The Relationship between EFL learns first and second languages based on judgments of grammatical correctness of article usage

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to answer the following question: Is there a relationship between the learners' first language (LI) and judgments of grammatical correctness of sentences in their L2? The relationship between learners' native and second languages can be viewed from different aspects of learners' verbal performance, such as grammatical errors, non-use of LI rules similar in L2, judgments of grammatical correctness, and avoidance. The purpose of this particular study is to explore the relationship between the learners' judgments of grammatical correctness of various sentences containing the articles a, an, or the and the learners' first languages. The first part of this study, therefore, involved collecting data on learners' production of writing samples with errors in the articles a, an, and the. The second part focused on recording the judgments from the same learners about the grammaticality of the writing samples containing these errors. The subjects selected for this study came from four different LI backgrounds. Subjects from two first language backgrounds, Turkish and Japanese, were selected since they have a common feature in terms of using no article. On the other hand, the other subjects, French and German, had first languages where articles are commonly used.The initial research procedures consisted of asking subjects to write a composition on how they learned English. Then, 43 sentences extracted from the subjects writing samples were checked by 10 British native speakers of English in order to be sure that native speakers agreed on the use of articles in these sentences. Then 30 sentences were extracted out of the original 43 based on information provided by the native speakers, and these were used in the questionnaire. After this, the non-native speaking subjects were asked in the questionnaire to indicate correct and incorrect sentences and underline the incorrect portion of the sentences by writing the correct form above. In analyzing the data, subjects were initially classified into two groups according to their first language backgrounds. Subjects who spoke Turkish and Japanese were placed in the (-) article language group whereas the others who spoke French and German constituted the (+) article language group. The analysis of results showed that subjects first languages influenced their judgments of grammatical correctness of sentences containing errors in the use of articles. The subjects from (+) article languages, French and German, performed significantly better than the subjects from (-) article languages, Turkish and Japanese, while making judgments on grammaticality on the items in the questionnaire. Moreover, significantdifferences which were found between the performance of (-) article first languages and (+) article first languages confirmed the hypothesis that EFL learners judgments of grammatical correctness were affected by the differences between their first and second languages in terms of appropriate use of the articles a, an, and ihe.