UCLan Open Journals (University of Central Lancashire)
UCLan Open Journals (University of Central Lancashire)Not a member yet
198 research outputs found
Sort by
Assessing Collocational Competence: Insights Derived from Libyan Learners of English in an EFL Context
Full text linkThis paper aims to investigate the difficulties Libyan undergraduate university English major students have in the use of verb-noun and adjective-noun collocations by looking at their performance in free production. Furthermore, twelve verbs and twelve adjectives identified in this research were investigated in depth as part of their combinations. To achieve this aim, a 250-word academic writing task was used to collect data from fourth-year university students at Tripoli University. The data were analysed using AntConc 3.2.1w (Anthony, 2007). After extracting the learners’ collocations, four methods were used to determine the acceptability of learners’ collocations in terms of conforming to native-like use. They were: (1) the Oxford Collocations Dictionary (2009), (2) the online British National Corpus (3) consultations with two native speakers[1], and (4) the acceptability-of-collocations survey, which was used to triangulate the above three methods. Overall, the results from the academic writing data revealed that (1) verb-noun collocations were more difficult for the participants than adjective-noun collocations; and (2) the participants’ use of the twelve adjectives in adjective-noun collocations showed significantly more accuracy ratings compared to their use of the twelve verbs in verb-noun collocations. [1] According to Crystal (1997), the term native-speaker is used in the linguistic field to refer to “someone for whom a particular LANGUAGE is a ‘native language’ (also called ‘first language’, ‘mother-tongue’)”. The implication is the acquisition of this language has taken place since childhood. Therefore, it can be safely asserted that a native speaker possesses the most reliable intuition and for that reason has the best judgement of how the language is used, making him/her the most trusted kind of informant.
Unity and Diversity within Pidginized Arabic as Produced by Asian Migrant Workers in the Arabian Gulf
Full text linkGulf Pidgin Arabic (GPA) is a simplified contact variety of language spoken in the Gulf States in the Middle East. This unique linguistic phenomenon has resulted from the frequent language contact between the non-indigenous workforce with no Arabic skills, who come from countries such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines for job opportunities, and native speakers who do not share a common language with them. Pidgin languages have not been studied until relatively recently, since the middle of the last century. Similarly, GPA has received relatively little attention in the literature apart from a few descriptive works such as Albakrawi, 2013; Alghamdi, 2014; Almoaily, 2008, 2012; Alshammari, 2010; Al-Zubeiry, 2015; Avram, 2014, 2015; Gomaa, 2007; Hobrom, 1996; Næss, 2008; Smart, 1990; Wiswal, 2002. This study aims to propose an account of both unity and diversity within Asian migrant Arabic pidgins in the states of the Arabian Gulf in terms of a set of parameters where purely linguistic developments interact with contextual ones. The analysis of the social situation and of the available linguistic data shows that the main factor behind conventionalizing within GPA is migrants’ mobility in the Gulf region. This is basically compatible with Bizri (2014)[1] who suggests that in Asian Migrant Arabic Pidgins (AMAP) “[’] mobility across the region is the major factor for homogenizing both native Arabic-speakers’ foreigner talk and migrants’ pidgin Arabic” (p. 385). One of the recommendations at the end of the study is that Saudi government should offer some courses for the foreign laborers to help them become familiar with basic Arabic words. [1] She conducted a comparative study on AMAP by grouping all the varieties attested from the Gulf area and from Lebanon
The Lexical Stage of Expressing Temporality by Bulgarian L2 Instructed Learners
Full text linkThis article focuses on some of the findings of the author’s research on the acquisition of English-tense morphology by Bulgarian L2 instructed learners, who have never been exposed to English in naturalistic conditions (English used by native speakers in an English-speaking country). The study has been conducted in the framework of Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen & Shirai, 1994) which makes a distinction between the grammatical aspect, marked by linguistic devices, such as verb morphology and auxiliaries, and the lexical aspect, which refers to the inherent temporal characteristics of verbs and to the temporal conditions of the situation that the verb designates (Sugaya and Shirai, 2007) and is based on Vendler’s (1967) classification of verb-predicates according to their inherent semantic features: statives, activities, accomplishments and achievements. The empirical data, collected through written narratives elicited by an excerpt of a silent film, showed some unexpected results with the group of learners with lower proficiency in EFL and these are the particular results which the article focuses on. They show support for the findings of a previous study on temporality expression in SLA, based on the meaning-oriented approach, used in a project sponsored by the European Science Foundation and guided by Clive Perdue and Wolfgang Klein (1992), namely – that the expression of temporality exhibits a sequence which corresponds to stages of acquisition which are characterized by the use of pragmatic, lexical, and morphological means, which in their turn correspond to the general levels of interlanguage development labelled the pre-basic variety, the basic variety, and “beyond the basic variety” (Dietrich et al., 1995)
Introduction to Volume 3, which is dedicated to the memory of Marjorie Guthrie (1917-1983)
Full text linkGirl from the North Country and Woody Sez: Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Musical Theatre
Full text linkTextbook Writers’ Perspectives on Theoretical Frameworks in Beginning and Intermediate Chinese Textbooks
Full text linkThis article explores textbook writers’ perspectives on theoretical frameworks in beginning and intermediate Chinese textbooks. Four prominent textbook authors were interviewed, and modified structured interviews were used. Interview data reflect the following three trends. (1) Four textbook authors had different foci in applying in their textbooks widely accepted principles of second language acquisition and approaches to second language teaching. (2) While all four textbook authors guide the teaching of language structures by communicative functions and relate the teaching with culture, they use one of the two methods in the process: practicing language structures and then completing communicative activities or completing communicative activities to learn grammatical structures. (3) The four textbook authors show distinctive features in their textbooks: grounding communicative Chinese language instruction in U.S.-specific language, educational and social contexts; enabling communication through setting up frameworks of language structures; developing proficiency by providing relevant materials in practical and manageable steps; motivating students by engaging them in communicative activities. Pedagogical application of the above findings in teaching Chinese as a foreign language is discussed
Foreword
Full text linkOn a typically sweltering June day in Preston, Lancashire, with tropical temperatures of nearly 14 degrees, an enthusiastic melee of language professionals (teachers, researchers, industry professionals and students) came together to listen to 33 speakers from around the globe at the 3rd International Postgraduate Conference on Modern Foreign Languages, Linguistics and Literature held in Preston at the University of Central Lancashire. The talks featured an impressive assortment of topics from \u27Freedom through Non-Economic Deception in Post-War American Suburbia\u27 (Miles Beard from the University of Strathclyde), \u27Literary Conceptions of Wales in Europe: Fictional European Travellers\u27 (Christina Les, Bangor University), \u27Legal and Business Communication in Vernacular Languages with Special Reference to Hindi Language\u27 (Ruchi Sharma, Amity University, India), to \u27Buginese Family Speaking Bahasa Showed Ethnolect-Speech Pattern Phenomena\u27 (Syarif Hidayat Nasir, Radboud University, the Netherlands). Four of the papers presented are included in this special issue of the Journal of Second Language Teaching & Research..
