Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen - Volume 39, Issue 1, 1991

The distinction between lexicon and grammar has long been seen as one between loose elements and rules, between building blocks and building principles. For that reason the lexicon was considered as scientifically less interesting. In the last few years however, the idea has grown that the lexicon has to be assigned a more central role in language study and that both aspects of language are more closely related than has often been thought. Syntacticians discover that much of what has been presented as "rule" gets stuck in numerous lexical particularities. Lexicographers spend much energy in explicit descriptions of the grammatical possibilities and impossibilities of every single lexical unit (word, word meaning, idiom etc.) In the field of Applied Linguistics, whether it concerns itself with SL/FL acquisition or with SL/FL processing the lexicon is playing a role of increasing importance.This paper discusses some questions concerning the relationship between lexicon and grammar seen from these perspectives.

Recent research in discourse analysis shows that coherence plays an essential role in understanding discourse. It is, therefore, interesting to investigate what position coherence occupies in language teaching and testing. This question was addressed in two ways: a survey of literature written by language teachers and testers. The purpose of this survey was to find literature about coherence. It was found that such literature was very scarce. The second way was an analysis of final examinations in English for HAVO and VWO. In this analysis particular attention was given to questions pertaining to text coherence: it was found that only 12% of the examination questions were questions of coherence. So it can be concluded that coherence doesn't play an important part in language teaching and testing.Another question that was addressed in the article concerns the possibility of constructing a coherence test. To answer that question a test constructed at CITO (Dutch Institute for Educational Measurement),that was meant to test the understanding of coherence was examined in two ways. First a discourse analysis was made in order to find questions of coherence: 100% of the questions were questions of coherence. The second part of the research was empirical: 689 students were administered the discourse test. With these empirical data some hypotheses were formulated and tested.

This article describes research which has focused on the level of difficulty of texts and questions as an explanation for the difference in text comprehension between non-native and native pupils. The degree to which text comprehension in native and non-native pupils could be facilitated by means of controlling texts and questions was investigated. From the results the following conclusions were drawn:1) Non-native pupils scored significantly lower than native Dutch pupils in all tests that dealt with text comprehension;2) When the test questions were controlled by changing a number of factors which supposedly made understanding more difficult, the scores of both non-native and native pupils improved significantly;3) When the texts of the tests were rewitten, the non-native pupils improved in their scores and the native pupils did not;4) When both the texts and questions were controlled, the results seemed to show that the non-native pupils had caught up for a great part where they were found to have "lagged behind".

In communication between native (NS) and non-native (NNS) speakers problems of understanding may easily arise because the NNS do not have a complete knowledge of the rules and means of communication of the particular target language community. When a NNS indicates non-understanding the NS usually will adjust his or her language, and the interaction will be modified. Hatch (1978) and Long (1983) hypothesized that these adjustments will lead to an increase of comprehensible input for the NNS and thus to language acquisition.The case study discussed in this article investigates how input is made comprehensible through negotiation of meaning in so-called clarification sequences. Two 'housing office' conversations that were videotaped and transcribed for the data collection of the European Science Foundation Project "Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants in Europe" (Perdue, 1984) were analyzed. The study is a follow-up on the 'Ways of Achieving Understanding' study (Bremer et al, 1988) executed as part of the ESF project.Questions that were investigated were how Mohamed, a Moroccan speaker of Dutch, indicates understanding problems, how the native speaker tries to solve these problems and what the structure is of the clarification sequences. Furthermore, some attempt was made to analyze the kind of understanding problems Mohamed indicates and the degree of success the speakers have in negotiating understanding.The results showed a basic structure for clarification sequences, starting with a trouble source, followed by a trouble indicator, trouble clarification, and ending with a main-line response connected to the trouble source. The trouble sources Mohamed indicated were mostly lexical problems. The way he indicated understanding problems was quite implicit. He either did not verbally react to a move of the NS or reacted with minimal unspecified requests, such as "hm?" or "what?". Therefore, the NSs did not receive specific feedback as to what the problem was. In spite of this, they used several strategies to clarify problems, such as reformulations, expansions and hypothesis forming. In addition, it was found that the negotiation of meaning process was quite successful: most understanding problems seemed to be solved that way. ReferencesBremer K., Broeder P., Roberts C, Simonot M., Vasseur M.-T. (1988). Ways of Achieving Understanding: Communicating to Learn in a Second Language. Final Report Vol. I, ESF project, Strassbourg. Perdue, C. (Ed.) (1984). Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants. Newbury House, Rowley, Mass.

Although the model of English pronunciation in Dutch schools is, and always has been, British English (commonly known as Received Pronunciation, RP), not only teachers, but also informed laymen notice that the pronunciation of learners seems to be more and more influenced by American English. An investigation into the nature and spread of this influence therefore seems in order. This paper discusses some of the preliminary results of a research project which aims to give an inventory and description of the influence of American English (General American, GA) on the pronunciation of 10 phonological variables, among which are /æ/ in words like classroom and wineglass, and flapped /t/ in words like pretty and meeting.A second aim of the project is to find out to which the degree the American and British varieties are attractive to our population. Therefore a number of listening tests were administered:- a preference test, in which subjects had to indicate which pronunciation of a lexical item they thought (a) best (i.e. confirm to the school norm) and (b) they would prefer to use themselves.- an identification test, in which subjects had to indicate whether an item was pronounced in RP or in GA.- a matched guise test consisting of 12 versions of the same story, read by 8 speakers, 4 of them in both varieties.A preliminary inventory shows that in roughly 25% of all the pronunciations of single lexical items (word list style) we can speak of an 'American-like' pronunciaton. The variables that are pronounced most frequently GA-like are flapped /t/ in little, /æ/ in classroom, /a/ in hockey and postvocalic /r/ in morning. It also appears that RP is still the preferred variety on both the preference tests, although this preference decreases slightly when asked which pronunciation they would prefer to use themselves. Roughly 65% of the items was correctly identified as being RP or GA. Finally, the matched guise test showed a significantly high rating of GA female voices on all factors except for the factor 'school-norm'. RP males and females scored relatively high on this factor as well as on 'social status', but dropped considerably on the 'activity' factor and remained below the GA voices on 'personal affect'.

Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN) is considered to be the native language of many prelingually deaf people in the Netherlands. Although research has provided evidence that sign languages are fully fletched natural languages, many misconceptions still abound about sign languages and deaf people. The low status of sign languages all over the world and the attitude of hearing people towards deaf people and their languages, and the resulting attitude of the deaf towards their own languages, restricted the development of these languages until recently.Due to the poor results of deaf education and the dissatisfaction amongst educators of the deaf, parents of deaf children and deaf people themselves, a change of attitude towards the function of sign language in the interaction with deaf people can be observed; many hearing people dealing with deaf people one way or the other wish to learn the sign language of the deaf community of their country. Many hearing parents of deaf children, teachers of the deaf, student-interpreters and linguists are interested in sign language and want to follow a course to improve their signing ability.In order to develop sign language courses, sign language teachers and teaching materials are needed. And precisely these are missing. This is caused by several factors. First, deaf people in general do not receive the same education as hearing people, due to their inability to learn the spoken language of their environment to such an extent, that they have access to the full eduational program. This prohibits them a.o. to become teachers in elementary and secondary schools, or to become sign language teachers. Althought they are fluent "signers", they lack the competence in the spoken language of their country to obtain a teacher's degree in their sign language. A second problem is caused by the fact, that sign languages are visual languages: no adequate system has yet been found to write down a sign language. So until now hardly any teaching materials were available.Sign language courses should be developed with the help of native signers who should be educated to become language-teachers; with their help and with the help of video-material and computer-software, it will be possible in future to teach sign languages as any other language. But in order to reach this goal, it is imperative that deaf children get a better education so that they can contribute to the emancipation of their language.

This article deals with the influence of a learner's native language in the acquisition of L2 derivational morphology. Do learners acquire morphologically complex words like 'learnable' and 'explanation' as unanalysed units or do they acquire and store the stems ('learn'; 'explain') and generate/analyse these forms by using word formation rules? A linguistic model of the lexicon which enables both direct retrieval and generation/analysis on the basis of word formation rules is applied to second language acquisition by distinguishing formal and semantic/syntactic rules. Based on a comparative description of English and Dutch in these terms, a small scale empirical investigation was set out. The results of this research indicate that the primary determinant of the analysability of morphologically complex words is transparency, which is defined from the learner's point of view and is dependent on all prior linguistic knowledge of the learner, including L1. Furthermore, the research indicates that semantic/syntactic similarities between the languages have a greater facilitating effect than formal similarities.

In my master's thesis, which is discussed in this article, I investigated the terminology that is used in French and Dutch for specific dairy products. This resulted in a Dutch/French encyclopedic word list, specialized in the industrial fabrication of consumption milk and milk products.The word list was made on the basis of existing monolingual or bilingual dictionaries completed by data from Dutch or French specialized literature.In this article, a certain number of problems with regard to equivalence between source language and target language in this specific domain are discussed. Furthermore, attention is given to the question whether the knowledge of a translator is generally sufficient to construct, with the help of all relevant documentation a reliable bilingual domain-specific word list.

With respect to full employment migrants still are in a bad position. Despite positive attention for their position, the number of unemployed is very high.One of the problems migrant course-members have to face during their vocational training, is the technical language. This is defined as the language which is used within a certain profession to communicate about the profession.In this article I present the description of an investigation into the use of the technical language, used in textbooks for vocational training within institutes for apprenticeship training and further education. A detailed description is presented in "Een bus is een bus is een bus" (1989).The investigation is based on three theories. The first one describes the relation between learning a second language and language as a communication process. An important aspect here is the "repertoire" the sender and the receiver must have in common in order to be able to communicate with each other. The second theory deals with concepts, their influence on the culture and by that, the assimilation of the data. In this context "concept" means all the meanings, pictures etc,, one can have when reading or hearing a word. The third one gives insight in the relation between the roles a language user has to play, the settings in which he or she has to play that role and the functions of the language activities. All three theories plays their part in vocational training where technical languages are used.Technical language manifests itself in the lexicon (in general technical language, the domain language and in course instruction language) and on text level. Furthermore, technical language has a number of characteristics which can be summarized as "the economical principle". This leads among others to elliptical sentences, composed sentences, passive sentences and changing the word order by placing the clause with the most important information at the beginning of the sentence.It was investigated whether and in which way technical language appears in textbook for learners and what the main problems are for migrant learners. The investigation showed that many texts are a source of problems, because they do not correspond with the knowledge level of the learner.

The language of communication in the oil and gas industry is mainly English. This causes a communication problem for oil companies in countries where English is not the official language.Although a large part of English oil terminology has now been translated into Dutch, a considerable part is still being used in the original English forms.Under the authority of an oil company I compiled a basic bilingual wordlist for the oil and gas industry. Afterwards, it proved worthwhile to investigate to what extent this practical assignment fits in with the terminological knowledge of a translator.The compilation process was divided into seven phases, namely:1. Formulation of the preconditions- target group- type of the wordlist- size (number of lemmas)- compilation time- budget2. Definition of the field of studyBy means of a number of oil and gas publications and handbooks, a classification of the field of study was made.3. Collection / evaluation of the materialThe wordlist was compiled on the basis of both bi- en monolingual publications and handbooks.4. SelectionThe lemmas were selected both on the basis of their frequency in the texts and the expertise of the translator/compiler.5. VerificationThe translations were verified by means of specialized dictionaries, handbooks, monolingual texts and lawbooks. Subsequently, the wordlist was divided into three catagories indicating the degree of reliability of the translation.6. Lexical descriptionIn this phase, the layout of the entry was defined.7. PresentationIt was decided to present the entries in alpabetical order.It proved that, in practice, the compilation process was slightly different from the hypothetical, theoretical process, due to certain restrictions. We concluded, however, that the compilation process fits in well with terminological theories, taking into account the compiler's background and the restrictions.

A pilot study was carried out to investigate the possibility of helping Dutch pupils, who were weak in comprehending English texts, by teaching them certain explicit problem solving strategies. These strategies were part of a heuristic which was based on concepts from cognitive and metacognitive theory. The heuristic was demonstrated to the pupils on computer by means of a number of English texts. Twelve pupils from a VWO-5 class took part in the study. The training lasted for five weeks and every week the problem solving strategies were demonstrated using a new English text. As a result of the training, the pupils used certain (problem solving) strategies more often. These strategies were already known to them, but were seldomly used. They did not learn any strategies of which they had no prior knowledge. The pupils performed much better on a posttest for reading comprehension.

This article discusses some of the results of an experiment in which native speakers of English, Dutch advanced and intermediate learners of English listened to frequently occurring English words, which had been sliced into fragments of increasing duration. From the initial 100 ms. of a word onwards, each fragment contained the preceding fragment and an added 50 ms. of the word. The subjects were asked to write down the sounds they had heard and to identify the test words as soon as they had sufficient perceptual information about the words. Their responses show that the Dutch intermediate learners needed significantly more perceptual information before they were able to recognize a word than the advanced learners and the native speakers.This article discusses some of the results of an experiment in which native speakers of English, Dutch advanced and intermediate learners of English listened to frequently occurring English words, which had been sliced into fragments of increasing duration. From the initial 100 ms. of a word onwards, each fragment contained the preceding fragment and an added 50 ms. of the word. The subjects were asked to write down the sounds they had heard and to identify the test words as soon as they had sufficient perceptual information about the words. Their responses show that the Dutch intermediate learners needed significantly more perceptual information before they were able to recognize a word than the advanced learners and the native speakers.

Until recently very little attention was given to the systematic study of reading and spelling problems in FL-teaching. Today there appears to be a need of instruments for tracking down, diagnosing and treating these problems.In this article an attempt is made at making a complete, systematic and differentiated classification of errors. This classification is linguistically oriented, as this enables the researcher to say of every error in a systematic way, which principle of the orthographic system was violated. It is demonstrated why this classification offers an adequate basis for inventorying, and interpreting spelling errors in French by native Dutch children.In the second part of the article a number of predictions are formulated with regard to the expected spelling errors in French by this group of children and the criteria on which these predictions are based are discussed.