Acquisition of the nongeneric use of the definite article “the” by Egyptian EFL learners

Abstract

This study investigates the acquisition of the nongeneric use of the definite article “the” by Egyptian EFL learners over a period of eight months. Sixty students at two levels of language proficiency (low, high) from the English Department, Faculty of Education, Menoufia University, participated in the study. The theoretical approach adopted was Liu and Gleason’s (2002) model of classification, which classifies the nongeneric use of the into four major types: textual, structural, situation, and cultural. The study aims to determine whether these uses present different levels of difficulty for Egyptian EFL learners, and whether or not they are acquired at the same time. Besides, the study seeks to determine the extent to which students’ English proficiency level (low, high) affects their acquisition of these uses. Data were collected by administering a 46-item test twice to the participants, with a period of eight months between the first and sec­ond administrations. The test required the participants to complete each question sentence by choosing either the, a(n) or O. The findings indicate that the four nongeneric uses of the present different levels of difficulty for Egyptian EFL university learners and do not appear to be acquired at the same time. On both the first and second administrations of the test, both structural and textual uses proved to be the most diffi­cult for the two levels of proficiency followed in order by situation use and cultural use. Moreover, there was a significant improvement in the students’ command of the four nongeneric uses of the as the level of proficiency increases. Finally, after a period of eight months, students of the low-level group noticeably improved their level of command of the nongeneric uses of the, while students of the high-level group failed to do so