Non-target-like Syntactic Representation: An Investigation of L2 English Article Substitutions by L1 Thai Learners

Abstract

This research explored L2 English article substitutions by L1 learners. The participants were two groups of advanced L2 learners from different L1 backgrounds, i.e., French and Thai, the former a language with articles, and the latter an articleless language. The tasks were a perception task, i.e., a grammaticality judgment task, and a production task, i.e., a forced-choice elicitation task. The results confirmed the hypotheses in that correct English article use in the Thai group was significantly lower than that in the French group in both perception and production (p < .001). Moreover, while appropriate L2 English article use in both perception and production in the L1 Thai group was rather low, that in the L1 French group was at high rates. The findings confirmed the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis (Hawkins, 2000, 2003) and contradicted the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (White, 2003, 2017) in that, unlike the French learners, as definiteness was not grammaticalized in Thai, the Thai learners' representation was non-target-like and English articles were therefore unattainable.

An Investigation of L2 English Article Substitutions by L1 Chinese Learners

“…Definiteness is a grammatical category featuring formal distinction whose core function is to mark a nominal expression as identifiable or nonidentifiable (Chen, 2004). According to Pongpairoj (2020), definiteness can be categorized into grammatical and conceptual definiteness. Definiteness in English is grammatical, because it is expressed through the English article system.…”

“…Some studies also included participants from different L1 backgrounds, e.g. Ionin et al (2004), Schönenberger (2014), andPongpairoj (2020). The participants in the study conducted by Ionin et al (2004) consisted of adult speakers from two articleless languages: Russian and Korean.…”

“…German speakers rarely misused English articles. The performance of L1 Thai English learners whose L1 has no articles can be found in a study conducted by Pongpairoj (2020). Pongpairoj (2020) compared the use of English articles between an L1 Thai group, whose native language is articleless, and an L1 French group, whose L1 has an article system in both perception and production tasks, and found that the correct English article use rates for the L1 Thai group were significantly low.…”

“…The performance of L1 Thai English learners whose L1 has no articles can be found in a study conducted by Pongpairoj (2020). Pongpairoj (2020) compared the use of English articles between an L1 Thai group, whose native language is articleless, and an L1 French group, whose L1 has an article system in both perception and production tasks, and found that the correct English article use rates for the L1 Thai group were significantly low. Besides, English article substitutions by the L1 Thai group were found in all three nominal contexts, i.e., [+def, +spec], [-def, -spec], and [-def, +spec] contexts, while the L1 French group rarely misused English articles in all the nominal contexts.…”

“…There are many studies which have investigated English article substitutions 1 by L2 learners from different L1 backgrounds, for example, L1 Persian learners in Geranpayeh (2000), L1 Pashto learners in Ahmad and Khan (2019), and L1 Thai learners in Pongpairoj (2020). As far as L1 Chinese learners are concerned, there are some studies such as Robertson (2000), Zhou and Du (2015) and Lei (2016).…”