Information Highlighting in Advanced Learner English

The syntax–pragmatics interface in second language acquisition

Author
ORCID logoMarcus Callies | University of Freiburg
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027254313 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027289483 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00
 
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This book presents the first detailed and comprehensive study of information highlighting in advanced learner language, echoing the increasing interest in questions of near-native competence in SLA research and contributing to the description of advanced interlanguages. It examines the production and comprehension of specific means of information highlighting in English by native speakers and German learners of English as a foreign language, presenting triangulated experimental and learner corpus data as corroborating evidence. The study focuses on learners’ use of discourse-pragmatically motivated variations of the basic word order such as inversion, preposing, and it- and wh-clefts, an underexplored field in SLA research to date.

The book also provides a critical re-assessment of the study of pragmatics within SLA. It has largely been neglected to date that L2 pragmatic knowledge includes more than the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities for understanding and performing speech acts. Thus, the book argues for an extension of the scope of inquiry in interlanguage pragmatics beyond the cross-cultural investigation of speech acts. It also discusses pedagogical implications for foreign language teaching and will be of interest to applied linguists and SLA researchers, language teachers and curriculum designers.

[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 186] 2009.  xviii, 293 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“Marcus Callies provides SLA researchers with a well-implemented study of the ability of German learners of English to produce pragmatically marked instances of focus and emphasis along with a comparison of how native English speakers express empahasis and focus through lexico-grammatical and syntactic means. Given the lack of research in the area of advanced learners, this study is a superb example of how advanced learner language can be analyzed not only through an experimental study but also in conjunction with written English corpora. This book will be of great interest to syntax specialists and applied linguists.”
“The research on developing bilingualism now shows a very large number of investigations of pragmatics and even more of syntax. Far fewer are the studies that bring these two areas together, and far fewer still are those that do so as well as Marcus Callies has done in this book.”
“The questions that Dr. Callies addresses in this book are among the most persistent and troublesome in second language studies: In what ways is the second language knowledge of very advanced learners similar to or different from native speaker knowledge? And how does a learner balance syntactic and discursive resources in achieving information focus in a new language? In this comprehensive and careful study of advanced German learners of English, Dr. Callies has provided answers to both those questions. The results of this careful and well-written study will be of great interest to linguists, second language acquisition researchers, language teachers, and writers of foreign language textbooks.”
Cited by

Cited by 21 other publications

Arslangul, Arnaud
2023. Introducing a new protagonist in L2 Chinese narratives: Syntactic construction and information organization. Language Teaching Research DOI logo
Cheatham, Gregory A. & Yeonsun Ellie Ro
2011. Communication Between Early Educators and Parents who Speak English as a Second Language A Semantic and Pragmatic Perspective. Early Childhood Education Journal 39:4  pp. 249 ff. DOI logo
Doval Suárez, Susana & Elsa González Álvarez
2012. use of it-clefts in the written production of Spanish advanced learners of English. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 6:1-3  pp. 151 ff. DOI logo
Götz, Sandra
2015. Tense and aspect errors in spoken learner English. In Learner Corpora in Language Testing and Assessment [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 70],  pp. 191 ff. DOI logo
Hasselgård, Hilde
2014. It-clefts in English L1 and L2 academic writing. In Corpus Interrogation and Grammatical Patterns [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 63],  pp. 295 ff. DOI logo
Jiang, Shan & Huiping Zhang
2022. The features and factors in the acquisition of English existential constructions at the syntax–pragmatics interface by Chinese learners. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Larsson, Tove, Marcus Callies, Hilde Hasselgård, Natalia Judith Laso, Sanne van Vuuren, Isabel Verdaguer & Magali Paquot
2020. Adverb placement in EFL academic writing. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 25:2  pp. 156 ff. DOI logo
Leuckert, Sven
2017. Typological Interference in Information Structure: The Case of Topicalization in Asia. Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 65:3  pp. 283 ff. DOI logo
Lozano, Cristóbal & Marcus Callies
2018. Word Order and Information Structure in Advanced SLA. In The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition,  pp. 419 ff. DOI logo
Mahyuni, Muhammad Fadjri & Nur Ahmadi
2023. Linguistic Landscape (LL) and Communication Strategies: Insights from the Local Living. In Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference of Education and Social Sciences (ACCESS 2021),  pp. 241 ff. DOI logo
Mendikoetxea, Amaya & Cristóbal Lozano
2018. From Corpora to Experiments: Methodological Triangulation in the Study of Word Order at the Interfaces in Adult Late Bilinguals (L2 learners). Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 47:4  pp. 871 ff. DOI logo
Patterson, Clare, Yulia Esaulova & Claudia Felser
2017. The impact of focus on pronoun resolution in native and non-native sentence comprehension. Second Language Research 33:4  pp. 403 ff. DOI logo
Pérez-Guerra, Javier
2018. An empirical study on word order in predicates: on syntax, processing and information in native and learner English. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas 13:1  pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Starren, Marianne
2023. Language-specific principles of discourse conceptualization in L2 English. Language, Interaction and Acquisition 14:1  pp. 106 ff. DOI logo
Udaya, Muthyala & Chada Ramamuni Reddy
2023. Korpusbasierte Wortschatzstudien. In Strategien zum Wortschatzerwerb und Korpus,  pp. 123 ff. DOI logo
van Hilten, Myrte & Sanne van Vuuren
2017. Does it ‘feel’ non-native?. Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics 6:2  pp. 197 ff. DOI logo
Wei, Jing
2013. Corpus-based Research on Topical Theme Choices in Chinese and Swedish English Learner Writings. Theory and Practice in Language Studies 3:12 DOI logo
Werner, Valentin
2017. Adversative Pragmatic Markers in Learner Language: A Cross-Sectional Perspective. Corpus Pragmatics 1:2  pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Yao, Xinyue
2016. Cleft constructions in Hong Kong English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 37:2  pp. 197 ff. DOI logo
Yildiz, Yasemin
2017. Explaining the orthography–phonology interface in written corpora: an Optimality–Theoretic approach. Corpora 12:2  pp. 181 ff. DOI logo
Zerbian, Sabine
2015. Syntactic and prosodic focus marking in contact varieties of South African English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 36:2  pp. 228 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CFK: Grammar, syntax

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2009007777 | Marc record