The Use of English Articles in Adjective-modified Contexts

Abdulrahman Alzamil

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.12n.4.p.9

Abstract

English articles are thought to be complex, ambiguous and not salient in spoken language, which is why second language (L2) learners of English exhibit usage variability. Much of the L2 acquisition literature seems to agree that L2 learners are affected, one way or another, by their first language (L1). However, the debatable and controversial issue is whether there are other factors that affect article use, independent of potential L1 effects. The present study examines whether the presence or absence of adjectives in noun phrases influences article choice among Saudi Arabic learners of English. Both Arabic and English have articles, but Arabic adjectives are different from English adjectives to the extent that they agree with nouns in definiteness, case and gender. The study was conducted with 24 L1 Saudi Arabic speakers and 6 native English speakers. A 42-item fill-in-the-blanks task was administered. The results showed that a) native speakers of English outperformed L2 Arabic speakers in all contexts except indefinite plural contexts not modified by adjectives; and b) L2 Arabic speakers were more accurate in indefinite contexts that were not modified by adjectives than those that were. These findings show that L1 Arabic speakers are sensitive to the presence or absence of adjectives in noun phrases.

Highlights

L2 learners’ difficulties with the acquisition of English articles have been well-documented by many researchers (e.g., Bohnacker, 1997; Cho & Slabakova, 2014; Huebner, 1983; Thomas, 1989)
The results showed that a) native speakers of English outperformed L2 Arabic speakers in all contexts except indefinite plural contexts not modified by adjectives; and b) L2 Arabic speakers were more accurate in indefinite contexts that were not modified by adjectives than those that were
The second section makes statistical comparisons between the L1 Saudi Arabic speakers and the native speakers of English, while to address the potential effects of adjectives on article use, the third section compares situations where adjectives were modified by nouns with situations where they were not

Summary

Introduction

L2 learners’ difficulties with the acquisition of English articles have been well-documented by many researchers (e.g., Bohnacker, 1997; Cho & Slabakova, 2014; Huebner, 1983; Thomas, 1989). Researchers’ views vary regarding factors that affect successful L2 acquisition of English articles (Abudalbuh, 2016; Burns & Soja, 1997) They differ concerning the types of errors that L2 learners of English make. Omission errors can be attributed to the absence of articles in the L1 of L2 learners (such as the Japanese and Korean languages), whereas substitution errors are a result of difficulties in setting the semantic parameter at the correct value. Both types of errors can be attributed to the complex nature of English articles and/or to L1 transfer effects. Attributive adjectives in Arabic resemble nouns in ‘number, gender, definiteness and case’

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion