Practical Grammar I
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Transcript of Practical Grammar I
Practical Grammar I
Crosslinguistic InfluenceOctober 5, 2010
Remember from your reading?• pizza all-dressed• subvention• verify• lectures• pass the vacuum cleaner• and the quintessential
open and close the lights
What do these tell you?
• In a bilingual mind, two scenarios are possible to explain the phenomenon;– We have two word banks
but the door between the two is leaky…
– We have one word bank with labels for things in different languages. E.g. pencil and crayon for the thin cylindrical object we use to write.
Why use translation studies?
• Translating is exactly what we do constantly when we are using a language other than our L1;
• Our native language (L1) seeps through into our L2 speech patterns, pronunciation, and writing;
What is Crosslinguistic Influence?
• CLI is the term now used to include language transfer, negative transfer and interference.
• In the past, researchers believed that if we studied the differences between two languages, we could be better translators or teachers.
Is CLI universal to all languages?
• CLI research is informed by language typology, that is seeing language on a continuum from relatively easy to relatively difficult. English is closer to the easy end than French is and languages such as Vietnamese and Korean are at the difficult end.
• CLI is also informed by contrastive linguistics, which studies the differences between languages.
What about French and English?
• Because of the different nature of French and English, CLI occurs frequently in L2 learners and in translation.
• We will look at the eleven most representative occurrences of CLI, for grammar only. They are broken down by category.
Indefinite Articles
• In French, we do not use an indefinite article when referring to a person’s profession;
• E.g. She is kindergarten professor.
Definite Articles
• In French, the definite article is used for generalization;
• E.g. The singing takes practice.
• E.g. The DVDs are more expensive than the CDs.
Definite Articles
• French requires the use of a definite article with proper nouns;
• E.g. The Professor Valentine teaches in Trois-Rivières.
Verbs and Verbals
• The French verb system has no progressive forms;
• E.g. The syndicate still negotiate the agreement.
• E.g. When I arrived in class, he studied.
Verbs and Verbals
• Tense boundaries are different in English and French;
• E.g. I study here for two years.
• E.g. She has left Saturday morning.
Verbs and Verbals
• In French, there is no distinction between the gerund and the infinitive;
• E.g. She avoids to walk on the dark street.
• E.g. I enjoy to eat brochette.
Word Order
• The verb-subject order differs in French and English;
• E.g. I knew what would decide the director-general.
Word Order
• In French, adverbs can be placed between the verb and the object or before the verb;
• E.g. I like very much poutine.
• E.g. The students efficiently organized the manifestation.
Sentence Structure
• French makes use of ‘that’ clauses rather than the infinitive;
• E.g. I want that you start the dossier before you leave.
• E.g. The cash wants that I endorse my cheque.
Pronouns
• French makes no distinction between human and non-human for relative pronoun use (which/who);
• E.g. Here is the student which you met in September.
• E.g. The people which arrived will start the classe d’accueil next month.
Pronouns
• In French, possessive determiners refer to the xxx instead of the
• E.g. Annie went to the cinema with his father.
• E.g. Leo’s mother broke his arm when she fell on the ice.
Practice• 1. He could see her often. • 2. He is a big fan of this baseball
star. • 3. If someone tried to stop these
gangsters, he would be killed. • 4. It could be that he has not
thought about this enough. • 5. He is wanting to get back to his
studies. • 6. The author gives examples of
abbreviations. Some forms can be pronounced as initialisms and acronyms (‘UFO’ or ‘you-foe’). Others mix these types in the one word (CD-ROM).
• 7. This stands in sharp contrast to Nicholson-Lord’s opinion.
More Practice• 8. They paid him little attention. • 9. We have never had it so good. • 10. His career seemed ended. • 11. Latin has given place to English
now. • 12. A reader with small knowledge
of the language could not understand such a text.
• 13. Her reason was quite other. • 14. They have tried this quite often
in the past, but they have never been successful.
• 15. He is a successful person in all ways.
Bibliography
• http://college.hmco.com/english/raimes/keys_writers/3e/instructors/esl/transfer.html
• http://www.dirk-siepmann.de/Teacher_Training/Would_you_have_marked_it_wrong/would_you_have_marked_it_wrong.html