Target Language Grammar Research Articles

Enforcing Grammar in Code Synthesis with Transformers

Even more so than natural language, code is extremely sensitive to syntax; a small error could make an entire snippet invalid. It is therefore important to explore methods for ensuring syntactic correctness in generated code. Existing methods to resolve this issue often rely on the complex architecture of syntax-guided decoders. In this work, we present the grammar enforcement method, which introduces a separate layer that constrains the decisions of the transformer during fine-tuning according to syntactic constructs present both in the target language grammar and the given training set. We experiment with the Hearthstone dataset to study its effects on result programs and compare it with the existing state-of-art syntax-guided decoders. We demonstrate a statistically significant positive effect of grammar enforcement on the quality of generated programs in terms of exact match accuracy and grammatically correct percent of samples. At the same time, we observe lower values for text-based metrics, chrF, and BLEU, potentially indicating their inability to represent the quality of generated abstract syntax sequences.

An Exploration of the Factors Responsible For English Language Oral Fluency Problems Faced By the Undergraduate Level Students in District Kohat

The present study was conducted on the English language oral fluency problems faced by students at the university level. The main purpose was to look into factors responsible for oral fluency problems faced by the BS English students at FATA University and Kohat University of Science Technology (KUST) Kohat. Data were taken from the undergraduate students of BS English through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into two sections, i.e. section A and section “B” which contain 32 items, of which 30 were closed-ended, and only 2 items were open-ended. The study yielded important results such as poor target language grammar, lack of opportunities to speak English in the classroom, lack of speaking practice, L1 interference, and fear of making mistakes are the prominent factors which contribute to the poor oral fluency of graduate students of English departments in both universities. Furthermore, the study also provided possible solutions for the problems in oral fluency, i.e. improvement in grammar, increase in vocabulary knowledge, more confidence, improvement in pronunciation, the guidance of well-trained teachers, use of audio-visual aids, more opportunities to speak inside the classroom, frequent use of oral activities, employment of communicative approaches, extensive reading, prioritizing oral fluency over oral accuracy, and less fear of making mistakes bring about an improvement in the oral fluency of BS English students. Participants in the study also opined that course/s on oral fluency in BS English Curriculum in both universities need to be included.

Working memory as a factor mediating explicit and implicit knowledge of English grammar

AbstractThis paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the relationship between phonological short-term memory (PSTM), working memory capacity (WMC), and the level of mastery of L2 grammar. Grammatical mastery was operationalized as the ability to produce and comprehend English passive voice with reference to explicit and implicit (or highly automatized) knowledge. Correlational analysis showed that PSTM was related to implicit productive knowledge while WMC was linked to explicit productive knowledge. However, regression analysis showed that those relationships were weak and mediated by overall mastery of target language grammar, operationalized as final grades in a grammar course.

Verbal working memory as a predictor of explicit and implicit knowledge of English passive voice

Abstract While there is copious evidence concerning the effectiveness of different instructional options in teaching grammar (e.g., Nassaji, 2017; Pawlak, 2017), less is known about the extent to which the contribution of pedagogical intervention is mediated by individual factors. The same can be said about the product of instructed but also uninstructed second language acquisition, that is the knowledge of target language grammar. The paper attempts to shed light on one such variable, that is working memory, which has recently been an object of intensive empirical inquiry (e.g., Li, 2017; Wen, Biedroń, & Skehan, 2016). It reports the results of a study that investigated the role of verbal working memory in the development of explicit and implicit knowledge of the English passive voice. Participants were 156 Polish university students enrolled in a three-year BA program in English. The data on verbal working memory were collected by means of the Polish Listening Span Test (PLSPAN), developed by Zychowicz, Biedroń and Pawlak (2017). Explicit knowledge was tapped by means of an untimed grammatically judgment test, which focused on reception, and a traditional grammar test, which targeted production. Implicit knowledge was tapped through a timed grammaticality judgment test for reception and a focused communication task (Ellis, 2003) for production. Correlational analysis demonstrated that verbal working memory was a weak predictor of explicit productive and receptive knowledge but not implicit knowledge.

Gramática fonológica e ensino de inglês como língua adicional: aproximando a linguística formal da linguística aplicada

Partindo do pressuposto de que a teoria fonológica pode dialogar com o contexto educacional, este trabalho tem como objetivo principal apresentar e explicitar a relevância da gramática fonológica para o ensino de línguas adicionais, neste caso, o inglês. Para tanto, discutiremos dados de aquisição de aprendizes brasileiros de inglês (GUTIERRES, 2016) para o desenvolvimento da gramática da língua-alvo, analisados à luz da Teoria da Otimidade Estocástica (Boersma; Hayes, 2001). Os dados revelam que, na aprendizagem da nasal velar [ŋ] das palavras terminadas com -ing em inglês, há alternância sistemática entre as nasais velar/velarizada e a palatal (variação), demonstrando a gradualidade que caracteriza a aquisição e a variabilidade que é inerente à aprendizagem de línguas. Dessa forma, há uma demanda para a atualização e o esclarecimento do conceito de gramática, buscando dissociá-la da unicidade da concepção tradicional que ignora a produção linguística do aprendiz e lhe apenas prescreve formas tidas como corretas de expressão.

Foreign Language Learning Pedagogy: Learner Centredness vis-à-vis Linguistic Competence - <i>Action and Reaction</i>

It is well-expected that in the cause-and-effect relationship, authentic formal language learning four hours weekly for six years and 18 hours a week for nearly one year is very likely to produce learners with language proficiency enough to conduct simple conversations about basic daily life issues. Through measuring the global grammar accuracy in the oral language of foundation students at the English Institute at King Abdul Aziz University, the present study aimed at examining how far the learner is the centre of the learning operation so that it can correspondingly yield a considerable amount of EFL linguistic proficiency. The results, however, show that even the most basic grammar norms of the target language (TL) have not yet been acquired, and the learners’ TL grammar is so inaccurate that it severely affects the oral output intelligibility. That highly inaccurate TL grammar calls for the reestablishment of the learning aims, approaches, and tools in serious quest for more learner-centredness in the learning task so that those severe linguistic gaps can be abridged and more authentic TL acquisition is achieved.

English Language Teachers’ Preferences in Presenting Target Language Grammar

English Language Teachers’ Preferences in Presenting Target Language Grammar

<b>Argument structure in L2 acquisition: language transfer re-visited in a semantics and syntax perspective</b><br>DOI:10.5007/2175-8026.2011n60p153

Interlanguage studies tend to be dominated by investigationsof strictly morphosyntactic phenomena. Issues of argumentstructure and argument realization are shown to be a potentiallyinnovative theoretical approach to the study of L2 learners’knowledge of target language grammar, as they are framedas an interface between semantics and syntax. In this article,evidence of language transfer effects in Brazilian L2 learners’representation of transitivity alternations in verbs of mannerof movement are presented to support the view that secondlanguage research on the acquisition of argument structurerealization patterns is a promising line of enquiry.

DYNAMICITY OF INTERLANGUAGE ERRORS: A CASE STUDY OF INDONESIAN STUDENTS LEARNING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

ABSTRACT : Interlanguage errors are an inevitable sign of human fallibility; therefore, they always exist in foreign language learning. They are very significant since they become the source for studying the system of the learners’ second language (interlanguage). As a language system, interlanguage has at least three prominent characteristics, namely, systematicity, permeability, and fossilization. Applied linguistic researchers are no longer in disagreement with the view that interlanguage is systematic and permeable. However, the premise that interlanguage is fossilized is still debatable. This study deals with interlanguage errors; in particular, this tries to investigate whether the learners’ grammatical errors are fossilized (in a sense that they are dynamic) or static. For this purpose, an empirical study was conducted, using an error treatment method. This study used Indonesian senior high school students learning English as the research subjects. The data were collected from the students’ free compositions written prior and after an error treatment. The error treatment was carried out for one semester. The data were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative method. The result indicates that the learners’ grammatical errors were dynamic. At a certain period of the learning course, some grammatical errors emerged. As a result of the error treatment, some errors were fluctuating; some became stabilized; while others were destabilized. The fluctuating errors tended to be destabilized while the stabilized errors were also likely to be destabilized. Error treatment was proved to have significant contribution to the destabilization process; that is to say, it helped develop the learners’ IL system. A conclusion drawn from this study is that the learners’ grammatical errors are dynamic. They are destabilzable. Thus, there is a possibility for the learners to acquire complete target language grammar. Key Words : error treatment, stabilization, fossilization, dynamicity, interlanguage

Age Effects on the Process of L2 Acquisition? Evidence From the Acquisition of Negation and Finiteness in L2 German

It is widely assumed that ultimate attainment in adult second language (L2) learners often differs quite radically from ultimate attainment in child L2 learners. This article addresses the question of whether learners at different ages also show qualitative differences in the process of L2 acquisition. Longitudinal production data from two untutored Russian beginners (ages 8 and 14) acquiring German under roughly similar conditions are compared to published results on the acquisition of German by adult immigrants. The study focuses on the acquisition of negation and finiteness as core domains of German sentence grammar. Adult learners have been shown to produce an early nonfinite learner variety in which utterance organization relies on principles of information structure rather than on target language grammar. They then go through a couple of intermediate steps in which, first, semantically empty verbs (auxiliaries) serve as isolated carriers of finiteness before lexical verbs become finite. Whereas the 14‐year‐old learner of this case study basically shows a developmental pattern similar to that of adults, the 8‐year‐old child produces a different order of acquisition: Not only is the development of finite morphology faster, but finite lexical verbs are acquired before auxiliary constructions (Perfekt). Results suggest a stronger tendency for young learners to incrementally assimilate input patterns without relying on analytic steps guided by principles of information organization to the same extent as older learners.

The UG paradox in L2 acquisition

There is a considerable amount of recent evidence that stable principles of Universal Grammar (UG) are available to adult second language (L2) learners in structuring their intuitions about the target language grammar. In contrast, however, there is also evidence from the acquisition of word order, agreement and negation in German that there are substantial differences between first language (L1) and L2 learners. In our view, these differences are due to UG principles guiding L1, but not L2 acquisition. We will show that alternative ways of accounting for the L1/L2 differences are not successful. Finally we will deal with the question of how our view can be reconciled with the idea that L2 learners can use UG principles to some extent in the evaluation of target sentences.

Adult Language Learning Strategies and Their Pedagogical Implications

Recent research has shown that language learners begin relying on their ability to analogize, systematize, and regularize the target language data to which they are exposed immediately upon beginning to learn a new language. Because of their lack of familiarity with the new linguistic system, however, they also rely extensively on their native languages for support. With increased proficiency in the target language, they rely proportionately less frequently on their native language grammar, and rely more frequently on their ever-increasing knowledge of the target language, coping directly with it and overgeneralizing its rules. Since student errors are inevitable, regardless of the mode of instruction or the teaching materials employed, a remedial approach involving review, contrast, and re-review seems necessary. It is with students who have already learned some of the target language that this approach can be most profitably undertaken in order to re-acquaint the students with the intricacies of the target language grammar and to help them learn to use the target language rules which they have already mastered in an appropriate way.