Journal | EL.LE
Journal issue | 9 | 1 | 2020
Research Article | The Use of the Verb Run in English Learner-Narratives
The Use of the Verb Run in English Learner-Narratives
An Analysis of Verb Constructions Influenced by Different L1s
Abstract
The present paper investigates the use of the verb RUN in texts compiled in English by three groups of multilingual learners in the North of Italy. The participants spoke three different L1s: Ladin, Italian, and German. The main objective was to ascertain whether L1 imprints could be identified in the different groups, and whether the Ladin subjects behaved more similarly to their Italian or German counterparts. Despite considerable homogeneity found across all groups, the findings surprisingly suggested a stronger closeness between the texts of Ladin and German speakers, and not – as the typological relationship between Ladin and Italian would suggest – between Ladin and Italian speakers. The present data implicate that multilingual speakers bring to bear composite cognitive and typological systems when they construct texts in English as a third or further language, and text features are usually not easily attributable to a typologically clearly defined L1.
Submitted: March 8, 2019 | Accepted: May 10, 2020 | Published July 30, 2020 | Language: en
Keywords Satellite-framed languages • Ladin frog story • English as a third or fourth language • Learner-texts
Copyright © 2020 Martina Irsara, Ulrike Domahs. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/ELLE/2280-6792/2020/01/004
