Developing Grammars: The Acquisition of German Syntax by Foreign Workers

ISBN-13: 9783642673870 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 224 str.

Willemijn M. Klein; N. Dittmar

Opis

This study deals with variation in grammar both from a theoretical and an empirical point of view. In Part I (Chaps. 1-4), an attempt is made to char acterize this phenomenon within the broader context of what might be called the "fluctuating character of natu'ral language," and to develop suitable and precise descriptive techniques that account for it. The method which is pro posed here is called "variety grammar" - roughly speaking, this is a formal grammar with probabilistic weighting for an ordered set of varieties, such as dialects, sociolects, registers, or developmental stages. In Part II (Chaps. 5-8), this technique is applied to an important area of grammatical variation - to the process of second language acquisition in social context, based on a large investigation of the language behavior of foreign migrant workers acquiring German through everyday contacts. We have tried to characterize their "developing grammars" and to relate this complex developmental process to social and individual factors that determine it."

Spis treści

I Variation in Language and Its Description.- 1 Fluctuating Linguistic Structures.- 2 Dimensions of Language Variability.- 2.1 Problems of Description vs Problems of Evaluation.- 2.2 Setting Up a Variety Space.- 2.2.1 The Dimension of Time.- 2.2.2 The Dimension of Place.- 2.2.3 The Dimension of the Speech Situation.- 2.2.4 The Dimension of Social Stratification.- 2.3 Developing an Overall Grammar.- 2.4 Restricting the Overall Grammar to Single Varieties.- 2.5 Summary.- 3 Probabilistic Grammars.- 3.1 Probabilistic Weightings.- 3.2 Context-Free Grammars.- 3.2.1 Preparatory Remarks.- 3.2.2 Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars, Suppes Type.- 3.2.3 Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars, Salomaa Type.- 3.2.4 Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars with Derivation Weighting (dw Grammars).- 3.3 Context-Sensitive Grammars.- 3.4 Transformational Grammars.- 4 The Empirical Study of Language Variation.- 4.1 Selection of Variety Space.- 4.2 Selection of Utterance Type.- 4.3 Data Collection.- 4.4 Corpus Analysis.- 4.5 Elaboration of an Overall Grammar.- 4.6 Rule Weighting.- II Developing Grammars in the Acquisition of German in Social Context.- 5 Foreign Language Acquisition in Social Context and Its Role for Foreign Language Teaching.- 5.1 LAS in FLAT Research: The State of the Art.- 5.2 The Process of LA and Its Description: Some Remarks on the State of the Art.- 5.2.1 The Exclusion of LAS.- 5.2.2 Efficiency and Inefficiency of Teaching Methods.- 5.2.3 Measuring Language Abilities.- 5.3 The Process of LA and Its Description II: The Heidelberg Approach.- 5.4 Intervening in the Process of LA.- 5.5 Description of Target Variety.- 6 Outline of the Project.- 6.1 Extralinguistic Factors on LAS by Foreign Workers.- 6.1.1 Bias Factors.- 6.1.2 Environmental Factors.- 6.2 Data Collection.- 6.2.1 The Role of Participant Observation and Interview.- 6.2.2 The Sample.- 6.3 The Interview.- 6.4 Transcription.- 6.5 The Dialect Speakers.- 6.6 Some Text Samples.- 7 The Acquisition of German Syntax.- 7.1 The Development of Syntactic Constituents.- 7.1.1 Materials and Methods.- The Overall Grammar.- The Corpus Analysis.- Ordering the Speakers.- 7.1.2 Results.- Preliminary Remarks.- Proposition.- Verbal Group.- Nominal Complex.- Adverbial Complex.- Subordinate Clauses.- 7.1.3 Text Samples for Groups I–IV.- 7.1.4 Summary.- 7.2 The Order of Syntactic Constituents in the Sentences.- 7.2.2 The Importance of Word Order in the Learning of German Syntax.- 7.2.2 Fields Studied and Processes of Description.- 7.2.3 Linguistic Conditions of the Interpretation of Quantitative Results.- 7.2.4 Results.- Position of the Finite Verb in the Main Clause.- The Place of the Grammatical Part of the Predicate (Impersonal Forms of the Verb) and/or the Separable Particle in the Main Clause.- The Position of the Verb in Subordinate Clauses.- 7.3 Complete Results for 48 Learners and a Group of Heidelberg Dialect Speakers.- 8 Determining Factors in the Foreign Language Acquisition of Foreign Workers.- 8.1 Selection of Factors.- 8.2 Implementation.- 8.3 Results.- 8.3.1 Contact with Germans in Leisure Time.- 8.3.2 Age.- 8.3.3 Contact with Germans at Working Place.- 8.3.4 Formal Professional Qualification.- 8.3.5 Attendance at School.- 8.3.6 Duration of Stay.- 8.3.7 Sex.- 8.3.8 Origin.- 8.3.9 Abode.- 8.4 Summary.- 8.5 Tables.- References.