Are –ING Psych Adjectives More Difficult to Acquire than –ED Psych Adjectives? Evidence from L1 Thai Learners of L2 English
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study investigated the acquisition of English psych(ological) adjectives by Thai learners. Theoretically, participial adjectives with the –ed and –ing morphemes, which are derived from OE psych verbs, have been treated similarly to SE and OE psych verbs, respectively. (Roberts 1989; Nakajima 1993). As the little research done in this area only involved Chinese learners (Chen, 1997), Japanese learners (Sato, 2008; Suzuki et al., 2013; Hirakawa and Suzuki, 2014), French learners (Chen, 1997), and Spanish learners (Hirakawa and Suzuki, 2014), this study aimed to fill in the gap by exploring whether –ing psych adjectives would pose more problems to Thai learners than –ed psych adjectives as witnessed in the previous studies. Fifty-six Thai students from a public university were recruited and divided into three levels of English proficiency before they participated in a Picture Description Task (PDT) and a Sentence Interpretation Task (SIT). The results suggested that all groups of the participants performed significantly better on –ed psych adjectives in the PDT. The elementary and low-intermediate groups also performed significantly better on –ed adjectives in the SIT. It is assumed that the learners had difficulty mapping the Theme onto subjects, thus performing worse on –ing adjectives. It can be argued that the L1 Thai learners were guided by universal principles as more marked structures, like in the case of –ing adjectives, were more problematic for them. Some morphological properties associated with psych adjective formation in their L1 were also observed in this study.
Article Details
Copyright by the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University.
Photocopying is allowed for internal, non-commercial use only. Photocopying for other uses or for purposes other than indicated must be permitted in writing from the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University.
All views or conclusion are those of the authors of the articles and not necessarily those of the publisher or the editorial staff.References
Chen, D. (1997). L2 Acquisition of Psych Predicates by Native Speakers of Chinese and French. Doctoral Dissertation. McGill University.
Craven, M. (2016). Breakthrough plus level 2 student’s book pack. London: Macmillan Education.
Hirakawa, M. and Suzuki, K. (2014). Is the dog ‘frightened’ or ‘frightening’?: psych adjectives in L2 English by speakers of Japanese and Spanish. In R.T. Miller et al. (eds.) Selected Proceedings of the 2012 Second Language Research Forum. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Nakajima, H. (1995). Linking and Suppress-α. In Nakajima, H. & Otsu, Y. (eds.), Argument structure: its syntax and acquisition. Kaitakusha: Special Publications of the English Linguistic Society of Japan. 103-121.
Prasithrathsint, A. (2000). Adjectives as verbs in Thai. Linguistic Typology, 4(2), 251-272.
Roberts, I. (1989). Compound psych-adjectives and the ergative hypothesis. Proceedings of the 19th Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. 358−374.
Rovinelli, R.J. & Hambleton, R.K. (1976). On the use of content specialists in the assessment of criterion-referenced test item validity. Dutch Journal of Educational Research, 2, 49-60.
Sato, Y. (2003). Japanese learners linking problems with English psych verbs. Reading Working Papers in Linguistics, 7, 125-144.
Sato, Y. (2008). The effect of L1 in L2 acquisition of argument structure: with special reference to psych adjectives. 追手門学院大学国際教養学部紀要, 2, 43-60.
SPSS Inc. (2007). SPSS for Windows (Version 16.0). Chicago: SPSS Inc.
Suzuki, K., Kunikane, T., Yotsuya, A. and Hirakawa, M. (2013). Second language acquisition of English psychological adjectives by Japanese learners. 文教大学言語と文化, 25, 46-69.
Tarone, E. E., Gass, S. M., & Cohen, A. D. (1994). Research methodology in second language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
UCLES. (2001). Quick placement test (version 2). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
White, L. (2003). Second language acquisition and universal grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
White, L., C. Brown, J. Bruhn de Garavito, D. Chen, M. Hirakawa and S. Montrul (1998). Psych verbs in second language acquisition. In Klein, E. and G. Martohardjono (eds.) The Development of Second Language Grammars: A Generative Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. 171-196.
Witoon, S. and Singhapreecha, P. (2012). Psych vs. causative: a view from Thai EFL learners. The First LITU International Graduate Conference Proceedings.161-167.