. 158 Walker, Terry: Thou and You in Early Modern English Dialogues. Trials, Depositions, and Drama Comedy. 2007. xx, 339 pp.
157 Crawford Camiciottoli, Belinda: The Language of Business Studies Lectures. A corpus-assisted analysis. 2007. xvi, 236 pp. 156 Vega Moreno, Rosa E.: Creativity and Convention. The pragmatics of everyday figurative speech. 2007. xii, 249 pp. 155 Hedberg, Nancy and Ron Zacharski (eds.): The Grammar–Pragmatics Interface. Essays in honor of Jeanette K. Gundel. 2007. viii, 345 pp. 154 Hübler, Axel: The Nonverbal Shift in Early Modern English Conversation. 2007. x, 281 pp. 153 Arnovick, Leslie K.: Written Reliquaries. The resonance of orality in medieval English texts. 2006. xii, 292 pp. 152 Warren, Martin: Features of Naturalness in Conversation. 2006. x, 272 pp. 151 Suzuki, Satoko (ed.): Emotive Communication in Japanese. 2006. x, 234 pp. 150 Busse, Beatrix: Vocative Constructions in the Language of Shakespeare. 2006. xviii, 525 pp. 149 Locher, Miriam A.: Advice Online. Advice-giving in an American Internet health column. 2006. xvi, 277 pp. 148 Fløttum, Kjersti, Trine Dahl and Torodd Kinn: Academic Voices. Across languages and disciplines. 2006. x, 309 pp. 147 Hinrichs, Lars: Codeswitching on the Web. English and Jamaican Creole in e-mail communication. 2006. x, 302 pp. 146 Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa: Collaborating towards Coherence. Lexical cohesion in English discourse. 2006. ix, 192 pp. 145 Kurhila, Salla: Second Language Interaction. 2006. vii, 257 pp. 144 Bührig, Kristin and Jan D. ten Thije (eds.): Beyond Misunderstanding. Linguistic analyses of intercultural communication. 2006. vi, 339 pp. 143 Baker, Carolyn, Michael Emmison and Alan Firth (eds.): Calling for Help. Language and social interaction in telephone helplines. 2005. xviii, 352 pp. 142 Sidnell, Jack: Talk and Practical Epistemology. The social life of knowledge in a Caribbean community. 2005. xvi, 255 pp. 141 Zhu, Yunxia: Written Communication across Cultures. A sociocognitive perspective on business genres. 2005. xviii, 216 pp. 140 Butler, Christopher S., María de los Ángeles Gómez González and Susana M. Doval-Suárez (eds.): The Dynamics of Language Use. Functional and contrastive perspectives. 2005. xvi, 413 pp. 139 Lakoff, Robin T. and Sachiko Ide (eds.): Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness. 2005. xii, 342 pp. 138 Müller, Simone: Discourse Markers in Native and Non-native English Discourse. 2005. xviii, 290 pp. 137 Morita, Emi: Negotiation of Contingent Talk. The Japanese interactional particles ne and sa. 2005. xvi, 240 pp. 136 Sassen, Claudia: Linguistic Dimensions of Crisis Talk. Formalising structures in a controlled language. 2005. ix, 230 pp. 135 Archer, Dawn: Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640–1760). A sociopragmatic analysis. 2005. xiv, 374 pp. 134 Skaffari, Janne, Matti Peikola, Ruth Carroll, Risto Hiltunen and Brita Wårvik (eds.): Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past. 2005. x, 418 pp. 133 Marnette, Sophie: Speech and Thought Presentation in French. Concepts and strategies. 2005. xiv, 379 pp. 132 Onodera, Noriko O.: Japanese Discourse Markers. Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis. 2004. xiv, 253 pp. 131 Janoschka, Anja: Web Advertising. New forms of communication on the Internet. 2004. xiv, 230 pp. 130 Halmari, Helena and Tuija Virtanen (eds.): Persuasion Across Genres. A linguistic approach. 2005. x, 257 pp. 129 Taboada, María Teresa: Building Coherence and Cohesion. Task-oriented dialogue in English and Spanish. 2004. xvii, 264 pp. 128 Cordella, Marisa: The Dynamic Consultation. A discourse analytical study of doctor–patient communication. 2004. xvi, 254 pp. 127 Brisard, Frank, Michael Meeuwis and Bart Vandenabeele (eds.): Seduction, Community, Speech. A Festschrift for Herman Parret. 2004. vi, 202 pp.
126 Wu, Yi’an: Spatial Demonstratives in English and Chinese. Text and Cognition. 2004. xviii, 236 pp. 125 Lerner, Gene H. (ed.): Conversation Analysis. Studies from the first generation. 2004. x, 302 pp. 124 Vine, Bernadette: Getting Things Done at Work. The discourse of power in workplace interaction. 2004. x, 278 pp. 123 Márquez Reiter, Rosina and María Elena Placencia (eds.): Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. 2004. xvi, 383 pp. 122 González, Montserrat: Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative. The case of English and Catalan. 2004. xvi, 410 pp. 121 Fetzer, Anita: Recontextualizing Context. Grammaticality meets appropriateness. 2004. x, 272 pp. 120 Aijmer, Karin and Anna-Brita Stenström (eds.): Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written Corpora. 2004. viii, 279 pp. 119 Hiltunen, Risto and Janne Skaffari (eds.): Discourse Perspectives on English. Medieval to modern. 2003. viii, 243 pp. 118 Cheng, Winnie: Intercultural Conversation. 2003. xii, 279 pp. 117 Wu, Ruey-Jiuan Regina: Stance in Talk. A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. 2004. xvi, 260 pp. 116 Grant, Colin B. (ed.): Rethinking Communicative Interaction. New interdisciplinary horizons. 2003. viii, 330 pp. 115 Kärkkäinen, Elise: Epistemic Stance in English Conversation. A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. 2003. xii, 213 pp. 114 Kühnlein, Peter, Hannes Rieser and Henk Zeevat (eds.): Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium. 2003. xii, 400 pp. 113 Panther, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. Thornburg (eds.): Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. 2003. xii, 285 pp. 112 Lenz, Friedrich (ed.): Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person. 2003. xiv, 279 pp. 111 Ensink, Titus and Christoph Sauer (eds.): Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse. 2003. viii, 227 pp. 110 Androutsopoulos, Jannis K. and Alexandra Georgakopoulou (eds.): Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities. 2003. viii, 343 pp. 109 Mayes, Patricia: Language, Social Structure, and Culture. A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America. 2003. xiv, 228 pp. 108 Barron, Anne: Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics. Learning how to do things with words in a study abroad context. 2003. xviii, 403 pp. 107 Taavitsainen, Irma and Andreas H. Jucker (eds.): Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. 2003. viii, 446 pp. 106 Busse, Ulrich: Linguistic Variation in the Shakespeare Corpus. Morpho-syntactic variability of second person pronouns. 2002. xiv, 344 pp. 105 Blackwell, Sarah: Implicatures in Discourse. The case of Spanish NP anaphora. 2003. xvi, 303 pp. 104 Beeching, Kate: Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French. 2002. x, 251 pp. 103 Fetzer, Anita and Christiane Meierkord (eds.): Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics meets conversational interaction. 2002. vi, 300 pp. 102 Leafgren, John: Degrees of Explicitness. Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects. 2002. xii, 252 pp. 101 Luke, K. K. and Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou (eds.): Telephone Calls. Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures. 2002. x, 295 pp. 100 Jaszczolt, Katarzyna M. and Ken Turner (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 2. 2003. viii, 496 pp. 99 Jaszczolt, Katarzyna M. and Ken Turner (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 1. 2003. xii, 388 pp. 98 Duszak, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. 2002. viii, 522 pp. 97 Maynard, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse. 2002. xiv, 481 pp. 96 Haverkate, Henk: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood. 2002. vi, 241 pp. 95 Fitzmaurice, Susan M.: The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach. 2002. viii, 263 pp.
94 McIlvenny, Paul (ed.): Talking Gender and Sexuality. 2002. x, 332 pp. 93 Baron, Bettina and Helga Kotthoff (eds.): Gender in Interaction. Perspectives on femininity and masculinity in ethnography and discourse. 2002. xxiv, 357 pp. 92 Gardner, Rod: When Listeners Talk. Response tokens and listener stance. 2001. xxii, 281 pp. 91 Gross, Joan: Speaking in Other Voices. An ethnography of Walloon puppet theaters. 2001. xxviii, 341 pp. 90 Kenesei, István and Robert M. Harnish (eds.): Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 2001. xxii, 352 pp. 89 Itakura, Hiroko: Conversational Dominance and Gender. A study of Japanese speakers in first and second language contexts. 2001. xviii, 231 pp. 88 Bayraktaroğlu, Arın and Maria Sifianou (eds.): Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish. 2001. xiv, 439 pp. 87 Mushin, Ilana: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative Retelling. 2001. xviii, 244 pp. 86 Ifantidou, Elly: Evidentials and Relevance. 2001. xii, 225 pp. 85 Collins, Daniel E.: Reanimated Voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. 2001. xx, 384 pp. 84 Andersen, Gisle: Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A relevance-theoretic approach to the language of adolescents. 2001. ix, 352 pp. 83 Márquez Reiter, Rosina: Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay. A contrastive study of requests and apologies. 2000. xviii, 225 pp. 82 Khalil, Esam N.: Grounding in English and Arabic News Discourse. 2000. x, 274 pp. 81 Di Luzio, Aldo, Susanne Günthner and Franca Orletti (eds.): Culture in Communication. Analyses of intercultural situations. 2001. xvi, 341 pp. 80 Ungerer, Friedrich (ed.): English Media Texts – Past and Present. Language and textual structure. 2000. xiv, 286 pp. 79 Andersen, Gisle and Thorstein Fretheim (eds.): Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude. 2000. viii, 273 pp. 78 Sell, Roger D.: Literature as Communication. The foundations of mediating criticism. 2000. xiv, 348 pp. 77 Vanderveken, Daniel and Susumu Kubo (eds.): Essays in Speech Act Theory. 2002. vi, 328 pp. 76 Matsui, Tomoko: Bridging and Relevance. 2000. xii, 251 pp. 75 Pilkington, Adrian: Poetic Effects. A relevance theory perspective. 2000. xiv, 214 pp. 74 Trosborg, Anna (ed.): Analysing Professional Genres. 2000. xvi, 256 pp. 73 Hester, Stephen K. and David Francis (eds.): Local Educational Order. Ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action. 2000. viii, 326 pp. 72 Marmaridou, Sophia S.A.: Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. 2000. xii, 322 pp. 71 Gómez González, María de los Ángeles: The Theme–Topic Interface. Evidence from English. 2001. xxiv, 438 pp. 70 Sorjonen, Marja-Leena: Responding in Conversation. A study of response particles in Finnish. 2001. x, 330 pp. 69 Noh, Eun-Ju: Metarepresentation. A relevance-theory approach. 2000. xii, 242 pp. 68 Arnovick, Leslie K.: Diachronic Pragmatics. Seven case studies in English illocutionary development. 2000. xii, 196 pp. 67 Taavitsainen, Irma, Gunnel Melchers and Päivi Pahta (eds.): Writing in Nonstandard English. 2000. viii, 404 pp. 66 Jucker, Andreas H., Gerd Fritz and Franz Lebsanft (eds.): Historical Dialogue Analysis. 1999. viii, 478 pp. 65 Cooren, François: The Organizing Property of Communication. 2000. xvi, 272 pp. 64 Svennevig, Jan: Getting Acquainted in Conversation. A study of initial interactions. 2000. x, 384 pp. 63 Bublitz, Wolfram, Uta Lenk and Eija Ventola (eds.): Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. How to create it and how to describe it. Selected papers from the International Workshop on Coherence, Augsburg, 24-27 April 1997. 1999. xiv, 300 pp. 62 Tzanne, Angeliki: Talking at Cross-Purposes. The dynamics of miscommunication. 2000. xiv, 263 pp. 61 Mills, Margaret H. (ed.): Slavic Gender Linguistics. 1999. xviii, 251 pp. 60 Jacobs, Geert: Preformulating the News. An analysis of the metapragmatics of press releases. 1999. xviii, 428 pp.
59 Kamio, Akio and Ken-ichi Takami (eds.): Function and Structure. In honor of Susumu Kuno. 1999. x, 398 pp. 58 Rouchota, Villy and Andreas H. Jucker (eds.): Current Issues in Relevance Theory. 1998. xii, 368 pp. 57 Jucker, Andreas H. and Yael Ziv (eds.): Discourse Markers. Descriptions and theory. 1998. x, 363 pp. 56 Tanaka, Hiroko: Turn-Taking in Japanese Conversation. A Study in Grammar and Interaction. 2000. xiv, 242 pp. 55 Allwood, Jens and Peter Gärdenfors (eds.): Cognitive Semantics. Meaning and cognition. 1999. x, 201 pp. 54 Hyland, Ken: Hedging in Scientific Research Articles. 1998. x, 308 pp. 53 Mosegaard Hansen, Maj-Britt: The Function of Discourse Particles. A study with special reference to spoken standard French. 1998. xii, 418 pp. 52 Gillis, Steven and Annick De Houwer (eds.): The Acquisition of Dutch. With a Preface by Catherine E. Snow. 1998. xvi, 444 pp. 51 Boulima, Jamila: Negotiated Interaction in Target Language Classroom Discourse. 1999. xiv, 338 pp. 50 Grenoble, Lenore A.: Deixis and Information Packaging in Russian Discourse. 1998. xviii, 338 pp. 49 Kurzon, Dennis: Discourse of Silence. 1998. vi, 162 pp. 48 Kamio, Akio: Territory of Information. 1997. xiv, 227 pp. 47 Chesterman, Andrew: Contrastive Functional Analysis. 1998. viii, 230 pp. 46 Georgakopoulou, Alexandra: Narrative Performances. A study of Modern Greek storytelling. 1997. xvii, 282 pp. 45 Paltridge, Brian: Genre, Frames and Writing in Research Settings. 1997. x, 192 pp. 44 Bargiela-Chiappini, Francesca and Sandra J. Harris: Managing Language. The discourse of corporate meetings. 1997. ix, 295 pp. 43 Janssen, Theo and Wim van der Wurff (eds.): Reported Speech. Forms and functions of the verb. 1996. x, 312 pp. 42 Kotthoff, Helga and Ruth Wodak (eds.): Communicating Gender in Context. 1997. xxvi, 424 pp. 41 Ventola, Eija and Anna Mauranen (eds.): Academic Writing. Intercultural and textual issues. 1996. xiv, 258 pp. 40 Diamond, Julie: Status and Power in Verbal Interaction. A study of discourse in a close-knit social network. 1996. viii, 184 pp. 39 Herring, Susan C. (ed.): Computer-Mediated Communication. Linguistic, social, and cross-cultural perspectives. 1996. viii, 326 pp. 38 Fretheim, Thorstein and Jeanette K. Gundel (eds.): Reference and Referent Accessibility. 1996. xii, 312 pp. 37 Carston, Robyn and Seiji Uchida (eds.): Relevance Theory. Applications and implications. 1998. x, 300 pp. 36 Chilton, Paul, Mikhail V. Ilyin and Jacob L. Mey (eds.): Political Discourse in Transition in Europe 1989–1991. 1998. xi, 272 pp. 35 Jucker, Andreas H. (ed.): Historical Pragmatics. Pragmatic developments in the history of English. 1995. xvi, 624 pp. 34 Barbe, Katharina: Irony in Context. 1995. x, 208 pp. 33 Goossens, Louis, Paul Pauwels, Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn, Anne-Marie SimonVandenbergen and Johan Vanparys: By Word of Mouth. Metaphor, metonymy and linguistic action in a cognitive perspective. 1995. xii, 254 pp. 32 Shibatani, Masayoshi and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.): Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics. In honor of Charles J. Fillmore. 1996. x, 322 pp. 31 Wildgen, Wolfgang: Process, Image, and Meaning. A realistic model of the meaning of sentences and narrative texts. 1994. xii, 281 pp. 30 Wortham, Stanton E.F.: Acting Out Participant Examples in the Classroom. 1994. xiv, 178 pp. 29 Barsky, Robert F.: Constructing a Productive Other. Discourse theory and the Convention refugee hearing. 1994. x, 272 pp. 28 Van de Walle, Lieve: Pragmatics and Classical Sanskrit. A pilot study in linguistic politeness. 1993. xii, 454 pp. 27 Suter, Hans-Jürg: The Wedding Report. A prototypical approach to the study of traditional text types. 1993. xii, 314 pp.
26 Stygall, Gail: Trial Language. Differential discourse processing and discursive formation. 1994. xii, 226 pp. 25 Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth: English Speech Rhythm. Form and function in everyday verbal interaction. 1993. x, 346 pp. 24 Maynard, Senko K.: Discourse Modality. Subjectivity, Emotion and Voice in the Japanese Language. 1993. x, 315 pp. 23 Fortescue, Michael, Peter Harder and Lars Kristoffersen (eds.): Layered Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective. Papers from the Functional Grammar Conference, Copenhagen, 1990. 1992. xiii, 444 pp. 22 Auer, Peter and Aldo Di Luzio (eds.): The Contextualization of Language. 1992. xvi, 402 pp. 21 Searle, John R., Herman Parret and Jef Verschueren: (On) Searle on Conversation. Compiled and introduced by Herman Parret and Jef Verschueren. 1992. vi, 154 pp. 20 Nuyts, Jan: Aspects of a Cognitive-Pragmatic Theory of Language. On cognition, functionalism, and grammar. 1991. xii, 399 pp. 19 Baker, Carolyn and Allan Luke (eds.): Towards a Critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy. Papers of the XII World Congress on Reading. 1991. xxi, 287 pp. 18 Johnstone, Barbara: Repetition in Arabic Discourse. Paradigms, syntagms and the ecology of language. 1991. viii, 130 pp. 17 Piéraut-Le Bonniec, Gilberte and Marlene Dolitsky (eds.): Language Bases ... Discourse Bases. Some aspects of contemporary French-language psycholinguistics research. 1991. vi, 342 pp. 16 Mann, William C. and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.): Discourse Description. Diverse linguistic analyses of a fund-raising text. 1992. xiii, 409 pp. 15 Komter, Martha L.: Conflict and Cooperation in Job Interviews. A study of talks, tasks and ideas. 1991. viii, 252 pp. 14 Schwartz, Ursula V.: Young Children's Dyadic Pretend Play. A communication analysis of plot structure and plot generative strategies. 1991. vi, 151 pp. 13 Nuyts, Jan, A. Machtelt Bolkestein and Co Vet (eds.): Layers and Levels of Representation in Language Theory. A functional view. 1990. xii, 348 pp. 12 Abraham, Werner (ed.): Discourse Particles. Descriptive and theoretical investigations on the logical, syntactic and pragmatic properties of discourse particles in German. 1991. viii, 338 pp. 11 Luong, Hy V.: Discursive Practices and Linguistic Meanings. The Vietnamese system of person reference. 1990. x, 213 pp. 10 Murray, Denise E.: Conversation for Action. The computer terminal as medium of communication. 1991. xii, 176 pp. 9 Luke, K. K.: Utterance Particles in Cantonese Conversation. 1990. xvi, 329 pp. 8 Young, Lynne: Language as Behaviour, Language as Code. A study of academic English. 1991. ix, 304 pp. 7 Lindenfeld, Jacqueline: Speech and Sociability at French Urban Marketplaces. 1990. viii, 173 pp. 6:3 Blommaert, Jan and Jef Verschueren (eds.): The Pragmatics of International and Intercultural Communication. Selected papers from the International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, August 1987. Volume 3: The Pragmatics of International and Intercultural Communication. 1991. viii, 249 pp. 6:2 Verschueren, Jef (ed.): Levels of Linguistic Adaptation. Selected papers from the International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, August 1987. Volume 2: Levels of Linguistic Adaptation. 1991. viii, 339 pp. 6:1 Verschueren, Jef (ed.): Pragmatics at Issue. Selected papers of the International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, August 17–22, 1987. Volume 1: Pragmatics at Issue. 1991. viii, 314 pp. 5 Thelin, Nils B. (ed.): Verbal Aspect in Discourse. 1990. xvi, 490 pp. 4 Raffler-Engel, Walburga von (ed.): Doctor–Patient Interaction. 1989. xxxviii, 294 pp. 3 Oleksy, Wieslaw (ed.): Contrastive Pragmatics. 1988. xiv, 282 pp. 2 Barton, Ellen: Nonsentential Constituents. A theory of grammatical structure and pragmatic interpretation. 1990. xviii, 247 pp. 1 Walter, Bettyruth: The Jury Summation as Speech Genre. An ethnographic study of what it means to those who use it. 1988. xvii, 264 pp.
