On the Contribution of Argument Structure Constructions to Sentence Meaning for Korean Learners of English

Abstract

This paper replicates the sorting task conducted on Bencini and Goldberg (2000) to examine whether Korean learners of English only concentrate on the meaning of verbs or they also pay attention to constructional meanings in English sentence processing. The results were broadly consistent with the original study―Korean learners of English were able to recognize the existence of English argument structure constructions and utilize the configurations in sentence interpretation. However, the experiment detected discrepancy in learners' understanding constructions according to the types. Language learners generally have a sense of English argument structure constructions and try to make full use of the representations, but their cognitive ability has not been sufficiently trained to access the internal relation among the constructions. Consequently, the learners feel difficulty in interpreting other types of argument structure constructions except transitive constructions and they tend to stick to the representations. Constructionists regard argument structure constructions as impetus and facilitator in language acquisition. Based on the perspective, the materials and the instructions provided to language learners need to be developed in a way that promotes the learners' access to the characteristics of English argument structure constructions.