GiNDok
Refine
Document Type
- Book (3) (remove)
Language
- English (3) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (3)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (3)
Keywords
- Analyse (1)
- Annolied (1)
- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1)
- Moreno, Jacob Levy (1)
- Opitz, Martin (1)
- Theater (1)
- Übersetzung (1)
Institute
- Extern (1)
This thesis investigates how students with Cantonese (L1) and English (L2) backgrounds acquire German as a third language (L3), with a focus on the acquisition of the Vorfeld (fronting) constructions of German. In L3 studies, the roles played by mother tongue, L2 and developmental grammar may be distinguished. Previous L3 studies have suggested that the role of L2 seems to be prominent in L3 strategy building, including interlanguage transfer from L2 to L3. Pursuing a cognitive approach, we argue that incremental production and language processing strategies are significant factors in accounting for third language acquisition and production.
A total of 45 university students of German completed a questionnaire and submitted copies of their compositions, followed by picture elicitation tasks. Three typical fronting types were found to be common amongst the learners:
1. Für mich, jede Familie hat eigene Situation und Probleme.
2. Obwohl gibt es viele Probleme mit alten Leuten zusammen lebt, finde ich gut dafür.
3. Jetzt die meisterns haben schon nach Hong Kong zurückgekommen.
Type 1 is argued to reflect indirect transfer of native language function-form characteristics. Type two is argued to be an intralingual error in which the learners have overgeneralized the verb second (V2) rule, without acquiring the correct function of the Vorfeld construction. The third type shows that apart from the influence of English in adverb fronting constructions, adverbs of stance or perspective adverbs like ‘jetzt’ semantically do not form part of the proposition and they are therefore treated as “extra-sentential” constituents which do not affect the basic V2 construction.
The findings suggest that learners may have primarily acquired the topic function of German fronting, while failing to fully acquire the focus function. For the focus function, learners seem to prefer alternative constructions such as existential sentences using ‘es gibt’. Both of these findings implicate L1 Chinese influence.
As an overall perspective on the incipient field of third language acquisition research I propose a holistic and coherent view which encompasses syntax, semantics and pragmatics at all levels of language development. By probing an independent paradigm of L3 studies, we aim to contribute to a new dynamic research space as well to ongoing debates in the SLA field by attributing greater autonomy and consciousness to the learner, even on the level of grammatical interaction.
"[...] In 1639, Martin Opitz rescued for us the only complete surviving text of the Annolied (circa 1083), and now Graeme Dunphy has made available a reprint of the Opitz edition and with it Opitz’s prologue and notes, a new English translation, and the translator’s informative notes on the translation and on Opitz’s commentary. In his prologue Opitz expresses the purpose of the edition, which is to demonstrate that the German language was inherited by his contemporaries in an unbroken line from earliest times. This is a strikingly early formulation of the romantic thesis the Grimm brothers developed later. Thus by including Opitz’s prologue and notes on his sources and philological explanations, Dunphy gives us the essential tools to re-invigorate research in three areas: Opitz, who is too frequently thought of as a narrowly focused poeticist, the serious study of philology and history in the sixteenth century, and most importantly, the Annolied itself. [...]" Quelle: Maria Dobozy : http://www.iaslonline.de/index.php?vorgang_id=751
Moreno noted a similarity between a late 18th Century play by the great German scholar and artist, Goethe, and some elements of psychodrama, which can be substantiated; however, Goethe was not, as Moreno suggested, an early promoter of spontaneity. The similarities and contrasts between these two men are intriguing.