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Cited by 4Second Language Acquisition and LearningEFL/ESL Teaching and LearningNeurobiology of Language and Bilingualism

L2 irregular verb morphology: Exploring behavioral data from intermediate English learners of German as a foreign language using generalized mixed effects models

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Wagner, Thomas·2017·Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching
DOI 10.14746/ssllt.2017.7.3.9
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Abstract

This paper examines possible psycholinguistic mechanisms governing stem vowel changes of irregular verbs in intermediate English learners of German as a foreign language (GFL). In Experiment 1, nonce-infinitives embedded in an authentic fictional text had to be inflected for German preterite, thus testing possible analogy driven pattern associations. Experiment 2 explored the psycholinguistic reality of the so-called apophonic path by prompting two inflections for one given nonce-word. Data were analyzed using generalized mixed effects models accounting for within-subject as well as within-item variance. The results of Experiment 1 and 2 support the notion of a pattern associator and yield only scarce evidence for the psycholinguistic reality of a universal apophonic path. Therefore, the organization of irregular verb morphology in the mental lexicon of intermediate GFL learners might best be captured by the linguistic notion of structured lexical entries as well as the psycholinguistic mechanism of an analogy-based pattern associator.

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  • Overt instruction enhances L2 learners' morphological knowledge and enhances the ability of L2 learners writing skills in the target language.

    “The findings of this study support previous studies that overt instruction enhances L2 learners' morphological knowledge and enhances the ability of L2 learners writing skills in the target language (Khan, 2022;Wagner, 2017;Schuwerk, 2004;Krashen, 1989;Stephens, 1977).”

    From Transformative impacts of explicit morphological instruction on irregular inflectional acquisition in Saudi EFL learners (2024) · cites this paper as Wagner, 2017

    The Conclusion (section 7; page unavailable) does not report that overt instruction improves morphological knowledge or writing skills. Instead, it says instruction focused on morphological analysis would be of little help if learners rely on analogical generalization, while suggesting only that a crosslinguistic focus on forms could benefit English-speaking learners of German. The paper does not assess writing skills. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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  • The findings of this study align with previous research studies that morphological knowledge builds the ability to understand complex lexemes and enhances writing and reading competence.

    “The findings of this study align with previous research studies that morphological knowledge builds the ability to understand complex lexemes and enhances writing and reading competence (Ginsberg et al. 2011;Wagner, 2017).”

    From Transformative impacts of explicit morphological instruction on irregular inflectional acquisition in Saudi EFL learners (2024) · cites this paper as Wagner, 2017

    The Conclusion (page not available) reports that intermediate learners of German could form new verb inflections by analogy. It does not address whether morphological knowledge improves understanding of complex lexemes or reading and writing competence; searches for those outcomes found no supporting passage in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.76)

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Authors
Wagner, T.
Affiliations
University of Education Upper Austria (AT)
Corresponding author
Wagner, Thomas
ORCID
Wagner, Thomas
Venue
Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching
Publisher
Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan
Published
2017-09-15
Volume
7
Issue
3
Pages
535-556
ISSN
  • 2083-5205 (ISSN-L)
  • 2084-1965
DOI
10.14746/ssllt.2017.7.3.9
OpenAlex
W2762168106
Cited by
4
References
59
Citations by year
2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1
FWCI
0.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Pressto (Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
Keywords
German as a foreign language, mental lexicon, second language acquisition

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