Argument assignment of psych verbs in Spanish speaking learners of English
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Abstract
Spanish Object Verb Subject (OVS) syntactical strings, such as the gustar (to please/to like) type semantical class of psychological verbs cause difficulty for English speaking learners because thematic roles do necessarily map onto grammatical functions the same as English (Whitley, 1995). While English has flexibility in thematic role order where the agent and experiencer can be reversed, Spanish tends to higher syntactical order for the experiencer and offers flexibility in grammatical order. To impede misassignment of arguments during intake, VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) propose an instructional approach on the basis that English speakers use word order strategy to process these reverse construction psychological verbs. This exploratory study aims to determine if Spanish speaking learners of English tend to have difficulty interpreting and assigning arguments in English psych verbs and consider tendencies in strategy use during processing. In a GJT, 100% of the participants (N=13) correctly judged translations of Spanish to English direct constructions but less than one third correctly judged translations to English reverse construction. On a free translation portion, only 21% of the responses used reverse constructions. Thematic role and animacy are strategies used by these learners in interpretation of assignment which can cause misinterpretation when these cues cannot be relied upon. This exploratory study reveals that it is necessary to further investigate strategies used by Spanish learners of this English form. Once a rigorous empirical study identifies existence and cause of learning difficulties, pedagogical implications can be dealt with.
keywords: psych verb, reverse construction, thematic role, experiencer, argument assignment, Spanish, English
Spanish Object Verb Subject (OVS) syntactical strings, such as the gustar (to please/to like) type semantical class of psychological verbs cause difficulty for English speaking learners because thematic roles do necessarily map onto grammatical functions the same as English (Whitley, 1995). While English has flexibility in thematic role order where the agent and experiencer can be reversed, Spanish tends to higher syntactical order for the experiencer and offers flexibility in grammatical order. To impede misassignment of arguments during intake, VanPatten and Cadierno (1993) propose an instructional approach on the basis that English speakers use word order strategy to process these reverse construction psychological verbs. This exploratory study aims to determine if Spanish speaking learners of English tend to have difficulty interpreting and assigning arguments in English psych verbs and consider tendencies in strategy use during processing. In a GJT, 100% of the participants (N=13) correctly judged translations of Spanish to English direct constructions but less than one third correctly judged translations to English reverse construction. On a free translation portion, only 21% of the responses used reverse constructions. Thematic role and animacy are strategies used by these learners in interpretation of assignment which can cause misinterpretation when these cues cannot be relied upon. This exploratory study reveals that it is necessary to further investigate strategies used by Spanish learners of this English form. Once a rigorous empirical study identifies existence and cause of learning difficulties, pedagogical implications can be dealt with.
keywords: psych verb, reverse construction, thematic role, experiencer, argument assignment, Spanish, English