Bibliothèque de L'IMIST/CNRST

Sous format papier

Université Mohammed V - Souissi

The present study aims at investigating the acquisition of the English dative alternation by Moroccan EFL university learners within Stochastic Optimality Theory. In this lexicosyntactic alternation, the recipient argument in a giving event, for example, can be realized as a noun phrase in a double object construction (e.g John gave Mary the book) or as a prepositional phrase in the prepositional dative construction (e.g. John gave the book to Mary). Based on previous L2 acquisition research and a contrastive account of the dative alternation in English and Moroccan Arabic, it is hypothesized that the structural, semantic and informational similarities between the subjects’ L1 and English will facilitate the acquisition of this lexico-syntactic alternation. Conversely, instances of incomparability are hypothesized to delay acquisition. To test these hypotheses, an ex post facto research design was adopted. 99 EFL university learners were evenly divided into a preintermediate group (N=33), an intermediate group (N=33), and an advanced group (N=33) based on their performance on the Cambridge Quick Placement Test. Four different tasks were used to collect the relevant data: a gradient grammaticality judgment task, a categorical grammaticality judgment task, a sentence construction task, and a translation task. The data collected was subjected to a series of repeated measures analysis of variance. The overall model investigated the effect of English language proficiency level as well as the effect of the six dative verbs and the eight constructions tested. The results attributed a clear role to proficiency level in the acquisition of the English dative alternation. The constructions and verbs tested also had independent main effects qualified by a significant interaction. The results confirm the three hypotheses postulated. The preintermediate subjects were found to represent the English dative alternation in line with the constraint ranking regulating the dative alternation in their L1. At the intermediate level, the subjects were quite successful in surmounting the effect of L1 structural and informational transfer, but the effect of L1 semantic transfer persisted in full force through the advanced level. Various research implications and pedagogical applications are suggested and discussed.