Cognition and Second Language Acquisition Spring 2009

Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital

The progressive marker errors in Mandarin and Vietnamese L1 intermediate

advanced ESL learner: teaching advanced grammar for formal writing.

1. Subjects and educational setting

In the present paper I will propose a very general error analysis of the written production

of ten ESL students at the Language and Culture Program at the University of Houston,

Texas. These students have just finished their fourth level (intermediate-advanced). They

would be able to, depending on how well they are doing in class, take the TOEFL test or

even start classes at a community college or a master program. Level 4 is also a point in

which the students begin to be exposed to academic writing, which will be the main focus

of level 5 (advanced).

The data comes from six Chinese (Mandarin L1) and four Vietnamese (Vietnamese L1)

students. The texts have a length of 500 words (aprox.). The students, as it is evident

from the language displayed in their compositions, have diverse level of proficiency in

English, despite being at the same level.

They have 22 hours of English classes, out of which approximately five (depending on

the teacher) are devoted exclusively to English Grammar. Also, there are two extra hours

in the CALL Lab which can be used to work with some extra grammar programs.

The goals of level four in terms of grammar contents are very high. Here I copy from

their syllabus what a successful student will have learned at the end of that semester:

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital

Regular and irregular verbs in all Comparatives, superlatives, and

tenses equatives
Subject-verb agreement Passive voice
Question formation Gerunds and infinitives
Prepositions Adjective, adverb, and noun clauses
Modals Two-word verbs

Of course, not all of those items are explicitly taught or even worked in class, but the

subjects whose error Ill analyze here have had classes, practice, and feedback about the

distinction between gerunds and infinitives, and about the use of verbs in every tense and

aspect form simple present to future perfect. So the use of ing as a progressive aspect

marker and as a nominalization has received attention as part of this level.

2. Tense and aspect acquisition

2.1. Basics of tense and aspect:

Tense and aspect are two linguistic categories that deal with the representation of time.

Usually they are defined and studied as two separate instances (Comrie 1985:6-7, 1976:

1-2): aspect involves the internal temporal structure of a situation, while tense organizes

the location of an event on the timeline taking a point of reference (usually the moment of

speech). Therefore, tense is a deictic category: it refers to a time point of period that only

is accessible by assuming a base point of reference the moment of speech. On the other

hand, aspect deals with how a verb configures its process on time. Theres no deixis

required, but the assumption that the internal design of the verb can be understood in

different ways: the most basic aspectual categories are imperfect (the event has a

continuing internal structure with not relevant initial or final stages, i.e. unbounded) and

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
perfect (the event has a bounded internal structure that allows the perception of the event

as a whole). One important distinction must be made regarding aspect: it can be seen as a

morphological device (or a particle in languages with no morphology) that operates on a

verbal stem to mark a particular aspect, or as the inherent aspect that a verb stem has (for

instance, states such as to know are imperfect, while punctual events such as to drop are

perfect).

Despite the previous definition, it is clear that tense and aspect are intimately related. For

instance, many languages (such as Chinese, Malay, Vietnamese, etc.) can use aspectual

markers to better delimit time frames (perfect aspect conveys, usually, the idea of

something that already took place); also, it is noticeable that the combination of tense and

aspect as in, for instance, the present/past progressive or the present perfect, play a

decisive role in the repertoire for the expression of temporality in many languages (and

theres still debates about the status of those combinations, particularly the present

perfect Cf. Michaelis 2006). Moreover, it is a well established fact that during the process

of second language acquisition of the imperfect aspect tends to be related to present

tense, while perfect aspect matches simple past forms as a natural combination (Bardovi-

Harlig 1999: 192-205). Due to the mutually complementarity between these two notions,

it would be very difficult to analyze tense and aspect errors separately. In order to have

the necessary basis for the analysis on section III, I will present briefly some ideas about

the present tense and the progressive form ing.

2.2. Present tense and progressive aspect

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If observed from a crosslinguistic perspective, the definition of the present tense reveals

as a problematic one. Bybee et al. (1994: 124-128) argue in favor of the notion of preset

not as a tense but an aspect: since it is located at (roughly) the same time as the speech is

produced, any possible reference point for the present as a tense is obscured. Instead, they

claim that the present is actually a collection of different imperfective situations

conceived taking into consideration the moment of speech (still a reference point, but not

in a full deictic way) reference point. Those imperfective situations tend to include:

ongoing activities, generic situations, and habitual situations. In sum, they argue that a

present marker actually refers to the meaning of present imperfective situations

(1994:140).

Considering this ideas, the English simple present tense is exotic, especially regarding

how it contrasts to the present progressive tense/aspect. First, it is virtually never used to

express an immediate present (not even with states), which is always expressed with the

present progressive. Instead, it suggests a habitual meaning (as in Robert cleans the room

with a vacuum) or generic situations (Lions live in Africa). Second, the English simple

present cant express an expected or planned future event (as in * Next month I travel to

Peru), but it is the present progressive the form that conveys that meaning (Next month

Im traveling to Peru). The reasons for those particular uses are beyond the scope of this

paper. However, it is evident that, if the present has a natural tendency to express

imperfect situations, then it must be true that those verbs with inherent imperfect meaning

(states) are natural candidates to be commonly used with present markers. Therefore, the

use of present tense with actions (with inherent perfect aspect) can be seen as a potential

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problem for any learner of ESL (in fact, I use the simple present to express future quite

often, since thats the use in Spanish).

Michaelis (2004: 3) explains the existence of the generic and habitual meaning as a result

of coertion. This means that certain conceptual combinations (a present suffix in a non

stative verb) can produce new meanings (such as the habitual and generic) because we

are coercing our conceptualization system to make some sense out of the combination.

The only way to conceive an action as occurring in the present is by iterating it until is

looks unbounded (i.e. habituality is conceptually closer to unboundedness, so the new

concept is created). This kind of knowledge supposes a high degree of control of the

meaning of both lexical items and tense/aspect morphology. If a ESL student is going to

learn the use of the present tense in contrast with the (conceptually very similar) present

progressive, he/she will need to master inherent lexical meaning, restrictions in the use of

the present that are exotic compared to what most of the languages on the world do,

and to re-structure their own conceptions about the time frame that counts as the

moment of speech (Cf. Levinson 1983: 73-79 for a brief discussion on how the location

of time reference varies across different cultures).

2.3. The acquisition of tense and aspect in a L2

It is widely accepted between researchers of L2 acquisition that tense and aspect interact

from their first appeareance in the verbal system of L2 learners. The process of

acquisition of time expressions is divided in three stages according to how time is

expressed (Bardovi-Harlig 2000: 12-13; Yuang and Huang 2004: 50-52):

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Cognition and Second Language Acquisition Spring 2009
Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital

A. Pragmatic stage: theres no systematic use of verbal morphology

(in fact, sometimes the L2 speakers dont use verbs at all). There are several strategies
to accomplish this: first, theres pragmatic scaffolding (reliance on the contribution of
other speakers); second, implicit reference (temporal reference inferred from temporal
context); third, contrast of events (similar to implicit reference: the speaker here
points to an event that happens at a place or time that cant be the same as another);
and finally, following strict chronological order during the narration.

B. Lexical stage: the learners start using temporal and locative

adverbials (in the morning, then, here, there), connectives (and, and then), calendar
reference, nouns, and verbs (start, finish). Verbs are used at this stage as unmarked
forms (base or default forms). For instance, in Romance languages, L2 speakers
use a 3rd person singular present as the base form for any temporal reference, while in
English the bare firm of the verb takes this role.

C. Morphological stage: then the functional load of adverbials

decreases while the use of morphology increases. It is necessary to emphasize that
tense-aspect morphology is composed in many regards of forms that reinforce,
interact and also reiterate the contribution of lexical items. One of the main
contributions of the morphology is the possibility to refer to events in the past before
another past event, as well as start referring events outside the chronological order.

During the acquisition of tense/aspect forms in English, the first formal categories to

appear are the progressive suffix ing (initially without an auxiliary or with a non

conjugated auxiliary) and highly frequent irregular past forms (such as gone, was and

had). Regular Past (-ed suffix) appears later, followed by the present tense marker s,

periphrastic perfect forms (Have/Be + verb) and periphrastic future (Be + going + to +

Verb) constructions. In sum, the progressive is the most salient form for learners of ESL,

while periphrastic or analytical forms tend to appear later.

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Cognition and Second Language Acquisition Spring 2009
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Regularities in the process of Tense/aspect acquisition have been explained through

numerous hypothesis that reflect the stance a researcher has on how L2 is acquired (i.e.

UG or learning based on either frequency and/or general cognitive processes). I will

present the Aspect Hypothesis, since it has a functional basis and its widely considered

as a starting point for any investigation on this area of L2 acquisition:

1. Learners first use (perfective) past marking on achievements and

accomplishments, eventually extending use to activities and statives.

2. In languages that encode the perfective/imperfective distinction, imperfective

past appears later than perfective past, and imperfective past marking begins with
statives, extending next to activities, then to accomplishments, and finally to
achievements.

3. In languages that have progressive aspect, progressive marking begins with

activities, then extends to accomplishments and achievements.

4. Progressive markings are not incorrectly overextended to statives. (Bardovi-

Harlig 2002: 130)

This means that beginners use of verbal morphology is in function of marking the

inherent (lexical) aspect distinctions of the verbs, instead of using it to mark tense (this

has been called the primacy of aspect over tense during the first stages of L2

acquisition). It has also been claimed (Bardovi-Harlig 2000: 277-279) that, alongside the

aspect hypothesis, a Discourse Hypothesis should be considered as part of the acquisition

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process: learners have the tendency of using past marking on the foreground events and

present or zero marking on background events.

2.4. Progressive aspect as nominalizating particle: gerunds vs. infinitives in

subject position
One of the uses of the progressive marker that was object of much teaching at the

subjects grammar class was the distinction between the use of the gerund (a

nominalization achieved through the progressive suffix) and the infinitive (the

combination of to and the bare form of a verb). It is well known that the use of those

forms is amongst the hardest concepts to teach to second language learners (Duffley

2003: 324). In fact, it is not relevant for my paper to even try to come up with a proposal

to clarify this distinction. Most of the times, the way that issue is taught in the classroom

involves long list of verbs that either use gerunds as subjects, infinitives or both. So the

problem tends to be solved by resorting to pure memory.

In Duffleys view (2003: 349) neither the distinction between particular versus general

nor that between reification versus hypothesis/potentiality, nor any of the derivative

oppositions in terms of factivity versus nonfactivity, referring versus nonreferring or

validated versus validatable, are able to explain the full range of meanings expressed

respectively by gerunds or infinitives when used as the subject of the sentence. Instead,

he proposes a very abstract solution: the meaning of the -ing form evokes the event as a

totality of interiority (i.e., as an abstract entity very similar to the representation provided

by a deverbal noun). This means that the internal imperfect structure conveyed by the

progressive focuses on the developing of just the internal stages that are, lets put it this

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
way, the middle part of the event. This explains why -ing forms are neutral regarding the

distinction between realized and nonrealized events, while, in the case of infinitives, the

semantic contribution of the preposition to implies the presence of a situation preceding

the bare verbal form, which accounts for the preponderance of nonrealized events with

the infinitive.

This kind of semantic distinctions are extremely complicated to convey. A concrete proof

of this is that Duffley went over numerous explanations from well known cognitive-

functional authors (Givn, Wierzbicka, Langacker, Van Valin, etc.) just to show how the

examples they were using to back their hypothesis could be turned against each others

views, leaving the problem pretty much at a stand still. If this is a problem of this level

for a linguist, then It is clear that language teachers and students alike have used the

memorization method as the only viable solution.

In a very interesting poster, Vercellotti and De Jong (2009) analyzed the errors different

intermediate-high English L2 (mixed L1) students made regarding the gerund/infinitive

distinction in the complement clause. They came to the conclusion that a statistically

significant number of errors were present when the students were faced with forms that

can take either gerund or infinitive. It seems then that the variability of input impedes

acquisition. One of the most common errors was the use of the bare form of the verb as

a complement (* I like walk). This kind of situation will be present in the data of the

students of UH. It is clear that the use of the ing form in contexts that are typical for

nouns produces overgeneralization. The students and according to their teacher (p.c.)

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Cognition and Second Language Acquisition Spring 2009
Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
not only Vietnamese of Chinese students, but almost everyone in classtend to gerunds

instead of intended deverbal nouns (action for acting, protection for protecting, etc.).

3. Tense and aspect in Mandarin and Vietnamese

I will briefly sketch here the main characteristics of the Mandarin and Vietnamese tense
and aspect system. Both are isolating languages with no morphological process. Also,
those two languages have no intrinsic tense system. To convey tense information they
rely on the context and numerous explicit lexical markers (which can be translated as
right now, today, etc.).

3.1. Mandarin

The following table (from Duff and Li 2002: 419) illustrates the imperfective aspect in

Mandarin.

The foregrounded progressive form can also be found as zheng zai as the following

examples (taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_continuous, but

verified with a native Mandarin speaker) attest:

Foregrounded Progressive: (I) zhengzai (right now) (wear) (clothes)

I am putting on clothes.

Backgrounded progressive: (I) (wear) zhe (cont) (clothes)

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I am wearing clothes. (from)

This kind of distinction between backgrounded and foregrounded (that overlaps with the

lexical imperfective and perfective aspect, as seen in the translations offered for the last

examples) becomes an important issue for ESL learners: if they perceive an action to be

progressive, they would rely on the use of a specific time frame that foregrounds that

event as an ongoing one, but the basic form of the verb remains. For more state-like

events, then the backgrounded progressive (more of a continuous aspect, I think) is in

order. So, this could mean that for progressive forms, Chinese students may rely more on

context/time frame + simple present.

3.2. Vietnamese

The following table (from Tran and Den 2003: 4) illustrates the basics of the Vietnamese

aspect system.

Meanings

In Vietnamese the position of the morpheme is very important: it has to precede the verb

(exception to this rule is ri). However, these tense markers are not required for a

sentence to be grammatically correct and are often inferred in context. If there is

ambiguity, , ang, s may be used to clarify the context (Tang 2007: 17). In

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
Vietnamese, sentences containing only the verb and no other marker are allowed to

express ongoing actions (progressive meaning).

While doing research about tense and aspect in Vietnamese, one source (Duffield: 2009)

proposed that the progressive could be expressed by ang, and also by another form not

present in any other source reviewed: ng. Unfortunately, theres no explanation

between the differences of those two progressive forms, nor the examples are of any help

for that. So I can only speculate that, maybe tat distinction is between a continuous form

and a progressive one. Maybe the distinction has been all but lost in colloquial speech

and that is why other sourced dont even mention ng. However, if its an active part

of the Vietnamese aspect system, that wont produce complications for the student, since

English only uses progressive forms that have a suitable equivalent.

4. Error analysis and role of interference

As it was said in section 1, the data I am analyzing comes from the academic writing

classes. Therefore, the characteristics of the language used are necessarily different from

the oral one. To begin with, the pragmatic resources are severely limited in academic

writing: the student needs to create a very fixed context based on the information he/she

has gotten beforehand. That information should be presented in the clearest possible way,

so repetition and explicitness are valued. Also, the assumption of the ideal audience (in

most of the cases, the teacher that evaluates the composition) guides the contents they

present. In addition, in this kind of text, narrations are kept to the minimal, and

elaboration of reasons (through appropriate use of transition words) is one of the main

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
goals. Therefore, formal texts such as these are prone to present non sequential reference

to events (i.e. reverse order), as in focusing on the consequences to then explain the

reasons, etc. This kind of display of information requires a solid use of the tense/aspect

markers in any language.

One of the main objectives of this composition was to practice conditional clauses

(mainly hypothetical ones, which use past and pluperfect forms). Also, the students were

instructed to use many formal idioms that help organize the flow of information, such as

the above mentioned, last but not least, etc. Here is a list of the most common errors

found:

a. Use of present progressive instead of simple present, especially with the verb
become for Mandarin speakers. This is due to the strict telic nature of the verb in
Mandarin. It is impossible to appear with a progressive marker (Haowen Jiang, p.c.).

b. Lack of command of particular constructions that select bare verbs, infinitives or

gerunds. On many opportunities, when gerund and infinitive are possible, the bare
form may surface.

c. Vietnamese and Mandarin L1 speakers at this level dont know how to use
passive forms that involve the verb be as a non-conjugated form, for instance inside
of an auxiliary verb phrase (measures have to be taken, besides being put in jail).
Students use simple gerund of just the bare form of the verb. This forms complex
forms are not the object of any particular instruction and they have to be, at one point,
deduced by the students after more exposure to data (and very likely formal data,
since those passives are not usual, I believe, in colloquial speech)

d. The gerund is assumed to be interchangeable with nouns that refer to actions. For
instance, acting instead of actions

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e. The combination of gerund and noun, as if it were a noun-noun construction is

problematic: the students tend to believe that the combination follows the rules of
argument structure instead of head + modifier.

4.1. Vietnamese data

Errors (part that is problematic because of the use of present tense, or an ing form )
and comments are written in italics. If the sentence is correct, its written in bold and
italics.

A. Student 1
1. These criminal become more common no.
Use of the present tense instead of the progressive form.

2. good penalties for these kinds of crime is putting the criminal in jail, fining
them for their crime, or forcing them to do some community services depending
on the level of the crime.

With no temporal frame the actions are named with gerunds. This is in agreement with
Duffley (2003) explanation about the distinction between gerunds and infinitives.

3. Because it can help preventing the other people have idea to steal an art or sale
animals illegally.
Help is one of those few constructions that use the base verbal form (some people call
this a subjunctive form). Here the student has used the ing form as a nominal
complement. Immediately, the construction prevent someone from doing something is not
used correctly: the verb of influence prevent uses a bare verbal complement. Maybe it is
just because of the lack of knowledge of that construction, but it can also be that the
learner doesnt want to use infinitive complements. The infinitive to steal should be
considered more of a preposition mistake.

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
4. Besides putting in jail, another common punishment is that the criminal should be
fined.
Theres a lack of use of the participle (perfective aspect) in combination with the
progressive in a passive form. The main problem is that these forms of passives are not
understood by the students.

5. so illegal acting which can be harmful to them should be punished.

acting is used instead of actions. The gerund is once again overused.

B. Student 2
1. I have a proposal to solve this kind of crime. It is put the thieves to the jail and
pays money as well
The student uses the bare verb as a noun. The right form could be infinitive or gerund, so
this follows Vercellotti and De Jongs (2009) generalization about the bare output of a
phrase that admits either infinitive or gerund.

2. Many people in the world will feel sorry with famous art's missing.

Use of the gerund as a possessed noun. However, it could be just a contraction problem.
(the teacher of these students thinks so.).

3. The punishment for the art theft should be put thieves in jail.
In this case it could be either to put or putting, so it is likely that the possibility of both
prevents the student from making a more accurate decision. The infinitive would be a
better option because of the implicit previous event (having committed a crime).

C. Student 3
1. so police should blockade the border to prevent trafficking.

A more advanced student uses the prevent construction with no problems.

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D. Student 4
1. the illegal sale of animals is happen every day.
Problem with the use of the progressive and the present tense (at least the use of the bare
form can be related to an underlying preference for that tense due to L1 interference).

2. should propagandize to the citizen about the protecting the animals.

The rule by which the gerund is preferred after a preposition seems to working, but the
nominalization is taking another path: the use of articles in front of gerunds is very rare.
So it would be better to say that this is another case of a gerund instead of a noun for
events.

3. governments should add the protecting animals to the education at their country
Same situation as above.

4. I think protect the animals is not the responsibility of a person

Even though the rule of gerund as subjects seem to be solid for this student, it is still
clear that some trickier positions for the subject (such as inside of a relative clause)
might be still out of reach. How would this kind of error be finally overcome? If the
student receives explicit correction, then he/she will be able to recognize more accurately
what a subject position means. But how is this possible in natural settings? Is this
position salient enough to grant frequency effects? If those effects are unconscious, then
it is likely to be developed. However, if learning demands some kind of original,
generative application of rule, then the learner is let to his/her own devices. It would
be interesting to access some kind of study on the development of these more obscure
forms in order to see how much a model like the Competition one can explain this.

4.2. Mandarin

A. Student 1

1. As the crime of art stole increasing these days

Stole seems to be the base form of the verb to steal. Also, if the correct form attempted
was the crime of stealing art, then this student should have had something different in

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mind: art steling (the stealing of art). In this case, the form stole is not the base
form but the only participle (past or present) available. This might be due to the fact that
the word steal was introduced to the students in a reading about stolen art and they
had to elaborate about the issue on their compositions. So the form Stolen might have
been taken as either a gerund for the base form of the verb.

2. some dramatic measures have to take to prevent more perish masterpiece from
stealing.
Problems with passive voice: past participles in combination with a non finite be are
complicated.

3. With helping of these advent equipments

Another overgeneralization of the thumb rule: after preposition use gerund. Maybe
use of helping instead of help

4. Infrared ray will make the alarm working when someone illegal enter the
museum.
The construction make someone/something do something is still not clear. Maybe
another instance of the learners rule: verbal complements are gerunds if the verb is
not like, want, etc.

5. Analyzing most of art stolen cases, it is not difficult to find that sometimes thieves
can steal art very easy. Although its an absolute construction that needs a subject that
is logical for the gerund)
Here it is clear that the verb modifier (the so called adverbial use of the gerund) is not
a problem for this speaker. Mandarin uses the progressive marker to create a very
similar construction (Jiang p.c.)

6. If there is no illegal art market existing, thieves do not want to steal any art
This from, very unusual in English and very likely a mistake is due to Mandarin
interference. Jiang (p.c.) says that existential sentences such as the one before are
formed in a way that replicates what this student used.

B. Student 2

1. Another punishment that could be used for people who commit this crime is
forcing them to pay an expensive fine.
This student shows a good command of the gerund and of the infinitive in the same
sentence. The construction with to force is correct, while the gerund is, in my view,
used correctly given that shes speaking about a possible punishment (not one that has to
be applied). This student solves well potentially conflicting constructions.

2. human beings and animals can begin living peacefully together again.
Here she takes risks with a complex construction: modal + progressive construction.
Looking on Google, can begin living had 7,230 results, while can begin to live had

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54,400. This is an interesting case that means, she is either really advanced or she is
overgeneralizing.

C. Student 3

1. Animal sales become a serious problem through out the world

The problem is the lexical aspect associated with mandarin: become is strongly
considered a punctual verb than cant develop stages, a requisite for progressive form
(Jiang p.c.).

2. there are just few people work for this field,

Could be the complementizer that missing, or a verbal form used as a specifier, which is
a complex use that hasnt been assigned completely to the gerund.

3. if there had enough people work for protect animal

This error confirms that this student hasnt mastered the use of gerunds as specifiers.
Also, the student confuses the preposition regime (and also doesnt use the gerund after
preposition).

4. It [a punishment] should also give serious concerns to those who may be thinking
about stolen animals.
More evidence that stolen has been learned as a (mistaken) base form.

D. Student 4

1. it is acknowledged that the crime about animals hunting and illegal

trading is becoming more and more serious.
This student shows an interesting combination: two nouns (animal hunting) and adjective
+ noun (illegal trading). These are good signs of proficiency. Also, become is used with a
progressive form.

2. All above-mentioned are the suggestions that I recommended to decrease the

crime rate of hunting or illegal trading animals.
The combination of a gerund and a noun is taken as one that follows an argument
structure, instead of being one composed of a head and a modifier (as in, for instance,
illegal animal trading) .

E. Student 5

1. more and more animals become endangered species.

Another instance of become not used in the progressive.

2. In the other hand, the people who stolen the animals maybe haven't work
It seems that the problem is the lack of auxiliary before stolen, but we can see that that
is not an issue later on the same sentence (havent work). Given the other students data,
it seems that stolen has not been understood by the students: here is a past form.

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F. Student 6

1. They will [r]eclaim their surviving right and curse human being murder
Here it should have been right to survive: it seems that the student is overgeneralizing
the adjectival use of the gerund. Given the fact that this element can be used as a noun,
adjective, and adverb (or even as the verb, if we consider its role as an auxiliary), it is no
surprise that the students tend to use it too much.

2. we have to become vegetarianism, and hoping that vegetables are never able to
talk in the future.
It is possible that for this student both the gerund and the infinitive are interchangeable,
which is another case of overgeneralization of the form that has been recently introduced
or redefined (the gerund).

3. In the earth, we are meet shortcut of resource.

This is the second time this kind of mistake appears. I think that this combination is a
signal (a mismatch) that the student is geared towards the acquisition of the progressive,
but still uses the base form (maybe due to interference from L1).

4. If animals are able to talk, we are shocking that our lifestyle has to change so
much
Possible overgeneralization from the combination pronoun + be + gerund. It is so
strong that even the past participle is left aside.

5. Discussion: What do errors tell us about teaching grammar to advanced

students?

One thing that is clear to me after analyzing those texts is that students can show different

levels of achievement. That would certainly be explained by individual differences.

However, it is clear, and no wonder at all, that the influence of L1 is very powerful and it

is present even in advanced students. Sometimes, it seems that the students are

deliberately using their L1 to produce forms that fall beyond what they have been taught

(for instance, existential constructions or the use of perfect passive forms with being).

This would be considered the result of the need of expressing something in more precise

terms (the objective of formal writing) and not being able to produce it with ease.

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital

I think that advanced students can be divided in two groups: one composed by learners

that take grammatical risks in order to achieve new expressions, and the other composed

by students that shape their productions to what they have been explicitly taught as much

as possible. In my own experience, the students that tend to take more risks are those that

have run out of basic grammatical resources and find themselves in the necessity of

conveying new ideas. Those that are not taking new risks are those students that keep

their production to the minimum acceptable in communicative settings, so compositions

at an advanced level will necessarily expose their flaws. The topics that are proposed at

any advanced level class are complex because the teacher needs to engage the student in

a lively discussion, it is also an opportunity to ask the student to do some extra reading as

a research, and it encourages the student to get used to the academic life he or she might

be starting at an American University (thats one of the main objectives of the advanced

levels: to prepare the students for higher education in English).

Therefore, errors tell us how committed a student has been to the expression of new ideas

in a very restricted mean such as the grammar given in a L2 classroom.

Furthermore, the case of the use of the progressive aspect in English has been particularly

revealing about what it is to be located at an advanced stage of acquisition. As Yang and

Huang propose (2004: 60-62) theres not a clear cut between acquisition stages. In this

particular case, the production of formal writing wont show, because of its stylistic

restrictions, lexical items and pragmatic strategies as a mean to remember to use the

tense/aspect markers. Those are more easily found in oral forms. However, it can still be

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
argued that the students have used the rules they are familiar with as carefully as possible

(which is in its own form a way to make one sure that the right forms are used). This can

be seen in the overgeneralization of the gerund over deverbal nouns. The students know

that a deverbal is possible in the positions viewed in the previous section. However, they

decide to use the gerund form since, I suppose, the degree of abstractness it demands can

be perceived as increased formality.

Another issue Yang and Huang cover is that, when faced with new tense/aspect

constructions, the students tend to go back to a heavy use of adverbs, as a way to

reinforce the newly learned construction (2004: 51). In the texts I analyzed the students

didnt seem to use any unusual amount of lexical temporal expressions, maybe since their

level is already advanced and the composition was the last one they wrote in that

semester.

To conclude this discussion, I will present a summary of the list of elements of formal

instruction that can affect the acquisition of English tense/aspect marking (form Yang and

Huang 2004: 59-67). I think their ideas summarize very well the most important aspects

of what the error analysis presented here has shown.

a. The role of language exposure plays a crucial role: while the subjects on Yang
and Huang study are circumscribed to formal instruction settings, the students I
analyzed had a full immersion setting. However, the nature of the task they are doing
(formal writing) still can be considered a non-immersion form, because they do not
have to go around using formal writing skills continuously. Im sure that these
students would perform better at an oral task. The pressure of formal writing might be

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Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital
preventing them from using more colloquial resources that cue their use of
tense/aspect forms.

b. It took Mandarin L1 students a span of 6 years to finally being able to control the
past tense marker in English L2. This is due to the interference from L1 which only
uses contextual cues and other lexical temporal markers. It is clear form the data
analyzed that most of the UH students are still not in full command of the several uses
of the English progressive aspect (as the case of become not being used in the
progressive form shows).

c. The dependence that grammar textbooks create between lexical markers (adverbs
or relative pronouns, to mention just two) produces that students increase their use of
those lexical elements in addition to the tense morphology in order to have a
mnemonic aid when using some verbal morphology. In the case of the errors
analyzed in this paper, it was not clear that the students undergeneralized the
instances of -ing (i.e. use them in conjunction with very specific lexical cues). As it
was shown, they most of time overgeneralized their use due to the needs of
expression of a formal subject and the kind of composition they were expected to
produce.

In sum, theres a great potential in the practice of formal writing and the development of
more complex grammatical resources at advanced levels. Even if it is true that contents
such as the difference between gerund an infinitives and the use of passive voices that
include an ing form suppose a very sophisticated level of grammatical awareness, the
necessity of expression and the lack of pragmatic and lexical cues will face the learner
with numerous challenges and new possible uses for what they have been taught. Thereby
an advanced level teacher needs to be prepared to monitor the special grammatical needs
of his/her students, as well as to plan the interaction between readings, composition
topics and grammatical contents to emphasize the required input and to maximize the
practice.

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Cognition and Second Language Acquisition Spring 2009
Prof. Amy Franklin Carlos Molina Vital

References

Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen. 2002: Analyzing Aspect. In Salaberry, Rafael & Yasuhiro

Shirai (Eds.) The L2 Acquisition of TenseAspect Morphology. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins. 129-154

Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen. 2000. Tense and Aspect in Second Language Acquisition:

Form Meaning and Use. Oxford: Blackwell.

Bybee, Joan & Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar
Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.

Comrie, B. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Duff, Patricia & Duanduan Li. 2002. The acquisition and use of perfective aspect in
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Dufield, Nigel. Vietnamese Online Grammar. Available at http://vietnamese-

grammar.group.shef.ac.uk/index.php

Duffley, Patrick. 2003. The Gerund and the to-Infinitive as Subject. Journal of English
Linguistics. 31; 324-352.

Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Hinkel, Eli. 1992. L2 Tense and Time Reference. TESOL Quarterly. 26,3; 557-572.

Salaberry, Rafael and Yasuhiro Shirai (Eds.) The L2 Acquisition of TenseAspect

Morphology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Tang, Giang M. 207. Cross-Linguistic Analysis of Vietnamese and English with

Implications for Vietnamese Language Acquisition and Maintenance in the United
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Tran, Jennie & Kamil Ud Deen (2003). Aspect Marking and Modality in Child
Vietnamese. Paper in the BUCLD 28 Conference Proceedings Supplement. Available at
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Vercellotti, Mary and Nell de Jong. 2009 I Prefer Not Go English L2 Verb
Complement Errors. Presented at GURT 2009. Pages N/A. Available at
http://www.learnlab.org/uploads/mypslc/talks/english_l2_verb_complements.ppt

Yang, Suying and Yue Yuan Huang. 2004. The impact of the absence of Grammatical
Tense in L1on the Acquisition of the Tense-Aspect System in L2. IRAL 42, 49-70.

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