The Second Time: The Acquisition of Temporality in Dutch and French as a Second Language

Author: Marianne Starren
LOT Number: 50
ISBN: 90-76864-11-x
Pages: 280
Year: 2001
€38.00
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The general aim of this study was to provide an overview of the untutored
acquisition of temporal reference by second language learners of Dutch and
French during a two-and-half-year period. The data were collected from the onset
of the acquisition process in the host countries. The comparison between learners
with different source languages (Turkish and Moroccan-Arabic) acquiring the
same target language (Dutch) and learners with the same source language
(Moroccan-Arabic) learning two different target languages (French and Dutch)
provided a good testing-ground for the investigation of possible source and target
language influences. The outcome of this longitudinal and cross-linguistic
investigation shows striking similarities and differences.

In this concluding chapter, I will first describe the findings of this study with
respect to the acquisition of a (second) temporal reference system (section 9.1).
A substantial part of this study consisted of the establishment of a discourseanalytic
framework to diagnose the expressive power of different learners’
linguistic repertoires. Therefore, in section 9.2, the development of these analytic
tools is recollected, before I give a stepwise description of the acquisition of
temporal reference in Dutch and French by the Moroccan and Turkish learners
in the present study (section 9.3). Finally, I discuss in a rather tentative way, the
factors or mechanisms which might have shaped and pushed the acquisition stages
as they occurred in the present study (section 9.4).

The general aim of this study was to provide an overview of the untutored
acquisition of temporal reference by second language learners of Dutch and
French during a two-and-half-year period. The data were collected from the onset
of the acquisition process in the host countries. The comparison between learners
with different source languages (Turkish and Moroccan-Arabic) acquiring the
same target language (Dutch) and learners with the same source language
(Moroccan-Arabic) learning two different target languages (French and Dutch)
provided a good testing-ground for the investigation of possible source and target
language influences. The outcome of this longitudinal and cross-linguistic
investigation shows striking similarities and differences.

In this concluding chapter, I will first describe the findings of this study with
respect to the acquisition of a (second) temporal reference system (section 9.1).
A substantial part of this study consisted of the establishment of a discourseanalytic
framework to diagnose the expressive power of different learners’
linguistic repertoires. Therefore, in section 9.2, the development of these analytic
tools is recollected, before I give a stepwise description of the acquisition of
temporal reference in Dutch and French by the Moroccan and Turkish learners
in the present study (section 9.3). Finally, I discuss in a rather tentative way, the
factors or mechanisms which might have shaped and pushed the acquisition stages
as they occurred in the present study (section 9.4).

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