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Interrogative structures in the interlanguage of ESL learners
Further evidence of the role of language universals
- Source: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Volume 27, Issue 1, Jan 2004, p. 89 - 103
Abstract
English interlanguage interrogative structures examined with regard to two implicational universals were found to be supportive of predictive validity of the universals (Eckman, Moravcsik & Wirth, 1989). This study further tests the extent to which the two universals could hold for English interlanguage in a different setting. The two implicational universals at issue were formulated by Greenberg (1963) who claimed that subject-verb inversion occurs in yes-no questions only if it also occurs in wh-questions, and that subject-verb inversion in wh-questions occurs only if wh-words/phrases are fronted. Unlike Eckman et al’s study, the present study used interview and role-play tasks to collect data from fifty-two ESL learners at the Monash University English Language Centre; however, findings of this study are comparable to those of Eckman et al (1989) in that they also strongly support the observed universals. A tentative explanation in terms of fossilisation, though, seems to account more appropriately for the exception in this study.