Gedik TA (2022)
Publication Type: Thesis
Publication year: 2022
URI: https://tangedik.owlstown.net/publications
Decades of linguistic research points to the importance of frequency in linguistic knowledge. So far, second language acquisition studies have mainly considered transfer between two or more languages as a binary setting, it either happens or does not. However, research emerging out of usage-based approaches show that such transfer effects might be more gradient than ever thought before (e.g., Goschler & Stefanowitsch 2019). Investigating a construction that has been reported to pose problems such as overpassivization to L2 English learners, i.e., unaccusatives, this study aims to trace gradient transfer effects between Turkish and English in the intransitive-unaccusative construction in Turkish speakers of English. Following Goschler and Stefanowitsch's (2019) method to analyzing collostructional transfer effects, the study revealed similar findings. Findings suggest that learners are likely to transfer strongly entrenched L1 items into the L2 even at advanced proficiency levels, however, when the item is weakly entrenched in L1, speakers attune to the input in L2 with growing proficiency. Furthermore, proficiency or experience helps with preempting non-optimal constructional combinations. There is also suggestive evidence in favor of item-based learning. The issue of overpassivization is revisited from a usage-based perspective and is reconfigured from a good-enough production perspective (Goldberg & Ferreira 2022).
APA:
Gedik, T.A. (2022). The Intransitive-Unaccusative Construction in Turkish and English: L1-L2 Generalizations and Transfer (Master thesis).
MLA:
Gedik, Tan Arda. The Intransitive-Unaccusative Construction in Turkish and English: L1-L2 Generalizations and Transfer. Master thesis, 2022.
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