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Does linguistic rhythm matter to syntax, and if so, what kinds of syntactic decisions are susceptible to rhythm? By means of two recall-based sentence production experiments and two corpus studies – one on spoken and one on written language – we investigated whether linguistic rhythm affects the choice between introduced and un-introduced complement clauses in German. Apart from the presence or absence of the complementiser dass (‘that’), these two sentence types differ with respect to the position of the tensed verb (verb-final/verb-second). Against our predictions, that were based on previously reported rhythmic effects on the use of the optional complementiser that in English, the experiments fail to obtain compelling evidence for rhythmic/prosodic influences on the structure of complement clauses in German. An overview of pertinent studies showing rhythmic influences on syntactic encoding suggests these effects to be generally restricted to syntactic domains smaller than a clause. We assume that, in the course of language production, initially, clause level syntactic projections are specified; their specification is in fact the prerequisite for phonological encoding to start. Consequently, prosodic effects may only touch upon the lower level categories that are to be integrated into the clausal projection, but not upon the syntactic makeup of the higher order projection itself.
This paper compares the production of different types of direct objects by Portuguese–German and Polish–German bilingual school-aged children in their heritage languages (HLs), Polish and European Portuguese (EP). Given that the two target languages display identical options of object realization, our main research question is whether the two HLs develop in a similar way in bilingual children. More precisely, we aim at investigating whether bilingual children acquiring Polish and EP are sensitive to accessibility and animacy when realizing a direct object in their HL. The results of a production experiment show that this is indeed the case and that the two groups of bilinguals do not differ from each other, although they may overgeneralize null objects or full noun phrases to some extent. We conclude that the bilingual acquisition of object realization is guided by the relevant properties in the target languages and is not influenced by the contact language, German.
The present study aims to investigate how foreign language learners at the German for Academic Purposes (GAP) program at a Brazilian federal university interact in their mother tongue about their motivations to learn a foreign language as well as their motivations to participate in study abroad programs. Data were collected using focus group methodology with three focus groups of six students each (A1, A2 and B1 levels). We chose to analyze the A1 group. We conducted metaphor-led discourse analysis of the data in order to examine metaphors and metonymies, which emerged in the focus group interactions. We were able to identify the presence of systematic metaphors such as learning is hard work and learning is jumping hurdles, intertwined with conceptual metaphors such as education is a journey and difficulties are weights, which point at the motivation for learning verbalized by Brazilian foreign language learners who took part in the study.
This paper presents three acceptability experiments investigating German verb-final clauses in order to explore possible sources of sentence complexity during human parsing. The point of departure was De Vries et al.'s (2011) generalization that sentences with three or more crossed or nested dependencies are too complex for being processed by the human parsing mechanism without difficulties. This generalization is partially based on findings from Bach et al. (1986) concerning the acceptability of complex verb clusters in German and Dutch. The first experiment tests this generalization by comparing two sentence types: (i) sentences with three nested dependencies within a single clause that contains three verbs in a complex verb cluster; (ii) sentences with four nested dependencies distributed across two embedded clauses, one center-embedded within the other, each containing a two-verb cluster. The results show that sentences with four nested dependencies are judged as acceptable as control sentences with only two nested dependencies, whereas sentences with three nested dependencies are judged as only marginally acceptable. This argues against De Vries et al.'s (2011) claim that the human parser can process no more than two nested dependencies. The results are used to refine the Verb-Cluster Complexity Hypothesis of Bader and Schmid (2009a). The second and the third experiment investigate sentences with four nested dependencies in more detail in order to explore alternative sources of sentence complexity: the number of predicted heads to be held in working memory (storage cost in terms of the Dependency Locality Theory [DLT], Gibson, 2000) and the length of the involved dependencies (integration cost in terms of the DLT). Experiment 2 investigates sentences for which storage cost and integration cost make conflicting predictions. The results show that storage cost outweighs integration cost. Experiment 3 shows that increasing integration cost in sentences with two degrees of center embedding leads to decreased acceptability. Taken together, the results argue in favor of a multifactorial account of the limitations on center embedding in natural languages.
Timișoara is considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat. It is the main social, economic and cultural centre in the western part of Romania. During the Industrial Revolution, numerous modern innovations were introduced. It was the first city with street lighting, and the first city in mainland Europe illuminated by electric light. The present investigation is a contribution to the problem of the Romanian technical vocabulary, which took along the time some German words with. A special emphasis is placed on the technical and scientific applications. During my study of the technical language and its terminology I became aware of Termini German origin. Many questions were raised and the interest to find answers grew. Thus came the impulse to bring together the words of German origin, set up a glossary and to analyze them in detail.
The research reported in this thesis examines two main questions: firstly, which dictionary type, bilingual or monolingual, is most effective for intermediate learners of German for reading comprehension, and secondly, which features make monolingual dictionary definitions effective for these learners. These questions divide the thesis into two parts. The first part compares the effectiveness of the bilingual versus the monolingual dictionary, and the second part compares two different monolingual definition styles.
The research was originally motivated by the observation that Hong Kong Chinese intermediate learners of German prefer to use a German-English bilingual dictionary. Since the translations are presented in the learners' second language, the effectiveness of this bilingual dictionary is doubtful. On the other hand, the learners are reluctant to use the monolingual dictionary, recommended to them by their language teachers. Three investigations were conducted in order to gain more detailed knowledge about the learners' dictionary preference, and the effectiveness of the two dictionary types. The learners' dictionary preference was investigated by means of a survey of ninety-eight foreign language students. The effectiveness of the bilingual and monolingual dictionary for reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning was first measured experimentally. The think-aloud method was then used in order to discover factors which determine the effectiveness of the two dictionary types.
The results of the experiment revealed that the German-English bilingual dictionary was not significantly more effective for the learners than the monolingual dictionary. The only monolingual dictionary available for German at that time, however, is linguistically too difficult for this proficiency level. Because of these findings, the research turned to monolingual dictionary definitions with the aim of identifying features that make them accessible to intermediate learners. Based on findings from the first think-aloud study, and principles promoted as user-friendly in the lexicographic literature, new definitions were developed for the target words in the research. These new definitions were compared with those in the existing dictionary. A second think-aloud study was conducted in order to generate hypotheses about individual definition features. These hypotheses were then tested in the second experiment, which was conducted with eighty-six learners of German in Shanghai.
The investigations reveal several features that determine the effectiveness of monolingual definitions for intermediate learners. The findings have theoretical and pedagogical implications. In the theoretical field, some lexicographic principles were recommended that are, unlike previous principles, based on empirical insights into user needs. In the pedagogical field, the research findings provide an empirical basis for the evaluation and recommendation of suitable dictionaries to intermediate learners.
A model of dictionary effectiveness is proposed. This model could help to assess the effectiveness of different information categories in dictionaries for different proficiency levels and different activity contexts. It could also provide lexicographic principles for the design of dictionaries. This research contributes one component to the proposed model: criteria for the effectiveness of definition features for intermediate learners in the activity context of reading.
Towards a German grammar programme for post-leaving certificate students at Dublin City University
(1999)
With the introduction of the communicative method of language learning, overall standards of grammatical competence and performance among Irish second level students would appear to have been significantly reduced. As a consequence, learners who continue to study a given language at third level apparently no longer possess the knowledge which, under the grammar-translation methodology, further education institutions were able to build upon. This thesis examines the basis for the above perceptions, investigates the role of formal grammar instruction in the second language acquisition process and reports on a programme which was developed at Dublin City University (DCU) in order to ease, for Irish university students of German, the transition from a primarily memory-based approach to language acquisition to the analytical approach which is still being considered crucial to a university student's linguistic education. While the research was undertaken in response to locally existing difficulties, it may also be considered as a case study of more general interest, and as such serve as an exemplar to German departments in other universities as well as to other foreign language departments both within DCU or outside. The aim of the programme under investigation was to ease the transition on a socio-affective, cognitive and metacognitive level without lowering overall proficiency expectations and standards. Primary research was conducted among secondary school teachers, post-Leaving Certificate students on entry into DCU and among third level lecturers. The purpose of this research was to identify and define the programme’s content and progression. To this effect, the German junior and senior cycle syllabi at second level were also taken into consideration. The subsequent German grammar programme was implemented at DCU in the academic year 1996/7. While the programme would appear to have been judged favourably regarding some affective and cognitive-motivational aspects, results show mixed success rates for the other two factors under investigation, cognitive-analytical and metacognitive skills. Thus, some degree courses and some language combinations clearly benefited more from the programme than others. One of the conclusions drawn from this research suggests that unless certain changes are introduced prior to students’ entry into third level, university graduates are likely to remain well below the standards of accuracy and overall proficiency which were previously achieved.
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.
Proportional determiner quantifiers in German allow interpretations that violate the conservativity universal of Keenan and Stavi (1986). I argue for an analysis that distinguishes between surface syntax and the logical form of sentences. I show that in surface syntax, German non-conservative quantifiers are determiners that form a constituent with a noun phrase and share case and agreement properties with the noun phrase. But I propose that at logical form the non-conservative determiners undergo an adverbialization movement and are interpreted by a mechanism that generalizes focus-a ected quantification of Herburger (2000). This result refines the understanding of conservativity as a constraint on interpretation.
The present investigation steps back to the claims of the 1990s by assuming that there is a functional opposition in the use of P- and D-PRO which affects the status of the pronoun's referent in the mental model of the discourse. We interpret the earlier findings as an indication of an information structural difference which is specifically relevant on the discourse level. The question we address here is twofold. Firstly, we ask whether the assumed opposition in the information status of P- and D-PRO referents has consequences on referent continuation in the ongoing discourse. So far, the effects of P- vs. D-PRO use were determined concerning the status of the pronoun referent in the actual sequence of discourse, i.e. they were determined by a judgement on the salience or the topic/focus status of the pronominal DP. As far as we can see, this determination has not been operationalized further. Since there are contexts in which both P- and D-PRO would fit in with only a feeling of a difference but without clear-cut exclusiveness, the opposition is empirically not well validated. If we could show that there are effects of type of pronoun on the ongoing discourse this would, in our view, provide the lacking empirical validation. Secondly, we ask whether there are effects of the narrator's point of view on P- and D-PRO use. The idea behind this question is that the way of information unfolding in discourse depends on the speaker. S/he decides which pieces of information come next, what is foreground and what is background information. If type of pronoun choice is related to the processes of discourse organization by the speaker – via fore- and backgrounding of information – and if internal or external location of the narrator's point of view influences the organization strategies of the speaker/narrator this might have an ffect on the use of P- and D-PRO.
"Great technology, football and ..." : Malaysian language learners' stereotypes about Germany
(2014)
This study focuses on stereotypes about Germany, its culture and people, held by learners of German in a big public university in Malaysia. It examines not only the stereotypical representations of the target language country but also assesses its favourability and salience, which has not been done previously. The findings revealed that the students' stereotypes about Germany were varied and diverse. Also, they were overwhelmingly positive. The top three salient categories of images about Germany were related to technology, famous personalities – for the most part football players and scientists – and cars. The findings also indicated that very few references had been made to German culture and to its great cultural figures. The results of the present study suggest that students could benefit from a wider and deeper exposure to German culture in the language classroom.
This thesis investigates the linguistic effects of language contact between French and German in Alsace due to the German annexation of this region during World War II. The turbulent, tug-of-war history of Alsace has constantly challenged the Alsatian people to secure a stable cultural and national identity. This study focuses on understanding the development of the linguistic aspect of this Alsatian identity. My hypothesis is that there was a greater French influence on Alsatian speech after World War II due to the anti-German sentiment provoked by the harsh Nazi policies during the war. To test this hypothesis, this study analyzes and compares the type and regularity of lexical borrowings from French into German and from German into French in Alsatian newspapers in 1945.
The aim of this paper is to give a unified account of the way that German demonstrative pronouns (henceforth: D-pronouns) like der, die and das behave (a) in sentences where they receive a coreferential interpretation, and (b) in sentences where they receive a covarying interpretation because they are in some way dependent on a quantificational expression – either via direct binding or indirectly, because the value they receive varies with the value that is assigned to the variable bound by an indefinite determiner.
This work investigates laryngeal and supralaryngeal correlates of the voicing contrast in alveolar obstruent production in German. It further studies laryngealoral co-ordination observed for such productions. Three different positions of the obstruents are taken into account: the stressed, syllable initial position, the post-stressed intervocalic position, and the post-stressed word final position. For the latter the phonological rule of final devoicing applies in German. The different positions are chosen in order to study the following hypotheses:
1. The presence/absence of glottal opening is not a consistent correlate of the voicing contrast in German.
2. Supralaryngeal correlates are also involved in the contrast.
3. Supralaryngeal correlates can compensate for the lack of distinction in laryngeal adjustment.
Including the word final position is motivated by the question whether neutralization in word final position would be complete or whether some articulatory residue of the contrast can be found.
Two experiments are carried out. The first experiment investigates glottal abduction in co-ordination with tongue-palate contact patterns by means of simultaneous recordings of transillumination, fiberoptic films and Electropalatography (EPG). The second experiment focuses on supralaryngeal correlates of alveolar stops studied by means of Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) simultaneously with EPG. Three German native speakers participated in both recordings. Results of this study provide evidence that the first hypothesis holds true for alveolar stops when different positions are taken into account. In fricative production it is also confirmed since voiceless and voiced fricatives are most of the time realised with glottal abduction. Additionally, supralaryngeal correlates are involved in the voicing contrast under two perspectives. First, laryngeal and supralaryngeal movements are well synchronised in voiceless obstruent production, particularly in the stressed position. Second, supralaryngeal correlates occur especially in the post-stressed intervocalic position. Results are discussed with respect to the phonetics-phonology interface, to the role of timing and its possible control, to the interarticulatory co-ordination, and to stress as 'localised hyperarticulation'.
Reduction and deletion processes occur regularly in conversational speech. A segment that is affected by such reduction and deletion processes in many Germanic languages (e.g., Dutch, English, German) is /t/. There are similarities concerning the factors that influence the likelihood of final /t/ to get deleted, such as segmental context. However, speakers of different languages differ with respect to the acoustic cues they leave in the speech signal when they delete final /t/. German speakers usually lengthen a preceding /s/ when they delete final /t/. This article investigates to what extent German listeners are able to reconstruct /t/ when they are presented with fragments of words where final /t/ has been deleted. It aims also at investigating whether the strategies that are used by German depend on the length of /s/, and therefore whether listeners are using language-specific cues. Results of a forced-choice segment detection task suggest that listeners are able to reconstruct deleted final /t/ in about 45% of the times. The length of /s/ plays some role in the reconstruction, however, it does not explain the behavior of German listeners completely.
This study identifies the language learning strategies associated with the achievement of higher levels o f oral proficiency in German for one hundred Irish third level students. It is one of the first studies of this kind to be conducted in Ireland and one of the very few, if any, conducted on third level learners of German. Furthermore, as well as identifying the strategies associated with higher levels of proficiency, the study also investigates how these strategies are used by learners displaying higher and lower levels of proficiency. It then explores the question of how the strategies associated with higher levels of proficiency contribute to the process of proficiency development, and how students perceive them as contributing to this process. Finally, the relationships between learner specific characteristics, strategic behaviour and proficiency levels are assessed. The experimental design combines a quantitative survey with in-depth interviews. The results indicate that orally more proficient students use more strategies more frequently. In particular, they use more cognitive, metacognitive and social strategies. Furthermore, they have a repertoire of approximately ten key strategies which they employ in a structured, purposeful manner and apply to a range of language learning situations. They are convinced that these strategies contribute to the development of proficiency, a view which is borne out by the quantitative findings. Finally, higher levels of motivation and more positive perceptions of personal proficiency levels are strongly associated with higher levels of both strategic behaviour and oral proficiency. These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications. Firstly, they demonstrate the importance of expanding the research framework in studies of this kind beyond the mere identification of the strategies associated with higher proficiency levels. Instead, as in this study, future research should incorporate questions relating to the process of strategy implementation by more and less successful learners and to relationships between the use of particular strategies and the process of foreign language acquisition. Secondly, the findings contribute to our understanding of the strategic behaviour of the orally more proficient student, and in particular the orally more proficient learner of German in an Irish third level context. This understanding relates primarily to the strategies these learners use, the way in which they use them and their attitudes towards their use. Such an understanding forms the basis of successful strategies based instruction in the language classroom.
Manual development of deep linguistic resources is time-consuming and costly and therefore often described as a bottleneck for traditional rule-based NLP. In my PhD thesis I present a treebank-based method for the automatic acquisition of LFG resources for German. The method automatically creates deep and rich linguistic presentations from labelled data (treebanks) and can be applied to large data sets. My research is based on and substantially extends previous work on automatically acquiring wide-coverage, deep, constraint-based grammatical resources from the English Penn-II treebank (Cahill et al.,2002; Burke et al., 2004; Cahill, 2004). Best results for English show a dependency f-score of 82.73% (Cahill et al., 2008) against the PARC 700 dependency bank, outperforming the best hand-crafted grammar of Kaplan et al. (2004). Preliminary work has been carried out to test the approach on languages other than English, providing proof of concept for the applicability of the method (Cahill et al., 2003; Cahill, 2004; Cahill et al., 2005). While first results have been promising, a number of important research questions have been raised. The original approach presented first in Cahill et al. (2002) is strongly tailored to English and the datastructures provided by the Penn-II treebank (Marcus et al., 1993). English is configurational and rather poor in inflectional forms. German, by contrast, features semi-free word order and a much richer morphology. Furthermore, treebanks for German differ considerably from the Penn-II treebank as regards data structures and encoding schemes underlying the grammar acquisition task. In my thesis I examine the impact of language-specific properties of German as well as linguistically motivated treebank design decisions on PCFG parsing and LFG grammar acquisition. I present experiments investigating the influence of treebank design on PCFG parsing and show which type of representations are useful for the PCFG and LFG grammar acquisition tasks. Furthermore, I present a novel approach to cross-treebank comparison, measuring the effect of controlled error insertion on treebank trees and parser output from different treebanks. I complement the cross-treebank comparison by providing a human evaluation using TePaCoC, a new testsuite for testing parser performance on complex grammatical constructions. Manual evaluation on TePaCoC data provides new insights on the impact of flat vs. hierarchical annotation schemes on data-driven parsing. I present treebank-based LFG acquisition methodologies for two German treebanks. An extensive evaluation along different dimensions complements the investigation and provides valuable insights for the future development of treebanks.
The objective of this thesis is to explore the German language needs of Irish industry and to draw implications for German for Business curricula development at Third Level. The dramatic increase in the need for foreign language knowledge in Europe is analysed. Specifically, the upsurge in demand for German in Ireland is put in context. On the supply side, the type of courses where German is offered by the various strands of Third Level institutions (RTCs, DITs, Universities and Private Colleges) is reviewed. General and Special Language are contrasted and the relative weighting of Language for Special Purposes is then examined. Drawing on research studies and on the literature, an attempt is made on the one hand to pinpoint the nature of the special German language skills necessary for Irish Exporting Industry. Three interwoven strands emerge as essential: general language skills, mastery of commercial tasks and the hitherto under-recognised area of intercultural competence. From these findings, implications are put forward for an approach to the content of German for Business curricula which meets the challenges of the multicultural European business environment.
This dissertation explores the language of three German grammar books and accompanying exercise books which are produced in Germany for international students of German. It examines how the examples and exercises presented in these books constitute ‘colony texts’ which convey different representations of human activity to the reader. Analysis of the language used in the German grammar books centres on the Linguistics of Representation and borrows techniques used normally in Corpus Linguistics. By using WordSmith Tools this study shows how particular terms (nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives) occur with greater frequency than others in the books under analysis thereby representing certain human activities more strongly than others. The activity of ‘work*, in particular, emerges in the grammar books as a key human activity and consequently provides the main focus for analysis in this study. Concordances relating to ‘work’ are grouped and analysed in terms of what they reveal about popular professions, workplace hierarchy and attitudes and approaches to work. Findings are considered from three perspectives: what they reveal to the researcher and learners of German about the representation of ‘work’ in the chosen context, how they compare to findings from comparative analyses of German textbooks and how they can contribute to our overall understanding of ‘text*. Grammar book examples and exercises emerge as ‘texts’ which have significant potential to reflect cultural norms and attitudes despite being considered generally as a source of innocuous and unremarkable language.