Tense and Aspect in Itu Mbon Uso
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The major objective of this study is to analyze the written narratives of Ibibio learners of ESL to investigate the general pattern of acquisition of tense-aspect morphology. Specific objectives include:
- To describe the general pattern of distribution of tense-aspect morphology among Itu mbon uso speakers speakers
- To describe the pattern of distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology among Itu moon uso speakers vis-à-vis the predictions of the AH and CSH.
- To provide an account of other factors like the differences in levels of proficiency, the effects of instruction, and the effects of the L1 that might affect the acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology among Itu mbon uso speakers speakers
- The achievement of these objectives will enhance the comparison of research results from studies with L2 learners across typologically diverse L1 leading to theoretical generalizations with regards to the tenets of the aspect hypothesis and the cognitive saliency hypothesis.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Tense and Aspect
Tense may be defined as a deictic category that locates an event on the time line, usually with reference to the time of speaking or moment of speech (Bardovi-Harlig 2000:96 following Comrie 1976, Dalh 1985, Moshi 1994 etc). In contrast, grammatical/viewpoint aspect does not locate an event or a situation on a time line, nor does it relate the time of one situation in relation to another. Rather, it is concerned with “the internal temporal constituency of one situation; one could state the difference as one between situation-internal time (grammatical aspect) and situation-external time (tense)” (Comrie 1976:5; Bardovi-Harlig 2000: 96). In this study we shall use the term tense to refer to this deictic category that makes use of morphological devices like affixes, periphrastic operations and auxiliaries to locate the situation time in relation to the speech time or the moment of speaking about the situation. This is differentiated from the terms temporality or time reference. Temporality refers to the totality of the strategies and devices that learners employ in the process of their acquisition of the concept of time including those temporal strategies used before the emergence of tense-aspect morphology. For example, before the emergence of tense-aspect morphology, learners establish temporal reference in four ways. These include reliance on the contribution of fellow speakers (scaffolded discourse), reference inferred from a particular context (implicit reference), contrasting events, and following a chronological order in narration. (Bardovi-Harlig 2000, Dietrich et. al. 1995; Giacalone Ramat & Banfi 1990; Meisel 1987, Trevise 1987). Learners can use a combination of these strategies in a single utterance.
Also, Declerck (2000) presents a distinction between “tense” and “time”. The former is conceived of as a linguistic category whereas the latter is an extra-linguistic concept. According to this idea, tense denotes the form taken by a verb to locate the situation referred to in time. Lexical aspect is the inherent temporal semantic constituents of the verb or the predicate or the verbal constellation discussed by Smith (1997). We will discuss tense, viewpoint aspect and lexical aspect in more detail in the following subsections.
Tense
The category of tense in a sentence locates the situation discussed in the sentence in time. For example, the sentence in (1), adopted from Smith (1997:97), informs us that the event in the proposition “Algernon ran in the park” occurred one day prior to the time of speech and for an interval of an hour.
Algernonran in the park for an hour
According to Smith (1997:97), The information is given by the past tense form of the main verb and the time adverbial. The tense locates the event relative to the time of speech, a truth conditional matter. It also establishes the past as the temporal standpoint (Reference point) of the sentence, a conceptual matter. The adverbial further specifies the time of the event.
Time is a single unbounded stretch of physical phenomenon and can be conceptually comparable to space.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The design of this study is cross-sectional which means that it involves an observation of the linguistic phenomenon in a cross-section of a population and subsequent sampling of the cross- section of that population at a particular point in time. This is in contrast with longitudinal case studies which involve an observation of a few individual representatives of a population usually 1-4 individual members of a group over an extended period of time. Inherently longitudinal studies are developmental. They observe the emergent, the development, and the spread of a linguistic form or form-function correlation in interlanguage of second language learners. Longitudinal studies afford the investigator the opportunity to follow the changes in interlanguage on individual bases and provide a detail description of such changes over time. However, longitudinal studies are often very difficult to quantify and the population studied is often very small thereby making generalization of the research findings difficult if not impossible (Rohde 2002 etc).
Cross-sectional studies tend to be more exploratory and analytical but not inherently developmental. However, cross sectional studies can be designed to be developmental if appropriate levels of proficiency are included in the sample (Bardivi-Harlig 2000). This study has included learners at various levels of proficiency measured by the number of years they have spent studying the target language. This is deduced from the academic hierarchy of the participants sampled for this study (Salaberry 1999b, Upor 2009). Nevertheless, not all cross- sectional studies have the potential to be developmental and to show the acquisitional sequences or acquisition process of linguistic forms in the interlangauge. Studies that take a snap-shot of a cross-section of a population without including participants from different levels of proficiency do not meet the developmental criteria because they cannot show the process of acquisition of tense-aspect morphology across groups and over time. Instead, these studies can be viewed as exploratory and analytical comparing rates of accuracy across participants (Salaberry 2000, Ayoun and Salaberry 2008).
The Research Participants
The target population in this study includes English as second language learners (ESL) who are currently in educational institutions in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. These include students in primary schools, secondary schools and universities in the State. This is apparently a very large population both in terms of size and magnitude so this study selected a sample to represent the entire population. The shared features of the selected population for this study included the following. (1) All participants must speak the Ibibio language or dialects of the Ibibio language as their L1. (2) All participants must be born or raised in an Ibibio speaking community. (3) All participants must attend educational institutions in the research area-Akwa Ibom State-during the time of this research.
Conversely, the variable features of the selected population included the following facts. One, their proficiency levels in ESL vary according to their levels of educational attainment. These will be measured in correlation with other variables to see if they have significant effects on the acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology. Two, their age varies according to whether they are in primary schools, secondary schools or universities during the time of this study. And three, their degree of exposure to the English language outside the classroom varies according to the degree to which the participants use English in their homes. This information was collected through a questionnaire administered on the participants. It was designed to elicit demographic information on the participant. The demographic information was expected to provide this study with a way of measuring the varying effects of the differences in the degree of exposure to the English language outside the classroom on acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology.
The 171 participants sampled for this study were organized into six groups according to whether they were in primary schools, secondary schools or universities. Groups 1 and 2 were sampled from two primary schools, groups 3 and 4 were sampled from two secondary schools and groups 5 and 6 were sampled from a university. In order to safeguard the confidentiality of individual participants, each participant was assigned a unique code number that can be used to identify the data collected from each participant.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH FINDINGS
Table 4.1 Raw Token Count of Verbal Morphology by Lexical Aspectual Class and Groups
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION, SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Introduction
This chapter presents a discussion of the major research findings and the conclusion of this study. Recall that the major aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which the expression of temporality through inflectional morphology by second language learners is determined or influenced by the lexical semantics of the verbs and or the lexical saliency of the verbs. Other factors like the learners’ L1 and the differences in the levels of instruction that might influence acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology were also investigated. The results of the data analyses and the hypotheses testing revealed the following. (1) There was a significant effect of the lexical aspect on acquisition and distribution of the tense-aspect morphology based on the results of hypotheses testing. (2) There was a significant effect of the lexical aspect on acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology based on the results of hypotheses testing. (3) There was no support for the aspect hypothesis (AH) on the sequence of acquisition or direction of spread of tense-aspect morphology among the learners at lower levels of instruction based on the results of the analyses of raw scores and percentages. (4) There was partial support for the AH on the sequence of acquisition or direction of spread of tense-aspect morphology among the learners at higher levels of instruction based on the results of the analyses of raw scores and percentages. (5) There was complete support for the AH on the spread of the progressive marking based on the within category comparison of percentages.
Other results of the data analyses also included the following. (6) We found a significant effect of lexical saliency on acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology based on the results of the hypotheses testing. (7) We also found a high degree of influence of lexical
saliency among the learners at lower levels of instruction than among the learners at higher levels of instruction based on the results of the analyses of raw scores and percentages. (8) There is additional evidence on the influence of lexical saliency based on the analyses of the sequence of distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology internal to the irregular class of verbs. (9) The analysis also showed a significant effect of the interaction between groups and the production of tense-aspect morphology indicating a positive effect of instruction. (10) Finally, there were various forms of cross-linguistic effects that influenced the learners’ narrative structure in different ways. All these are discussed in comparison with the results in previous studies. An attempt is made to provide the psycho-cognitive explanation for some of these findings wherever applicable. Also discussed in this chapter are the implications of these findings to the theories of second language acquisition of tense-aspect morphology in general, implication of these findings to the English language pedagogy among the Itu mbon uso and suggestions on areas of further research into second language acquisition of tense-aspect morphology.
The Discussion of the Major Finding
Conclusion
This study was a cross-sectional study whose major aim was to describe and analyze the pattern of acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology among the Itu mbon uso sampled from various schools and levels of education in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. The results of the data analyses revealed a statistically significant relationship between the lexical aspectual classes of the verbal predicates and the acquisition and distribution of verbal morphology in general and the past tense marking in particular. The results also revealed a statistically significant relationship between the perceptual saliency of the verbal predicates and acquisition and distribution of the past tense-aspect morphology. However, the relationship between the two independent variables and verbal morphology was mediated by the influence of the differences in levels of proficiency. The results showed that the influence of the perceptual saliency of the verbal predicates tends to be more relevant among the learners at lower levels of instruction than among the learners at higher levels. On the other hand, the influence of the lexical aspectual class of the verbal predicates tends to be more relevant among the learners at higher levels of instruction than among the learners at lower levels of instruction. Aspect hypothesis cannot explain why the influence of lexical aspect should be more prominent at higher levels of instruction than at lower levels. We claim that that the issue of the point along the developmental pathway where the influence of lexical aspect is relevant is not settled and therefore open to future research. Based on these findings, we argue that there are two distinct but related cognitive processes involved in the development of inflectional endings in second
language acquisition. These include the lexical-based learning which is operative at the lower levels of proficiency and employs the perceptual saliency and frequency of the verbal predicates as a cognitive guide into the inflectional morphology of the target language plus the rule-based learning which is operative at the higher levels of proficiency and employs the generalizability of morpho-syntactic rules as a guide into inflectional morphology of the target language. This type of study has rarely been conducted among the participants whose L1 is an African language and therefore a replication of this study among other participants of African origin is recommended.
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