Learner Recognition of Recasts and Its Relation with Language Analytic Ability and Communicative Value

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Not all grammar features are equally noticeable in input. The communicative value of a linguistic feature is one of the important factors that affect perceptual salience. In addition, it is claimed that language learners’ recognition of certain grammar features in incoming input is related to their language analytic ability. However, little research has been conducted to examine the relationship between these two issues. Thus, this study explored how learners recognized recasts that targeted two grammatical morphemes (3rd person –s and locative prepositions), which have different communicative values and relationships with the learners’ language analytic ability. Thirty Korean adult learners of English and three native speakers participated in the study. Each Korean participant engaged in information gap tasks with a native speaker and received recasts on their errors including the two targeted features. The participants’ recognition was documented through stimulated recall protocols. The results showed that learners recognized recasts as correction more often when the feature had a high communicative value (prepositions) and this resulted in more recognition of where they committed errors (i.e., recognition of gaps) compared to cases where the recasts targeted the feature with low communicative value (3rd person –s). In addition, it is also revealed that learners with high analytic ability recognized recasts and gaps better than those with low analytic ability, and this was not affected by the communicative value of the language feature that the recasts targeted.