Chapter 10. The simple present and the expression of temporality in L1 English and L2 English oral narratives

Vraciu, Alexandra

doi:10.1075/z.196.10vra

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…com/ wwen/ engli sh-resou rces/ engli sh-gramm ar/ simple-prese nt-tense/). In these cases, the English simple present is "timeless" (e.g., Vraciu, 2015). It takes a specific time reference from its linguistic environments, such as from the adverbial phrases (e.g., at 10:00 am), or it is used with a state (e.g., he has long hair), or it functions as a "stativizer" (Vraciu, 2015, p. 294) on dynamic predicates and creates a habitual reading of the dynamic event (e.g., I smoke).…”

Section: The Simple Present and Progressive Aspect In Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The simple present in English is often introduced in a dictionary as representing habits (e.g., I smoke ), general truth (e.g., he has long hair ), or even future events (e.g., our meeting starts at 10:00 am ), and so on (see, for example, https://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/english-grammar/simple-present-tense/ ). In these cases, the English simple present is “timeless” (e.g., Vraciu, 2015 ). It takes a specific time reference from its linguistic environments, such as from the adverbial phrases (e.g., at 10:00 am ), or it is used with a state (e.g., he has long hair ), or it functions as a “stativizer” (Vraciu, 2015 , p. 294) on dynamic predicates and creates a habitual reading of the dynamic event (e.g., I smoke ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The English simple present, however, often leads to a perfective interpretation of an event (see Cowper, 1998 ; Vraciu, 2015 ). When an event is viewed with a perfective viewpoint, this event is considered complete and “an unanalyzable whole” (Vraciu, 2015 , p. 295). This perfective viewpoint provided by the English simple present is thus in contrast with the internal viewpoint provided by the English progressive aspect and is similar to the use of the English perfective aspect (i.e., - ed ; Williams, 2002 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Linguistic and non-linguistic cues in motion event endpoint description: The selection between English to and towards

2022

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The current study aims to explore the factors that could affect people’s description of a motion event endpoint. The study conducted by Liao, Dijkstra, and Zwaan (2021, Language and Cognition, 13[2], 161–190) found that two non-linguistic factors (i.e., the actor’s goal and the interlocutor’s social status) affect people’s choice between two Dutch directional prepositions (i.e., naar and richting) during event description tasks. The current study aims to extend these findings by examining the choice between a similar pair of directional prepositions in English (i.e., to and towards). Moreover, we aim to study whether grammatical aspect (i.e., the English simple present and the English progressive aspect) affects the sensitivity to the two non-linguistic factors and consequently also affects how people describe a motion event endpoint. In Experiment 1, we used the English simple present for all sentence stimuli (e.g., he walks (?) the trash bin). We found a significant effect of Interlocutor (the interlocutor’s social status) on preposition choice, but no significant effect of Intention (the actor’s goal). In Experiment 2, we replaced the English simple present with the English progressive aspect (e.g., he is walking (?) the trash bin). We found significant main effects of both Interlocutor and Intention on preposition choice. These findings extend those reported in Liao et al. (2021) Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35(4), 498–520 in that protagonist intention and interlocutor status were found to indeed affect motion event endpoint description. The current findings furthermore show that grammatical aspect affects people’s sensitivity to these factors, thus also affecting how a motion event endpoint is described.

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Section: The Simple Present and Progressive Aspect In Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Linguistic and non-linguistic cues in motion event endpoint description: The selection between English to and towards

2022

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“…The current study aims to extend the scope of this research by focusing on the non-prototypical reportive interpretation of the Present Simple. In highly-marked contexts, such as sportscaster-style broadcasts and (oral) narratives, the progressive and simple forms can be used interchangeably to describe an event or a series of events that appear to be more or less concomitant to the utterance time, such that the simple form overlaps in functional-semantic scope with the progressive form (Vraciu, 2015;Williams, 2002). For example, in (3), a sports reporter (i.e.…”

Section: Reportive Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aspectual contrasts in the Englishpresent tense revisited

Dudley

Slabakova

2020

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This study investigates the acquisition of aspectual contrasts in the English present tense by French and Chinese learners of English at upper-intermediate to advanced proficiency levels. An oral production task and an interpretation task show that the expression of the aspectual present tense does not always have to constitute an insurmountable barrier to learners of English, at least for the upper-intermediate and advanced proficiency levels tested in this study. This successful acquisition is in spite of the differences in L1/L2 feature expressions and the unexpected variability in the input. Our research highlights that teachers must be aware of the one-sided variability of the native speaker usage (i.e. that the present simple form can express multiple meanings, while the present progressive is associated with one meaning only) if they want to improve performance and comprehension at lower proficiency levels.

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Temporal progression in film retellings in Polish: Perspectives on the interaction of the imperfective aspect and narrative principles

Latkowska

2024

Stud. Pol. Linguist.

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This study examines the temporal architecture of Polish film retellings within the research framework developed by Christiane von Stutterheim and colleagues, who identified grammaticalized progressive and imperfective aspects as powerful agents capable of influencing event construal, and through it, the organisation of discourse. Based on this finding, the study explores 30 offline film retellings to find out whether their narrative structure reflects the patterns attributed to the influence of a grammaticalised imperfective (IMPF). The results show that narrators consistently build the storyline using the present tense and the IMPF. In Polish, present tense verb forms encode the IMPF predominantly in the stem or in a grammaticalised secondary imperfective (SI) marker. As revealed by the study, the SI is used rather sparingly in the retellings. Another feature of note is a scarcity of connectives, found to coincide with the presence of grammaticalised imperfective markers in the languages examined under the framework. The study concludes that, due to low usage rates for the SI, there is not sufficient evidence to support the existence of a causal relationship between the grammaticalisation of the IMPF and narrative frames in Polish, and points to a formative role of discourse mode dynamics in shaping temporal progression.

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Chapter 10. The simple present and the expression of temporality in L1 English and L2 English oral narratives

Cited by 3 publications

References 39 publications

Linguistic and non-linguistic cues in motion event endpoint description: The selection between English to and towards

Linguistic and non-linguistic cues in motion event endpoint description: The selection between English to and towards

Aspectual contrasts in the Englishpresent tense revisited

Temporal progression in film retellings in Polish: Perspectives on the interaction of the imperfective aspect and narrative principles

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