1. “Was ist ‘wichtig’?”: Semantic Priority in Beginner L2 Interactions
Ryan Miller & Daniel Walter — Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
INTRODUCTION
QUANTITATIVE RESULTS
QUALITATIVE RESULTS
DISCUSSION
Our analysis indicates a strong semantic priority in beginner L2 interactions. The quantitative analysis shows a strong trend for the use of content words versus function words in students’ speech, which is consistent with the qualitative results that show the importance of content word comprehension.
This conclusion is consistent with VanPatten (1989), whose theoretical framework places processing for meaning before processing for form.
Our findings also resonate with those of Philp, Walter, and Basturkman (2010), who found that even in classes with more advanced language learners, a majority (>80%) of language-related episodes (LREs) focused on semantic information rather than grammatical.
Since the interaction hypothesis (Long, 1981) and the advent of communicative language teaching in second language education, the importance of interlocutors and input (as well as output) in language classrooms has been the focus of much research. While teacher-student interaction has been investigated to a greater degree, student-student interaction in classroom settings has only recently received attention (e.g., Alegria de la Colina & Garcia Mayo, 2009).
To provide some insight into student-student interaction in the foreign language classroom, this project focused on the linguistic and communicative functions available and utilized by students in an introductory German class.
Two student dyads were recorded as they completed a task-based activity during class time.
Frequency distributions and proportions for
student-student interactions
Table 1 displays the raw numbers for all types and tokens used by each participant, as well as the individual proportions of Type/Token, English/German usage, and German function/content words.
From the frequency counts and distributions, two clear trends can be identified. First, each individual shows a clear trend for an abundant use of English in pair work (all English/German usage proportions > 1).
Second, all participants show a trend for more use of content words versus function words in their production of German (all German function/content word proportions < 1).
Qualitative analysis: Elicited partner support
Both dialogues were analyzed for instances of elicited partner support. Instances of elicited partner support consisted of situations in which one partner specifically asked for help regarding the production or comprehension of German.
For the males, three such occurrences were observed, and for the females, only one.
The obvious pattern to emerge from the elicited partner support instances was the focus on semantic information, specifically content word comprehension. All of the observed instances centered around the comprehension of vocabulary words and no other types of linguistic support (i.e., syntactic, morphological, phonological) were discussed.
The first excerpt from the males’ dialogue and the second excerpt from the females’ dialogue exemplify the semantic focus.
Excerpt 1: Jack and Tom
*TOM: uh welche wichtigen Staedte gibt es in diesen Regionen
*JCK: [xxx]
*TOM: Ber Berlin ist wichtig
[xxx]
sehr wichtig
*JCK: uh auch
Muenchen
*TOM: mhmm
*JCK: Bremen
das ist
ich weiss nicht was ist wichtig
*TOM: important
*JCK: oh yeah
Excerpt 2: Amy and Jill
140 *AMY: ⌊was ist bundeslaender
141 *JIL: bundeslaender is like ⌈the⌉
142 *AMY: ⌊gehoert⌋
143 *JIL: the country the in the states like federal basically
144 *AMY: oh ok
145 *JIL: yeah
146 *AMY: ok yeah
147 *JIL: (6.0) so the states and the cities I guess
148 *JIL: I think it's more like the states
LITERATURE CITED
Alegría de la Colina, A. & García Mayo, M. (2007). Attention to form across collaborative tasks by low-proficiency learners in an EFL setting. In M. Garcia Mayo (Ed.) Investigating Tasks in In formal Language Learning (pp. 91–116). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Gardner, S., Polyzoi, E. & Rampaul, Y. (1996). Individual variables, literacy history,
and ESL progress among Kurdish and Bosnian immigrants. TESL Canada 14, 1–20.
Long, M. (1981). Input, interaction and second language acquisition. In H. Winitz (Ed.) Native Language and Foreign Language Acquisition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 379, pp
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: tools for analyzing talk. Volume I: Transcription format and programs. 3rd edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Philp, J., Walter, S., & Basturkmen, H. (2010). Peer interaction in the foreign language classroom: What factors foster a focus on form? Language Awareness 19(4),
Van Patten, B. (1989). Can learners attend to form and content while processing input? Hispania 72,
MATERIALS & METHODS
Table 1: Type, Token, and Type/Token, English/German, and Function/Content proportions for each participant
Participants
Students were selected from an introductory German course, of which one of the researchers was the instructor. One pair consisted of two females and the other pair consisted of two males.
Data Collection
Data were collected via lapel microphones attached to high quality digital recorders. Data collection occurred during a 15 minute task-based activity during a normal class period.
Data Transcription
Data were transcribed using CLAN (MacWhinney, 2000).
Analysis
Frequency distributions for English vs. German language use and German Content vs. Function word use were calculated using CLAN. Also, a qualitative analysis of interactions was conducted to see what kind of support students provide each other during interaction.
Pair 1: Males
Jack Tom
Pair 2: Females
Amy Jill
Types
(English and German)
149
135
159
172
Tokens
299
233
348
490
Type/Token
0.745
0.579
0.457
0.351
English/
German Usage Ratio
2.87
1.49
2.02
2.88
German Function/
Content Word Usage Ratio
0.562
0.356
0.882
0.837
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A very special thanks to those students who gave their time to help with this project.