Social Research Applied to English Language Teaching in Colombian Contexts

Theory and Methods

Wilder Escobar

• Editorial: Editorial Universidad El Bosque
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9789587391282
• Categoría: Education
• Categoría: Education Teaching Methods

Within the diverse Colombian context, the issues concerning the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) call for theories and methodologies entering into the socio-political realms of influence which shape the dynamics of the language-acquisition process. As such, Social Research Applied to English Language Teaching in Colombian Contexts: Theory and Methods takes into consideration a comprehensive analysis of five social phenomena, interpreting their impact, and prompting reflection on alternative strategies for development and growth within the EFL social environment. However, this work not only embodies characterizations, theory, and reflections within yhe área of social research, it also exemplifies academic community building in which students, alumni, professors, University researchers, and outside research collaborators have come together to inquire about, understand, and share the findings of innovative research regarding the complex language acquisition dynamics in EFL social contexts.

Chapter One
The Linguistic Typology of Verb Structure: A Comparative Approach for the EFL Classroom

Chapter One
The Linguistic Typology of Verb Structure: A Comparative Approach for the EFL Classroom

About the Author

Reid Evans currently works as the Director of Special Programs at the Montessori British School in Bogotá, Colombia, as well as a research collaborator with Universidad El Bosque focusing on multilingual literacy and academic writing. He has studied foreign-language education at the undergraduate level and has subsequently earned an M. S. in literacy education from the State University of New York at New Paltz. His research interests include: second-language acquisition theory, multilingual literacy, morphology, linguistic typology, and foreign-language advocacy.

The Linguistic Typology of Verb Structure: A Comparative Approach for the EFL Classroom

Introduction

Any teacher of English as a foreign language will attest that English verb construction in colloquial speech presents, quite possibly, one of the largest obstacles in L2 English language acquisition. The difficulty related to the comprehension of the syntactic and semantic properties of English phrasal verbs¹, particularly those expressing events of motion, has been indicated by numerous researchers (Ganji, 2011; Ibarretxe-Antuaño, 2004; Ionin & Zubizarreta, 2010; White, B. J., 2012). In their examination of English verb construction, they have pointed directly to the specific linguistic phenomena that make English structurally different from Spanish. These differences, it has been argued, often transfer from the learner’s L1 and hinder the development of L2 English ability (Almeida, 2002; Brown & Gullberg, 2010; Cadierno, 2004; Casado Antoniazzi, 2010; Slobin, 1987).

In accordance with the aforementioned research findings, there exist abundant resources for phrasal verb teaching designs and classroom practices aimed at increasing EFL students’ comprehension and production within this capacity (Alejo González, R., Piquer Píriz, A. & Reveriego Sierra, G., 2010; White, B. J., 2012). However, much of the previous research, as well as the bulk of the proposed instructional design, fail to elucidate the specific syntactic dissimilarities that exist between English and Spanish verb structure. Researchers merely acknowledge such a linguistic dichotomy, yet rarely attempt to develop didactic knowledge in this area (Alejo González et al., 2010; Casado Antoniazzi, 2010; Larrañaga, P., Treffers-Daller, J., Tidball, F. & Gil Ortega, M., 2011; Pozdnyakova & Gunina, 2011; Spring, 2010). As noted by White (2012), “teaching suggestions are often confined to brief pedagogical applications sections at the end of research articles” (p. 420) and, consequently, offer little in terms of instructional guidelines.

The goal of this chapter, however, is perhaps a bit more ambitious. There is a pressing need to recognize the difference in linguistic structuring, referred to henceforth as typology (Talmy, 2000), and to communicate this knowledge both to EFL teachers and their students alike. As such, this chapter carries two distinct objectives in relation to the English phrasal verb construction enigma. First, the typological differences which dictate Spanish and English verb construction will be interpreted within the realm of phrasal verbs, thus providing educators with the essential expertise to incorporate this knowledge into the EFL classroom. Secondly, didactic strategies for phrasal verb instruction grounded on the current research within the field of cognitive linguistics will be discussed as to provide novel approaches to EFL instruction. It is hoped that the EFL instructor will take away a new understanding of English verb construction so that a clearer picture may be delivered to L2 English learners.

Linguistic Typology and Verbs of Motion

To a native English speaker, the fabled lines “Jack fell down and broke his crown/ And Jill came tumbling after,” rarely evoke second thoughts as to the inherent structure of the English verb phrase in relation to the manner, motion, and path of movement. In fact, it undoubtedly requires minimal cognitive effort on behalf of the native English speaker to construct verb expressions of this nature as our lexicon is brimming with phrases such as falling down, tumbling after, trudging along, drifting by, and dropping in. Integral to these expressions is the element of path of motion, or trajectory, represented by an adverb or preposition and not directly encoded on the verb itself. Such a phenomenon has been the direct focus of the work of Leonard Talmy, in which he has set the guidelines for linguistic classifications within the realm of language typology. Talmy’s (2000) designation of typology separates languages into two main categories, that of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages, both of which are entirely dependent upon the conflation of manner, motion, and path in events of motion. Satellite-framed languages, including English, are defined by their reliance on satellites which are added to the verb to depict the path of motion (Larrañaga et al., 2011). “Jack fell down,” as the popular nursery rhyme suggests, requires the use of the preposition down to depict the path of Jack’s falling. In contrast, verb-framed languages, like Spanish, depict motion events in a different way, generally encoding the path of the motion directly on the verb (Spring, 2010; Ibarretxe-Antuaño, 2009). This becomes apparent in the Spanish translation of the aforementioned nursery rhyme: “Jack se cayó.” In this case, both the action of falling, as well as the movement of the figure in regards to the ground, are encoded on the verb itself. As such, these typologies as defined by Talmy (2000) make specific reference to the formation of events of motion within a particular language.

Path of Motion

As demonstrated above, such classifications of typology stress the importance of path of motion in the construction of motion events in verb– and satellite–framed languages. The satellite, although not a lexical category in its own right, represents a semantic function inherent in s-framed languages: that of displaying the path (p) or trajectory of the figure (f ), or the locative element in a motion event. Note that, according to Talmy (2000), a motion event may be defined as “a situation containing motion, or the continuation of a stationary location alike” (p. 25); therefore, the figure may be considered to participate in a motion event that is either that of translational motion (1a), or simply that of maintaining a stationary position (1b). The following examples are provided to demonstrate the difference of the motion events described above:

• (1a) The boy _(f) got out of _(p) the chair.
• (1b) The boy _(f) sat up _(p) anxiously in the chair.

Both of these phrases demonstrate the completion of an action that is either translational in nature (1a), or that describes the perpetuation of a spatial position (1b). The action of getting out of a chair clearly delineates a change of location, while that of sitting up maintains the spatial position, albeit with a change of posture.

In verb-framed languages, however, such syntactic constructions are not possible. In her work on linguistic typology, Ibarretxe-Antuaño (2004, 2009, 2012) clearly establishes the elaboration of path in verb-framed languages. Whereas satellite-framed languages routinely express path via a satellite, in verb-framed languages “the core information is not expressed in a separate element, but usually conflated with the verb” (Ibarretxe-Antuaño, 2012, p. 6). This idea is clearly expressed in the following examples of grammatical phrases in Spanish:

• (2a) El alpinista _(f) descendió la montaña.
• (2b) El bebé _(f) se incorporó solo.

These examples clearly establish that the motion verbs (descender; incorporarse) inherently contain an element of path that their English counterparts do not (to go down, to sit up). Here, it becomes clear that the English verbs most frequently appear in a verb phrase to fully confer the semantic meaning of the motion event. Verb-framed languages, conversely, tend to conflate both motion and path within the verb itself.

The dichotomy of verb construction between verb- and satellite-framed languages becomes even more profound when considering sentences with multiple motion events. As established above, path of motion is most often encoded outside of the verb in a satellite in s-framed languages, therefore permitting multiple motion events to be associated with the same verb as demonstrated in (3a) and (3b):

• (3a) He _(f) fell down_(p) the hill and into_(p) the river.
• (3b) She _(f) ran down_(p) the stairs and out_(p) the door.

From the examples (3a) and (3b), we see that the verbs to fall and to run can take multiple satellites thus collocating separate motion events onto the same verb. To emphasize this notion, (3a) and (3b) could be written in the manner of (3c) and (3d):

• (3c) [He _(f) fell down the hill] and [he _(f) fell into the river]
• (3d) [She _(f) ran down the stairs] and [she _(f) ran out the door]

For the sake of brevity, native-like English discourse would never contain expressions of this style. Instead, the verbs to fall and to run are simply assigned multiple satellites that each represent the distinct events clarified in (3c) and (3d). As a result of this paradigm, infinite multiple satellite constructions are possible in English and are quite frequent in colloquial speech. Additional examples of grammatical English sentences that follow this model include:

• (i) He went in the main entrance and straight to the mayor’s office.
• (ii) The children got out of the sun and into the shade.
• (iii) The bird flew out of the nest and over to the feeder.
• (iv) We walked up the hill and down the other side.
• (v) I went in the door, down the hallway, around the corner, and out the back.

The verb phrases present in these sentences denote more than one event of motion by the addition of multiple path satellites. From this model, it is not a stretch of the imagination to deduce the grammaticality of (v) which expresses four motion events on the verb to go solely via the addition of path satellites.

This multiple-event expression, however pervasive in the verb phrases of satellite-framed English, is grammatically impossible in languages with verb-framed motion event expression. As Brown and Gullberg (2010) explain, in verb-framed languages “comparable information is spread across [separate] clauses, each associated with different path verbs” (p. 266). As path is often conflated on the verb in verb-framed languages, the Spanish translation of (3a) and (3b) respectively must be written as follows in order to retain grammaticality:

• (4a) Él se cayó de la montaña y se sumergió en el río.
• (4b) Ella bajó la escalera corriendo y salió por la puerta.

As demonstrated by (4a) and (4b), the path of motion is distinctly encoded in each of the verbs and, therefore, motions following dissimilar paths must be expressed via separate clauses. The verbs caerse and sumergirse both inherently carry within the verb nucleus a path of motion, that of the figure falling downward toward the ground referent, or the figure entering the ground referent respectively. As such, verb-framed languages accomplish the task of communicating the previous event of a man falling down the mountain and into the river differently than would a satellite-framed language. Whereas Spanish requires the use of separate motion/path verbs, English permits the use of the aggregation of satellites to a verb phrase to express multiple paths of motion.

Manner of Motion

With the idea of path established as a determining factor in typological classification, it becomes necessary to examine the manner in which each of the motion events is depicted and the implications of such in verb- and satellite-framed languages. Talmy (2000) refers to the manner of motion as a co-event, or an associated motion that often expresses the manner in which the event occurred. This type of lexicalization, prevalent in satellite-framed languages, permits the verb to express not only motion, but the manner of the co-event as well. As Talmy (2000) indicates, “the relation that the co-event bears to the main motion event is then indicated by a form like WITH-THE-MANNER-OF or WITH-THE-CAUSE-OF” (p. 29). This idea is best expressed by first referring to the simple expression of motion in (5a):

• (5a) The man moved across the room.

In this example, we can infer that a man began on one side of the room and arrived to the opposing side, yet noting is mentioned about the manner in which he completed the action. The verb to move used in (5a) is simply demonstrating movement, yet it does not convey the manner in which the movement occurred. However, in the following examples, English manner-of-motion verbs are used to elaborate not just the movement, but the manner in which the man moved across the room:

• (5b) The man danced across the room.
• (5c) The man ran across the room.
• (5d) The man snuck across the room.
• (5e) The man shuffled across the room.

As Talmy (2000) suggests, the idea that the man danced across the room can thus be interpreted as the following:

• (5f) [The man MOVED across the room] WITH-THE-MANNER-OF [The man danced].

From this example, the conflation of both manner and motion on the verb root in satellite-framed languages becomes evident. This phenomenon allows the speaker of a satellite-framed language such as English to interpret an event in such a way that the motion event and the co-event essentially become inseparable.

The conflation of manner and motion evidenced in the previous examples (5b-e), however typical in satellite-framed languages, is a syntactic construct that is considerably less ubiquitous in their verb-framed counterparts. Attempts to directly translate the previous sentences would result in phrases perceived as markedly cacophonous in native speech. As such, the following examples are provided to convey the difference in manner encoding in verb-framed languages, such as Spanish. Note that the sentences marked with an asterisk (*), although perhaps direct translations, express dissimilar interpretations of movement.

• (6a) El hombre atravesó la sala corriendo.
• (6b) El hombre atravesó la sala sigilosamente.
• (6c) El hombre atravesó la sala arrastrando los pies.
• (6d) El hombre corrió por la sala.*
• (6e) El hombre se arrastró por la sala.*

It is noted that the Spanish translations rely on an adverb or adverbial phrase to express the notion of WITH-THE-MANNER-OF. Furthermore, the sentences presented in (6d) and (6e), although grammatically correct, express a slightly different path of motion than their English counterparts. The motion expressed in (6d) is that of a man moving around within a room with the manner of running, not necessarily a completed movement from one side to the other as in (5c). Likewise, the movement communicated in (6e) conveys a dissimilar action to a native speaker of Spanish than that of the English equivalent seen in (5e).

To express the same movement of a man crossing a room, the manner of motion in examples (6a) through (6c) cannot be contained within the verb itself and is placed outside of the nucleus in an adverb or adverbial phrase. The consequence of the typological paradigm, as Ibarretxe-Antuaño (2012) suggests, is such that speakers of verb- and satellite-framed languages are motivated to communicate motion events in certain predetermined ways. This concept becomes apparent when considering the conceptualizations of movement expressed in (6d) and (6e) as opposed to their English counterparts.

It is not to say, however, that verb- and satellite-framed languages cannot co...

Índice

• COVER
• TITLE
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENT
• INTRODUCTION A SOCIO-COGNITIVE APPROACH TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING
• CHAPTER ONE THE LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY OF VERB STRUCTURE: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH FOR THE EFL CLASSROOM
• CHAPTER TWO SOCIAL DYNAMICS SHAPING ENGLISH LEARNING PROCESSES
• CHAPTER THREE EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL BARRIERS AND DISEMPOWERMENT ON LEARNING AND COMMUNICATIVE PROCESSES PRESENT IN EFL STUDENTS
• CHAPTER FOUR LITERACY PRACTICES AND LANGUAGE ISSUES IN COLOMBIAN EFL CONTEXTS
• CHAPTER FIVE CHILDREN’S NARRATIVES: A MIRROR OF THEIR SOCIAL SENSITIVITY
• REFERENCES
• NOTES
• BACKCOVER